84th Annual Academy Awards: A Review

Billy was back, and he nailed it! In his opening montage (which I was actually dreading, fearing, “old hat”) he was very funny, as were the cameos: To George Clooney: “Say ‘I’m Batman’”/ Justin Bieber (“Good luck, Bob”), Sammy Davis Jr./ The Help gag: “It’s your duty isn’t it?”/ Billy as Tintin. Crystal’s perennial Best Picture nominee medley was terrific too, especially the Hugo bit “…shoot Ben Kingsley in bed, ‘cause you’re Marty!” and even the Tree of Life digs, sung to Alfie: “What’s it all about Malick?…. I heard it even freaked out God.”

Of Crystal’s countless gags that hit the mark:

- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: That’s how my relatives are watching the show.

- We’re here at the beautiful Chapter 11 Theater.

- The movies have always been there for us. They’re the place to go to laugh, to cry, to question, to text.

- Nothing can take the sting out of the world’s economic problems like watching millionaires present each other with gold statues.

- The Academy bought a pair of ruby slippers, that Tom Sherak is wearing tonight.

- Harry Potter’s movies made $7.7 billion and yet they only paid 14% income tax, which is interesting.

Only a couple missteps for Billy, like that semi-racist Beverly Hills gag and his Christopher Plummer age stuff, as well as his off-the-mark this time “what are they thinking” bit.

The best comedy bit was with Melissa McCarthy backstage with Billy— started rocky, but had a great pay-off. Additionally, I loved after the big splashy Oscar score thing Billy went, “eh”.

So many really good presenters too this year: Chris Rock— side-splittingly funny, on doing animated films (It’s getting dark outside”); Cymbals bit with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis; Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz doing that strange butts to camera over-the-shoulder thing actually was refreshingly silly, since they were so stiff up until then, saving them in the end (no pun intended); Ben Stiller and Emma Stone— at last Ben owns up to his usual over-the-top presenting and Emma was fun!

A few “not great” presenters: The Robert Downey Jr. documentary bit wasn’t at all funny and was endless; the Muppets kind of flopped; Bridesmaids humor was pretty lame.

Most stunning looking: Penelope Cruz (again) and Berenice Bejo.

The clip packages were not great.  Especially poor were the celebs talking about “the movies”—they seriously needed to be scripted because people just talking never works [what was Brad Pitt saying about gargantuas?]—Billy was hilarious when he deadpanned after one of them “I’ve never had any of those feelings.”  “The Wizard of Oz” bit with the Christopher Guest regulars was OK amusing.

The Cirque du Soleil act was pretty entertaining (only one slight slip up by one performer).  They should do it every year.  It broke things up, and is better than performing Best Songs—which they left out this year.

Oscar trivia appeared mid-show: 9 SNL cast members who are Oscar nominees (only a few were revealed), sent us scratching our heads at my Oscar party. They are: Dan Aykroyd, George Coe (obscure early cast member; short film nominee), Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Michael McKean (song), Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Randy Quaid, Kristen Wiig.

Odds and ends: I wish they’d go back to the Best Supporting Actress Award as the first given, starting on a “technical” award is always a bore; the band in the balcony was a strange shot to see over and over (the music was good, just the shot was weird); I’m so glad they continued the reading of the name of the movie when announcing winners for the technical categories before the names of the winners, so viewers at home could score their ballots; Descendents co-writer (TV’s Community co-star) Jim Rash mimicking Angelina Jolie’s stance was hilarious and Alexander Payne’s thing about his mother was good too; not just your TV award: the audio was strange at times (weird piercing/beeping sound as people spoke).

La Streep triumphs! Oscar records scorecard time: Meryl Streep is now only one of five actors who have won 3 Oscars (the others: Walter Brennan, Katharine Hepburn [won 4], Ingrid Bergman, and Jack Nicholson).

To sum it up: Billy, we’ve missed you! Another good one, Billy on Academy President Tom Sherak’s speech: “Thank you Tom, and thank you for whipping the crowd into a frenzy”—haha! Billy, please come back next year.

Oscar Nominations 2011: My Thoughts

So there were some surprises this year.  After moaning the last two years that the Entertainment Weekly spoiled everything, I avoided it this year.... that may have contributed to the surprise factor, but I think there would have been some genuine surprises regardless.

Hugo got the most nominations (11).... I thought The Artist had this in the bag, but it had one less at 10.  This means that The Artist has a little competition for Best Picture.

Best Picture nominees: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Tree of Life were both unexpected for me.  I must say however, since the former got 2 total nominations and the later 3, it certainly seems that their Best Picture nominations were therefore unjustified. Among the other Best Picture nominees with few total noms were also Midnight in Paris (4 total), The Help (4).  My prediction that The Help would have a big haul was WAY off.

Best Actor nominees: I saw Leo's shut out a mile away (he always gets shut out!).  I did not see Gary Oldman or Demian Bichir's nominations coming.  I knew if there was gonna be a surprise it would be in Best Actor.  So, what the heck is A Better Life?

Best Actress: The easiest to predict, no surprises.

Best Supporting Actor: When they announced Kenneth Branagh and then (alphabetically) Jonah Hill I was like what the? What about Albert Brooks?  That I would have put $1 million on.  The BIG shut out I think.  I did not see Nick Nolte or Max von Sydow's nominations.  In November though when von Sydow was getting buzz I said how happy I would be if he got nominated because he has only had 1 nomination to date and should have at least 2 career nominations: so I'm glad. It seems likely that Christopher Plummer will now win (this will be my first non-seen Oscar acting win in a long time... Netflix!)

Best Supporting Actress: I thought The Descendants' Shailene Woodley would get it instead of Janet McTeer (how boring it went that way!)

So glad Adventures of Tintin was shut out of Animated Film... it wasn't anything (stupid Golden Globes).

Weird to see Midnight in Paris get no acting nominations, just because it's a Woody Allen film and would seem par for the course.  If I'm disappointed about anything it's that someone didn't get in there (Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, etc.)

My Best Score predictions of a few blogs ago were off. John Williams got 2 nominations! (His Tintin score was derivative of his own stuff!) Williams now has 47 career nominations. Walt Disney has the record most individual nominations with 59, but Williams is creeping up on that!!

What Film Will Get the Most Oscar Nominations?

Tomorrow morning at 5:38 AM PST, the Oscar nominations will be announced.  It's time for the annual parlor game: What is your guess for the film that will get the most nominations? Last year it was THE KINGS SPEECH.

This year I'm going to pick Best Picture frontrunner, THE ARTIST. But many are in the running, including THE HELP which I think could give THE ARTIST, HUGO, etc. a run for the money nominations-wise.

Can't wait for the nominations!

Best Original Score Nominees 2011

I ran across something on the AMPAS website that I don't think I've seen in years' past— the list of eligible movies in the Best Original Score category.  Knowing that the Academy generally goes with the tried-and-true in this category I thought: let me see if, in one pass, I can correctly predict the five nominees.  I did it in two passes, actually: took the 97 eligible down to 29, then picked 5.  I wonder how close I'll get:


(Although I didn't pick Clint Eastwood's score for J. Edgar, I hope he gets it, as I remember thinking it was his best in years. My alternate below would be Water for Elephants.)

UPDATE: OK, since Kim Novak has publicly condemned the use of VERTIGO music in THE ARTIST, I think it's Oscar chances are shot for original score (it needed only to be 80% original and therefore made the cut for consideration).  I have to admit the use of the VERTIGO music was the ONE thing I didn't much like: I too, like so many others perhaps gave it a "pass" as music used for silent films were frequently known tunes.  The biggest issue for me was how much they used it [at the end]).  Therefore I'm gonna go with WATER FOR ELEPHANTS and take out The Artist (although who knows how many ballots are already in...)


"The Adjustment Bureau," Thomas Newman, composer
"The Adventures of Tintin," John Williams, composer
"African Cats," Nicholas Hooper, composer
"Albert Nobbs," Brian Byrne, composer
"The Artist," Ludovic Bource, composer
"Captain America: The First Avenger," Alan Silvestri, composer
"The Conspirator," Mark Isham, composer
"Contagion," Cliff Martinez, composer
"Coriolanus," Ilan Eshkeri, composer
"The Debt," Thomas Newman, composer
"Dolphin Tale," Mark Isham, composer
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Alexandre Desplat, composer
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, composers
"Hanna," Tom Rowlands, composer
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2," Alexandre Desplat, composer
• "The Help," Thomas Newman, composer
• "Hugo," Howard Shore, composer
• "The Ides of March," Alexandre Desplat, composer
"In the Land of Blood and Honey," Gabriel Yared, composer
"The Iron Lady," Thomas Newman, composer
"J. Edgar," Clint Eastwood, composer
"Moneyball," Mychael Danna, composer
"One Day," Rachel Portman, composer
"Rio," John Powell, composer
"Super 8," Michael Giacchino, composer
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," Alberto Iglesias, composer
"W.E.," Abel Korzeniowski, composer
• "War Horse," John Williams, composer
• "Water for Elephants," James Newton Howard, composer

Tomorrow the National Board of Review Announces

The official start of awards season is tomorrow; well unless Monday's announcement by the New York Film Critics Circle is considered the start.... I've decided, so as not to make myself crazy in future that the official start of awards season will be when the first of any of the major groups announce.  So, NYFCC you win. Since there is no guarantee that any "traditions" will be kept, I see no other way of dealing with it.      It was nice though when the National Board of Review was the first, then in rapid succession LA, New York, and recently falling into place the Washington D.C. Critics. But forget it.  I'll now just pay attention to what's first and then look at indiewire.com daily.  Let it be their headache!  But, since the National Board of Review's announcement has so long been considered the start, it will still be the sentimental "checkered flag" for me.

Link to National Board of Review website.

EW's Holiday Movie Preview 2011

I love those seasonal EW movie preview issues. The Holiday Movie Preview always features an early Oscar-buzz section that's especially fun to mull over.  In Best Picture (and Director), among the 3 Front-Runners is The Descendants, which I'm eager to see due to Alexander Payne, but surprised to see it get such a showing.  Although not among my personal favs, The Help seems to me to be the surer front-runner (listed in their "other contenders").  Another of these, Midnight in Paris, I hope makes the cut.... however that "needs to be #1 on 5% of the ballots" rule might do it some harm, as I can see people listing it more likely #2 through #10. Glad to see Brad Pitt in there for Moneyball, and the acknowledgment that it wasn't some scenery-chewing performance, but deserves the attention.  I'm very, very curious to see if Meryl Streep is great as Margaret Thatcher, and not just an assumption that she will automatically be great: I agree with EW however when they say: "Would you consider betting against her? We wouldn't." Ditto for Glenn Close. Are we just assuming she'll be great just because of the role and her track record? Interesting to see Christopher Plummer on the list for Supporting Actor-- who only got his first career nom two years ago.  So happy to hear that Max Von Sydow is supposed to be good in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and hope he gets nominated-- I wished he had been nominated for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; he's only had one career nomination, which doesn't seem to be enough.  Even though it was a typical "Oscar" show-off performance, I was a sucker for Octavia Spencer in The Help.  I also agree with EW that Melissa McCarthy is a definite contender for Supporting Actress for Bridesmaids (I'm happy when any purely comedic performance gets nominated, they are so few and far between, so, "fingers-crossed").  I love Judy Greer and so I was happy to see her name appear, even if just under "long shots," for Supporting Actress for The Descendants.

Morgan Freeman to Receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award

My prediction, Meryl Streep, gets passed over again– however, I couldn't be more pleased with the choice, Morgan Freeman.  I didn't pick him because he JUST got the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award and I didn't think they'd double-up so quickly, but I was pleased when he got that too!  I think that his fifth Oscar nomination for Invictus really put him over the top for lifetime kudos.  Having also received the Kennedy Center Honors (in 2008), now its only up to the Film Society of Lincoln Center to catch up.

The first of Freeman's films I saw theatrically were Glory and Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.  I've liked him in everything since (hasn't everyone?).  His Oscar win for Million Dollar Baby was actually more along the lines of a "career achievement" win, but it was pretty representative of his work, a solid performance with that voice-over narration that has become a hallmark of his later career.

Link to HFPA press release.

Who Will Receive this Year's Cecil B. DeMille Award?

Tomorrow is the announcement of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Award for lifetime achievement, the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The timing of the announcement has changed a lot recently— it was traditionally on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving week, then it was the Thursday of the second week of November.  Last year it was Tuesday, November 9th. And this year it's Wednesday, November 9th. So, basically on Nov. 1, I just look up the date with no expectation for consistency.

The Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Golden Globe was first given in 1952, to namesake Cecil B. DeMille himself. Producer/Director DeMille was one of the most successful filmmakers of Hollywood's Golden Age and in 1952 he made the film that would win Oscar's Best Picture, The Greatest Show on Earth. Who won the second DeMille award? Walt Disney.

In the early years of the award, the recipient was generally a producer/studio head, but starting with Maurice Chevalier (1959's recipient) performers have worked their way up, to the point that the award has been given exclusively to them from 1978 (with a few "hyphenates" among them, such as Clint Eastwood), to Steven Spielberg's 2008 win.

So, who do you think will be given this year's Cecil B. DeMille Award? The most likely candidate of the last several years has certainly been Meryl Streep. Streep has received the most career nominations (at 25). Plus she's had a string of high profile hits as of late critically and commercially, too.

Here is a link to the Cecil B. DeMille Award on the HFPA's website.

And here is a handy one-page list on Wikipedia.

What is your guess for this year's DeMille? 

Notables who have yet to receive the honor include: Woody Allen, Julie Andrews, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Glenn Close, Tom Cruise, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gerard Depardieu, Robert Duvall, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, George Lucas, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Sylvester Stallone, Meryl Streep, John Travolta, and Denzel Washington.

... My perennial guess is HFPA favorite (12 noms, 3 wins) Michael Caine, however I think this year, Meryl Streep will finally get it, and it's a long time coming....

Pre-Awards Season Begins 2011

I usually say that the announcement of the National Board of Review's picks will bring down the checkered flag for the start of Awards Season, but of course, no tradition can ever last without some silly stupid goose spoiling the whole thing, in this case, oddly, the supposedly prestigious New York Film Critics Circle.  So, now what? I guess life just goes on.  To me, the National Board of Review's picks will always start me thinking about the upcoming Oscars. And, yes, of course, I want to know who the NYFCC pick.  But as far as timing, I think that's permanently gone out the window.  All this horseplay just further solidifies my real curiosity for just the main show: the Oscar nominations/Oscars themselves, and the rest be damned.  Furthermore, even what had come to define the start of what I've been calling here as Pre-Awards season— Entertainment Weekly's Holiday Movie Preview Issue— I had to switch last year when EW delayed the issue a week.  I switched it up to the L.A. Times' Holiday Movie Sneaks, that thankly has remained on schedule, out today, the first Sunday in November.  With its publication (and presumably this week's EW Holiday Movie Preview Issue [UPDATE: EW Holiday Preview 11/18/11]), I feel we can safely stand around the water cooler and talk "Oscar" without fear of "already?"

A highlight of early pre-Awards season for me is always the announcement of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille (Lifetime Achievement) Award, that will be announced this Wednesday, November 9.

Films I look forward to seeing this Holiday season, in no particular order, include: The Muppets, The Descendants, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, My Week with Marilyn, War Horse, Sherlock Holmes 2, Mission Impossible 4, The Artist, and The Iron Lady.

New York Film Critics Circle Pull Some Nonsense

So the NYFCC has decided to announce their awards this year on Nov. 28, to best the National Board of Review.  How utterly childish. Does this benefit the movies? No. Does this benefit the public? No. Does this benefit the awards? No.

Let me give you a little history lesson NYFCC. In 1939, when the National Board of Review was ten years into making their selections, their quest for being first backfired big time, when Gone With the Wind wasn't viewable until its release three days after NBR eligibility.  What did the National Board of Review go with for Best Picture? Confessions of a Nazi Spy.  Here's hoping that in ten years' time you'll end up with egg on your face too for your stupid move.

What is it with awards-givers that they have to consistently ruin traditions (and things that aren't "broke") because some publicists had an "idea" in a brainstorming meeting?  Have some integrity and tell them NO.