The House Next Door

I love the Oscars and always enjoy Oscar season but I never get people who get wrapped up in them emotionally. People actually get angry when something they don't like wins or something they love loses or doesn't get nominated. It's kind of like getting mad at the rain, I just don't get it.

But I always love a good horserace, although this year looks to be pretty predictable.

And it is always fun to see my favorite comedians crash and burn. That gig eats good comics.

Good call on the Gyllenhaal! He's just as much a lead in BROKEBACK as Heath. Not only that, but you're right -- he is the weakest link of the film's major players.

Speaking of category blunders, shouldn't Rachel Weisz really be in contention for the LEAD ACTRESS category? Last time I checked, her character is the driving force behind the film's narrative -- moreso than Ralph Fiennes. But, whatever. It's a semantics argument we can't win.

I was elated to no end to hear that "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" was given a BEST ORIGINAL SONG nod. I can't wait to see that one on the telecast!

Matt, you're right to not want to give the Oscars too much weight. Like you said, they're a box office tool. They tend to pick the movie-of-the-moment to hand out awards to. Was AMERICAN BEAUTY the best film of 1999?! Longevity is never considered when they vote for the Oscars. Otherwise, THE NEW WORLD would be in contention.

And we probably shouldn't even get started on the fact that in any given year, some of the best films I see are produced in other countries, and they can barely even get seen here, much less nominated for awards, That's also an act of self-defense. If the academy didn't ghettoize foreign language films, domestic releases would feel threatened. (My NYPress Top 10 list this year was mostly foreign, except for Malick and the two Spielbergs.)

PS -- Too bad the Oscar telecast producers are no longer wedded to the idea of having a "mainstream" performer do the nominated songs, regardless of genre. I dream of seeing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" performed by Tony Bennett. Or Celine Dion.

I think William Hurt's performance in A History of Violence was embarrassing -- very actor-y and unconvincing. Hurt is a great actor, but what were they thinking casting this eccentric yuppie as an Irish mobster? I guess they were thinking it was Oscar worthy!

I panned A History of Violence over at Slant Magazine, but was blindsided by Maria Bello's mercurial performance. I'd choose her over most of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress or Best Actress -- and she redeeemed some pretty rediculous material!

But the worst thing about this year's Oscars are how indifferent I feel about most of the nominees.

Or perhaps I'm just feeling bitchy that The New World didn't get any big nominations. I know, Matt, I know. As Jon Polito said in Miller's Crossing, "When you're right, you're right. But you never say I told you so!"

Besides the Super Bowl, the Oscars are my favorite event of the year. I fell into a love of football at the same time I fell for movies, so the two have always gone hand in hand as the two most anticipated TV nights of the year for me. I have had plenty of disappointed Oscar nights; I've never had a bad Super Bowl.

There's always something that infuriates me about nominations or wins, and it's rare that the best picture of the year matches my #1 movie of the year. Yet I enjoy the spectacle of it, the history of it, and, as Jen mentioned, seeing great comics incinerate on stage.

Even though I am this blog's resident The New World atheist, I was very happy to see it get its cin-tog nomination. It got the nomination it deserved. I think if Malick's film had been released earlier, it might have had a better shot at other nominations. New Line did not capitalize on its Oscar potential, much like Paramount didn't on A Simple Plan. I don't think New Line even mentions Malick's name in the commercials I've seen. Now, I am sure that these comments will be met by "the Academy voters aren't refined enough to see Malick's genius blah blah blah," so let me roll my eyes at you now, and give you the "gimme a fuckin' break" look that I learned from the master of such looks, my mother.

I agree with some of MZS's happiest nods. Amy Adams saves Junebug, a movie whose characters gave me hives because they reminded me of my 14 months in the Hamilton, Ohio area. I was happy for Terrence Howard, whose performances I have loved since I first saw him, and who once played a character who reminds all my friends of me (not in Hustle and Flow, but The Best Man, still my favorite movie of his). Munich for Best Picture was also a great surprise. I thought Keira was a fantastic costume drama actress, and it's nice to see her in a category not known for its love of "the ingenue."

Adding to the list for me, I'm happy to see the Enron doc up, but they should have had a place for Grizzly Man too. I love all five of the cin-tog nominations. Cinematography is my favorite aspect of the movies, which is an odd choice for someone who's been half-blind for 21 years, and despite their disses of Gordo Willis and a few other greats, the Cin-tog branch usally recognizes movies otherwise ignored by Oscar.

I know MZS will disagree with me, but I loved that Memoirs of a Geisha score. The movie is another story, but it sure was purdy to look at, and the score kept drowning out the miserable attempts at English. Gong Li gave me the movie line I keep phonetically repeating in polite company: "I...SHALL...DES-TWOY YOU!" If I ever get a blog--and it will NEVER happen--I want to call it that.

Matt: If you think Paul Giamatti's going to win the Oscar, please make bets with me on the Oscar predictions! I'll put dinner at your favorite Brooklyn restaurant on the line, my treat. I...SHALL...DES-TWOY YOU! :)

As usual, the Academy made some boneheaded choices. How could they leave off Joan Allen's career best performance in The Upside of Anger? And how could they nominate Match Point for Best ORIGINAL screenplay? Woody always gets a pass. I'm telling you, if Match Point had been written by Willie O. Henderson rather than Woody Allen, it wouldn't have been nominated. Of course, had I written Match Point, it would also have been good.

I agree with the esteemed Mr. Kipp about William Hurt's performance. I wanted to use his own dialogue against him: "HOW COULD YOU FUCK THIS UP?" How could they nominate him and not Bello, who has some electrifying moments in the film.

Michele Williams is fine, but her "Hi, I'm Beatrice Straight in Network" role is the least interesting performance in the movie. Like Tess Harper, Judi Dench and Beatrice Straight before her, the Academy defines "supporting actress" as "chick with 5 minutes of screen time."

Capote only deserves one of its nominations--Philip Seymour Hoffman. The direction is first-timer clunky, and Dan Futterman's screenplay played like an unfocused "American Splendor Meets In Cold Blood," though I agree about its exposing of journalistic truths. I would like to have seen its cin-tog nominated instead of either of these choices.

I wish the Academy had balls and nominated Catherine Keener for the movie they meant--the 40-Year Old Virgin. She didn't do anything in Capote but tsk-tsk Truman and look at the camera with The concerned, motherly look which, coincidentally, was also perfected by my mother. Keener's nod is like Dennis Hopper's: The Academy said Hoosiers; they meant Blue Velvet. Then again, I guess it's harder for Hopper to play a normal person convincingly, so perhaps Oscar was right that time.

The Brokeback lovefest is no surprise, though I wonder if it can sustain itself. It's not a 100% lock for Best Picture. It is 100% for Ang Lee.

Matt sez: And in the end, that's what the Oscars are about: not establishing a durable pantheon of notable artistic achievements, but letting the world know who's hot and who's not, and correspondingly, who'll get offers of interesting work during the next five years.

I say Amen to that. If the nominations get more work for Hoffman, Huffman, Howard, Adams, and Giamatti, then I can continue to justify my love of all things Oscar.

By the way, the first Bona and Wiley Inside Oscar book is an excellent history of the Oscars. The sequel is a bitchy bore.

OK, Odie--You're on. I go with Giamatti, who's your favorite? Loser buys dinner.

I don't entirely agree with you about the two Oscar books. The first one's definitely a more thorough and straightforward reference book. But if I'm grabbing a tome at random en route to the WC, I'll go with the sequel. I like the fact that it's a critical history with a strong point of view. It's also lighter.

War Of the Worlds was far superior to Munich. Only Munich fits the mold of "prestige."

I'm going with Clooney. They'll want to give him something, and here is his best shot to get it.

But let's sweeten the deal here. Every year, I do an Oscar bet with my pal Danny. Since he's in Memphis, we can't do dinner. We do a $30 bet, and he's won the past two years. I once wrote "I hope ya choke!" on my payment check. He cashed it anyway.

We do the entire show. We predict every category. So, we can have a bet just on Supporting Actor if you want, but I think dinner, especially with your expensive tastes :), warrants we bet the whole shebang!

As for Inside Oscar, I tend to go for the first one in the john. It's heavier, yes, but you're talking to a guy who used to bring his typewriter into the WC. I agree with Larry McMurtry: Typewriters rule!

Charlize Theron got nominated not because it was a weak year for women but because it was a weak year for women in movies that the Academy could be bothered to see. So if you starred in 2046, Down to the Bone, or The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, well, too bad.

While I'm thrilled that Giamatti has finally gotten a nomination, I hate what it says that they acknowledged him for this movie after shining him on for American Splendor and Sideways: "You fat ugly fuck, you don't get to be a star. We'll nominate you as a supporting actor so long as you stand next to Russell Crowe. He is a star."

Let the record show that I think Paul Giamatti is all kinds of delicious.

Matt Zoller Seitz said...
Odie: Hell, OK. The wife and I occasionally run an Oscar pool anyway, as do my coworkers at the Star-Ledger, so I'll have a ballot finished maybe a week away from the telecast. It's a deal; we compare ballots, add up the number of categories called correctly, and the winner buys dinner.

I have to say, though, the image of you sitting on the john writing on a typewriter is more distinctive than most of the images in this year's crop of Best Picture nominees. I would like to see it illustrated by Harvey Pekar.

Alonso: Right on about the lead female roles. It echoes my gripe about the supposed paucity of substantive Best Picture candidates. Judging motion pictures based solely on Hollywood major and mini-major output is like judging the state of contemporary theater solely on the basis of what's currently showing in the approximately ten square block area that's designated as "Broadway." It's like building a house in the desert and complaining about how dry it is.

I noted it over at my site, but this is the first time since 1981 that the pic and director nominees matched and the first time since 1964 that all 5 pic nominees got directing and writing nominations.

Alonso, Russell Crowe is going to call you--and by that, I mean hit you with the telephone!

Paul Giamatti should have three Oscar nominations by now, but let's not dis him because he's up for Supporting Actor. I don't see it as a lesser role. In fact, there have been years where a supporting nominee was more compelling than the lead nominee in the same movie (see The English Patient).

Giamatti essays a perfect supporting role. He's great in this movie. I think Russell's great too (he nails that Hudson County, NJ accent--I should know; I have one!). I would not have balked if Crowe had gotten one, but everybody knows you get out of the way when you see a pimp coming.

I am secretly rooting for Giamatti, but I can't pick him in my predictions.

Matt: Harvey can draw that, but only If I can write the text in the bubble.

You know, when I write my autobiography, nobody is going to believe any of the stuff that is actually true, such as the typewriter detail. (It was manual too.) Oprah will probably punch me in the face, even if everything I write will be true. And I'll name names too!

Odie: I'm not slagging Giamatti's perf in Cinderella Man in the slightest. I'm just still venting my grievances for two years' worth of short-shrifting.

As for Crowe: I'm not afraid of that loud talker.

Giamatti is a 21st century Richard Dreyfuss, minus the brief window of cultural receptiveness that let Dreyfuss snag lead roles in significant Hollywood movies. He needs a "Goodbye Girl."

Check out Edward Copeland's post today. It offers a statistical snapshot of particular trends and oddities that you may not read anywhere else.

It's at Edward Copeland on Film. You can also reach it through the "Criticism and Commentary" links on the main page.

Jen: In 1977, I knew someone who was so incensed that Annie Hall won Best Picture over Star Wars that he refused to see the Woody Allen movie and vowed never to attend another of his films. I don't know if he kept his word or not, but
my best friend and I edited a tape of Jack Nicholson saying, "And the winner is Annie Hall! And the winner is Annie Ha-- The winner-- Annie Hall--Hall--Hall--" ad infinitum, and slipped it under his door the next morning. Let's just say that he was mad at the rain for a very long time after that...

Alonso: I felt sure that somehow the Academy (otherwise known as "they") would see through the North Country folderol, what with that very somber close-up of a coal-smudged Theron in the print ads ("Yes, I'm beautiful, but I'm also quite serious") and the movie's mixed-to-bad reviews and tepid box office banging them repeatedly over the head. But I think you're absolutely right-- though it was, as usual, not a particularly great year for women's roles, they were out there. You just had to look for them. And honestly, Theron's occupying the slot I really felt should have gone to Naomi Watts.

Matt: Paul Giamatti may need a Goodbye Girl, but I'm pretty sure I don't! But I know what you mean-- it would be nice if such a role came along that didn't require him to give up too much of what makes him interesting to begin with. But then, Giamatti strikes me as the kind of actor who, if given the opportunity to take on such a potential breakout role, would probably be able to sniff out the phony elements and perhaps reject it altogether if it didn't measure up.

And has anyone been talking about Tommy Lee Jones? Sony pushed him pretty hard in the campaign, did they not? I would think that a Cannes Best Actor winner would at least have a decent shot. But obviously Three Burials was too difficult to find and see for most Academy voters, and probably didn't appeal to them much anyway.

In general, I'm kind of ho-hum on this year's Oscars, given the slate of nominees, though I'm sure I'll get caught up in it like I always do. And on Oscar night, I'll surely shed a tear and be thinking, as Rachel Weisz steps up to the podium to accept her gold, "Ms. Bello, it should have been you."

One thing I find interesting is that the two male frontrunners (because I think Giamatti is going to prevail) will both be journeyman character actor types. I think part of the reason Giamatti got snubbed two years running is that the Academy doesn't like to put the "unconventional" in lead. Hoffman sneaked in this year because it was viewed more as a great piece of mimicry ala Jamie Foxx in Ray, though I think that sells Hoffman's performance short.

P.S. I've added another post of minutiae to my site. I just can't help myself.

I'm thrilled to see that Howl's Moving Castle is an animated film nominee and Chicken Little isn't. Other than that I'm rather emotionless in regard to the nominations. I'd be more disappointed in the bare minimum nominations for a History of Violence and the New World if I hadn't steeled myself to expect even less for those two films.

Jeremiah: I concur with your disappointment over Maria Bello's lack of a nomination. She kept an artifical movie emotionally real; everybody else was in BLUE VELVET MEETS RAMBO, and she was in, well, an old school Cronenberg movie.

Dennis: I didn't mean to suggest THE GOODBYE GIRL is a great movie. Even though I have great affection for it, mainly as a relic of my 70s childhood, I admit it's dated pretty badly. But there's one closeup that stands the test of time: Dreyfuss' stricken face in the dressing room after his disastrous performance as Richard III. He looks like somebody just smashed his heart with a mallet. I can barely look at the poor bastard. Of all the leading man character types floating around movies today, Giamatti is the only one I can think of off the top of my head who could equal Dreyfuss' power and vulnerability in that closeup.

PS -- I've said nice things about THREE BURIALS on this blog before, but I watched the movie again before writing my NYPress review that's running tomorrow, and I followed it up by skimming the Sam Peckinpah western collection and watching THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE all the way through again for the first time in about three years. There is no substitute for real Peckinpah. THREE BURIALS is a good movie, but see it back to back with CABLE HOGUE, and it feels like an OK cover of a song that haunts your life.

Matt: Your recollection of that Richard III moment from Dreyfuss is right on the money. And I admit I had a major thing for Marsha Mason when that movie was in theaters, so I can't get too highfalutin' here and pretend that the movie didn't mean somthing to me too. But, yes, it do date badly, particularly that patented Neil Simon dialogue.

I just picked up the Peckinpah box too and thought it might be interesting to run one or two of those before seeing the Tommy Lee Jones movie. It's been a lot longer than three years since I've seen Cable Hogue though, and that's the one I've been particularly thirsty for (sorry...) But on evidence of the preview (and I may be completely wrong on this), the Peckinpah movie Three Burials seemed most connected to (at least on the superficial terms of a two-minute trailer) was Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Just want to tell you also how much I'm enjoying reading and linking to this blog. You're doing great work here, and as I wrote a couple days ago, your enthusiasm for The New World is incredibly infectious-- I'm very excited to see it now, mainly because I remember that kind of euphoria from seeing great films on a much more regular basis. It seems like it's so much more rare than when you and I were younger and, as you pointed out, this kind of risk-taking was the order of the day in Hollywood for a short period in time some 30-35 years ago-- people often responded gladly and strongly to the artistic, emotional and free-associative demands that films might make on them. I miss that, and even if I don't end up appreciating it as much as you do, I can't imagine it won't feel nice to at least be in the presence of a movie that's reaching for something.

Thanks so much for the shout-out, Dennis, and while I'm at it, thanks to everyone visiting The House Next Door. It's great to be in the company of people who are willing talk about this stuff endlessly, with respect and good humor, in minute detail and without a trace of self consciousness. Every minute is like 3 AM in a diner with you people. I like it.

Now if I can just convince Sean Burns that he's wrong about A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, and get him and Odie to quit tag-teaming my boy Woody, who's got a great movie in him (although MATCH POINT admittedly isn't quite it).

PS, Mr. Copeland: If you think William Hurt has a chance of taking this over Giamatti, think again. Giamatti is liked, Hurt is still considered a weird, intense, mercurial personality, i.e. difficult. If this really is a popularity contest, and if a leopard really cannot change his spots, Giamatti's a lock.

PPS -- Dennis, trust me on this, brother. Put at least a week between your viewing of THREE BURIALS and any contact with the Peckinpah westerns. That is, if you want to enjoy THREE BURIALS. And you're right, ALFREDO GARCIA is the definite conenection on a plot level. But I popped in CABLE HOGUE because it's the least stereotypically Peckinpah-ish of his westerns, and I wanted to cull comparison points that demonstrated Peckinpah's inventiveness compared to Jones'. A loaded strategy, maybe, but it works for me.

PPS -- Did I read that right? You edited a TAPE of Nicholson circa 1977 and slipped it under a friend's door? You were an electronic pioneer, man, and enterprising to boot. I remember home video equipment circa the Carter administration. The tape stock was made from compressed road tar, the cassettes were as big as Buicks, and if I recall correctly, the tape deck's power source was a prehistoric bird locked in a little compartment and jogging endlessly on a wheel while croaking, "I hate this job!"

I think you and the majority of the non-major-media sorces are kinda unfair to "Good Night, and Good Luck", and maybe partly because it's gotten as much support as it has (for a semi-indie). If you can look beyond it's obvious agenda what you have is some really great direction, wonderful cinematography, characters to care about, a story worth telling, and a quiet, reseverved, respectful, artful way of telling it. The movie as a whole felt a lot like any one of those standards Dianne Reeves was singing throughout: warm, a bit sentimental (which never hurt anybody) without pulling punches, but not in-your-face about anything it has to say.

I pine for more films like Good Night, and Good Luck. What are your gripes with it?

Actually, I liked that movie a lot when I first saw it, but then I saw CAPOTE, which I liked just as well. And then the real mindfuckers started rolling in -- MUNICH, THE NEW WORLD, even not-quite-there movies like MATCH POINT and movies like A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and KING KONG, both of which I actively disliked.

And then I prepared for my year end Top 10 list by revisiting some amazing stuff (2046, TONY TAKITANI, THE WEEPING MEADOW, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) and suddenly GOOD NIGHT didn't seem that terrific anymore. It felt like the best period drama HBO never made, which is to say, ennobling and stylish but a bit too closed off and schematic. And I think in the end it leaned a bit too much on recieved wisdom. Yes, I know, McCarthy was a menace, but the movie seemed to be conceived through the prism of present day consensus about that era, which removed some of the excitement for me, and made it feel like a neatly mapped journey to an expected endpoint.

No doubt, it's a good movie, a watchable movie, a well acted and well written and well directed movie. And the thoughtful black-and-white photography and Diane Reeves musical numbers give it a personality that elevates it beyond movie-of-the-week status.

Ultimately I have no specific list of problems or omissions in regards to GOOD NIGHT. It was fine for what it was. I just tend to gravitate towards more dramatic, ambitious, big, even messy and imperfect movies these days, a purely personal taste I can't rationally explain.

Plus I like movies that are open-ended or that disintegrate or reverse or do something else as they go along, movies that surprise you with form rather than simply engaging you with their content. By that yardstick, GOOD NIGHT came up short.

Here's NY Times' "The Carpetbagger" on the noms. Stylishly written, and lots to talk about here.

Matt: I should have specified... audio tape. Back then, I was still a few years away from dealing with video tape, and would definitely have been intimidated by its ungainliness, not to mention the fact that I would have had to steal a camera from the third floor of the television department building on campus in order to do it. And it really would have been hell on those dorm room entryways to try to wedge one of those cinder block-sized cassettes in the couple of inches between floor and door. But with audio tape, all you needed was a really good, pressure-sensitive "pause" button-- not like these electro-magical devices that you find on most machines these days, that always put in a brief delay between where you want the tape to stop and where it always does-- and you could make audio splices and segues worthy of a recording studio. And those little audiocassettes slid under doorways just fine. Believe me, this guy already burned at the sight and/or sound of Jack Nicholson, so all he really needed was to hear, over and over and over again, Hollywood's bad boy announcing the Woody Allen film as victorious in order to be driven to a state of delicious distraction.

I'll take your advice on Tommy Lee Jones too. It'll be fairly easy, since my daughters are still young enough that getting out to see as many films in theaters as I really want to is still quite an undertaking.

As for Hurt vs. Giamatti, I like Giamatti's chances, and your point about Hurt not being the right candidate to run roughshod over a popularity contest like this one (this ain't 1985--- Hurt has alienated a lot of folks since his first and only win) is a good one. But I wonder if Matt Dillon might ride a wave of support amongst industry types who really went for Crash and may be looking to find a way to honor it without sacrificing any opportunities to vote for Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck.

Dennis: Good point about Dillon being a dark horse. He's like a Jeff Bridges sort of actor, rarely altering his appearance too much, but nearly always settling into exactly the groove the film requires. He's the actor Mickey Rourke might have become had Rourke not lost his motherfuckin' mind.

Another link worth reading and discussing, not new but potent: Ebert on "39 Pounds of Love," which I saw but didn't review because frankly, i was getting tired of having to face the conundrum of panning an earnest documentary about a noble subject. (At the Star-Ledger, I panned the HBO documentary "Paper Clips," about schoolkids collecting paperclips to commemorate Holocaust victims, and got letters basically asking if i was pro-Nazi.) Ebert hits this one out of the park, and it's a piece only he has enough weight (no pun intended) to write without bringing down total PC obliteration.

Like I said in another post, Ebert is indeed the king of schlocky personal branding, he gives four star reviews to some real bafflers, the assembly line of books is a bit much, and his TV partner Roeper is a weak sister, Colmes to his Hannity. But anybody who thinks the man isn't still capable of vital, significant writiing isn't reading him.

hmm. I can see how you might make the HBO drama connection, but I don't know, I was significantly less affected by the content of Good Night, and Good Luck, than with the way in which the story was told. I was transfixed by the direction and cinematography and quiet nobility of the characters. I often don't really care much about plot or story in certain films. It's certainly nice when a director gives you equally credible sides of an argument to consider, and admittedly Clooney was a bit nostalgic and lined in one camp in this film, but it just didn't matter for me.

I guess maybe i have a thing for well filmed B&W films. There's a dignity, a quiet mysterious, smokey quality you get that i miss. I felt the film did a terrific job of giving off exactly those qualities. that and the acting was fantastic.

p.s. to me the message of the film didn't merely act as a reminder of the greatness of Murrow or the evil of McCarthy, but as a testament to how important dissent can be. I think that's a much more timeless, and certainly currently especially potent message than most people seem to give the film credit for.

Heh -- you'll never get me on the Cronenberg, Matt.

It's okay, we don't always have to agree... after all, my college buddies are still steamed about the way you trashed HEAT in the NY PRESS - a treasured moviegoing evening of mine that rivals your BAM NEW WORLD experience. (Sigh, it was opening night at the Loews Village VII, and we all spent the rest of the night closing the bar next door, acting out our favorite scenes over pitchers of cheap beer.)

Maybe it's all in the timing, as when we were chatting before the COLLATERAL screening Ty Burr sized me up and said: "Oh shit... you're just the right age to be one of those late-twenties, early-thirties guys who think HEAT is the greatest fuckin' movie ever made."

...So it was a fairly inoffensive list of Oscar nods this year, methinks... Shocked and thrilled about the MUNICH surprise. Earlier tonight a pal and I were joking about how weird it sounds to say: "thank gawd the Academy had the balls to honor such a gutsy, discomforting movie... yeah, the one directed by Steven Spielberg."

Okay, so the female categories are a bit obnoxious. (Maria Bello and Joan Allen wherefore art thou? And I assumed everybody laughed as hard at NORTH COUNTRY as I did? I could also probably fill out a whole ballot with the women of 2046, - but then again this is the Oscars we're talking about.)

HUSTLE & FLOW was a revolting movie, but Terrence Howard sure was goddamn good in it. (He kept me from walking out of both this and that awful Jim Sheridan/50 Cent thing.) This was the best performance out of the 25 he gave last year, so kudos.

Still baffled by all the CAPOTE love, though. Hoffman's stunt is impressive, but I got sick of the way everyone kept talking explicitly about all the movie's themes instead of actually, like, dramatizing them or something crazy like that. (It's not subtext if you say it out loud.) Also, nominating Keener is ludicrous, as she was stuck in the Rene Russo role from the LETHAL WEAPON movies. ("Hey, behave yourself...") This was the one that felt like a cable movie to me...

(how's that for a segue?)

... as for that other "cable movie" you mentioned, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK - there's a lot here I dug, without ever becoming particularly emotionally invested.

But that "closed-off" quality you talk about I think ultimately works in the movie's favor. It's no great dramatic experience, and certainly not one of the five best movies of the year, but Clooney's no-bullshit, just-the-facts-ma'am approach has sat well with me over the months.

I personally prefer CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, but I think we can agree that --like our mutual favorite pariah Mel Gibson-- Clooney is the rare actor-director who puts a distinctive visual stamp on the material, instead of just shooting pretty pictures of his fellow actors emoting.

The brevity of the film is also commendable and something that should be emulated. I remember when my Dad was going to see GN,GL and he asked if it was two-and-a-half-hours or the full three.

His jaw damn near hit the floor when I told him it was 90 minutes.

So yeah, good for George. Also, good for him because he and Colin Farrell are the only two modern movie stars that seem like they'd be any fun at all to hang out with. And isn't that really what's most important when it comes to these silly awards?

Sean sez: "Clooney is the rare actor-director who puts a distinctive visual stamp on the material, instead of just shooting pretty pictures of his fellow actors emoting." Very true. When THE PASSION came out, I wrote something to the effect that Gibson was the most visually talented movie star to step behind the camera since Charles Laughton made NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. Clooney is probably third behind Kevin Costner who, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, might be one of the better filmmakers at the studio level were it not for his unfortunate tendency to coddle Kevin Costner the movie star. (OPEN RANGE notwithstanding.)

I never said I thought Hurt had a chance -- just was glad he made the cut. I think it's Giamatti's or Clooney with Dillon a long shot surprise.

Also, though everyone seems to be operating under the theory that they can't let Clooney go 0 for 4 in one year, remember they did just that to Warren Beatty in 1978, when he lost all 4 nominations he had for Heaven Can Wait -- and I get the feeling the Hollywood community has a lot more affection for Beatty than it does for Clooney.

I feel strange stirrings in the force. Perhaps voters will react as I did upon hearing of Dillon's nomination: "Hey, I forgot how much I like Matt Dillon, and how much I've always liked Matt Dillon. Thank you for reminding me, academy!"

Regarding Beatty vs. Clooney: Yeah, I see what you're saying. For a number of years, Beatty was like the de facto president or pope of Hollywood artist-types, an icon and exemplar of a particular type of mainstream iconoclast. Clooney, with his chin-out, take-a--swing-at-me liberalism, is more like the smart, righteous jock who stuck up for the geeks in high school. You're glad he's on your side even though you still find him slightly scary.

I'm scratching my head over Revenge of the Sith not getting nominated for sound or visual effects.

How about Tim Burton's first Oscar nomination. That's something to talk about.

I liked SITH and its effects -- no more or less "realistic" than the effects in THE WIZARD OF OZ, more about design and feeling than anything else -- but the academy apparently did not. Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere indicates why in the following:

"A big hand to the Academy for giving George Lucas what-for by not nominating Revenge of the Sith for a special-effects award. It took them a while to stand up and grow a pair, but they finally delivered a referendum on the soullessness of the Star Wars prequels."

I disagree with the idea that the prequels are soulless; they're actually a lot more openly emotional, even Douglas-Sirk-with-greenscreens melodramatic, than the originals. But I realize this is a minority opinion.

If you all haven't seen it yet, there is a ridiculous Nikki Finke piece about the Oscars and Brokeback Mountain that I've linked to and dissected on my movie site.