A Handful of Link

Overthinking It has a fun excel crazy piece about the popularity of Best Picture nominees over the years.
Dear Jesus for Presidents Day "President's pets are more interesting than president movies". Love the pics
Stale Popcorn of all the movies in the world you could want a book about...
In Contention slow news day so Kris attacks his "pet peeves" of this Oscar season. Naturally he attacks my favorite pets (Rachel Getting Married), not a peeve. To each their own. But what are your pet peeves of this particular Oscar season?

And this is interesting...
Not Starring, always an interesting site (There's no fluff... they just go straight to the heart of their chosen topic) has a rundown of this year's Oscar nominated roles and who turned the roles down or wanted but didn't get them. 'What Might Have Been's can boggle one's mind. Heath Ledger in Australia? Juliette Binoche in The Reader? Natalie Portman as Sister James in Doubt? Could she have loved Frosty the Snowman as much as Amy Adams?
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A Conversation With Amy Adams

The Light in Her Heart

"There are people who go after your humanity, Sister James. Who tell you the light in your heart is a weakness. That your soft feelings betray you. Don't believe them."

Those words are spoken to a meek nun who is uncomfortably wedged between two very potent personalities with agendas in John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. The film version is nominated for five Oscars, including one for Sister James herself, Amy Adams. If the movie star in this nun's cowl has ever had any similar doubts about her own "soft feelings" it isn't showing. She knows they're no weakness but a strength. She's been spreading joy in movie theaters like there's an endless supply of it. If there's a current movie star who embodies "the light in your heart" isn't it Amy Adams? She seems content and grateful for this particular persona. As she told me in our conversation, she doesn't feel the need to step away from the cheery innocents just yet. "I'm not really interested in doing something just so I can prove I can do it. I really enjoying the roles I'm doing." In short, she has no immediate plans to dim the light.

Even before she became a household name for her cheer and comic gifts, Amy had specialized in madly grinning perky girls. Think of her exuberantly comic beauty queens in Drop Dead Gorgeous or Psycho Beach Party or that metal mouth cutie in Catch Me If You Can. Those were small roles but she was shining in them. It all came together for the gifted actress when she got the part of the very pregnant meercat-loving Ashley in 2005's Junebug. A well received Oscar nomination followed. Two years later she became a major star when she aced the animated princess as flesh and blood role of "Giselle" in the smash hit, Enchanted. She missed out on an Oscar nomination for the latter but she still ended up at the big show anyway, terrified and singing a wordy song to Hollywood's biggest names. "People will forgive me if I'm not a perfect singer, I'm an actress." She remembers, laughing. "These were the lies I told myself... among others!"

Her ascendance in Hollywood the past few years seems like a fairy tale itself -- all sudden and complete, glamorous and, well, happy (though an ending is thankfully nowhere in sight). The public rarely notices the years spent building up to these breakthroughs but the Princesses of Hollywood are usually ladies in waiting first. Amy was game to talk about those less lucrative years, too, fielding fannish questions about guesting on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that rarely discussed through line in her career: she also took over a Sarah Michelle Gellar role early on and her next film with Meryl Streep Julie & Julia is based on a book with frequent Buffy obsessing in its pages. Amy sadly informs that the book's Buffy musing get the axe in the film version. And yet, even with this supernatural diversion to the conversation it all keeps coming back to the Disney princesses. Her most vivid memory from the Buffy set is singing The Little Mermaid on a lunch break with Joss Whedon.

Despite all those years in the trenches of TV and bit parts, her career is the stuff of fairy tale princesses now, especially since she got there playing Giselle. In grittier terms I wonder if she's feeling like a rock star what with the mass love and adoration -- I'm guessing she could fill stadiums. "I don't know if rock star is the right word..." she counters, "but I'm having a good time."

The best option is the iTunes version i.e. the enhanced podcast but you can listen to the simplified mp3 if you don't have an enhanced player.

Enjoy, discuss and please do share your favorite Amy Adams related moment in the comments. It's hard to choose just one, isn't it? If the mere thought of narrowing down your favorite Amy memory is exhausting, please feel free to nap in a nearby meadow or hollow tree.

We understand.
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Mea Linka

In Contention Tapley looks at all of the Oscar nominated documentary shorts
Your Movie Buddy this isn't a link to a specific post but this blog by TFE reader Kurtis O is pretty funny -- I particularly got a kick out of the reimagining of The Reader poster and the Price is Right riff for Meryl Streep that I hadn't seen. Hee
Victim of the Time doesn't much cotton to this Doubt picture and fully explains why
Slant on Oscar's best actress race


Off Oscar
The Bad and Ugly Ummmm. Is the new Transformers character supposed to kill people with its giant angry drillbit penis? This is a toy? 'You know, for kids' (?)
The Big Picture Christian Bale's official apology "...make fun of me. I deserve it completely."
Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies a long piece on the evolution of noir (Chinatown, A Touch of Evil, Blade Runner, Blue Velvet and more...)
Rob Licuria's 15th annual Awards and Radio Allegro's second annual
Antagony & Ecstasy flips for Henry Selick's Coraline.
The Hot Blog an interview with Jonathan Demme and Jenny Lumet of Rachel Getting Married magnificence.
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'I swear, if you existed, I'd link you!'

programming note: I'll get to the BAFTA's live blogging --well, tape delayed reactions -- later tonight (approx. 10:00 pm EST) I can't pass up a concert with Kristin Chenowith. Wheeeee

The Carpetbagger has a fun theorizing piece on celebrity interviews
Actress Archives says goodbye to actor James Whitmore (RIP)
Low Res goes xenophobic (but has an archival point)
wipe that smirk off your face has really tough Oscar trivia. I'm stumped


Scanners on the ho hum controverseries for this year's Oscars
Silly Hats Only the Muriel Awards have begun
The NY Post on the New York Times strange sin of omission in regards to one the First Lady of MGM Norma Shearer. As you may have guessed, this is not okay with yours truly
Thompson on Hollywood the WGA winners. Stop this Slumdog train, I want to get off. I get that people like it but Best WRITING ??? ... and so often? I weep for our collective discernment skills. P.S. On a totally shallow note: How cute is Milk screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black?

Finally, I love this piece at Bright Lights After Dark that talks about the problem of "craftsmanship" in our prestige pieces. Erich Kuersten gets right at the heart of the problem I couldn't quite articulate concerning overly beautiful films like Doubt or Revolutionary Road ...

Craftsmanship in cinema has become synonymous with stifled - when every aspect of your production -- every crew member-- is doing everything above and beyond to get the script quite right and enable them to win awards. When it's something that's meant to be kind of spontaneous and off-the-cuff, like a two person character drama, or some fly-on-the-wall sort of minor key mood piece, like Doubt or The Valley of Elah, for example, you can see the sterility of the Sundance film school-style stress on crafstmanship vs. say, the ass-over-tit rock poetry of something like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

...It has to do with film schools churning out competent gear-heads eager to show off their expensive educations with key lighting and tracking shots instead of dropping acid and going off to Vietnam or whatever heart of darkness is in vogue this year. People are scared of themselves, and it's just not interesting after awhile watching them avoid the mirror.

"ass-over-tit rock poetry" is a shockingly apt description of ...Woolf, is it not? I love reading Kuersten.

And, I should quickly point out, I greatly admire Roger Deakins who is one of the very best DPs in the business. But I think his awesome skill at beauty was wrong for both of those aforementioned films because they needed to be a little uglier to confront. Or at least more dangerous in their aesthetic comportment. Don't you think?
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They Go Together (Like Rama Lama Lama Ke Ding a De Dinga a Dong)

One of the great falsehoods of movie awards season, eagerly promoted by each year's precursor awards groups, Oscar and most movie fans too, is that if a movie is the Best it is the Best. Period. In every way! This is why you hear the annual gripe "Did this movie direct itself?" when a best picture nominee misses a directorial nod (it didn't happen to any film this year but it generally does) and it's also why a great many adequate to good performances have been Oscar nominated over the years in place of actually great performances that had the misfortune of being in not-so-great films or simply less beloved films.

Viola Davis, Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman
The double nominees of Doubt

This 'all or nothing' mode of awardage is especially aggravating when it comes to the annual Screen Actors Guild awards and their "ensemble" prize. They treat it exactly the same as a Best Picture prize... which it shouldn't be. This year they were especially unimaginative nominating their cast members individually in every case as well. It's especially silly in the case of Doubt. The SAG honor actually only includes the four principles -- none of the nuns or the schoolchildren are part of the nomination -- who are then each nominated individually. It's stingy and repetitive. What's more, I don't personally think Doubt is much of an ensemble. It's more like a duet, most of the big scenes involving just two actors, battling it out or letting the other showboat for that particular scene. A fine cast? Yes. A great ensemble? Er...

Anne Consigny, Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni and Emmanuelle Devos
Just one third of the bril' cast of A Christmas Tale

Give me bigger, messier, more interactive acting any day before I start talking "Best Ensemble". I had so many goodies to choose from this year and only 1 of SAG's nominated films is in my top 12 ensembles. That'd be Milk which I don't think will win. (I'm guessing its a three way race between Doubt if they're thinking about acting or Benjamin Button vs. Slumdog if they're thinking in terms of Best Picture as they sometimes do). In addition to Milk, I wish SAG had stopped to at least consider Burn After Reading, A Christmas Tale, Happy-Go-Lucky, Rachel Getting Married, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Stop-Loss or Synecdoche New York among others...

Click to see new FB Award nominees: Best Ensemble, Breakthrough and Body of Work
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Happy Inauguration Day!

I was so giddy last night that I spent hours goofing on Obamicon.Me creating these.

Enjoy...






images from Fight Club (1999), Doubt (2008), Alfred Hitchcock, Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Hours (2002), Scarlett Johansson and Isaac Mizrahi, Far From Heaven (2002) and Hilary Swank's second Oscar win.

return to the main blog for the latest posts
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The For Your Consideration Corner

Glenn here again for another FYCC installment. Have y'all recovered from the Golden Globes? I know I have... but then again, I wasn't able to watch them (damn you Australian television networks!) and instead relaxed at home watching season one of Veronica Mars all over again. I'm sure the Globes were fun, but Veronica wins out every time.

Doubt is a movie based around words, is it not? Based on the TONY-winning stage place by John Patrick Shanley, the film itself hasn't quite gotten the Best Picture buzz it had hoped for, instead being crushed under the weight of the other high profile stage adaptation Frost/Nixon (discussed here in December). Apart from the acting, however, the one category most people are predicting Doubt to be nominated in is Best Adapted Screenplay. Quite apt then that while looking at the For Your Consideration ads I felt like I was reading a screenplay. It probably takes just as long.


Oh sure, they can't help that the SAG category listings are incredibly long-winded and needlessly long, but I can't help but begin to snooze whenever I look at them. Granted, Doubt isn't exactly a movie that screams bright colours or gee whiz imagary but much like that girl in The House Bunny (oh yes) my eyes start to glaze over every time I see these ads trying to talk me to death and smother me in text. Not even any interesting shaping (where are the five star raves in the shape of a nun's habit? WHERE?!) or play on symbolism - although the white ad to the left is a start. Incredibly disappointing, don't you think?

For Your Consideration Ad of the Week:

I love that they kept the visual style used in the initial poster campaign (and one of the best posters of 2008) and applied it to their ads. From the wonderfully quaint font and edging, to the texture of the creases and even the slight cheesiness of the photo (tourism snapshots and all). It's all wonderfully conceived and far more vibrant and interesting than whatever Frost/Nixon campaigned with this week, don't you think?

If you've got a thing for nuns...

You might want to check this out. Two real life nuns (Sisters Julie & Maxine) will be discussing John Patrick Shanley's Doubt live (refresh your screens) for the next two hours, ending @ 4:00 PM EST. Too bad they aren't just talking about nuns in cinema. I mean, there's so much to discuss. The Nun's Story, Dead Man Walking, Debbie Reynolds, ... Sally Field flying (oh wait, that's TV).

The BAFTA Long List is Looney

<-- Last year's Chief BAFTA Goddess/Alien, Tilda Swinton

The BAFTA long lists have been announced. "The WHAT now what list?" I hear awards newbies screaming. Basically the British Oscars have a "semi-finals" round which narrows things down in all categories. Unfortunately it's still (mostly) the same films again. The following films might be nominated for the British Oscar for Best Picture:

• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Burn After Reading, Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, In Bruges, I’ve Loved You So Long, Milk, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E and The Wrestler

[Warning: Rant averse readers should scroll away to another post now]

The big thorn in my side this awards season --there's always a thorn -- has been the shabby treatment that Rachel Getting Married keeps getting. As much as I love Anne Hathaway's performance I think the film is even better than she is. Somehow other Best Actress vehicles that aren't as strong, as whole movies go, keep getting "Picture" attention. There's room for the messy/uneven/repetitive Changeling (my review), the well acted but ungreat film version of Doubt (some thoughts), the dour weirdly gimmicky performance piece I've Loved You So Long, and Kate Winslet's double.

Some of this is simply a matter of taste. I have it. They don't (kidding!) But even if you just sample US critical reception (just for the helluva it), Rachel tops most of these other actress/picture combos. And yet, no dice.

Every time I scratch my head trying to figure out what the problem is I remember this simple fact: Rachel is not Oscar Bait™. It's not a costume drama, war film, triumph of the underdog tale, biopic or message movie. Five strikes you're out. Kym, your protagonist, doesn't spend a lot of time weeping though she's got plenty to cry about. The movie is way thornier emotionally (no easy answers, no clear direction as to whose side you should be on at any given moment) than the other films in play. Doubt, which is doing a lot better awards wise, pays lip service to being complicated but it's not very frayed at the nerves or challenging in the brain. It wants you to keep guessing but it doesn't actually expect you to process several competing emotions/ideas at once except, blessed be, in its very best scene. You know which one ~ Viola Davis you rule! The plain awards truth is that most awards voters on either side of the Atlantic prefer easy to digest dramas... like, I dunno, Frost/Nixon. It makes this film bitch crazy. I just don't think "Best" should automatically equate with easy.

Two fucked up girls just looking for their own peace of mind

I think this is why Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind also had trouble getting awards traction in its year. Now, Rachel Getting Married isn't as great as that picture (what is?) but they share quite a few things: extremely difficult moody heroines, a completely contemporary look and worldview (that's a no-no for awardage), the ability to elicit complicated tears and uncomfortable laughs, and their main characters aren't easy to love even in the moments when you most feel like loving them. In other words, not easy.

Rachel Getting Married is heading for the exact same two nominations as Eternal Sunshine (Actress & Original Screenplay) and nothing more. What a shame. But it's good company to be in, I suppose.

In happier news, the BAFTA long lists for performances contain only one instance of category fraud (Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt) and that's only marginally a fraudulent categorization so this is really rather miraculous for a modern day awards show. I applaud them. Dev Patel, Kate Winslet, Michael Sheen, etcetera... they're all in the lead races where they belong. So well done, BAFTA. Well done.

...except for that supporting actress list.

I have to share it cause it's just whack-a-doodle... I mean totally padded-cell-throw-away-the-key-nutso. The usual suspects are there of course: Amy Adams and Viola Davis in Doubt, Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler, Penélope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

There's another few you can understand even if you think it's really stretching it to say "Best": I like the inclusion of the always grand Emma Thompson in Brideshead Revisited. Kathy Bates has a couple good moments in Revolutionary Road. I'll give them Vera Farmiga in The Boy in Stryped Pajamas (I haven't seen it).

But it keeps getting weirder/worse. Judi Dench in Quantum of Solace (always fun in these movies, sure), Elsa Zylberstein in I've Loved You So Long (she didn't sell me on her characters' bizarre emotional swings... but I realize I'm in the minority) and Tilda Swinton, twice, for Benjamin Button (but they ignored Taraji P Henson?) and Burn After Reading. In neither film does our favorite Alien/Goddess have much to do. I think even Tilda herself would agree this is pushing it. That's a lot of women taking up room.

I lost patience when I began to realize this shocking truth: They have room for 15 performances -- 15! -- and neither of the Rachel Getting Married women are accounted for: No Debra Winger, No Rosemarie DeWitt. BAFTA has always been one to err on the side of being overly patriotic but once you notice this snub (when there's room for 15 people) it's hard not to get angry with them.

Consider...

• Charlotte Rampling in The Duchess (She can do this role in her sleep. I love Rampling but that's a "no")
• Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire (She did do this performance in her sleep. What is this nomination for... looking pretty? If that's the criteria why don't the shortlists include Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Scarlett Johanssen in The Spirit, Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia!, Rachel Bilson from Jumper? I mean, if it's about being pretty... let's have them all)
• Julie Walters Mamma Mia! (W-H-A-T? If you ask me hers was the second worst performance in the movie and that's more of a Razzie accomplishment, isn't it?)
• Rebecca Hall for Frost/Nixon (for what, looking pretty? Her character flirts and shakes people's hands. That's the role. That's the entire role.)

Boo on BAFTA! Even if they just didn't like Rachel Getting Married (Acceptable. Some people don't) it's ludicrous to suggest its performers don't belong in a top 15. I mean, get real here. And even if they just wanted to make a point that they hated being at the wedding from which there is no escape, there are far worthier and more interesting choices they could have floated for Supporting Actress than the names they came up with: Patricia Clarkson in Elegy, Alexis Zegerman in Happy-Go-Lucky, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams or Dianne Wiest from Synecdoche New York, Shirley Henderson in Miss Pettigrew, Hanna Schygulla in Edge of Heaven (or so I hear) and that's just off the top of my head. You know, people who had actual roles that required some degree of skill in the playing. Not walk ons or underwritten parts in popular movies. This is just another example of people with ballots missing both imagination (let's nominate the same 10 movies for EVERYTHING!) and any serious devotion to addressing the issue of "best".

Sure, maybe "Best" is a foolish notion to begin with. I know that the awards race is mere popularity contest anyway but I don't like to be reminded so boldly that that's all it is. When things get this silly, I always wish they'd just rename their prize "Favorite Actresses This Month in Movies We Really Liked This Year". There. I feel so much better about their shortlist now. All it took was the right (and honest) title.

More BAFTA shortlists sans Nathaniel's vitriol @ Awards Daily

Random Meryl Streep Thought of the Day

Oh hush! Don't act like you don't think about Meryl Streep at least once a day! Glenn here. I'm not sure if Nat or anybody else around these parts has mentioned it, but I just realised that when Meryl Streep gets nominated in a couple of weeks time for her performance in Doubt - and, honestly, is there actually any doubt? *pun intended* - it will be exactly 30 years since she received her first nomination. Her first coming as it was for Best Supporting Actress in the 1978 Best Picture-winner The Deer Hunter.

Impressive, no?

Either way if she's nominated or not it's still and impressive feat, and considering she's been nominated 14 times already, another nomination this year will bring Meryl to an average of one nomination every two years of her working career. Yikes! And to think, I thought it was impressive that I managed to take the garbage out on time this week!

Hollywood's Only Oscar Strategy

Year in Review: 3 of 5


The Prime Prestige Poster Girls
Disturbing Factoid: You're unlikely to spot Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett on movie screens outside of Oscar season. Of Blanchett's 20 most recent films, a full 50% were released in December. Many from the other 50% were small films in which she had supporting roles. Kate works much less often but of her past 20 films (excluding voice work) 45% of her work debuted in Oscar's favorite month of the year. At this point aren't both of them more accurately described as Oscar Stars than Movie Stars?

In lieu of the traditional annual deep thoughts overview on the 2008 film year, I am opting to get something off of my chest regarding the imbalance of movie distribution. I'm tired of feeling overwhelmed every December. I want a steadier film diet. I am not bulimic and don't enjoy being treated that way by the studios.

I've discussed this before I'm afraid and do tire of repeating myself. So herewith a decree: In 2009, no matter what Oscar buzz befalls Hilary Swank in Amelia, Clint Eastwood's Mandela picture or the collected December '09 offerings, three of my five biggest Oscary pet peeves (#2 December-Only Release Strategies #4 Clint Eastwood #5 Hilary Swank) will be mostly verboten here at The Film Experience. In other words, though it would be difficult not to mention them at all in Oscar discussions, I shan't dwell.

READ THE REST...
for theories as to why the December Glut is worsening each decade. Can anything be done about it? PLUS: Nifty visual charts from 50 years of Oscar's Best Picture shortlists to illustrate the problem. Enjoy it even if you're illiterate.

also in the year in review
Rental Suggestions (Under Appreciated Films)
Hyperboles Gone Wild (Over Appreciated Films)
Hell's Multiplex (Worst Films & Performances)
FiLM BiTCH Awards Promo (because we love motion pictures)
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SAG Nominations

@ 9:00 AM EST Angela Bassett announced the nominees for the SAG awards with her unparalleled powers of e•nun'c•ia'tion. I listen to her punctuated "t"s on the telly. Loving her all the while. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there.

Best Ensemble: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire

Does Doubt really need all four of its actors nominated and an Ensemble nomination? What's that for -- the background nuns and the children? Can you say overkill? And Slumdog Millionaire... I can't even go there. Even if I loved the movie I would and could recognize that the acting was nothing special. Certainly not as compared with the casts of Revolutionary Road, Synecdoche New York, Happy-Go-Lucky, Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, The Visitor or even unrewarded not Oscar bound movies like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Stop-Loss or Blindness. I mean... this is a ridiculous nomination. But SAG has never been known for "taste" exactly. Their enthusiasms always take over. They gave Philip Seymour Hoffman a nomination for his worst most mannered performance ever (Flawless) over acting as exquisite as Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story and Jim Broadbent in Topsy Turvy... and that's just off the top of my head. All of this means that Slumdog is easily going to win the Oscar for Best Picture if actors love it this much, without any reservations or qualifiers at all.

• Lead Actor -Jenkins (yay), Langella (biopic), Penn (yay), Pitt (yum) and Rourke (yay)
• Lead Actress -Hathaway (yay), Jolie (yawn), Leo (wow), Streep & Winslet (of course x 2)
• Supporting Actor -Brolin (yay), Downey Jr (hee), Hoffman (wrong category), Ledger (yay), Patel (huh?)
• Supporting Actress -Adams (er, I guess), Cruz (yay), Davis (yay), Henson (yay), Winslet (wrong category)

More elaborate / less monosyllabic thoughts on all categories right here.

Return and share your feelings. It's all about sharing. And feeling.

"Look at that. You blew out my light"

It's a comic line from Sister Aloysius that Streep sells gamely in film and trailer (Doubt opens this weekend in several major markets) ... but offscreen there's no blowing Meryl Streep's light out. The woman has charisma to spare. She could probably function as a generator in a blackout on her starpower alone.

I neglected to mention that I saw Doubt a second time last week at a BAFTA screening. There was a Q & A afterwards with all four stars. Meryl, who was obviously suffering from a cold and struggling her way through the conversation, kept the crowd in stitches between her coughing and throat clearing. She's such an entertainer. She got laughs at writer/director John Patrick Shanley's expense arguing with him about rehearsal situations and when someone asked her how she learned the accent. "Listen to him" she deadpanned. "That's who I was listening to all day." Later in the Q & A, my favorite moment occurred, Meryl was asked about working with the very old fashioned nun's habits. She was asked about the authenticity of the threads.

They were exact and we had all our little hall monitors, you know, real nuns up there...just lurking, correcting us

And when asked if the costumes helped with her acting choices...

Me, I love a uniform. I mean --no decision!
[pause]
I'm sure it's horrible for people who love fashion...

and right there, voice trailing off, she lightly stroked Amy Adams arm to her side. Result: Another eruption of laughter from the audience.


This movie star can work a room.
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Oscar Predictions? Not Again!

I've decided that updating Oscar predictions immediately prior to the week of abundant critics awards and Globe mania is foolish. So I'm not going to revise until December 13th. Normally I would do it because when it comes to awards season, I am something of a masochist. I always want it even when it hurts.

• If awards season was an empty pool, I would dive in anyway.
• If awards season was a vampire, I would eschew turtlenecks and garlic and crosses.
• If awards season was a slasher flick, I would follow trails of blood into dark rooms asking "who's there?"
• If awards season was a stack of sugary sweets and I were diabetic, I would...

Well you get the picture. I would venture to guess that most mentally balanced people are interested in the Oscars only when films or performers they love are in play. Not me. I care about the whole even when I don't care a whit about the parts... which is probably going to be the case this year. Almost every film likely to be left standing on nomination morning is a somewhat underwhelming experience (for me) -- hence so many "B"s in my grades.

Benjamin Button -a true technical marvel but (for me) not an emotional bullseye
Slumdog Millionaire -exciting to watch but not (for me) all that interesting
Revolutionary Road -very handsome and well acted but (for me) a little too "easy" Ooh, repressed people in pristine suburbia in the 1950s. You don't say! When it comes to stories about homogenized repression I much prefer these stories told with either abundant layers and subtlety (Mad Men) or great stylization (Far From Heaven) on account of it's been done hundreds of times before. That said, Leo & Kate are smashing (and not just each other's self-esteem)
Frost/Nixon -entertaining and well acted but also lacks a certain heft... is this because I am too young to bring anything to the table that's not there in the movie? I rarely get to say that I'm "too young" anymore so I enjoyed typing that last sentence quite a lot. Mmmm, yes I did.
Doubt -a great(ish) play but definitely not a great movie... too much overkill in the telling: tilted cameras, thunderclaps, you name it... tricks! tricks! tricks! Calm down Mr. Shanley, your actors know what they're doing)

If you've been reading you'll know that I'm rooting for Milk which will make it and also a bunch of movies that probably won't even if I suspect they'll have pockets of devoted fandom within the AMPAS voting body: WALL•E, Rachel Getting Married and The Wrestler. I'm even rooting for The Dark Knight which I don't particularly love but here's the thing: If you hand me two Oscar candidates that are essentially the same ballpark of quality... say, Revolutionary Road and Dark Knight for an semi-random example: I will almost always side with the non-baity genre film to be included in the mix. It's important for the Oscars --and by extension any group involved in awards and recognition -- to not operate on auto-pilot. The award is called "Best Picture" not "Best Dramatic True Story or Period Piece". And if more voters understood that then Rachel Getting Married and WALL•E would be major players this year, now wouldn't they?

In other news: I think I'll collect interesting year in review / online top ten top ten lists again this year. On account of interesting (for me... maybe you, too?)
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Sister Aloysius and Mrs. Miller

I can't review John Patrick Shanley's Doubt this early but after today's screening, I would like to both pat myself on the back and slap myself. I was right and wrong about its Oscar prospects when the cast was first announced seasons ago.

Wrong... about Meryl Streep's third Oscar. Sister Aloysius is a sticky role but it's not the slam dunk "erase memories of Cherry Jones's powerhouse stage creation"' it needed to be for Streep to reach Nicholson's three statue tally. Best Actress fanatics take note: the way is clear for Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road / The Reader) if she delivers --it's getting harder and harder to imagine anyone else winning.

Right... about Viola Davis. You'll remember that I've been more confident about Davis ("Mrs. Miller") in the supporting actress field than any other candidate and I cautioned other prediction-happy types earlier this year to ignore Amy Adams starpower and focus on the actual roles being played. Mrs. Miller is, to my way of thinking, the key factor in Doubt's arguably overblown reputation as a Great Play. She's the pivot point: After the heartbreak of her one big scene, nothing is the same for the play's lead characters again. More importantly, after her troubling walk-on, nothing is the same for the audience. It's a sneaky miracle part. Mrs. Miller shades and shocks the otherwise blunt themes into more troubling life. It's no longer a simplistic audience game of who did or didn't do what but an ambiguous and emotionally and morally complex problem to wring your hands over. Unless Academy voters get stingy about her screentime, expect to see Viola Davis all dolled up on Oscar night.

Update: The Envelope has an extensive interview up with Viola Davis
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Amy Adams is a Tease

This new delicious photo in Vanity Fair has the actress all sexed-up & Hayworthized. Yet the article is all about her innocent screen persona.


But we'll forgive the dichotomy. Who among us can resist her?

I love this quote from Emily Blunt on Amy landing the young näive nun role in the Oscar hopeful Doubt.

Amy was by far the best person for that part. She has a glow of innocence that isn’t naïve, just positive and determined. That, and I wanted to see those eyes peeping out from underneath a nun’s headgear.

Heh. Maybe Emily herself should have had a cameo as ...a flibbertijibbet, a will-o'-the wisp, a clown! You know there's one in every convent.
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Meryl, With No Doubt

The trailer to Doubt. [see it in beautiful quicktime] Is the property still magnetized for awards post TONY and Pulitzers?



And shouldn't the Oscar campaign teams leave a little breathing room between the reveals of their Best Actress seeking trailers? Angelina's was less than 48 hours ago.

Doubt: The Movie looks very much like Doubt: The Play here. I'm still concerned about the casting. I don't think it was wise to cast an actor known for icky and often malevolent characters. That doesn't keep the question mark of the story about this accused priest alive. Just about the only role where PSH has excelled at the warmth that might make Father Flynn a compelling character was in Magnolia. We'll see. We'll also see when it comes to Viola Davis. That role was a powder keg of emotion on stage... but how is it onscreen?
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Naked Gold Man: Doubting December

On Sundays we talk Oscar!

For what it's worth, and if you haven't heard, Miramax is now repositioning John Patrick Shanley's Oscar hopeful Doubt into October --it was previously slotted for December. That's a smart move and it's now as good a time as any to discuss the release date shuffling that's happened. Those Oscar predictions I made back on April 1st are already obsolete (as they always are within a month or two) and will be updated on June 1st with all of these new fast-tracked contenders deciding for 2008 instead of '09.

Doubt's repositioning is a smart move. December is always over-crowded and at least on Broadway, Doubt was the sort of water cooler phenom' that benefited from audiences talking about incessantly. One of my favorite and most aggravating aspects of the Oscar game is release dates. I'm obsessed, as you well know, with complaining about the all December habits of studios... It definitely teaches serious moviegoers to only enjoy the cinema for one quarter of the year and that aint right.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner!

I am hopeful that the strategists start looking more closely at 2006 when audiences had a lot more time to see the eventual nominees before Christmas and even take a peak at 2007 . It led us us right back to old "dump it at Christmas!" habits, but in both years one of the earliest releases among the nominees won the big prize. The Departed (2006) and No Country (2007) had significant head starts winning over the voting bodies. (One wonders if There Will Be Blood would have put up more of a fight for critical prizes had it opened as early as No Country For Old Men)

Anyway, those years are over --LIVE IN THE NOW, NATHANIEL! With Doubt moving the expected major 2008 players are now looking fairly spread out... or at least as spread out as it gets with Oscar strategies these days.

August Vicky Christina Barcelona
September Blindness, Happy-Go-Lucky
October Body of Lies, Doubt and Miracle at St Anna's , W (moving up from 2009. It will be released while George W is still in office. Very odd)
November The Road (pictured right, moving up from 2009), Australia, The Soloist and Milk
December Frost/Nixon, Seven Pounds, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Other Man, Revolutionary Road and Defiance
"TBA" (a cute nickname for December): Che (in some form or another), Chéri (moving up from 2009), Brothers, Changeling (or The Exchange), The Reader and The Young Victoria

All of which brings to mind the question: Which films do you think are heading for a nomination come January? Make a wild guess. Five of them.

more at twiigs.com...

We Can't Wait #6 Doubt

Directed by John Patrick Shanley (Joe Vs. the Volcano / writer of Moonstruck)
Starring Streep, Hoffman, Adams and Davis
Based on the stage play of the same name (a veritable magnet for trophies and acclaim) written by Shanley, which tells the "parable" of a nun in 1964 who confronts a priest who she believes in sexually molesting a young black boy
Brought to you by Miramax
Expected Release Date December 5th, 2008

Nathaniel: I'm going to let Gabriel, our resident theater guru kick us off here. Tell the kiddies why they ought to be excited about Doubt and how many prizes (a year before the Oscar noms have been tallied) that it's already picked up.

Gabriel: I live but to serve you, Nathaniel. Doubt already has Tony, Pulitzer, Drama League, Drama Desk, OBIE, New York Critics Circle and Outer Critics Circle awards stacked on its shelf; it is arguably the most heralded new American play of the last five years. (August: Osage County might change all of that this season, but that's a completely different article, isn't it?) It proved remarkably successful on the road in 2006, where plays usually falter (as opposed to musicals).

But that's the not the important part of the story, is it? What makes Doubt, the play, so special is its gripping battle between rumor and truth, good and evil, sex and religion. Although it is set in 1964, it strikes many people as a morality tale for our gossip-inflected times. It is suspenseful and powerful, but wholly accessible...very few people will see it without finding something to relate to.

The movie, which is written and directed by Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), also has the 2008 Dream Cast: Meryl Streep as the severe Sister Aloysius, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the conflicted Father Flynn, Amy Adams as the acolyte Sister James, and Tony winner Viola Davis as Mrs. Muller. These were the only characters in the play, but more have been added in the screenplay, including the central role of Jimmy. Who DOESN'T want to see Streep and Hoffman go toe-to-toe? The mind reels at the actor nirvana this film could attain...

Glenn: I had never heard much about Doubt apart from the general stuff from people like Nathaniel - American plays don't tend to get Australian productions and as far as I know this one never did - but you know what movie title went ringin' through my mind while reading Gabriel's exciting description? Atonement --a movie about moral guilt and the power of rumour? Does Keira show up in a sultry green habit citing rapid-fire British clipped dialogue?

Apart from the obvious, I'm incredibly excited to be able to see Viola Davis is an actual featured role again. Nat has already discussed this ad nauseam, but why isn't she a bigger film star yet? Why isn't she being offered vaguely racist roles on primetime soap operas? Hmmm...

Viola Davis, left (Far From Heaven, Solaris) will play the mother of the allegedly abused child. Amy Adams, right (Enchanted, Junebug) the acolyte nun

Joe: It was a shrewd move on the film's part to cast Meryl Streep in the lead -- the one actress who could get me to shut up about how much I'd want to see Cherry Jones reprise her role from the Broadway production (which I never got to see). I won't pretend like I'm not worried about the words "Philip Seymour Hoffman" and "theatrical adaptation" in the same sentence -- I've been liking him much better in recent years, but when he goes over-the-top theatrical, he loses me. Also, in terms of managing expectations, if you're looking for the Atonement-style early frontrunner which gets punished for being seen as such, it's either this or Revolutionary Road. I don't know how you go about combatting that perception, but someone's going to have to try.

Gabriel: Joe's absolutely right...for film buffs who may not know Cherry Jones (M. Night Shyamalan films, the upcoming female president on 24), she's the queen of serious Broadway, one of the most talented (and may I add, nicest to have a drink with) actresses alive today. No one but Streep could take the part from her in a way I'd feel comfortable.

And to quiet your fears about "theatrical adaptation" somewhat, Joe...the major criticism the play had when it was on Broadway, if any, was that is seemed too cinematic. I thought it reminded me of an HBO telefilm (which is where, honestly, I thought the adaptation would end up, like Angels in America). So the piece kind of naturally lends itself to this kind of styling. One hopes.

Nathaniel: Curious. I wasn't quite as excited as the rest of the planet when this hit Broadway but I do think it's a corker of a play. Yet I didn't feel like it was cinematic. It's the type of talky intense thing (all one set) that benefits from the stage and how you have to dive into the ideas of the story because there's no escape from it... It definitely builds as you see the power rising (Streep subbing for the altogether magnificent Cherry Jones --can they give her at least a nun cameo? Oh the humanity) and the parallel stakes rising for this other life (Hoffman)

I hope the movie, which I know will try to "open it up" doesn't go to naturalistic. The play benefits from how little we see of the central mystery and how much it stays only in our heads. I fear that the movies being an indexical artform rather than representational one might topple this particular cart. But whether it can ride the transfer smoothly or awkwardly, I can't wait to see it.

MaryAnn: I'm hugely curious to see how this gets adapted to film. (I also dread and simultaneously anticipate Frost/Nixon ) I haven't seen the play but I have read it, and it doesn't seem very cinematic to me.

On the plus side, Hollywood seems to have discovered the Bronx: this is one of several movies that are filming or have been shot in my neck of the woods recently. I'm looking forward to that, at least.

Oh, but Atonement this ain't...

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the countdown
#1 Synecdoche, New York / #2 Burn After Reading / #3 Australia / #4 Milk / #5 Blindness / # 6 Doubt / #7 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / #8 Revolutionary Road / #9 The Dark Knight / #10 Sex & The City: The Movie / #11 The Lovely Bones / #12 Wall-E / #13 Stop-Loss / #14 The Women / #15 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / Introduction / Orphans
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Streep to Win 3rd Oscar ... in Feb 2009

What? It's Oscar Week. If I wanna jump two years forward, I will.

This just in: Meryl Streep will play Sister Aloysius in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit Doubt. They'll start filming late this year for a 2008 release. Which means La Streep is winning her third Oscar (finally) in February 2009. Don't believe me? Then you haven't seen Doubt. Remember how I said before Effie White was cast for Dreamgirls that whoever got the role would be up for the Oscar? Same thing here. Sister Aloysius is one of those parts. In the right hands it's a sensational character. And we all know that Streep knows how to handle a strong character.



Doubt is an intense four character play which concerns a young priest who is suspected of molesting a boy. Sister Aloysius, a stubborn old school nun investigates. When I saw Doubt back in 2005 I wasn't completely wowed by it but it's very solid stuff and theater audiences in general were madly in love with it. Cherry Jones (pictured in the role above) was genius beating Kathleen Turner to the TONY that year. Streep should likewise be able to clobber the other nominees in February 2009 with Sister Aloysius as battle axe. Provided of course that they don't bungle the movie. Did somebody say Proof?