You Were Saying...? (Extended Thoughts on Previous Topics)

I pray my occasional 'look at these comments!' posts don't come off as desperate. I'm just a very chatty person, what can I say? Since we are all becoming cyborgs, comments feel closer to conversation all the time. One day we will all forget how to speak. We will grow extra sets of fingers for more typing speed. Evolution will shrink our hands so that we can text with greater ease on our tiny devices.

First, I wanted to thank everyone who offered up music suggestions ♪ ♫  in the Grammy Awards post. I've already started investigating your recommendations since I usually have at least one "music of the year" or "music video of the year" posts in late December.  Keep 'em coming.

Last year about this time the public was going wild for The Blind Side and I included an "Overheard" conversation about it. Broooooke recently discovered the year old post and feels bad that Sandra got such flack for winning because the performance (if not the film) holds up. I would love to include more of those overheard posts but I'm telling you it is SO hard to eavesdrop in NYC. You're oft thwarted by noisy subway trains and traffic and whispering (damn you quite people in noisy cities!). Just last week two older men in suits right next to me on the subway were discussing the Oscar race. I was dying to eavesdrop but alas... major subway noise and then my stop.

A related note on Sandra B: Rebecca finds it odd that people lament the Academy's refusal to give older women the Oscar in the Annette Bening post but also bitch about Sandra's win. Sandra was 45 when she won. But more on this age & oscar topic this week ~ Article in Progress. 

Viggo & Fassy on the set of A Dangerous Method

Patrick F recently declared it a life goal to see all of Viggo Mortenson's movies. I was just thinking about Viggo yesterday and how long it took him to get really famous. It was a by-association thought. I was watching Fish Tank (so good, right?) and dreaming about seeing Viggo and Michael Fassbender as Freud & Jung in A Dangerous Method or The Talking Cure or whatever David Cronenberg is calling that psychiatric bio these days. They seem like such ideally paired co-stars to me.

Cal read the whole Undertow interview -- that's the Peruvian Oscar submission -- and loves that more Latin American movies are getting international attention "Before it was only Argentina and Brazil." Troia recently saw the movie, too, and thinks it one of the most moving of 2010. I bring this up now after the fact because I'm assuming we're going to hear about the foreign film finalists from AMPAS any day now. I love following the foreign film race but I'm not sure about this whittling down process where suddenly 50+ movies are evicted in the last month before the actual nominations. Imagine being on the campaign trail and then >boom< 'Sorry, you're out before nominations are even announced.' My current 9 predicted finalists are here but this category often holds surprises so no one knows anything.

That Helen Mirren "women in hollywood" speech sure has been making the web rounds (though there weren't many comments here on it.) Still, Manuel recalls the first time he saw the delightful Helen Mirren (Prime Suspects) and was hooked ever after. Mirren only gradually entered my consciousness. The first thing I remember seeing her in is White Nights (1985) where she met her future husband, the director Taylor Hackford. I was kind of in love with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the time (she played his wife) and I only remember two things about the movie today.

1. A shot of Misha stretching to warm up where he lays his head against his entirely vertical leg. As if this is something the human body is supposed to be able to do! 
2. This scene where Misha dances for her and she cries from the beauty of his movement. Or at least that's how I remembered the reason for her tears.

Why the Misha love? Blame childhood in the 1970s. It's probably impossible to imagine for anyone born in the 90s when the only people constantly discussed seem to be reality TV show stars but yes... a ballet dancer was once mega-famous to the point where teenager had posters of him on their walls. I wonder if Black Swan will inspire a mini-fad of renewed interest in ballet? If so that'll sure help Benjamin Millipied from Black Swan.

Odes to Emaciation: Christian Bale's Insane Actorly Commitment

I was just about to go into several interesting comments from the latest link roundup but I could do this all day and I have to move on. See.... in about 4 or 5 hours things start getting really crazy with the awards calendar... but maybe Sheila isn't the only one who is less than excited to see the madness begin. She writes

Ahh, these bullshit awards leave me cold. Why do people fawn over them so? Think of all the past great performances that were left out and you get the message. It's all about timing, timing, timing, especially now...

Timing is indeed the magic element. She's not far off with one key example: Christian Bale's "posterboy routine for committed actors" is finally catching up with him in terms of awards heat. 
Are you as chatty this morning? If not, have another cup o' joe.