Random Ramblings about the Oscars 2012

The 2012 Oscars

Sorry I am getting this post out a bit late.  I know I should written it up for yesterday, but better late than never.

Overall, the show was a big improvement over last year when Anne Hathaway and James Franco, despite Hathaway's valiant efforts, just didn't work out as hosts.  And since the Academy's flirtation with the next generation bombed, they turned back to one of their most reliable hosts ever: Billy Crystal.  Crystal, returning for his ninth stint, put in a solid job as host.  He was not as good as he has been in the past, but he was still fun and efficient.  He had a couple of stinkers, but also some real winners.  All in all, it was nice to have him back, but I still think Hugh Jackman is my favorite host of recent years.

The awards went pretty much where I expected, with a few big surprises - the biggest being Meryl Streep's win over Viola Davis.  I have not seen The Iron Lady, but I am not sure she could have been better than Davis, who put in a superb and complicated performance in The Help.  Then again, it is Meryl Streep and she can pretty much do anything, so who knows...

Anyway, I should stop the complete rambling...instead here are some lists!!


THINGS I DID NOT LIKE:

I did not like Billy Crystal's song in the beginning.  I know a lot of people think the songs are cute, but I find them to be a bit goofy.  I much preferred the opening skit where Crystal inserts himself into the Oscar nominated pictures.

The audio for the whole show was screwy.  I don't know if it was the microphones or the signal, but something was wonky.  And despite a friend of mine insisting it was my TV, I was relieved to read online after the show that a lot of people experienced this.

I was disappointed that the In Memoriam missed Bob Anderson, certainly one of those most influential sword fight specialists in Hollywood history.  Here was a guy who worked with Errol Flynn, who was responsible for the fights in the original Star Wars trilogy, Princess Bride, Mask of Zorro and Lord of the Rings.  That's quite a resume.  And they couldn't find a slot for him?  Shame, Hollywood.  Technically, he died in 2012, so maybe they will put him in next year...they better...

Hugo winning Special Effects.  Nothing against Hugo, which is a superb movie and a true piece of wizardry, but this was the last movie I expected to win this category.  Plus, it kept me from getting an even 20 right in my Oscar pool.

The Bridesmaids.  Okay, I liked the Scorsese drinking game joke (and I especially liked Scorsese's reaction to it!), but for the most part I did not find their appearance to be funny.  It was forced and not very funny.  Maybe they should have Kristin Wiig write her own material next time!

It's not that Rango is a bad movie.  But I would never have given it an Oscar.  I guess the competition was not that great this year in Animated Film.  Just wait until next year, when Pixar comes roaring back with The Brave.  I expect it to take us all by storm!

THINGS I DID LIKE:

Billy Crystal doing the "what are they thinking" bit was cute - especially his spot-on impression of Nick Nolte.

Speaking of Nolte, I like that if he gained about 20 pounds, he would make an awesome Santa Claus.  Probably in an action movie where Santa has to kick some serious butt.

I really liked the Wizard of Oz focus group, featuring the usual cast from Christopher Guest' mockumentaries like Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.  This skit, which I think was mostly improvised, was probably the funniest bit of the night, an inspired piece of madness featuring some brilliant comic performers complaining about hatchet faces and that annoying rainbow song, and extolling the virtues of flying monkeys.  These guys should host the show next year.  That would be awesome.

Cirque du Soleil...I am not sure I buy the tenuous link that connected their performance to movies, but I know I did not care.  I love Cirque du Soleil, and they did not disappoint.  Their acrobatics were accompanied by music by Danny Elfman - it was old school Elfman, sounding more like Edward Scissorhands than Wanted.  That is the Elfman I love.  I want him back.

I loved Christopher Plummer's speech.  Funny and charming, it was my favorite speech of the night.  Actually, kudos to everyone's speeches this year.  They kept them short and efficient.  Special speech shoutouts to Octavia Spencer, Jean Dujardin, and Meryl Streep, as well.

I really liked Emma Stone's over-enthusiastic presenter bit, especially when coupled with Ben Stiller's jaded 'been there-done that' vibe.  It was fun, and showcased both of their comic timing.  I especially liked when she tried to get Jonah Hill on stage to dance and his "hell no" reaction.  Good stuff.

I liked that Jean Dujardin won Best Actor and that The Artist won Best Picture.  This movie was fantastic.  I'm glad there wasn't an Artist backlash before the ceremony, though I can smell one approaching.  It's a pity, because this really is a charming, little movie - one with flawless execution that deserved every award it received.

Bret McKenzie winning the Best Song Oscar for "Man or Muppet."  While I think The Muppet's "Life's a Happy Song" should have been nominated, this was still a worthy winner.  And as a big Flight of the Conchords fan, I am super thrilled with this win.

Stacy Keibler.  See picture below.  Do I need to say anything else about that?

Well, I'm sure I will think of more things I liked and did not like as the next few days go by.  But this is what I got for now.  They certainly represent the things that made the most immediate impact.

What did you guys think?  What were your favorite or least favorite moments?

Easy A

Easy A

There is no real reason I should have enjoyed Easy A as much as I did.  It is a teen comedy, the likes of which I usually tend to avoid.  But if nothing else, I suppose Easy A should teach us a very important lesson: casting can be everything.

Emma Stone (The Help) plays Olive, a slightly nerdy and quiet high school student.  In order to get out of hanging out with her best friend's weird family, she lies about going out on a date with a college kid.  The next day, she then also lies about sleeping with that college kid just to get her friend off her back.  As I am sure we all painfully remember, news travels like wild fire in high school, and Olive is quickly branded as a slut.  Coincidentally, they are reading "The Scarlet Letter" in English class, and Olive is inspired.  Though she is not quite ostracized the same way Hester Prynne is in the classic novel, Olive still faces a similar social stigma and begins to ironically wear a scarlet A on her outfits, just to mess with people.  This...just kind of makes things worse.  Lies continue to spiral out of control and beyond anything that Olive can manage.  Hilarity ensues.

As I mentioned, the key to Easy A's success is the cast.  Emma Stone is fiery, biting, and quirky (without using the quirkiness as a gimmick) and she absolutely carries the film.  The rest of the cast is equally good.  Her very peculiar parents are played by seasoned pros Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) and Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April), and this pair tends to steal many of the scenes they are in.  The school's personnel includes Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) as her English teacher, Lisa Kudrow (Friends) as her counselor, and good ol' Malcolm McDowall (Clockwork Orange) as the principal. The fellow students, often the weak link in these movies, all put in pretty funny performances, especially the love interest played by Penn Badgley, who shows way more charm and comic timing here than he ever has on that piece of crap Gossip Girl show he stars in (I HATE THAT SHOW).

The movie does have some issues.  Sometimes the script is a little too clever for its own good, calling attention to its own strangeness.  This can get distracting in some scenes, especially the ones without Stone, who manages to make all of her odd lines completely believable.  Another thing that bothered me is that they resort to the stock, judgmental and overly religious group as the high school bad guys.  I understand that judgmental and hypocritical prudes are a huge part of "The Scarlet Letter," so I get what they are trying to do.  But I don't think it works as presented here.  And with all the entertaining characters floating around everywhere else, I wish they had been more creative here than just resorting to the old cardboard cutouts.  Basically, in all these high school movies, if you are religious at all, you're automatically bad, and that annoys me.  Sometimes this type of character works really well (like Mandy Moore in 2004's Saved), but here it is just a bothersome cliche.    

Anyway, that is really a small complaint in what is otherwise a very entertaining film.  I would absolutely check it out if you get a chance.  It may surprise you!  

MVP:

No doubt in my mind.  Emma Stone, for sure.  Of the young actors moving up the ladder these days, she might be my favorite.  She has terrific comic timing and is able to equally sell edgy and nerdy.  In the case of Easy A, she takes a movie that might have been merely amusing and lifts it into something way more entertaining (and picking up a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination in the process).  With Crazy Stupid Love and The Help, this has been a great year for her, and I think her star is just gonna keep rising.  

BEST LINE:

Mom: No judgement, but you kind of look like a stripper.
Olive: Mom!!!
Dad (trying to calm her down): A high end stripper, for governors or athletes. 

TRIVIA:

All the members of Olive's family are named after food.  Her parents are Dill and Rosemary.  Her brothers are Chip and Kale.  That is, uh, odd.  But interesting.

The Artist

The Artist

Throughout 2011, it seemed clear what the year's major Oscar players would be: Hugo, The Ides of March, The Descendants - hell, even J. Edgar was getting a slew of awards buzz.  And as I read my movie news and Oscar buzz online, I kept seeing this cool poster for some random movie called The Artist.  Seemed someone was making a black and white movie about old Hollywood.  Oh, wait, seemed like someone was making a silent film about old Hollywood.  That seemed interesting, but I wasn't going to rush out to see it.  I couldn't see that gimmick going anywhere.  But then something happened...the film started screening, audiences and critics went gaga, and that online poster started showing up everywhere!  I figured this must surely all be hype.  After all, critics probably liked it just because it was different.  It was black and white.  It was evoking the Golden Age of Hollywood back in the 1920s.  And in all probability, it was overrated.

But keeping an open mind, I went to go see the movie.  And sure enough, this is indeed a silent film, produced just like films a hundred years ago.  That doesn't just mean no talking; it means that other than the music, there is absolutely no audio at all.  Sounds we take for granted - the sound of my typing, doors opening and closing, cars driving by...all silent.  For the first ten minutes of the film, this was hard to get used to, and I remember thinking to myself, "I don't know if I can do this."

And then...the magic of filmmaking took over.  Because The Artist isn't all hype.  Directed by Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist truly is a terrific film, both an homage to and a commentary on the Silent Era.  I liked it when I saw it, and I like it even more now as I have had time to reflect on it.

The film is about the transition of films to the "talkies," and is told through the eyes of movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin).  As studios stop making silent films, Valentin refuses to change with the times and finds both his career and personal life rapidly falling apart.  Dujardin is joined by a superb cast that includes John Goodman, Berenice Bejo, James Cromwell, and Penelope Ann Miller.  This cast jumps into the spirit of the whole experiment - they know that screen acting was different in 1929.  You can't rely on line delivery and subtleness.  You have to gesture, you have to mug for the camera, you have to be BIG.  And the cast delivers performances that would have been perfectly at home in any of D.W. Griffith's movies.

And I do think The Artist is more than a gimmick.  There is some real depth here.  Sound, and by that I mean communication, is the major theme of the film.  The sheer irony that a movie about the "talkies" is silent should tell you that.  George Valentin risks his career because he refuses to talk in films.  His marriage begins to unravel because he refuses to talk about his problems.  With the advent of sound in motion pictures, Valentin is ironically no longer able to communicate with his audience.  But most of all, The Artist proves that even the oldest ways of communicating through film are still effective.  Who needs dialogue?  All you need is some heart.

Not sure what else to say.  The film is full of simple pleasures.  Beautiful cinematography (filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, just like the silents), terrific set direction, and wonderful set pieces.  I will not soon forget Peppy Miller's flirtation with Valentin's coat, or the terrific dance sequence where Valentin and Peppy first begin to fall in love.  I am a big fan of this film and it deserves all the lavish praise it has gotten.  I guess it is true that sometimes what is old is new again...

MVP: 
I adore Berenice Bejo, who plays rising star Peppy Miller.  She is just so damn...peppy.  But we all know the true star of this show is French actor Jean Dujardin.  He carries this movie on his back.  With bold facial features, a slim moustache, and a million dollar Fairbacks grin, Dujardin looks like he was born to be silent films.  He understands that overacting does not mean bad acting, and that there can be no room for subtly in a silent performance because the audience might miss what you are doing.  And seeing the emotions Dujardin displays with a cocked eyebrow or even by the way he pets his dog...it's remarkable work.  He is the easy MVP.

TRIVIA: 
So apparently, there are more stupid people in the world than I thought.  With critical support and strong word of mouth, a lot of people have gone to see The Artist, only to come out a few minutes later to tell the theater managers that the film was broken and the audio was missing.

...sigh...

...people...