Oscar Night. Featuring Appearances By...

We already know that Anne Hathaway and James Franco are hosting and the only thing we have to say about that going forward is that Hathaway better sing again! From here and out we'll hear names of presenters. Most of them will be globally famous because that's how they do. So far we've got:

• Halle Berry
• Oprah Winfrey
• Jeff Bridges & Sandra Bullock -- last year's lead winners. We wonder if this means they'll return to the classic way of presenting acting statues, with Bullock handing out Actor and Bridges handing out Actress? Mars & Venus don'cha know.
• Marisa Tomei -yay!

I'll update this list as more presenters are announced.

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

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

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

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

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

Viggo & Fassy on the set of A Dangerous Method

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

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

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

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

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

Odes to Emaciation: Christian Bale's Insane Actorly Commitment

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

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

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

FYC: Leonardo Island

One of the smartest FYC moves I've seen in terms of a screener making full use of its identity as an Oscar campaign is for Shutter Island. The disc didn't come with the typical eyebrow raising desperation of "please nominate us for every category that exists!", but narrowed its focus. The cover only suggests Picture, Director & Actor.

In fact, one might say that the packaging squints so hard to focus that it grows a the great crease of a worry line right before your eyes. All the better to remind you of its identical twin that Leonardo DiCaprio has grown between his eyes over the years. That worry line serves him so well in this anguished performance.

But, there's more. As you open it up -- remember this is a Shutter Island ad -- it becomes an orgy of Leos. Brilliant move, that. By charting his growth as an acclaimed child actor to massive adult star, all the way from that critically acclaimed leading debut This Boy's Life (1993) to 2010's Inception (sneakily swallowing up the vote splitting competition, in order to better serve Shutter Island) it basically uses the visual language of FYC: Career Tribute Nomination.

Given that Shutter Island came out very early in the year and that the Best Actor category still looks to be in flux, this could actually work. Unlikely sure but not out of the realm of possibility.

And hasn't 2010 actually been quite a year for him. Isn't he having a year comparable to Sandra Bullock's in 2009? The comparison doesn't spring up naturally, exactly. Leo's big year didn't feel like a breakthrough year since he had no career valley to bounce back from. Nor did he really have something to prove in terms of acting prowess. But consider the strange popularity correlations between Sandy's 2009 and Leo's 2010. For this exercize we have to forget all about All About Steve (2009)  but who would object to doing so?

1. Big Beloved Headliner Star
2. First movie of year  that's right in star's wheelhouse (romantic comedy The Proposal | Scorsese drama Shutter Island) opens and becomes big domestic hit in the 100+ range.
3. Riskier followup opens just five months later (Sandra's The Blind Side | Leo's Inception) and becomes a massive blockbuster in the $250+ range.

Isn't that... odd? Box office and timing between releases is pure coincidence you could say as devil's advocate. But how's this for an eery detail: If you compare Sandra's twin blockbuster 2009 grosses with Leo's 2010 double your difference of (domestic) bank is a miniscule $182,000. Isn't that crazy?

I'm not suggesting that Leo will suddenly become the golden boy who wins a surprise Oscar in February or that his marriage will fall apart in scandal directly afterwards (he's not even married!) so the comparison is strained. Furthermore, nobody expected Sandy to become an Oscar winner (until the happening was under way) and everyone has expected that about King Leo from day one. But beloved massive careers do have unifying elements no matter who the stars are; the industry and the public root for said star to succeed ...and to eventually win the most coveted movie prize of them all.

FWIW, Leo's best performances imho.

1. What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
2. The Aviator (2004)
3. The Departed (2006)
4. This Boy's Life (1993) 
5. Romeo + Juliet (1996)
6. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
7. Shutter Island (2010)
8. Titanic (1997)
9. Revolutionary Road (2008)
10. (Everything else blends together qualitatively for me, as something like charismatic coasting at regular best and callow confidence at irregular worst. So I eagerly await a full top ten. He's only 36. Decades of movie triumphs presumably await.)
    *

Annette Bening, Queen of Santa Barbara

My loyal subjects,

Since I know each and every last one of you will want to stand and wave to our procession as we receive the "American Riviera Prize" for our invaluable contributions to the cinema, we wanted to give you ample warning. [We're told you don't have private jets (?) and will need to plan ahead?] The blessed event will happen on January 28th. It's a fitting prize since the American Riviera has long been known as the work and playground of Movie Royalty like ourselves.

Last year the Festival gave this honor to a woman who once worked for the mass transit system! Incredible but true: buses and trains. Now, I was both Queen of England and the American First Lady at the time, essentially ruling over the entire globe, but no matter; it's unkind to compare !

She makes us laugh, bless her!

The year before the delightful Ms. Bullock's win, the Santa Barbara Festival gave this prize to ... well, we'd rather not discuss that. It did not end well for that man at the final ball.

Signed,

Her Majesty Annette.

*

Streep Nom #15 & #16: Sister Aloysius Beauvier & Julia Child

In an off blog e-mail correspondence earlier this week, one of my fellow movie bloggers said to me "The best thing about this year's Best Actress race is that Streep isn't in it." That's funny. It's true that her ubiquity can be exhausting. It must especially feel like a relief for other Tinseltown goddesses in those rare years when she isn't in play. More room for them. But since Streep at 60, a web series we started over a year ago, needs to wrap up, let's discuss her final (to date) nominations.

"Streep @ 60" Previous Nominations Discussed
78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 95, 98, 99, 02 and 06

In the past two years Streep put yet more distance between herself and her nearest competitors. Her two closest Oscar rivals, Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, are long gone from planet earth. Streep's similarly aged / Oscar friendly peers (Lange, Close, Weaver, Sarandon, Spacek & Field) have faded from the movie spotlight, comparatively speaking, robbing them of Meryl's abundant Oscar-tallying opportunities.

We suspect Streep's "most nominated" record will stand forever unless, and it's a longshot, Kate Winslet's career (she's only 35) has similar curves, reinventions and renewals: When Streep was 35 (circa Falling in Love) she had collected 5 nominations and 2 wins; Winslet has collected 6 Oscar nominations and 1 win.

2008.

• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married *Nathaniel's vote*
  
• Angelina Jolie, Changeling
• Melissa Leo, Frozen River *Nathaniel's second choice*
• Meryl Streep, Doubt
• Kate Winslet, The Reader
  

Other women for context
Probably Came Close: Sally Hawkins (Happy Go Lucky) and Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long); Traction Trouble: Emma Thompson (Last Chance Harvey) and Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)... I suspect they just needed a break with the latter since they loved the film; Low Impact: Nicole Kidman (Australia -just discussed), Keira Knightley (The Duchess); Box Office Queens: Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), Kristen Stewart (Twilight), Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex & the City) and Reese Witherspoon (Four Christmases)

2009.

• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren, The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan, An Education *Nathaniel's second choice*
• Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire *Nathaniel's vote*
  
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
  

Other women for context
Probably Came Close: Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria) and Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones); Traction Troubles: Abbie Cornish (Bright Star) and Tilda Swinton (Julia); Low Impact: Julia Roberts (Duplicity), Hilary Swank (Amelia); Box Office Queens: Sandra Bullock (The Proposal) and Meryl Streep (It's Complicated) a rare case of the main Oscar rivals also being big bank in separate films within the same year.

So...

IMPORTANT NOTE: These last two years of the Best Actress category have been very polarizing battles with the winners beloved & loathed in seemingly equal measure. Let's NOT discuss those divisive wins again but the fields in general. Stay Positive. It'll allow new discussions to unfold.

Answer me these questions, four

1. Which performance has grown on you?
2. Who do you think landed in the dread six-spot in both years?
3. Concerning the newbies (Mulligan, Sidibe, Hathaway, Leo, Bullock)... which do you think will return to the race and how soon/often? [Keep in mind that most don't. Approximately 67% of acting nominees are never recognized with a second nomination.]
   and...
4. Meryl Streep's Julia Child offers to cook you dinner. But only if you eat it at the table with Sister Aloysius icily judging you with every bite, chew and shallow. Do you accept the offer?