Out of Focus

Happy Oscar: Quick pre-show predix

Shockingly, I meant to write in greater detail leading up to the Oscars tonight, but instead, all I have to set my picks in stone is the ballot I submitted to indieWIRE. I didn't do too well with the Spirits last night, since I thought the IFP crowd would want to support Winter's Bone more. So ... what do I know?

I'm usually pretty good with Oscar, though, and while there's a very good chance I'll be off-base tonight, I think the last-minute rush to The King's Speech is a weird media-induced smokescreen. I believe it's still the year of The Social Network, but as you'll see from my ballot, I gave a "Should win" to Toy Story 3, my (at long last) named top film of 2010.

I'm also apparently the one person in the poll who thinks Geoffrey Rush will actually (apparently shock and) win for The King's Speech tonight. I took a considered leap.

With that said ... here are most of my pix:

Best Picture:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Director:
Will Win: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Should Win: David Fincher, “The Social Network”

Best Actor:
Will Win: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”

Best Actress:
Will Win: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
Should Win: Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”

Best Supporting Actor:
Will Win: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”

Best Supporting Actress:
Will Win: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
Should Win: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”

Best Original Screenplay:
Will Win: “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: “Inception”

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Animated Feature:
Will Win: “Toy Story 3”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Doc Feature:
Will Win: “Restrepo”
Should Win: “Inside Job”

Best Foreign Film:
Will Win: “Biutiful”
Should Win: “Dogtooth”

Best Cinematography:
Will Win: “True Grit”
Should Win: “Black Swan”, or “True Grit”

Best Original Score:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “The Social Network”

Awards Weekend Wrap-up Part II: Partially previewing Oscar, so, not so much a wrap

The Oscars are just hours away, and as much as I look forward to watching while I participate in Greencine's Oscar Night Live Blog likely arguing with several other smart film folks as to why my opinions are more right than theirs (because that's what it comes down to for us all, no?), I currently sit here enraged by the current Cablevision/ABC Disney dispute (fodder for another post), hoping that something gets resolved so I can watch and chat sitting on my comfy couch in front of my nice TV. I also find myself reflecting further upon my will win/should win picks (published on indieWIRE the other day). It seems like this could be one of the most predictable Academy Awards in recent memory, although, the one constant almost every year also seems to be that each year many of us say that only to discover that the vast majority of the time we're right save for the one or two wins that are true surprises.

Roger Ebert's Oscar predictions post from a few week's back begins with the same claim: "I can't remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars." And yet today, I've read several tweets (including from Ebert) stating a feeling that there could be some huge surprises tonight, especially in the Best Picture category. I very well may regret these words as the credits begin to roll sometime during the 11 p.m. hour (at least, we should all hope it finishes before midnight!), but with the exception of a few categories, I still anticipate extreme predictability. Momentum is always a funny thing in Oscar campaigns, but the entire nature of the nominations and award voting process this year has taken on so many bizarre storylines -- for my money having less to do with actual filmmaking quality than usual (and that's saying something) – that variations from the conventional wisdom seem more impossible than ever.

Anyone who thinks the Spirit Awards sweep by Precious last night bodes well for its Oscar hopes be ignoring the fact that the overlap between voting blocs is relatively minimal, and history has shown that with the exception of acting awards, the winners rarely overlap. The films that are the small fish in the Oscar ocean get to be the barracudas in Spirits pond.

This is the year of The Hurt Locker, plain and simple. Some months ago on Twitter, before seeing Avatar, I said I thought Up in the Air would likely stop Precious from having a real chance at the big prize, thinking that The Hurt Locker had not been seen by enough people, did not actually tap in to the current zeitgeist as well, had not earned enough at the box office and, in my opinion, frankly was not as good a film. I still hold that last opinion, but I didn't count on a couple things: I didn't count on the surge to the top of critics' lists that far outstripped the reception the film had received even at its Toronto premiere. I didn't give enough credit to the idea that awarding the Best Director prize to a woman for the first time, especially coupled with all the press and conversation about how Bigelow makes antic-Nancy Meyers/Nora Ephron movies, would be so powerful. But most of all, I didn't think about how compelling the Bigelow vs. Cameron storyline would be, with one participant being the supremely arrogant "king of the world" who, in his own words, revolutionized all cinema with the pioneering female director who made a war movie. Personally, watching the trajectory of The Hurt Locker during this awards season, I think nothing has helped the film's chances more.

Awards Weekend Wrap-up Part I: Lamenting a lack of Spirit

This year’s Spirit Awards marked the first time in over a decade-and-a-half that my vote didn’t count. Considering how my “Will win” vs. “Should win” predictions panned out – I only missed the screenplay award; more on that later – it seems that my votes likely wouldn’t have made a huge difference in the massive, albeit completely anticipated, sweep of the evening’s prizes by Precious. I had been an IFP member for all that time, and for those who don't know, even after Film Independent took its larger budgets and events and split from the rest of the IFP community, they still allow their former sister chapters to vote.

I wondered if Steve Pond's "expose" on Spirit Award voting from a couple weeks ago was actually news to anyone who even pays attention to the Spirits. Granted, maybe there is an IFC audience out there not intimately involved with the film industry, but is that same audience reading The Wrap? Regardless, the main point of Pond's article was that lots (most?) voters don't have the opportunity to see most movies. That was certainly a much bigger problem 10-15 years ago before everyone had a computer, Netflix or a DVD player, and frankly, I think it's more due to the fact that people don't take the voting seriously. I mean, especially if you're a member of an audience that eschews awards shows – at least the Oscars – how much of an effort are you really going to make.

I used to go to the IFP awards screenings all the time in the late '90s at the Pioneer. I considered those screenings alone worthy of paying for my annual $100 membership. And unless the film was a "major" indie, the audiences were often pathetic, not coming close to filling the 99-seat house. Yet, schedule never managed to stop the popular titles from overflowing. People made time for those films.

Ridiculously or not, I always took my voting seriously, and even though I didn't vote this year, I still take it seriously; that if I'm planning on expressing my opinion on an indieWIRE ballot or here in my little corner of the Web, I'm going to do my best to have seen as many of the films (ideally, all!) as possible.

Recap: Do They Make Anything for Oscar Reflux Syndrome?

Well, my predictions were right for the major awards -- not such a feat this year. But in considering upon yet another year where the actual Best Picture did not take home its prize, I found myself most startled by reflecting upon one of the several tedious and useless montages provided to us by tedious and useless Oscar-cast producer Gil Cates. Thank you Gil for giving us a show that ran just under 20 minutes over. Too bad it was possibly the most boring Oscar show ever, made more so by a couple terrible production numbers from Enchanted, but mostly due to the 80 Years of Oscar segments. But I digress.

Watching the one 80 Years of Oscar montage that went year-by-year through 79 previous Best Picture winners was actually quite fascinating. How many of those winners have held up through time. More importantly, how many of them would still be considered the best film of their respective years? Citizen Kane is regularly listed as the greatest movie ever made, and yet, the 1941 Best Picture winner was the John Ford film How Green Was My Valley, a wonderful picture, but not one which makes the top 10. When the critics lists came out in 1990 talking about the best films of the '80s, topping the consensus list was Raging Bull, but Scorsese's Jake La Motta biopic wasn't in tonight's montage because the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1980 went to Ordinary People. Scorsese made another film that rightfully would be considered one of the best of the '90s in Goodfellas. Of course, that New York mob epic lost its Best Picture competition to Dances With Wolves.

it's nothing new for people to argue about the fact that the Academy doesn't always (usually? ever?) give the award to the actual best film of the year. Certainly, the montage had other people arguing tonight about the worst ever Best Picture winner. Apparently, many think it's Titanic or Crash. Crash would easily win that head-to-head for me. Personally, The English Patient is also up there along with Driving Miss Daisy and Rain Man, maybe none of which is as heinous as the Crash win, but all three of which were far overrated and beat much worthier films that will hold up through the ages better. I mean, I have repeatedly mentioned my extreme love for Sunset Blvd, my pick for best movie ever. Well at least it lost to All About Eve, another all-time great. Or Network which certainly deserved to be the Best Picture of 1976, winning every other major category. It ultimately lost to the Best Picture prize to Rocky which, while not quite in the same league in my book, at least was a very good film and a cornerstone of sports cinema.

All of this leads me back to the only part of tonight's show that I care to reflect on: No Country For Old Men taking Best Picture from There Will Be Blood. How perfect would it have been to see Martin Scorsese hand a Best Director statue to Paul Thomas Anderson. A passing of the mantle, maybe? But instead, I get the feeling that P.T. is going to find himself having a career much like Marty's. When the lists are compiled for the Best Films of the first decade of the 21st Century, There Will Be Blood will be on it, if not at the top, very close to it. Will No Country? I doubt it.

No disrespect to The Coens. I love their film. I think it is probably the best film they've ever made in their illustrious career. Unlike a picture like Crash or Diablo Cody's win for the screenplay of Juno, I don't think No Country is in the running for Most Overrated Film of 2007 at all. It is a fantastic movie, and in almost any other year, probably would have deserved the top prize without a second thought. And yet, it is more than rare for a film like Blood to arrive in theaters; a film so complex with so many layers and elements that even those of us who praise it and rave about it and think we understand it will discover that there is so much more to it each time we repeat the viewing process.

There Will Be Blood is not just a better film than No Country For Old Men -- a film that will continue to be appreciated for years to come and likely become even more so -- it is a better film than every Oscar winner since the turn of the century and then some. The Departed, Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator ... will any of these films be among the best of the '00s? The only two that have a shot, as far as I'm concerned, are The Departed and Lord of the Rings.

So congrats to the Coens, but more importantly, congrats to P.T. Anderson. So you don't have the statue ... chances are you'll get one someday, but really more importantly, we'll all be talking about your magnificent film for years to come, long after films like Juno, Michael Clayton and Atonement have been forgotten. As for No Country, we'll see for it's arguably better than most of those previous winners too ... it just doesn't drink up their milkshakes quite as well.

For the Record: It's Oscar Night -- When the Stars Come Out to Shine (Gotta Love That Line ... or something)

Watching a few hundred Tribeca submissions has precluded me from doing my normal year-end round-ups and catch-ups. I don't mean writing, I mean actually catching-up on nominated films for the Oscars, Spirit Awards, Razzies, etc. Other than Cloverfield, I haven't had a chance to see any regular theatrical films since early January. My new TiVos -- yes, two of them -- are both virtually full because there's been no time to watch TV. On the plus side, as we come closer to locking the Tribeca program within the next week, I'm really excited about a lot of what I've seen so far, and as usual, there will be several films which I liked immensely but sadly for which we won't have room.

But it is Oscar night, and I figured for my own benefit (or harm) among those who might or might not believe that I picked such-and-such when I did, I'd just give my own perspective on the wills and the shoulds ... win that is.

Best Picture
Should win: There Will Be Blood -- Simply the best movie (so far) of the 21st Century.
Will win: No Country for Old Men -- A film this dark manages to be more mainstream and less dark than Blood. Recent momentum gives it the win.

Best Director
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson forThere Will Be Blood -- The best movie of this year was also hands down the most well-crafted.
Will win: The Coen Bros. for No Country for Old Men -- Winning the DGA Award is not always a perfect predictor, but this year, it clinched it for Joel and Ethan.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood -- Rinse and repeat. For all intents and purposes, it really is an original screenplay, and a brilliant one.
Will win: The Coen Bros. for No Country for Old Men -- A fantastic adaptation, and a well-deserved award any year other than this one

Best Original Screenplay
Should win: Brad Bird et al for Ratatouille -- One of the weaker categories this year, but the latest Bird/Pixar collaboration was a wonderful exploration of the creative and artistic processes. Yes, I'm talking about the cartoon featuring a rat who cooks!
Will win: Diablo Cody for Juno -- I could (but won't) start a rant here. Suffice it to say, Juno -- together with Michael Clayton -- are my frontrunners for most overrated films of the year. In Juno's case, I don't dislike the movie, but Cody's going to get an award thanks to her biography, not because of a phenomenal screenplay. Good but uneven and flawed screenplay, yes. Oscar winning? No.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): I never got to Lars and the Real Girl nor The Savages. I heard mixed things about both, but obviously can't judge for myself.

Best Actor
Should AND Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood -- A brilliant performance that will go down in the history of cinema as one of the all-time greats. Day-Lewis made his previous tremendous work almost look like hackery, and that's saying something!
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): I missed In the Valley of Elah so also didn't see Tommy Lee Jones.

Best Actress
Should win: I abstain
Will Win: Marion Cotillard for La Via en Rose -- She's winning everything else.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): This is one of my worst covered categories, unfortunately. The only performance I did see was Ellen Page in Juno, so I can't even judge Cotillard for myself.

Best Supporting Actor
Should AND Will win: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men -- Probably the second-best performance on-screen this year after Day-Lewis, a well-deserved nod for Bardem.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James

Best Supporting Actress
Should/Will Win: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There -- I make this pick with reservations. I would be surprised to see Blanchett lose both awards, and I think unlike some others, Oscar will justifiably appreciate Blanchett's performance for more than what some morons dismiss as her simply playing a guy. However, I haven't seen Gone Baby Gone, and I think Amy Ryan has a great chance to be the underdog winner. Ryan is a tremendous actress who I've seen on stage several times -- not to mention in small film and TV roles, especially on a season of The Wire. She also is an atress who used to be represented by the agency at which I worked in the mid-90s in LA, so I'm a fan and would be very happy to see her take home the prize. Still, in my office pool, I picked Blanchett.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): Along with Gone Baby Gone, the fates kept making me miss American Gangster and Ruby Dee.

Best Animated Feature Film
Should AND Will win: Ratatouille

Best Foreign Film
Should win: I abstain -- NFC (it's an acronym) -- I haven't seen any of the nominees.
Will win: I kind of rolled the dice and based on nothing other than reading descriptions, I chose Beaufort for my office pool. But again ... NFC (still an acronym).

Best Documentary
Should/Will win: No End in Sight -- I actually did see every film in this category, and for me, it's no contests. No End in Sight was not just the most important of these films, but also the most well made.

Best Art Direction
Should/Will win: There Will Be Blood -- it wasn't necessarily always extravagant, but it was beautiful and brilliant. If I'm wrong here, I think it will be Sweeney Todd, and it wouldn't be undeserved.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): American Gangster and The Golden Compass

Best Cinematography
Should/Will win: There Will Be Blood -- Hands down, the most stunningly shot film of this and many other years.
Disclaimer (what I haven't seen): The Assassination of Jesse James

Best Costume Design
Should/Will win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- Oscar likes to spread things around. Not as much as the Golden Globes, but some, and here's where I believe Tim Burton's great adaptation will take home a prize.

Best Film Editing
Should win: There Will Be Blood
Will win: No Country for Old men -- Often, but not always, this award is a predicator for the rest of the night, but especially Best Director and Best Picture. If Blood wins it, I actually don't believe that will be the case, but I don't think it will get it anyway.

Best Score
Should win: I abstain cause what should win is Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood, but for some reason it was not nominated/ineligible/huh?
Will win: Michael Clayton -- This was my pick, but it's not a secure one. I figure, again, that Oscar will try to through Clayton a bone, and this would be its best chance.
Disclaimer (what I didn't see): The Kite Runner or 3:10 to Yuma

Best Original Song
Should/Will win: "Falling Slowly" from Once -- This is another weak prediction. I haven't seen Enchanted nor August Rush, but the fact that Once even received a nomination against two big studio releases proves people saw the film and heard the song, so I'm taking the leap.

It's showtime, and really ... the rest of the awards are a toss-up. Give Pirates of the Caribbean a prize for Makeup and maybe even Visual Effects. Throw Transformers something like Sound Mixing, maybe even Sound Editing, although both could go to The Bourne Ultimatum, or There Will be Blood could (deservedly) grab Sound Editing.

Time to go. Happy Oscar!

Monday Miscellaneous Miscellany: Awards and Stuff

I've spent the whole weekend (yet again) holed up in my apartment encountering only those I had beckoned to bring me food, watching submission-after-submission, with intermittent breaks for news, a few episodes of Friday Night Lights and watching Broken English on DVD and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days on IFC in Theaters. (That's right ... I took a break from movies by watching two movies. I know that by all rational analysis, I have lost it.) But as I consider the end of January also the coming end of the statute of limitations to consider 2007, my delayed look-back lists will, one way or another, be coming this week. Until then:

• I'm a bit baffled at the DGA awarding their top prize this year to the Coen Brothers over Paul Thomas Anderson. No disrespect to No Country For Old Men, which will be one of my top five films of the year, but if there's one prize Anderson should get this year from anyone bestowing it, it's Best Director. I would actually have been much less shocked to see Anderson win the DGA and the Coens take the Oscar due to the broader voting block. I have a very hard time seeing it happening the other way around, i.e., Anderson surprising at the Oscars. And yet, it's quite surprising to me that a film which in a couple years will be in the running as the best film of the decade isn't receiving more formal hosannas.
  

• Meanwhile, kudos to both SAG and ASC for getting their top awards right. Even as many seem to hold back on the comparable praise for There Will Be Blood, the recognition of Daniel Day-Lewis' work is, rightfully, universal. I wonder, however, if too many are giving him too much credit for the movie itself, thinking that the performance is the only thing to react to. One of the reasons Blood is so tremendous is due to the fact that Day-Lewis gives potentially one of the greatest performances ever captured on film without overshadowing or upstaging the rest of the movie -- as, often, only the true greats can do. Blood was also recognized on Saturday as the American Society of Cinematographers gave their annual honor to Robert Elswit, whose photography contributes as much as anything else to Blood's virtual perfection. Meanwhile, SAG gave its Best Cast in a Motion Picture prize to No Country (as well as justly handing Supporting Actor to Javier Bardem). One of the reasons the Coens movie works as well as it does is not just because there isn't a weak link among its cast, but also because so many of the great performances are at the service of truly complicated, multi-dimensional and morally complex characters.
  

• As for the "stuff": Anyone out there a TiVo expert? Due to my quick realization that Cablevision's DVRs suck more than Time Warner's and almost as much as Cablevision itself, I have made the leap from DiVo to actual brand-name TiVo, and for the most part, I'm pretty happy. But there are actually a few nit-picky things that are bugging me, and most of all, I'm missing a few functions and shortcuts that I'm pretty sure must actually exist. So ... anyone know of any comprehensive TiVo shortcut sites? Anybody have enough experience to know if you can create more "Groups" (like, say, one for "Movies" recorded) in the Now PLaying list? Anyone know if there's a way to ask the machine to create a season pass for a certain show in one specific time slot that is not its first run time slot? (For example, Project Runway premieres at 10 PM on Wednesday each week, but maybe I want to record it every week in a different time slot, like 11 PM or 2 AM? But that time slot isn't recognized as "First run" obviously? This is something that the Time Warner DiVo easily did; the Cablevision DiVo sort of did; but it looks like the TiVo can't do it. Is that possible?
  

• I suppose I'll throw this out there: If you're job hunting and are super organized and have always wanted to work your ass off for not nearly enough pay ... I'm hiring for a few different positions at Tribeca.
  

• I'm kind of baffled by a lot of the Cloverfield reaction out there. I don't care if people don't like the film, and yeah, I wrote something of a rave last week for it, albeit never intending to infer that I think it's the greatest movie ever. But the film keeps receiving all these criticisms about its characters being completely devoid of depth or purpose and the story being simply a blatant recreation of 9/11 that just goes on for about an hour but doesn't say anything, and the only reasons I can see for such criticism are certain critics walking into the film expecting nothing good and closing themselves off from seeing anything that's there. I'm not trying to say that these are the most complex characters created in memory, but they each of a purpose, they each make life-and-death decisions -- often placing their own lives secondary -- and they each, within the confines of this world and this kind of story, learn and even slightly grow. But more importantly, the 9/11 comparison is really just the tip of the iceberg. I don't want to rehash what I wrote last week, but there is a lot in this film that articulates the fears many in this country have through the realization of this monster and the attack. Like 9/11, the attack is just the beginning. The ability of this monster to infect our society -- or in some cases our own persons and very beings -- is clear. The ability of the larger monster to spit off smaller creatures -- can you say "cells" anyone? -- that sneak-up and surprise in the dark, swarm when you're not looking and against which we seem powerless to defend? That's not the monster metaphor of what most red staters would claim is the 100% truth? Monster movies were never "truth." Monster movies -- especially those of the Red Scare '50s -- were all reactionary; they were all responses, or perpetuation, of propaganda and perception and paranoia and probably some other p-words that I'm missing right now. And so is Cloverfield. If the film has any faults in this area, it's for a lack of subtlety, but not a lack of content.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Oscar again presents the race for most overrated

As usual, subjecting myself to 15 minutes of E! feels like way too many brain cells have died, but it's the sacrifice I make on Oscar nomination morning. I still need to digest and look at the full list of nominees, but here are some quick thoughts:

The Good: If there is any justice in the Academy Awards world, There Will Be Blood will sweep the big four awards for which it received nominations, however the only true lock I anticipate is Daniel Day-Lewis' pending Best Actor win. I am encouraged, however, that both Blood and No Country for Old Men tied for the lead in nominations with eight each.

I also was pleasantly surprised to see Ratatouille not just receive its expected Best Animated Film nomination but also a Best Screenplay nomination. Even though it won't win, in a field where its competition is Juno, Michael Clayton, Lars and the Real Girl and The Savages, Ratatouille arguably deserves the prize.

The Bad and The Ugly: This seemed like a better idea when I first thought of separating things this way, but instead, I'm probably just tired. Still, I've discovered over the past few years that the Academy loves to drive me crazy (granted, I'm sure my reaction is not foremost on their mind) by nominating more than one film that really truly doesn't belong there.

Babel, Crash and Capone top the list from the past two year with Crash still holding on to most overrated film in recent memory thanks to its Oscar win. This year, the prize for most overrated looks to be a neck-and-neck race between Michael Clayton and Juno. In my own way, I'm less disturbed by the Best Picture nominations each film received as the Best Screenplay and Best Director honors. Neither deserve to be considered one of the top five films of the year, and once again one has to marvel at the Academy's ability to always split one Best Director-Best Picture combo slot between two films. Considering that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Atonement are both better than Michael Clayton and Juno, it's quite curious to me that Julian Schnabel received a director nomination for a movie not good enough for the top five and Atonement was apparently directed by nobody. I know, I know ... the two categories don't necessarily have to match-up, especially between its winners, but generally ... they should.

More important, though, Michael Clayton would currently win my most overrated prize. I know many really like the film -- hence the over in front of the "rated" -- and I understand some of its appeal. But the Best Director nod to Tony Gilroy is downright appalling. Michael Clayton survives primarily on its performances and a feel-good, feel-bad story (if that makes any sense). But Gilroy's direction is sloppy at best and virtually incompetent at worst.

Juno is better, and I certainly enjoyed it, but I fall firmly in the camp that thinks the film has received a bit more hype than deserved. The movie is a huge step for Jason Reitman, much better constructed than his previously overlauded Thank You For Smoking, but he doesn't belong in the same room -- let alone nomination list -- with Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen or Schnabel. And as for Diablo Cody apparently being the greatest writer to hit Hollywood since Billy Wilder ... oh wait a second. Juno is a crossover success, so I guess she hasn't hit Hollywood yet, right? Of course, as many have written, there's nothing crossover about Juno. Nevertheless, Cody's screenplay is fun and generally well-written, but being a stripper before writing your screenplay should not earn you an Oscar, and yet, that seems to be what anybody ever mentioning her or now this nomination seems to mention first so obviously, that's what's best about her work, right?

Of course, not, and that may not be fair to Cody, but judging the writing simply on the writing, it's good - even very good -- but not great. Sarcasm and irony walks a very fine line in this kind of comedy -- one that Aaron Sorkin has destroyed so that he now finds himself falling uncontrollably down a bottomless pit of quippiness -- and Cody doesn't always tread it lightly enough, nor does she develop all her characters to a complete enough conclusion. Yes, the Juno character -- and Ellen Page's performance -- are what hold this film together, but the rest of the characters -- with some great performances notwithstanding, particularly from Michael Cera -- actually are relatively flat.

THIS JUST IN: THE NEW UGLY: No Best Original Score nomination for Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood. That's not a snub; that's a crime!

More later ....

Golden Globes Part 2: Do they actually mean ... anything?

I'm going to let my better judgment get the best of me. Don't act so surprised -- it happens from time-to-time. Last night, while watching a bunch of Tribeca submissions (and finally getting to a film that surprised the hell out of me, keeping me laughing for virtually its entire 90 minutes), I began writing this second collection of Golden Globes thoughts; one based on the awards themselves rather than the pitiful excuse for a show that attracted fewer viewers than the People's Choice Awards. But as I started furiously punching at the keyboard, I suddenly thought to myself ... Who cares? Oh, I mean, I know you already likely didn't care; but suddenly I didn't as well. I found myself agreeing completely with Eugene from indieWIRE: "Thank you, writers." Whatever good will hopefully come out of the WGA strike as well as whatever hardships have already been created for much of Hollywood, at least this one minor tiny positive thing was revealed clearer than ever: even as the HFPA has managed to long receive more press notice than any other "critics" group, no organization is less reputable in handing out such awards nor less worthy of such attention.

You don't even have to go so far as questioning who won what, but it's certainly easy to do so. Billy Bush, as I described yesterday in detail, couldn't have sounded more stupid, however he did say one thing that was dead one when he mentioned that the HFPA likes to "spread things around." They also like to try to show an independent or rebellious streak, but everything is planned so as not to alienate the big stars or major studios. And so, you see No Country For Old Men bringing the Coen brothers a Best Screenplay prize, but Atonement winning Best Picture - Drama and Julian Schnabel taking Best Director. That's not specifically a criticism of either film: I loved The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and I think it marked a giant leap forward for Schnabel; and I liked Atonement quite a bit, actually, but it is a serious Awards contender less thanks to standout cinematic excellence than to a less disturbing storyline.

Their credibility is shot by the simple fact that even their categories make absolutely no sense anymore. Splitting the Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy is, at this point, so wrong for so many reasons. Why aren't the Director, Screenplay and especially Supporting Actor/Actress prizes split if the primary idea behind doing so is to judge relative quality on a more level playing field? Why are the Drama prizes considered more worthwhile? But more importantly, why are musicals automatically lumped in with comedies. This year, not one of the Musical/Comedy winners had anything to do with comedy. Sure, Sweeney Todd has some macabre, darkly comedic moments, but it is not in any way a comedy. Regardless of how great Marion Cotillard may be in La Vie en Rose (I have not seen the film, yet I've heard she's sensational), it is in no way a comedic performance. Why shouldn't her performance -- in a film that is arguably not even a musical -- or all of Sweeney Todd be in the Drama category? Tim Burton's movie is better than at least four of the overblown seven Drama nominees anyway.

But it's not actually about awarding excellence, for whatever that's worth anyway. It's about staying on the good side of every network and studio so that when the next year rolls around, the HFPA can make a shitload of money by allowing Dick Clark Productions and NBC to produce their little party, and by having its members courted all winter long with SWAG and junkets and free stuff. The Golden Globes are a racket; they're a producer of graft; and while celebrating Daniel Day-Lewis' win, Mad Men receiving the Best Drama TV series prize and other deserving winners should still be done, it would be better to bury the Globes than to honor them. While they once had a significant influence over who might receive Oscar nominations, thankfully, Academy balloting has for the last several years had their deadline before the Globes were announced, so a Globe win is no longer an automatic Oscar nomination. Thank goodness for small favors.

The Golden Globes: One hour seemed more than enough, and way too much Bush

It's almost pointless to critique -- positively or otherwise -- The Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press becomes a more laughable and pandering award-bestowing organization every year, and the awards not-handed-out tonight -- with its seven Best Dramatic Picture nominations and the Best Musical/Comedy Picture category proving more than ever before how inane it is to automatically have those two broad genres combined -- were no less absurd than any other year, and possibly more so. I don't mean to imply that the various winners (or at least most of them) weren't deserving, but the obvious methodology this relatively small group of foreign critics and journalists use to determine who gets the tiny statuettes has always been based more on pandering, swag and the continued desire for prestige than anything honest. And every year around this time, we always have to remind ourselves that the only reason the Golden Globes have become as big a deal as they have is because the HFPA was able to sell a TV show and throw a party. Well, without either this year, the awards themselves were even more front-and-center, and that, as usual, wasn't really a good thing.

And besides ... what the hell was that? Do you think people in that studio and at NBC were congratulating each other for a job well done? I'm not intimating that producing the kind of show they were forced to do tonight was easy, but it certainly would be easier with less brain-dead hosts than Nancy O'Dell and (especially) Billy Bush.

Actually, critiquing the awards themselves is almost less interesting than simply paying attention to some of the more ridiculous things that came out of Bush's mouth. If there was ever any doubt that Billy is related to our not-so-well-spoken president, it was certainly laid to rest during this broadcast, which somehow felt even less informative and entertaining than an episode of the talking heads' own Access Hollywood. Take, for example, the commentary after Sweeney Todd was announced as the winner of the Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical award when Bush said, "Tim Burton and Johnny Depp: when you get that kind of collaboration, between Scorsese and DiCaprio or something, it just seemed to be able to pull it off together." Now, I won't pay any mind to the lack of any sort of coherence within the English language, let's just look at the great historical actor/director pairing Bush chooses to utilize as a comparison to Burton/Depp -- Scorsese and DiCaprio. Because yes, folks -- when people who know anything about film history are going to choose great director and actor collaborations, including modern ones that the average moviegoer would remember, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio certainly jumps to mind first. No disrespect to Leo -- who I enjoy as an actor; I was one of the relatively few to applaud his performance in The Aviator when he seemed to bug a lot of people -- but I'm pretty sure even he would have had to have a little chuckle at that one. OK fine -- James Stewart and Terrence Mann might have been a bit too obscure for today's audience. Even John Ford and John Wayne might not have worked. But Molly Ringwald and John Hughes would have been a better comparison to use if you're going to pair Martin Scorsese with someone other than Robert De Niro! I mean ... really? And he gets paid a lot of money to spew that blather?

But wait ... there's so much more ...

WHILE WE'RE ON THE AWARDS SHOW FRONT ...

Congrats to Jon Stewart who will once again be hosting the Academy Awards come February. I only have one hope that I will throw out to the universe in a brief letter as follows:

Dear Oscar Telecast Producer Gil Cates:

So you're back huh? This every other year thing with you is getting a bit tiresome. I mean, I realize that somehow every other producer who comes in between your shows somehow manages to screw-up everything worse than anyone could imagine, trying to add all these "inovative" segments or what-have-you to recreate the show but in the process always making the damn thing longer and less watchable. And so, it makes your dry, tedious, stiff, formulaic telecasts seem more exciting in retrospect, so how can you really go wrong?

And two years ago when you first brought in Jon Stewart as host, I applauded you, quite sincerely. After the show, I commented that I thought, like Chris Rock the previous year, he did as well as he could have under your conservative producers hand.

So please ... do us a favor. Hands off. Get Bruce Vilanch out of the writers' room and let Stewart and his crew do their thing. Yeah yeah ... I know you have to deal with the FCC and ABC censor crap too, and I will say, I have no doubt that you will be much better in handling it than Fox did last night, but please please please ... just let Stewart be Stewart. Let him actually host. Try to go back to the days when the host ran the show as opposed to acting as filler between the off-screen announcer. Let him schtick; let him riff; just let him be!

And while you're at it ... you get one montage in addition to the "In Memorium." Let's trim the fat, OK? Seriously ... nobody will miss it. In fact, if you bring the damn show in on time and there was absolutely nothing but the awards themselves, the song performances -- all together again would be nice -- the Best Picture nominee clips/presentations and the "In Memorium," that is more than enough show and more than enough of a celebration for all of us. Trust me. It should actually be easy for you because doing so will take very little thought or creativity. I'm just saying ....

Anyway, that's all I've got to say. Hopefully, throwing this out there five months ahead of time might actually get it to sink in. But I won't put my money on it. As usual, I'll have my ass planted firmly on my couch in order for the Annual Grand Disappointment on Feb. 24, 2008.

Sincerely,

Aaron