Why Isn't There More to Say?

After all the build-up, the post-Oscar silence at NicksFlickPicks has been admittedly odd. Blame the flu. But also blame a not especially interesting ceremony featuring a not especially inspired list of winners and nominees. It's not altogether surprising that years with a lot of good movies tend to yield bad Oscar vintages: cult faves like Eternal Sunshine and Kill Bill, Vol. 2 and Before Sunset and Maria Full of Grace register strongly in their niches, but while the art fans are busy dividing themselves over these pet projects, consensus picks that lotsa people like but few people love tend to sweep up. Will anyone ever seriously discuss Finding Neverland or Ray or even The Aviator ever again? There were few if any pop phenoms at this year's awards, few if any upsets, no songs worth whistling, no swans as dresses, no Cher as Spiderwoman. But here are ten things I've still dug up to say:

1. You mean Best Picture doesn't have to be a letdown?
   Million Dollar Baby is the first Best Picture winner since at least American Beauty, and really since Titanic, that seemed really and truly deserving. It struck me as the easy pick of this litter, though a Sideways win would have been satisfying in its own way. Still, I was psyched. If you want to know why, check out my new review.
   
   
2. But even that wasn't the best Oscar of the night...
   ...since the Original Screenplay citation for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at least guarantees that the Academy has some cognizance of what counts as a masterpiece, in at least one category. The Incredibles win for Animated Feature was also gratifying, if unsurprising, as was the triumph of "Al Otro Lado del Rio" as Best Song. Even though I don't swoon over that song (even when sung by the right people!), at least three of the others were such drivel that it was a joy to see them shut out... also, it was the only category where I scored right with a "surprise" prediction. So there's that.
   
   
3. And speaking of Eternal Sunshine and Bests...
   No one looked better than Kate Winslet. No one. No one even close.
   
   
4. Tragedies
   Why did Laura Linney come as Brad Pitt in Troy? Is she trying to announce her candidacy for People vs. Larry Flynt/Sid & Nancy roles? Alternatively, if they decide to remake The Neverending Story, she's a shoo-in for the Southern Oracle.
   
   
5. What did I think about Hilary's speech?
   I was fine with it, though I think I was alone among the group I watched it with. Sure it milked the trailer-park thing a little, but I don't get that Hilary is any more "fake" than anyone else in these circles. She probably would have been my fifth choice of those five, but I still thought she did a good job—this year's race happily lacked a Naomi Watts in 21 Grams, a Salma Hayek in Frida, or a Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, where you're just like "Whaaaa?"—and if I won an Oscar, even my second one, I'd thank everyone in the damn world, too. And by the way...
   
   
6. Is Hilary Swank the new Sally Field?
   Sally began in an inauspicious background: Gidget, The Flying Nun; Hilary was a 90210/Karate Kid/Buffy-the-Movie girl. Sally won in '79 and '84. Hilary won in '99 and '04. I'm not sure either is a great actress (though Hilary was at least unqualifiedly great in Boys Don't Cry). They are both kind of personality performers who really go for the gumption thing. Characters you underestimate till they prove their mettle, unionizing, boxing, farming, writing false news stories, conning Marie Antoinette, shooting Robin Williams, that sort of thing. Sally Redux was all, "You like me, you really like me!" Hilary Redux was all, "I'm just a girl from a trailer park." If history keeps repeating, Hilary's run at Oscar is officially done. (Sally went 2/2 but hasn't been nominated again in 20 years, even in the Year of Gump.)
   
   
7. How about those Oscars presented from the audience?
   Jamie Foxx's Gramma in heaven should whup someone for this. No respect, no dignity, no clips from the winners or even the nominees from Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action short. That's just fucked up, y'all. If Valli O'Reilly and Bill Corso and Chris Landreth and Andrea Arnold want to come to my house and personally show me footage and tell me all about their hard work, they may consider themselves invited.
   
   
8. And what about the Rock?
   I thought he was funny at the beginning, which is the only time I ever really notice the host. He didn't seem to "fit" the Oscars format all that well, and he certainly wasn't all that funny or finessed in introducing the presenters. The Bush/Gap stuff was funn-nee. The ersatz disses on Jude Law/Colin Farrell/Rock himself were hilarious, though Jude obviously is amazing, so my boyfriend Sean Penn may be excused for (rather over-seriously) stepping up for him. Best joke all night: "I had to deal with this movie called Soul Plane. I'll trade you ten Passion of the Christs for one Soul Plane." That said, Whoopi and Steve are still, by far, my faves. And I reiterate: do we need a host? (You know who would be great, smart, funny, elegant, pretty, and articulate, with backgrounds in stand-up and in serious acting? Emma Thompson. Which will also never happen, obviously.)
   
   
9. Am I seriously done ragging the bad stylings and failed humor?
   Josh Groban, be silent. Beyoncé, one note per syllable usually suffices. Robin Williams, shut it: you've been peddling the same "improv" for at least 10 years too long. Salma and Penélope, hop in my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale! Scarlett, stop frying and bleaching your hair. Kirsten, what's with the platinum blonde? Laura Bush, what's with—oh wait, that's Drew Barrymore. Sean, you haven't called in weeks. Renée, EAT, and speak in your friggin' normal voice, the one you use when you're acting. And Melanie, you can't... I feel like... no. It hurts too much. Melanie has become the actress equivalent of the train-wreck in The Fugitive. With her around, I barely noticed that Sally Kirkland was MIA.
   
   
10. But class is class...
    And Cate Blanchett and the extreeemely dapper Morgan Freeman have it. Morgan has such integrity and expresses himself with such sincere authority that I actually believed he was honored to work with Hilary Swank, rather than the other way around. And Cate, I'd love to have seen you win this for Ripley, but it's impossible to begrudge you anything. Talk about charm and grace. Let Marty Scorsese's daughter make her own way. I hope I marry your son. (Sorry, Derek. Sorry, Sean.)

Now, you know y'all have thoughts to share, too...

Will the Real Dante Ferretti Please Stand Up? (...that is, If He's Allowed?)

Of course I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but...

Oscar devotés everywhere should be outraged by the breaking news that producer Gilbert Cates has decided to streamline the show by presenting many of the technical and "lower profile" Oscars directly to winners, in their seats. Meaning, fewer speeches, no glory-walk to the stage for the winners in many categories, and serious displeasure for Oscar-watchers like me who actually think the ceremony should be about recognizing excellence and congratulating all kinds of filmmakers, beyond the ones who get rewarded and celebrated all the time. Obviously, "Oscar" and "excellence" only have a loose relationship, but this is the one time per year when cinematographers, art directors, editors, sound technicians, makeup artists, etc. get any exposure at all. If AMPAS isn't going to defend the notion that movies don't spring fully formed from Adam Sandler's head (or even Clint Eastwood's), who else will?

My girl Sandy Powell will likely be collecting her second cosutme-design Oscar this year for The Aviator, or else the estimable Alexandra Byrne will scoop her for Finding Neverland (even if it's one of her less creative efforts). They are costume designers, and Powell is a certified genius: check those credits. Let this chick stand up! What she's wearing is probably gonna be good, and besides, she's got more talent in one thimbled finger than Leo DiCaprio has got in his whole self. James Newton Howard, who has written yet another beautiful and mood-assisting score for a Shyamalan picture (unfortunately, the risible The Village), is nominated for Best Score, and he deserves whatever close-up is coming to him after laboring valiantly on such a crappy product (and for being Oscarless after six nominations and 108 scores in only 20 years).

Most gallingly of all, the absolutely genius designer Dante Ferretti, art director to Scorsese, Fellini, Pasolini, and Gilliam—also the man behind the design glories of Interview with the Vampire, Cold Mountain, and Titus—is finally destined to win his first Oscar after eight tries, again for The Aviator. I've been a Ferretti fan for years, and I would like to see him walk to collect his trophy, even if he's homely, even if he waddles. I want to hear what this paragon has to say, even if he just thanks his Uncle Silvio. Anybody who really cares about the Oscars should be agreeing with me. Anybody who doesn't care shouldn't be watching anyway, and it shouldn't bother them that the show is long. There's, like, 9000 other channels out there now. If Dante's keeping you down while he enjoys a peak moment of a 30-year professional career, watch something else.

Keeping It Real: The Oscar-Nominated Documentaries

Snoop Dogg, as usual, says it best: "It was about being real but also being real. You know what I'm saying? You gotta keep it real, but you gotta be real at the same time. Only the real will understand what I'm talkin' 'bout."

That off-the-cuff philosphy, which oughta keep Žižek busy for awhile, comes off the commentary track for Tupac: Resurrection, one of the five movies nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category at the upcoming Academy Awards. Snoop here is letting us in on his idea of how Tupac's albums combined the gangsta-ism of some of his tracks (like "I Get Around," which keeps it real) with the social and political truth-telling of other tracks (like "Brenda's Got a Baby," which is real—see, I'm one of the realest, so I get this stuff). Still, Snoop could just as well be diagnosing the peculiar, aestheticized reality of all documentaries, which have to start with fact but structure, assemble, and polish it up like a story. This year's crop of nominees all do pretty well by the form, even if I wished any one of them had really blown my socks off. (By far the best documentary released in the 9/1/03-8/31/04 qualifying period was the mysteriously unnominated The Corporation, which is a straight-up masterpiece.)

Tupac: Resurrection—like last year's winner, The Fog of War—ultimately limits its reach and effectivity by limiting itself to a single voice, and yet the decision to frame the whole movie through Tupac's own interviews and other recorded remarks also makes the film a special glimpse into one complex performer's strong, articulate, but troublingly paradoxical persona. Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski's Born into Brothels offers a moving and detailed profile of eight children of prostitutes who live in Calcutta, India; though the movie is carelessly vague and unwittingly cruel in characterizing their beleaguered mothers, the children themselves are a fascinating study, especially as they learn to turn cameras on their own lives. Morgan Spurlock's breakout hit Super Size Me inflates its director in several senses: he sure can hog a spotlight, but the story he spins not just about the nefarious calorie-blobs being hawked at McDonalds but the sheer perversity of America's entire relationship to food is worth making a spectacle about. Then there's the Mongolian entry The Story of the Weeping Camel, which relies heavily on re-enactments and director-guided anecdotes to tell its admittedly winning story about a small family of herders who smartly conspire to save an adorable, all-white, newborn camel whose mother refuses to nurse or even acknowledge it.

The only nominee I haven't seen yet is Kirby Dick's Twist of Faith, about a man who was abused as a child by a Catholic priest but watches his life fall apart as he reveals this secret. Twist of Faith is bowing right now at the Sundance Film Festival, and based on how much I enjoyed two of Dick's other projects (Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist and Derrida), I'm intrigued to see Twist. For now, though, in an above-average field where all four movies would be satisfying winners, I'd have to give the edge to Super Size Me, which does the best job of probing the multiple dimensions of its premise: the detours into seeming sidebars like the school-lunch programs and the anti-obesity campaigns by the former heir to Baskin Robbins ultimately enrich our grasp of the more central material, whereas the other three docs all look a little fuzzy around the edges. Still, they're all real, and they keep it real, you feel me? Check this s**t out, man.

(and I almost forgot...)

A good thing: Internationalism! Whatever their respective merits, both Les Choristes and The Sea Inside managed to rack up nominations outside of the foreign-film category. Meanwhile, outside that category altogether, The Motorcycle Diaries and A Very Long Engagement both scored twice, and House of Flying Daggers got a Cinematography nod. Nice to see Oscar spreading the multilingual wealth around.

A bad thing: Where the hell is the Birth score???

Here's the Skinny on the Naked Guy...

By which I mean Oscar. Obviously.

So, I correctly predicted 65% of this year's nominees, which my friends tell me is impressive, but everyone who cares about this stuff knows is not all that good. Dang it. But, hey, the nominations are always a great excuse for a champagne brunch (special shout-out to Max's, the restaurant/bar of the Holiday Inn in Ithaca!), so I'm feeling happy.

As for the nominations, here's what I have to say. They are all personal estimations, cause you can get the facts and figures anywhere.

Best Reasons To Be Delighted

• Kate and Catalina in Best Actress—Whew!
  
• Vera Drake having such a good day. Plus, I've been saying all along that Imelda was going to win this, and all of a sudden, that doesn't sound quite as stupid.
  

More Good News

• Marc Forster justly ignored for Best Director
  
• The Polar Express stiffed for Animated Feature, even with three other nods (even if it means nominating the crappy-looking Shark Tale). Fie on you, Tom Hanks and Bob Zemeckis!
  
• John Williams deserves his compulsory Scoring nod much more than he usually does, esp. since it wasn't for The Terminal (fie on you, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg!)
  
• Nice job including the Collateral editors
  
• Also in the Score category, James Newton Howard deserves his mention for the otherwise dismal The Village...and I'm always happy when voters remember how to isolate distinguished elements from lame vehicles
  
• Luis Mandoki, perpetrator of Angel Eyes and When a Man Loves a Woman, denied a Foreign Film nomination for Mexico's Innocent Voices; even if the film is good, as it is rumored to be, this guy isn't done repenting in my book
  
• I didn't get suckered into thinking the Alfie songs were going to work out.
  
• I don't have to see The Notebook!
  

Worst Nomination, By Leaps and Bounds

• Best Cinematography for The Phantom of the Opera, which has the most plodding camera and the fakest, most emptily "aesthetic" setups in recent memory
  

More Reasons to Kvetch

• Alan Alda instead of David Carradine, who officially gave the best un-nominated Hollywood performance of the year
  
• The Song performances look to be tough going, and where on Earth is Wyclef??
  
• The inevitable Neverland nod in Best Picture
  
• The inevitable Sea Inside nod for Foreign Film
  
• Ray's mysterious entry in the Editing race
  
• History may continue to mis-remember Jamie Foxx as a supporting actor in Collateral
  
• Giamatti's missing perf wiped the floor with Depp's and DiCaprio's (as did those of fellow un-nominated contenders like Jeff Bridges, Gabriel García Bernal, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, and especially Sean Penn)
  
• The Day After Tomorrow deserved a Visual Effects slot
  
• Sophie Okonedo's perf is hardly Oscar-worthy, but I doubt anyone she bumped (Winslet in Neverland, Warren, Leachman, Streep, etc.) would have deserved the spot, either
  
• This is unfair to complain about, but the mini-surge for Vera Drake makes me wish it had been a major surge (Art Direction and Cinematography at least, if not some of those stellar supporting actors. Who actually were supporting actors, Mr. Foxx.)
  
• The nods for The Passion—even though I tolerated the picture more than many, I still think the Cinematography and Score mentions are bogus.
  

Films that Did Better than Anyone Expected

• Vera Drake
  
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
  

Films that Did Worse than Anyone Expected

• House of Flying Daggers
  
• Kinsey
  

Irritating Trend

• The Roger Avary Maneuver of pork-barreling story developers onto Screenplay nods, just so the non-essential members of the team can get a nod. Gondry deserved a nomination, but for directing. Kim Krazin deserved one, too, but in 1995, for Before Sunrise.
  

Most Appealingly Modest Post-Nomination Reaction

• Virginia Madsen's live phone call on Good Morning, America. When asked who had been the first to phone their congratulations, she said, "Antonio, the father of my son." That's world-renowned hottie Antonio Sabato Jr. to you and me, but no flaunting. And when asked, rather dumbly, if she'd yet contemplated what to wear to the Oscars, she answered, "I've been contemplating what to wear since about 1972." Good luck, VA!
  

Oscar Nom Predix

My full rationales for picks in Oscar's lead categories are available here, but here's where I've wound up—in advance of the nomination announcements which will take place this Tuesday, at 8:30am. Tune into any of the morning "news" shows like Today or Good Morning America to see Academy prez Frank Pierson and boho-ingenue du jour Adrien Brody read the lucky names.

PICTURE: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways

DIRECTOR: Eastwood/Million Dollar Baby, Gondry/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Payne/Sideways, Scorsese/The Aviator, Zhang/House of Flying Daggers

ACTRESS: Bening/Being Julia, Sandino Moreno/Maria Full of Grace, Staunton/Vera Drake, Swank/Million Dollar Baby, Winslet/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

ACTOR: Cheadle/Hotel Rwanda, Depp/Finding Neverland, DiCaprio/The Aviator, Foxx/Ray, Giamatti/Sideways

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Blanchett/The Aviator, Madsen/Sideways, Portman/Closer, Warren/Ray, Winslet/Finding Neverland

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carradine/Kill Bill, Vol. 2, Church/Sideways, Foxx/Collateral, Freeman/Million Dollar Baby, Owen/Closer

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Aviator, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Incredibles, Kinsey, Ray

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Closer, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, The Motorcycle Diaries, Sideways

CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Aviator, Collateral, House of Flying Daggers, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Passion of the Christ

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: Les Choristes/The Chorus (France), House of Flying Daggers (Hong Kong), The Sea Inside (Spain), A Touch of Spice (Greece), Whisky (Uruguay)

Globes '04 Fashion Parade

Okay, so obviously this blog is my new favorite toy. I won't usually be posting three times a day, I promise. I literally have a two-person audience right now anyway.

But also, there was no way I was going to leave my discussion of the Globes fashions in such a paltry state. Here, as I call them, were the Magnificent Seven of the evening: in alphabetical order, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Annette Bening, Cate Blanchett (even with the weird flower pinned to the front of her dress), Sandra Oh, Sophie Okonedo (check out that amazing hair), Uma Thurman, and Kate Winslet.


The Blanchett and Okonedo pics are © 2004 the HFPA and the 62nd Annual Golden Globes. The rest are © 2004 WireImage.com.

There were a few fashion disasters, but they were bad enough to look at once, why commemorate them? But let me just say to Diane Kruger, Why you wanna hurt me? What did any of us ever do to you? And Renée Zellweger, I'm sure the hair is for a role, but sweetheart: eat, re-dye, pick a new color and new shoes, and get in the Primer machine.

Sometimes people are all, what about the best-dressed men? And frankly, shame on most of those men last night, who apparently consulted with each other and went in together on a bulk crate of black suits, white shirts, and silver ties. Credit at least to Clive Owen for showing us that the Tux is still The Thing; to Marc Forster for being a bad director but doing great things for baldness; to Jamie Foxx for wearing a sassy suit in fun colors; and to Patrick Wilson, who basically underdressed, but Patrick Wilson can pull that off.


All images © 2004 WireImage.com.

Piece of Cake!

All righty then! This blog thing doesn't seem too tricky after all... Proof that 27-year-old dogs can still learn new tricks.

As I stated up top, the real action will all still go down at my website, where I've just finished a whole raft of year-end features, including profiles of my top ten movies of the year (though my understanding of the word "ten" is a little shaky), plus my finalized list of Oscar nomination predictions (tune in on Jan. 25 to learn who's happy!), and, best of all, the full list of the 2004 Nick's Flick Picks Honorees, which encompass not only the best movies of the year but the best performances, documentaries, foreign-language films, creative achievements, and everything else that fits in 20 categories. Plus some honorary citations for those exquisite little movie moments that don't fit anywhere else.

So that's the website. But the blog. The blog. Here is where I'll be dishing on events like the Golden Globes, which are as good a place to start as any. If you tuned in Sunday night, you know that Kate Winslet was the most gorgeous woman in the room, Annette Bening is a foxy fortysomething even if she seemed a little, shall we say, "stiff" at the podium, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind really is destined to be overlooked by Oscar, despite being the best American movie since at least The Thin Red Line. Have you got thoughts on the subject? On other subjects? Does the prospect of a Nick's Flick Picks blog bring you pleasure or fear? Be the first to click the "Comments" link, and let me know.

This blog will also be a great place for me to post brief comments on movies that I never quite get around to viewing in full, and for you to reply with your own thoughts and feelings. Every once in a while, I even experience a work of art that isn't a movie (!), and since my site isn't named Nick's Book Picks or Nick's Theater Picks, this will be a great place to write 'em up. And for those of you out there who are sick enough to be curious about what it's like to be a late-career graduate student, plugging away at a dissertation that just won't budge (hmmmmm... maybe because I watch so many movies?), you will hopefully tolerate a post or two about, you know, what I've been up to. Or about world events. Or charities and non-profit campaigns you should know about. Or local Ithaca happenings, for those of you up in the 14850. Karen Carpenter said it best, people. We've only just begun. A kiss for luck, and we're on our way!...

(Photo from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, © 2004 Focus Features)