Saturday Night Live‘s 38th season comes to an end tomorrow night, and with the close of another year comes the departure of a cast member who, for my money, has long been the show’s MVP: Bill Hader.
Hader has been on SNL for eight years, joining at the start of the 2005-2006 season at the same time as Andy Samberg. (Jesus, was that really eight years ago?) He quickly proved to be one of the show’s most versatile and reliable cast members, excelling at original characters and impressions, though just as capable of playing the straight man. Well…straight-ish, anyway. Last year, he became only the 18th cast member in the show’s history to earn an Emmy nomination for his individual performance. But one thing that also struck me about Hader during his time on the show was how quickly the outside comedy community caught onto his talent and started to utilize him. I haven’t researched this, but my sense is that most SNL cast members who break out beyond the show tend to do so after serving for a few years. But Hader was snatched up fairly soon after hitting the stage of Studio 8H, winning roles in some of the best comedy films of the latter aughts, including Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder and Superbad. Greg Mottola, who directed the latter, also used him in Adventureland and Paul, while the actor’s association with Judd Apatow continued beyond Knocked Up with roles in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express.
As it turns out, Hader may not be the only performer leaving SNL after tomorrow’s finale. Rumors abound that Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis will also bid farewell, and with Seth Meyers leaving halfway through next season to replace Jimmy Fallon as host of Late Night, the show is about to experience a major makeover. Of course, this has always been the nature of Saturday Night Live. Cast members arrive, grow successful, move on, new players arrive, lather, rinse, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat. From Chevy Chase to Kristen Wiig, this has been the way of SNL, and so it shall continue to be. But it’s still sad to bid adieu to the greats, and Hader is one of the greats; a terrific character comedian in the tradition of Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey. (I’ll miss Sudeikis a lot too, but I’ve always been indifferent about Armisen. If Sudeikis follows Hader out the door, the two best things about Kenan Thompson’s “What Up With That” sketch will be gone: the former’s enthusiastic, red tracksuit-clad backup dancer, and the latter’s repeatedly snubbed guest, Lindsey Buckingham.)
So what’s next for Hader? Sleep, and moving back to Los Angeles, he says. Careerwise, I don’t see him graduating to many lead performances in comedy movies. He seems more suited to supporting parts in that medium, while TV is the likely place for him to find a central role. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he flexes his muscles a bit and takes on some characters and material with more serious overtones; I suspect that he has the talent for them. In the meantime, he’ll be seen in an upcoming project called The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy as a couple whose relationship is seen across two separate films: one from her perspective, and one from his. Hader also reunited with director Mottola for an HBO movie called Clear History, co-written by and starring Larry David. And I’m sure he’ll pop up on SNL again, for a surprise cameo or a hosting gig. Until then, here are a few of my favorite Bill Hader moments from his tenure at SNL.
Most notably, Hader’s departure leaves the show without its best recurring character of recent years, Weekend Update’s delicate, trendspotting City Correspondent, Stefon. One of my favorite things about Hader has been that, like Jimmy Fallon before him, he often has trouble getting through a skit without laughing…which only makes it funnier. Never is this more true than in his appearances as Stefon, probably because a) his material is always so bizarre, and b) writer John Mulaney apparently likes to switch up the dialogue between the dress rehearsal and the live show, so that Hader is often seeing Stefon’s lines for the first time when he performs them on air. Under those circumstances, it’s a miracle he holds it together as well as he does. (Incidentally, Stefon’s first appearance on the show was not as part of Weekend Update, but in a 2008 sketch featuring Hader and host Ben Affleck as brothers pitching a movie idea. If Hader reprises Stefon tomorrow night when Affleck hosts, it will mark a nice bit of symmetry.)
Hader’s performance as a beleaguered Vincent Price hosting a Halloween special would be enough to lodge this sketch in my memory, but it gets additional points for Jon Hamm’s turn as James Mason.
Although not as much of a breakout character, I’d put Hader’s Italian talk show host Vinny Vedecci up alongside Stefon as one of his best and funniest creations. I was recently lamenting that Vinny hasn’t turned up in a long time, and have been hoping for a return appearance. We’ll see if he shows up tomorrow night to add Affleck to a list of guests that has included John Malkovich, Shia LaBeouf and Drew Barrymore.
Hader’s impressions over the years range from James Carville to Julian Assange, but one of his best — and most unexpected — is Alan Alda. The veteran M*A*S*H star does have a distinct voice, yet it’s not one that is often imitated…not this successfully, at least. Hader’s take is truly uncanny, as demonstrated in this sampling of Back to the Future auditions. Close your eyes and you’d never know it’s not Alda himself.
Another of Hader’s great characters is TV news reporter Herb Welch, a creaky correspondent long past his expiration date. More than his other recurring characters, if you saw one Herb sketch you saw them all. But Hader made them worth seeing.
Beyond recurring characters and impressions, Hader could always be counted on to elevate an otherwise ordinary sketch. This clip shows that the proof is in the puppet.
Farewell Mr. Hader, and thanks for eight seasons of great work.
On Tuesday, Roger Ebert published a post on his blog announcing that he would be slowing down for a while, reviewing fewer movies and instead focusing on other aspects of his expansive brand — a move prompted by the recurrence of the cancer that had been chipping away at him for years. Ever the optimist who refused to let the disease stop him, Ebert referred to this adjustment as a “leave of presence.”
On Thursday, Roger Ebert passed away.
I’ll try not to regurgitate facts about his life that, in the past 24 hours, have already been offered by admirers and colleagues who can eulogize him more eloquently and effectively than I can. If you haven’t read any of them, you should. Ebert lived a rich and colorful life. This piece from The New York Times does a nice job of covering the highlights, as does this one from The Hollywood Reporter. Fellow critics and journalists like Owen Gleiberman, Todd McCarthy and Jeff Greenfield have paid tribute to his importance and influence. Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Harvey Weinstein, Taylor Hackford and President Obama all released statements honoring him, as did Werner Herzog, the German filmmaker whose work was long championed by Ebert and who presented the critic with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. Other directors like Danny Boyle and Darren Aronofsky offered remembrances as well. Reactions have poured in on Twitter from actors, filmmakers, and other members of the media who were touched by his work.
Like so many, I came to know Ebert through his TV show with fellow Chicago critic Gene Siskel, who also died too soon of cancer, in 1999. I mentioned last year, in a post about the beginnings of my life as an obsessive movie fan, how I watched Siskel & Ebert every week just out of pure excitement to see clips from the movies. I wanted them to like the movies I liked (or the ones I was excited to see). Whether they agreed or disagreed, they were great fun to watch, and they were doing the only thing that I had any interest in doing: they were talking about movies. When I heard the news about Ebert’s passing yesterday, I went straight to YouTube and started searching among the wealth of available clips from their show for a few specific reviews from the summer of 1987. I couldn’t find the ones I was looking for, but soon fell down the rabbit hole and watched probably a dozen, including their appraisals of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (complete with the show’s opening credit sequence…wow, the memories!)…*
…Blue Velvet, on which Ebert stood out in the critical community as a voice of dissent…
…and Overboard, a nice little comedy that I’ve always enjoyed. Ebert liked it too. Siskel did not.
Here’s their review of A Few Good Men. I remember watching this at the time, and having liked the movie, wanting to disregard Ebert’s main problem with it.
But damn him, I couldn’t put it out of my head. It kept gnawing at me. Still does, when I see the movie. And even though I like it, I know he’s right. Whether or not I could share their opinions, I always found them entertaining and appreciated what they were doing. I looked forward to their Memo to the Academy specials, where they made suggestions to Academy members about films and performances that deserved nominations, as well as their annual If We Picked the Winners episodes, where they opened each other’s envelopes and discussed their thoughts on who should win the Oscars. I remember that Academy special in 1993, when Siskel couldn’t explain his choice of The Crying Game in a certain category without giving away the film’s big secret, so he suggested viewers turn down the volume on their TV sets until he was done and gave a signal to turn it back up. Ebert was upset by that, and their bickering made news. Siskel and Ebert’s public persona seemed to be that they were always bickering, but while they often did disagree — sometimes strongly — and poke fun at each other, their rapport always came through. They frequently appeared together on David Letterman’s shows, and many of those clips are also available on YouTube. This one, from 1990, finds them discussing GoodFellas, the importance of movies to the public, and the NC-17 rating, which was new at the time.
Siskel and Ebert were a major part of my movie-centric childhood. When I was probably around 11 or 12, I randomly wrote a poem in which the two of them did a show about horror movies that people could rent and watch at home. I have no recollection of how this came to pass; I didn’t even like horror movies, and certainly hadn’t seen many at that age. But I wrote it, and sent it to them after tracking down their address through the local Boston channel that syndicated their show. They sent me back a personally autographed copy of the picture below. I also recall seeing some program on TV where Ebert showed off his home movie theater. And I don’t mean a living room with home theater equipment. I mean a small movie theater in his house, complete with a lobby that had a popcorn machine and movie posters in the same lit-up frames you would see at a real theater. Inside were red plush seats and not a big screen TV mounted on the wall, but a real movie screen (albeit, smaller than your typical one). That was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen, and it became a dream that someday I would be able to have a similar home theater. (Now that I’m older, I realize it will never happen.)
Although Ebert became widely known because of the TV show, his career began and ended with the written word. The thumbs up/thumbs down rating system that he and Siskel introduced provided a simple way to offer opinions to the mass audience (and was sometimes scoffed at by more “serious” critics for being too simplistic), but what kept Ebert relevant for me even long after I’d stopped watching the show was his writing. He wrote about film so knowledgeably, passionately and entertainingly. Reading Ebert, you could see how smart he was and how well he understood film, yet he always talked about it in a way that was accessible and straightforward. He was the first person to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism, and right up until the end — as the lengthy “leave of presence” blog post linked at the beginning demonstrates — he was still writing with warmth and enthusiasm.
His comments sometimes resulted in angry reactions from those whose work he panned, but if anyone engaged in a war of words with Ebert, they were bound to lose. Director Vincent Gallo did not take kindly to Ebert’s scathing review of his film The Brown Bunny at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Gallo hurled insults, but Ebert’s way with words made him the winner of that feud. Another memorable diss from Ebert came in 2005 when he commented on Rob Schneider’s verbal assault of Los Angeles Times critic Patrick Goldstein, who had raked Schneider’s film Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo across the coals. Yet despite verbal altercations such as these, Ebert’s humanity and passion for film always won out, and even Gallo and Schneider couldn’t stay mad. After The Brown Bunny was shortened, as mentioned in the article linked above, Ebert interviewed Gallo and the two cleared the air. Schneider naturally disagreed with Ebert’s assessment of his work, but respected him nevertheless, and even sent flowers after one of his bouts with cancer, a gesture which Ebert wrote about on his website.
While Ebert’s health problems didn’t keep him from watching and writing about films, they resulted in a physical transformation so startling that it made me sad to look at him, no matter how much bravery and humor he displayed in handling his physical deterioration. The details of his disease and the toll it took on his body are documented in an excellent profile that appeared in Esquire in 2010. I remember when it came out, the accompanying picture was the first time I had seen him since his jaw had been removed. The photo made my heart hurt. But Ebert wasn’t going to be defined by his disease or what it did to him, and even now after his death, his legacy will remain that of an unstoppable champion of movies. The film festival he’s hosted in his native Illinois for 15 years was set to take place this month, and will proceed as planned. Known as Ebertfest, its purpose is to spotlight movies that have been ignored or forgotten by the general public and which Ebert felt deserved more attention. (It was originally known as Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival.) Ebert will also be the subject of a documentary called Life Itself, based on his 2011 memoir of the same name. The project, which Martin Scorsese and Oscar-winning screenwriter/director Steven Zaillian are executive producing, has been in production for some time, with Ebert’s participation. Its director, Steve James, made the documentary Hoop Dreams, which both Siskel and Ebert named as the best movie of 1994.
When Ebert announced his “leave of presence” this week, I had a sinking feeling that this latest case of cancer would be the one that took him away, but I thought it would be a matter of months at best, weeks at worst. Did he know how close the end really was when he penned that final journal entry? If he did, he chose not to say goodbye. Instead, he talked about the things he was looking forward to doing and how he would be occupying his time. Yet his final public statement did read as a farewell, even as he looked ahead to work not yet done and movies not yet seen. An impressive trick to pull off, but probably easy for someone who had such a way with words.
With Roger Ebert now joining Gene Siskel in the great beyond, I’ll go ahead and sadly say what so many others have since yesterday: the balcony is closed.
Thanks to both of you for opening it to us in the first place.
*March 2018 – The video with the opening credits, initially included in the post, has since been removed from YouTube. I replaced it with the version seen here, sans opening credits.
The game is again afoot. After a 10 month gap gap—standard practice for a TV series these days, but torturous even though we’ve grown accustomed to it—Game of Thrones returns for its third season on HBO tonight. Game is my favorite current show, and as there has been a lot on my mind about what this season will bring, I thought I’d share a few of my curiosities with others who are also traveling the Kingsroad. Those who haven’t read the books may have some of the same questions I do, while those who have are most likely laughing at us because they know what’s about to happen. For those totally uninitiated into the books or the show, you should stop reading now, because things are about to get spoiled.
When we last left the Seven Kingdoms (and beyond), Stannis Baratheon’s invasion of King’s Landing had been thwarted by the well-timed arrival of reinforcements led by Tywin Lannister and Loras Tyrell. Stannis somehow (I’m not sure how) made it back to Dragonstone and the swirling red cape of Melisandre, who assured him that his victory was still destined. The alliance between the Lannisters and Tyrells, brokered by Littlefinger, was set to grow even stronger as Joffrey agreed to cast aside Sansa and marry Margaery Tyrell. Tyrion was left with a massive scar along his face after nearly being murdered during the battle by one of his own men, on instructions from Cersei. Shae urged him to run away with her, leaving the kingdoms and his god awful family behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to go. She remained with him, and is still serving as a maiden to Sansa. Bronn was removed as head of the Gold Cloaks, but we don’t know much more than that about his status. Varys reached out to Ros with a vague proposition that seems to involve informing on Littlefinger…but to what end?
Elsewhere in Westeros, Robb secretly married Talisa, while Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie escaped servitude at Harrenhal thanks to help from supercool mystery man Jaqen H’ghar. Winterfell was left burned and deserted after an ill-advised invasion by Theon, who betrayed Robb after being shamed by his asshole father and sister. He was knocked unconscious by his own men after the castle was surrounded by loyal northmen, but that was the last we saw of him. Bran, Rickon, Osha and Hodor left the ruined Winterfell to head north toward The Wall, on the instructions of the dying Maester Luwin. Beyond the Wall, Jon Snow and Qhorin Halfhand were taken prisoner by wildlings after Jon couldn’t bring himself to kill the captive redhead Ygritte. Quorin sacrificed himself by loudly accusing Jon of being a traitor and dueling with him until Jon killed him—a ploy to gain the trust of wildling leader Mance Rayder and infiltrate his camp. Samwell had the bad luck of coming across a massive army of White Walkers, though they seemed unconcerned with him as he hid in terror behind a rock. And across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys ventured into the House of the Undying and reclaimed her kidnapped dragons from the über-creepy warlock Pyat Pree.
Let’s see, what else…Catelyn released Jaime and entrusted Brienne with escorting him back to King’s Landing in the hopes of trading him for Sansa and Arya, after Littlefinger lied and told her that both girls were there. For going behind Robb’s back, Catelyn is being held under guard. Stannis’ advisor Davos Seaworth was blown off his ship and into the waters of Blackwater Bay when the wildfire attack was unleashed by Tyrion. Whether he lived or died, we don’t know. The Hound walked away from the battle and told Joffrey he could go fuck himself. He then suggested to Sansa that he was headed north, though she declined his offer to take her back to Winterfell.
That covers most of the main characters, I think. And since the second season ended last June, there had been little buzz or activity to whet our appetite for what’s next. Casting additions for the third season were announced last summer as they came in, and a video introduction with most of the new actors was presented in July at Comic-Con. It didn’t offer a lot, and meant less to people like me who haven’t read the books ahead of the show than it likely did to those who have, but hey, it was something.
Most of those actors are unfamiliar to me, but there are a few I recognize. Mackenzie Crook (Orell) appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and of course starred as Gareth on the British version of The Office (Gareth = Dwight). Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Jojen Reed) was the lovesick little drummer boy from Love Actually who suggested that he and his stepdad (Liam Neeson) go “get the shit kicked out of us by love.” And there’s Dame Diana Rigg, best known to some as Emma Peel, heroine of 1960’s British spy series The Avengers, or perhaps as Tracy, the woman who wins James Bond’s love (as opposed to the normal Bond girl romp in the sack) in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. To me, though, Rigg will always be Lady Holiday from The Great Muppet Caper.
One character who had not yet been cast at the time of that video was Mance Rayder, but soon enough we learned the part would be played by the great Ciarán Hinds, who comes with the solid HBO experience of having played Julius Caesar on Rome. Another alumni of that underseen HBO series also joined the cast: Tobias Menzies, who played Brutus to Hinds’ Caesar, will be on hand as Catelyn’s brother Edmure Tully. Rigg and Hinds, in particular, are impressive additions to an ensemble of actors that’s as strong as it is large, and Benioff and Weiss shared their thoughts on landing the veteran performers with EW.com
Other than these casting announcements, we didn’t have much to quench our thirst during the hiatus. All’s been quiet on the Westeros front, save for a couple of brief behind the scenes glimpses and teaser spots on HBO with voiceover but no new footage. The first true teaser—with actual scenes!—didn’t premiere until last month on Jimmy Kimmel Live. (This is actually an extended version of the one that first appeared.)
The featured song got immediately stuck in my head, and I mistook it for another Florence + The Machine track, as their song “Seven Devils” was used for one of season two’s previews. Turns out it’s by a group called MS MR, and is called “Bones.”
Anyway, the late February premiere of that preview marked the end of an unusually long wait to see any new material. Usually HBO begins hyping new seasons of its shows with actual trailers a couple of months before they premiere, but this time they dragged their feet like Dany’s khalasar dragged that poor wine vendor behind her horse. Ever since then, however, the hype machine has gone into overdrive. It seemed there was a new spot every day. I was especially partial to this one…
Lions and dragons and bears, oh my…
As evidenced by those trailers, there’s been a lot of tantalizing footage. The word is that this season is going to be pretty amazing…and devastating. Apparently there are some particularly shocking events ahead. In their cover story, Entertainment Weekly described A Storm of Swords—the third book in George R.R. Martin’s series—as GoT‘s Empire Strikes Back…a promising comparison in that Empire is the best of the Star Wars movies, and a worrisome one in that the good guys kinda get their asses kicked in Empire. The series proved early on that it wasn’t afraid to eliminate major characters, dispatching Ned, Robert, Viserys and Drogo all in the first season. Last year’s run was lighter on major character deaths, with Renly and Maester Luwin being the only substantial characters to meet their maker. And some might say Ser Rodrik Cassel. I don’t think Davos is dead, so I’m not including him. But as season two began, I expected fewer major characters to survive. I thought that between Joffrey, Robb, Jaime and Cersei, at least one would die. I now feel like Cersei is safe for a while, but the other three remain vulnerable…along with nearly every other character. And if I’m correctly interpreting the pre-season vibe, this year’s run of episodes will claim a few more significant figures.
Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have said from the beginning that their goal was to reach season three. If the show lasted long enough that they could get to events that will occur this season, they would be happy. No problem there. The show’s huge ratings left little doubt that they would make it to this point, and over the next 10 weeks, we’ll see what they’ve been so excited about. They referred early on to an event which they called only the RW scene, saying that to use the actual words instead of just the initials would constitute a spoiler. I accidentally found out what RW stands for, but I’m not sure how much of a spoiler it is, since at this point I still have no idea what it means or suggests. In my naive eyes, the words could be interpreted in a variety of ways. But given how eager Benioff and Weiss have been to depict it on the show, it’s gotta be major. They’ve also hinted about at least one upcoming scene so hard to take that even the crew choked up during filming. Is it this RW scene they’re referring to? In the aforementioned Entertainment Weeky cover story, they won’t even use the initials anymore to describe it. (They must have forgotten that they already used them in past interviews…unless there’s another infamous scene coming up that can be abbreviated for non-spoiler conversations). Whatever this mystery event is, if everyone is being so protective of it and the crew is getting teary-eyed while filming, it probably forebodes death for at least one favorite character.
A Storm of Swords is so densely plotted that this season of the show will only cover roughly half of the book. Benioff and Weiss have said before that they see the show as an adaptation of Martin’s entire A Song of Ice and Fire series rather than a book-by-book take, so the seasons do not perfectly match the books. They do sync up pretty well, but for example, the scenes late in season two involving Brienne transporting Jaime to King’s Landing don’t occur in the second book. When we last see Jaime in the novel, he’s still in his cell, and Catelyn is standing over him and asking Brienne for a sword. Tackling the third book over the course of two seasons will not only allow Benioff and Weiss to take their time and give the rich plot the attention it deserves, but it increases the chances that the show won’t catch up to the books before Martin finishes them. He has two more entries in the series to deliver, and just this week he expressed confidence that he’ll finish the books before the show gets ahead of him. And he’s right that if the timing doesn’t quite pan out, the show can always take a longer-than-usual hiatus. The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad have all done it. Sure, fans will be pulling their hair out in anticipation, but we’ve survived such droughts before. Of course, Martin does have to buckle down and stay focused on finishing the series. When HBO announced in February that they had signed a deal with him to develop additional programming, I know I wasn’t the only fan who thought, “Well that’s nice and all….but George, you need to keep your priorities straight and finish these damn books.” One rumored possibility is that Martin and HBO will adapt a series of prequel novellas he’s written. We’ll see if anything comes of it. Deals like this are signed all the time, but they don’t necessarily yield anything, and HBO orders plenty of promising pilots that they then decide not to produce further.
I’m running a bit wild here, so let me bring it back around to the season at hand and what we can expect. I’m of course wondering what will become of Theon. He seems primed to be one of the first casualties, but how will it happen, if it does? The previews above show a quick glimpse of his sister Yara, but there’s been no sign of Theon in any of the commercials. Will he be brought back to Robb, and will Robb be able to go through with killing him?
What about Davos? Where and how will he resurface? I’m also excited to see what unfolds for The Hound. Walking out on Joffrey was an unexpected move, and I’ve noticed that for a minor-major character, he’s been a prominent part of season three’s marketing campaign. His appearance in this teaser, and the fact that he got his own character poster—the kind of privileged exposure usually reserved for the major characters—suggests to me that his story will be an important one this season.
What lies in store for Tyrion? When his father sent him to King’s Landing to fill in as Hand of the King, it seemed to mark a possible new appreciation for the dwarf’s intelligence and skill for strategy. Will that appreciation continue to blossom, or will Tywin resume treating him like the “lowest of the Lannisters”? Halfman or not, Tyrion stood tall during the Battle of Blackwater, and he deserves credit for keeping the fight against Stannis going as long as it did. What are the chances Tywin will recognize that? And speaking of Tywin, why is he assuming his duties as Hand instead of continuing the fight against Robb? Who will be leading the Lannister forces now, with Jaime still captive and Tywin in King’s Landing?
The previews have shown that Daenerys finally gets hold of an army, and a ship. Will she actually get to Westeros this season and begin integrating into those storylines, or is that still a ways off? And here’s something I’ve been wondering about, though I doubt we’ll get an answer (and it probably isn’t even important): remember that masked woman in Qarth who knew Jorah by name and warned him to protect Daenerys from those who would want her dragons? Yeah…who was that chick, and what’s her story? She seems to correspond to a character from the book name Quaithe, but who is she? How does she know Jorah? Will she eventually play a more important role, or is she a minor character who, like others in Qarth, just seems to know shit?
And what of Robb’s vow to marry one of Walder Frey’s daughters? I can’t blame the guy for choosing Talisa over any of the Frey girls, but it’s been stressed that the promise is not to be thrown off lightly. The Stark/Frey marriage wasn’t supposed to take place until the war was over, but will the repercussions of Robb’s union with Talisa be seen this season?
There was also a scene last year in which Samwell, Grenn and Edd discovered a care package buried in the snow: rare arrowheads made of obsidian, wrapped in a Knight’s Watch cloak beneath a shield. There’s got to be something up with that, yeah?
Soon I’ll know the answers to most of these questions, and I’m sure that this season will fly by as fast as the previous two have. There are only 10 episodes per season, which Benioff and Weiss say is the most they can handle per year for a series that has such demanding scope, with its feature film-quality production design, costumes, visual effects and complicated shooting schedule that spans multiple countries and features such an enormous cast. The episodes will each run a few minutes longer this year than in the past, so by the end of the season we’ll have had almost an extra episode’s worth of material. It ain’t much, but I’ll take it.
In these final hours before the premiere, you can amuse yourself with this Game of Thronesdeath generator (completely random—it doesn’t require your middle name or the street you grew up on to determine your doom—but still worth a chuckle). Then there’s this video that dares to replace the show’s excellent opening credits sequence with the version that might have been used if it were on network TV in the mid 80’s. (The clip says 1995, but I think this is more 80’s than 90’s).
X
And it was only a matter of time: a Game of Thrones/Princess Bride mash-up.
X
Last but not least, there’s this. Because lightsabers make everything cooler.
With that, please join me in praying to the old gods and the new, and even to the Lord of Light, that Joffrey will soon die a slow, excruciatingly painful death, and that Tyrion will bitchslap him at least one more time before it happens.
Now that the Oscars have officially closed the book on 2012 in movies, it’s time to look ahead to what we can expect this year. There are plenty of promising films on the horizon, enough that I bumped my usual 20 up to 25, and am still leaving out projects from directors like Terry Gilliam, Guillermo del Toro, Spike Lee, Ron Howard, Ben Stiller, Baz Luhrman, Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, United 93), Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter), Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money), David Gordon Green (Snow Angels, Pineapple Express) and Anton Corbijn (The American).
Although I’m publishing this list now, I pretty much locked it in at the beginning of the year and decided not to revise it based on all the great things I heard about during January’s Sundance Film Festival. So the list doesn’t reflect movies that were acquired in Park City for release sometime this year (presumably), though I can say I’m greatly looking forward to such titles as The Spectacular Now, Fruitvale, A.C.O.D. and most of all, the reunion of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight. As usual, the list is also short on big franchise movies, though I’m plenty excited to see things like Iron Man 3, Monster’s University, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Kick-Ass 2, The Wolverine, Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness. There are certainly some sequels and expected blockbusters on the list, but in most cases it’s more about directors and casts that have me excited.
One change I did make was removing a film called The Place Beyond the Pines, writer/director Derek Cianfrance’s follow-up to his superb 2010 drama Blue Valentine. His new film, which stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, comes out in just a couple of weeks, but I had a chance to see it already, so it no longer needs looking forward to. (For the record, I liked it, but had some issues with the third act.)
As always, I don’t know how any of these will turn out, but I have high hopes for all of them. One thing I am sure of: with roles in three films on this list, plus Star Trek Into Darkness and The Fifth Estate (in which he’ll play WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange), it’s going to be a big year for Benedict Cumberbatch. Which is fine with me, cause I love writing and saying “Benedict Cumberbatch.” It’s a name so supremely, singularly, sensationally British that if it didn’t already exist, J.K. Rowling surely would have created it for some minor bureaucrat deep within the Ministry of Magic.
Now then…
25.
TO THE WONDER Director/Writer:Terrence Malick Cast:Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams Release Date:April 12
A brief two years after The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick returns with a film that is said to be even more interior and abstract than that one, which I’m not convinced is cinematically possible. I count myself a Malick admirer, so I’m eager to see where he goes this time with the story of man and his relationship with two women – one a European beauty, the other a girl-next-door type from his hometown. That’s the surface story anyway, but Malick is probably exploring deeper themes and ideas. Will I understand any of them? Maybe. Will it matter to me if I don’t? If the movie is half as beautiful as The Tree of Life, then probably not. According to this short behind the scenes featurette, there was barely a script for the movie, and as always, Malick took his time in the editing room to shape the end result. In the process, he eliminated entire performances by Rachel Weisz, Barry Pepper, Amanda Peet and Michael Sheen.
24.
ALL IS LOST Director/Writer: J.C. Chandor Cast: Robert Redford Release Date: TBA
Writer/director J.C. Chandor made an impressive debut (and earned a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination) for directing a shining ensemble of actors to uniformly excellent performances in the 2011 financial sector drama Margin Call. Now he’s dialing things back with a story featuring only one character. From what I’ve gathered, Robert Redford plays a man on a boat who encounters a storm and finds himself lost at sea. The movie depicts his struggles for survival against the elements, and apparently Redford, when asked about the movie during an unrelated press conference at Sundance this year, said the film has no dialogue. Margin Call was marked by its terrific, wordy script and its excellent cast. Chandor couldn’t have gone much further in the opposite direction for his follow-up, which makes it all the more exciting to see how he fares.
23.
THE BLING RING Director/Writer: Sofia Coppola Cast: Emma Watson, Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Taissa Farmiga, Claire Julien, Leslie Mann, Gavin Rossdale Release Date: June 14
I love Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, but neither of the two films she’s made since have grabbed me. The most recent, Somewhere, was particularly disappointing…in that it went absolutely nowhere. Still, I keep hoping that each new project will mark a return to form, and so I await The Bling Ring, based on a Vanity Fair article about a group of privileged Los Angeles teenagers who engaged in a year-long robbery spree, targeting the homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. It seems like fitting material for Coppola, who is personally immersed in the world of fashion and society where this story unfolds. Given the presence of Emma Watson, I’m anticipating a third act twist in which the motivation for stealing jewelry turns out to be the pursuit of horcruxes and the ultimate defeat of Voldemort.
On a more serious note, The Bling Ring is the last film to be completed by acclaimed cinematographer Harris Savides, who died too young last October at the age of 55. His credits included David Fincher’s Zodiac, Gus Van Sant’s Milk (and five other collaborations), and Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding, as well as such music videos as “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and “Criminal” by Fiona Apple.
22.
BLUE JASMINE Director/Writer: Woody Allen Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Louis C.K., Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Michael Emerson, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg Release Date: July 26
Woody Allen is hit or miss these days, so if you’re a fan of his work, each new film – one a year, like clockwork – brings with it the curiosity of where in his canon it will fall. While Woody’s movies are like comfort food, rarely would I describe them as highly anticipated. But two things about his latest pique my curiosity enough to earn a place on the list. First, the film is partially set in my adopted home of San Francisco, marking the first time Woody has filmed in America’s most beautiful city. Second is the cast the director has wrangled. Woody’s movies always feature excellent line-ups, but this one really grabs me. I love Peter Sarsgaard, and I’m thrilled by the presence of Michael Emerson (aka Lost‘s Benjamin Linus)….but a movie that stars Cate Blanchett, Andrew Dice Clay and Louis C.K.?!? I think that pretty much says it all.
21. OUT OF THE FURNACE Director:Scott Cooper Writers:Scott Cooper, Brad Ingelsby Cast:Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Forest Whitaker Release Date: TBA
Scott Cooper pulled together an intense and impressive cast for the follow-up to his feature directorial debut, Crazy Heart, which earned Jeff Bridges an Oscar. The crime thriller casts Bale and Affleck as brothers from a depressed mill town, one of whom gets involved in a crime spree after the other winds up in jail. I don’t know which actor plays which brother; in fact, I don’t know much of anything about the movie at this point. But I know this: that roster of actors is all I need to know.
20. TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE Director: Steve McQueen Writers: Steve McQueen, John Ridley Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofer, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Garrett Dillahunt, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, Dwight Henry, Taran Killam, Scoot McNairy, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Quvenzhané Wallis, Michael Kenneth Williams, Alfre Woodard Release Date: TBA
Director Steve McQueen’s first film, the acclaimed drama Hunger, earned him respect from critics and brought Michael Fassbender to the attention of casting directors and filmmakers. I couldn’t get through the film, not just because I was too disturbed by the graphic depiction of the main character’s hunger strike and the toll it takes on his body, but also because I found it tediously boring. But his next film, Shame, was one of my favorites of 2011. Now comes his third, and with it new challenges: a period setting, a large cast of name actors, and because that cast includes someone like Brad Pitt, increased commercial expectations. But the film’s lead role belongs to the wonderful Chiwetel Ejiofer, who audiences will recognize from such movies as Amistad, Love Actually, Kinky Boots, Children of Men and American Gangster. This will be his highest profile lead role to date, and he has more than earned a chance to show off his stuff. Hopefully this movie, envisioned by an uncompromising artist like McQueen, will give it to him.
19. TRANCE Director: Danny Boyle Writers: John Hodge, Joe Ahearne Cast: Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, James McAvoy Release Date: April 5
With the opening ceremony for the London Olympics now behind him, Danny Boyle turns his attention back to film with this story of an art auctioneer who participates in a heist, then must work with a hypnotherapist to recall the location of the stolen painting after a knock to the head causes him to forget where it’s stashed. From what I’ve heard, this is a noirish tale with lots of twists and turns. Sounds like Boyle is revisiting the territory he explored so effectively in his 1995 debut film, Shallow Grave. That can’t be a bad thing.
18.
LABOR DAY Director/Writer: Jason Reitman Cast: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Clark Gregg, Tobey Maguire, Brooke Smith, James Van Der Beek, Jacki Weaver Release Date: TBA
Based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, Labor Day is the story of a 13 year-old boy and his agoraphobic mother, who come across a stranger in need of help and agree to take him in. The man turns out to be an escaped convict, and over the course of a few late summer days…well, I’m sure lessons will be learned and lives will be changed. Honestly, it sounds like a maudlin set-up. But a movie that brings together the talents of Jason Reitman, Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin has my attention, whatever the plot description. Reitman, the director behind Up in the Air, Juno, Young Adult and Thank You For Smoking, has demonstrated excellent taste in material and a talent for drawing out strong work from his actors. So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and tell myself that the story must be worthwhile to attract not only him, but Winslet and Brolin – a pairing which I have a feeling will yield superb chemistry.
17. THE COUNSELOR Director: Ridley Scott Writer: Cormac McCarthy Cast: Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Natalie Dormer, John Leguizamo, Dean Norris, Rosie Perez, Brad Pitt, Goran Visnjic Release Date: November 15
Although this thriller is written by Cormac McCarthy, it’s not adapted from one of his books. Rather, it marks the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s first foray into screenwriting. It’s the story of a lawyer who gets involved in drug trafficking, an endeavor which doesn’t go so well. Sounds like there are echoes of the Coen Brothers’ McCarthy adaptation No Country for Old Men, which will only be emphasized by the presence of Javier Bardem. I have no problem with that. The movie reunites director Scott with Fassbender after last year’s Prometheus, and more interestingly, reunites him with Pitt 22 years after giving the actor what would be his breakthrough role in Thelma & Louise.
16.
FOXCATCHER Director: Bennett Miller Writers: Dan Futterman, E. Max Frye Cast: Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Channing Tatum, Anthony Michael Hall, Vanessa Redgrave Release Date: TBA
With two narrative features under his belt – Capote and Moneyball – director Bennett Miller has shown an extraordinary capacity for telling dramatic stories with clarity and an effective understatement that brings out the humor and allows actors to shine. I am hopeful he’ll do it again with this true-life story of John du Pont, a wealthy corporate heir who supported the careers of numerous professional swimmers, pentathletes and wrestlers, only to succumb to paranoid schizophrenia and murder his close friend, Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz. Although du Pont was nearly 60 at the time of the murder, he’ll be played – in an exciting piece of against-the-grain casting – by Steve Carell. Even before he left The Office, Carell was showing his range in films like Dan in Real Life (a sweet, underrated movie) and Little Miss Sunshine. But Foxcatcher promises his furthest swing as an actor yet, and with a director like Miller to guide his performance, he could be on the verge of hitting a new high.
15. NEBRASKA Director: Alexander Payne Writer: Bob Nelson Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, Stacy Keach, Bob Odenkirk Release Date: TBA
As his follow-up to The Descendants, Alexander Payne is going even smaller scale, with a black-and-white road trip movie about an adult son escorting his father from Missouri to Nebraska because the old man thinks he’s won a million dollar sweepstakes. Payne initially courted Gene Hackman for the role of the father, but the retired actor declined to get back in the game. Instead, Bruce Dern takes on the role, and while I’m sad Hackman passed (come back to us, Gene!), I have little doubt that a colorful veteran like Dern will be superb in the part. Continuing his penchant for unexpected casting choices, Payne recruited Saturday Night Live alum Will Forte to play the son. Like most of the world, I’ve only seen Forte in his goofy comedic roles like MacGruber, 30 Rock‘s cross-dressing Jenna look-alike Paul, and his gallery of SNL characters. It will be a treat to see what he does for a filmmaker of Payne’s caliber.
14. THE BUTLER Director: Lee Daniels Writers:Lee Daniels, Danny Strong Cast:Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Nelsan Ellis, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Minka Kelly, Lenny Kravitz, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, David Oyelowo, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, Liev Schrieber, Clarence Williams III, Robin Williams Release Date: TBA
Lee Daniels’ most recent film, last year’s wild, sweaty thriller The Paperboy, divided critics, as well as the audiences who actually showed up to see it. Although it received a 16 minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, those who were there report that when attendees took to their feet, some were doing so to boo, not to cheer. (For what it’s worth, I enjoyed the film quite a bit, and thought it featured some terrific performances.) On paper, Daniels’ latest seems more likely to earn him the kind of universal praise that greeted his 2009 directing debut (and my favorite movie of that year), Precious. The Butler is based on the life of Eugene Allen, who served in the White House under eight presidents before retiring in 1986. Whitaker will play the title role (named Cecil Gaines in the film), with Winfrey as his wife. Many other members of the starry cast will likely turn up in small roles or even just extended cameos as the shuffling residents of the White House (including Rickman and Fonda as the Reagans, Marsden and Kelly as the Kennedys, and Williams and Leo as the Eisenhowers). It’s always nice to see Whitaker front and center, and Winfrey – who many forget is an Oscar nominated actress – hasn’t starred in a feature since 1998’s Beloved. The promise of strong roles for these two, plus the impressive ensemble and a great story hook, make this one of the most eagerly awaited dramas of the year. However it turns out, it will stand as a final testament to the successful career of Laura Ziskin, the Hollywood producer of such movies as Pretty Woman, To Die For and the Spider-Man trilogy, who fought to get this movie made right up until she passed away from breast cancer in 2011.
13.
THE MONUMENTS MEN Director: George Clooney Writers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov Cast: Bob Balaban, Cate Blanchett, Hugh Bonneville, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Bill Murray Release Date: December 18
George Clooney is back behind the camera, and has once again convinced an amazing roster of actors to join him in front of it. His latest project tells the true story of a group of British and American art historians and museum curators who were tasked with searching throughout Europe for great works of art that had been stolen by the Nazis to be either destroyed by Hitler, or added to his private collection. Sounds kinda like an Indiana Jones movie…though probably with less face melting.
12.
THIS IS THE END Directors/Writers: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg Cast: Aziz Ansari, Jay Baruchel, Michael Cera, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Seth Rogen Release Date: June 14
In 2007, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and a couple of their friends made a short film called Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse, in which the two friends were trapped in an apartment together after the world outside had been somehow destroyed. (The film was never available publicly, but there is a very NSFW trailer.) Now Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg have expanded the idea to a feature length film, and recruited a few more of their friends from the Apatow universe to join them. This runs the risk of being the kind of sloppy vanity project that results when a bunch of friends get together, armed with a sizable budget, and do whatever they want, unchecked, concerned with nothing more than making each other laugh (see Ocean’s Twelve). Of course, given the comic prowess these guys have displayed, what makes them laugh is pretty well proven to work, meaning that even if the movie is a mess, it will probably be a hilarious mess.
11.
THE WORLD’S END Director: Edgar Wright Writers: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike Release Date: October 25
Following the same general theme as Rogen and company’s movie, some of the funniest guys from the other side of the pond are also preparing for the apocalypse. Wright, Pegg and Frost – the director and co-stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz – team up again for this story of five childhood friends who reunite 20 years after an epic pub crawl and attempt to recreate it, only to find that this night of drinking may be their last. If this team’s past collaborations are any indication, we can expect another rock solid comedy with a non-sugary emotional undercurrent that goes down smooth.
10. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS Directors/Writers:Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Cast:Oscar Isaac, F. Murray Abraham, Adam Driver, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Alex Karpovsky, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake Release Date:TBA
Oscar Issac came to my attention just a couple of years ago, but has built up an impressive array of supporting performances that I’ve really enjoyed in films like Robin Hood, Drive and The Bourne Legacy. Now he gets his biggest exposure yet, courtesy of the Coen Brothers, playing a 1960’s folk singer struggling to achieve success in both his personal and professional life. The movie marks a reunion between the Coens and music supervisor extraordinaire T-Bone Burnett, who oversaw the massively successful soundtrack for their 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He’ll serve as Executive Music Producer here as well, with Mumford & Sons frontman (and Mr. Carey Mulligan) Marcus Mumford as Associate Music Producer. I don’t know what those titles mean exactly, other than the fact that the Coens are probably about to drop another kick-ass soundtrack. The movie looks pretty damn good too.
9.
ELYSIUM Director/Writer: Neill Blomkamp Cast: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner, Diego Luna Release Date: August 9
It’s been a long five years since Neill Blomkamp broke through with District 9. High hopes abound for his sophomore feature, another sci-fi tale with contemporary political relevance. In the year 2159, a space station called Elysium is home to the wealthiest members of society, while everyone else remains on a dying Earth that suffers from overpopulation. Foster plays a government bureaucrat tasked with maintaining the integrity of Elysium and keeping undesirables out, while Damon is a desperate man from the surface attempting to shatter the status quo. District 9 was a smart and topical debut, and I can’t wait to see what Blomkamp has come up with for his second time at bat.
8.
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND CONTINUES Director: Adam McKay Writers: Adam McKay, Will Ferrell Cast: Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Harrison Ford, Kristen Wiig, Dylan Baker, Meagan Good, James Marsden Release Date: December 20
San Diego’s preeminent newscaster and jazz flutist is finally back. Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team, not to mention Ron’s delicious paramour and co-anchor Veronica Corningstone, will make their long awaited return this year. Few details have been made available to suggest what the gang will be up to, but the addition of Harrison Ford as a venerable, Brokaw-esque news anchor, and Kristin Wiig possibly playing a love interest for Carell’s IQ-challenged weatherman Brick Tamland, both bode well. I’m also hoping we’ll see Vince Vaughn’s Wes Mantooth once again, but there’s been no word on that yet. In the meantime, here’s a clip of Burgundy on Conan last year, announcing the project.
7.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY Director: John Wells Writer: Tracy Letts Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard, Misty Upham Release Date: November 8
Actor and playwright Tracy Letts won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his darkly comedic play, which debuted at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre before moving to Broadway and London. Now it moves to the movies, adapted by Letts and directed by John Wells, the veteran TV producer of such shows as ER and The West Wing, who earned praise for his 2010 film directing debut, The Company Men. This story concerns the gathering of an Oklahoma family after the patriarch, Beverly Weston – an alcoholic and a once famous poet – goes missing and is presumed dead. The Broadway production earned five Tony awards, including Best Play and Best Actress in a Play, for Deanna Dunagan. Her role – Beverly’s wife Violet Weston – goes to Streep in the movie, and those familiar with the play expect the legendary actress to be an Oscar frontrunner yet again. With this mighty cast, she might not be the only one.
6.
SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller Writers: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, William Monahan Cast: Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe, Josh Brolin, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Dennis Haysbert, Stacy Keach, Jaime King, Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Mickey Rourke, Juno Temple, Bruce Willis Release Date: October 4
I’m a huge fan of Sin City, the 2006 collaboration between filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and graphic novelist Frank Miller, based on Miller’s book series set in the rotting, crime-ridden metropolis of Basin City. I loved the cast, the pulpy, rock-hard-boiled stories and the visual design drawn directly from the comics – monochrome, with limited splashes of color. In the ensuing years, there has been constant talk of a follow-up based on other books in the series, and after many vaguely explained delays (ongoing rumors persisted that Rodriguez was trying to hold out for Angelina Jolie to become available), it’s finally happening. Like its predecessor, the new film – at least part of which actually takes place before the events of the first – will be comprised of multiple stories: the previously published A Dame to Kill For and Just Another Saturday Night, as well as two original tales from Miller, including one called The Long Bad Night. Returning cast members include Rourke, Willis, Dawson and Alba. Dennis Haysbert inherits the role previously played by the late Michael Clarke Duncan, while Josh Brolin steps into the shoes of pre-plastic surgery Dwight, played by Clive Owen in the original. As for the dame to kill for herself, the role for which Rodriguez was supposedly targeting Jolie? She’ll be played by Eva Green, who I’m sure will make an entirely alluring femme fatale.
Not a lot is known about this movie, so there’s not a lot I can say. The story is set in the near future and concerns a lonely man who falls in love with the female-voiced operating system he purchases to help run his life – essentially a version of the iPhone’s Siri. With such a delightfully gonzo premise, you might expect that this marks another collaboration between Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, but in fact this will be the first time he has pulled solo screenwriting duty. I consider Jonze one of the best directors around, and one who works far too infrequently; this will be only his fourth film since 1999, following Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are. That too-small filmography is a lot to live up to, but I have little doubt Jonze will deliver something worthy of joining it.
4.
GRAVITY Director: Alfonso Cuarón Writers: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonas Cuarón Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney Release Date: October 4
Alfonso Cuarón’s highly anticipated follow-up to Children of Men casts Bullock and Clooney as a scientist and astronaut, respectively, tethered to each other and adrift in the cosmos after an accident leaves their space station damaged. The film was on my list last year, originally intended for a November release, but the visual effects required substantially more time to complete. Word is that we can expect a powerful movie combining a gripping and emotional story with astounding visuals. Should be worth the wait.
3.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Director: Martin Scorsese Writer: Terence Winter Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Bernthal, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin, Christine Ebersole, Jon Favreau, Jonah Hill, Jake Hoffman, Spike Jonze, Joanna Lumley, Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, Ethan Suplee, Shea Whigam Release Date: November 15
In his fifth collaboration with Martin Scorsese (one more and he’ll tie De Niro; two more and he wins Harvey Keitel), DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who – surprise, surprise – engaged in criminal activity during the Wall Street heyday of the 1980’s. He lived large, partied hard and was worshipped by legions of young brokers. When his illegal activity was swept into a larger securities fraud investigation by the Federal government, it all came crashing down. Terence Winter, a Sopranos writer and creator of the Scorsese-produced HBO series Boardwalk Empire, adapts the true-life tale from Belfort’s memoir. DiCaprio has been trying to get this made for a long time (I’m almost certain that Michael Mann was attached to direct it at one point, though a brief search of the internets could not confirm that), and while doing promotion recently for Django Unchained, indicated that he has high hopes for the movie. He’s not alone.
2.
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG Director: Peter Jackson Writers: Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Billy Connolly, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Evangeline Lilly, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott Release Date: December 13
Is three movies one movie too many to adequately adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s slender novel The Hobbit? Many would say yes. And they may be right. Personally, I’ll wait until the trilogy is complete to decide if a trilogy was overkill or not. I’m still intrigued by the decision to encompass additional Middle Earth lore from Tolkien’s other writings in order to deepen and enrich the story, so I remain firmly on board with Peter Jackson’s grand adventure. In the next chapter, Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield’s dozen-strong company of dwarves continue their march to reclaim their home city and stolen treasure from the dragon Smaug. Cumberbatch will play the mighty beast using the same motion capture technology that transformed Andy Serkis into Gollum. It should prove another showcase for the visual effects team at Jackson’s WETA Digital, and for Tolkien fans, it should prove a monumental onscreen match-up between a courageous halfling and arguably the most famous fire-breather in all of literature.
1.
UNTITLED DAVID O. RUSSELL ABSCAM MOVIE Director: David O. Russell Writer: Eric Warren Singer Cast: Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Alesandro Nivola Release Date: December 13
Coming off Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell couldn’t be any hotter right now, and his next project – currently without a title, but at one time called American Bullshit – is based on the real-life Abscam operation, an FBI sting in the late 70’s and early 80’s that targeted corruption in Congress. Russell was once notorious for his on-set outbursts and screaming fits directed at cast and crew (he and George Clooney came to blows while making Three Kings), and even then he still lined-up impressive ensembles. Now that he seems to have mellowed out considerably, and with his last two movies yielding an astonishing seven Oscar-nominated performances combined (three of which took the gold), actors would probably slit throats to work with him. Unfortunately for all those blade-wielding thespians, he’s so fond of repeat collaborations that it’s hard to break in. The movie re-teams him with his Fighter stars Bale and Adams, as well as Silver Linings duo Lawrence and Cooper. Renner managed to score the remaining lead role. More cast members might yet be announced, as the movie is just now going into production. I wasn’t sure it would be released this year, but a December date was announced this week, meaning we won’t have as long to wait for Russell to demonstrate yet again why he’s one of the best in the business right now.
As always, I like to take a little time before weighing in with my thoughts on the Oscars…partly so I can respond to all the knee-jerk reactions in the media. And this year, there’s been a lot of knee-jerking. The show has prompted quite an impassioned reaction, most of it directed at host Seth MacFarlane, and most of it negative. Even over a week later, people are still stating their objections to some of his material. So let’s start there.
For the record, this was not the worst Oscars ever, nor was MacFarlane the worst host ever. I’m confident that the people making one or both of those accusations have not seen every televised Oscar show, and are therefore in no position to say what shows back in the 50’s or 60’s, for example, might have been better or worse. Besides, you don’t even have to go that far back for a worse show. You need only rewind two years, to the ceremony honoring the best of 2010, hosted by Anne Hathaway and James Franco. I haven’t seen every Oscar show either, so I can’t say whether or not that was the worst ever. But it was the worst I could remember seeing, and not just because the hosts were not up to the task. In fact, I wrote at the time that I didn’t think Hathaway and Franco even deserved most of the blame. (Well…Franco may have deserved a good-sized chunk.) As I said, it was “badly produced, badly directed, blandly written.” This year’s show wasn’t the best, but for the most part it was competently produced, so it’s already an improvement over two years ago.
THE HOST From the moment he was announced last year, the chatter was that MacFarlane was an unusual and provocative choice, but an exciting one. Aside from the fact that he was largely unknown to the public and was not a major figure in the film community (though he was coming off the summer success of Ted, his first movie as director and voice actor), his humor was known for often being crass and edgy. But it was a good pick. It showed the Academy taking a chance, which is not something the esteemed old lady is known for doing, and MacFarlane’s combo of comedy and music skills seemed like they would serve him well at a gig like this.
Other than Team Francoway, who were simply the wrong people for the job, I don’t think I’ve seen a really bad hosting turn in my 25 years of Oscar watching (then again, I’m fairly easy to please). Billy Crystal was always great, though his schtick was a little warmed over by last year; Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin always did a good job; Hugh Jackman and Ellen DeGeneres both delivered in their years, as did Jon Stewart the two times he hosted. The hosts that are remembered less favorably are David Letterman and Chris Rock, but both were perfectly funny. They just weren’t the typical warm and fuzzy hosts who go down smooth. They pushed a few more buttons, and were true to their well-established personas instead of trying to become something else for Oscar night.
The same goes for MacFarlane. But the degree of vitriol in response has been high…and in several cases, a lot more mean-spirited than anything he dished out. The show, and its host, have been called sexist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, racist and anti-gay during the last week and a half. Amy Davidson of The New Yorker was one of many who was not remotely amused by MacFarlane’s performance. Two female California state lawmakers sent a letter to the Academy expressing their concerns, as if they don’t have more pressing matters to attend to that involve actually governing. Perhaps I have no right to comment on any of this since I’m not a woman, but at the risk of being labeled a racist, homophobic misogynist for not rebuking everything MacFarlane did, I have to defend the guy. His humor is known for sometimes being offensive, but like South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, MacFarlane is an equal opportunity offender. I don’t think this is a man who has it in for women. I may not be so attuned to things that women would find offensive, and yes, a line like the one about Jessica Chastain’s Zero Dark Thirty character tracking Bin Laden for 12 years being evidence of women never letting anything go was pointless and bound to piss off every female viewer, rightfully so. But I hardly think it was a setback to feminism.
As for charges of anti-Semitism, I can attest from my years of Hebrew school that the Jewish people have survived an awful lot; I think they can endure a couple of cracks about their influence and numbers in the entertainment industry. In fact, I find it more interesting that MacFarlane’s Oscar night humor pushed the envelope as far as what is considered venue-appropriate, while at the same time being as staunchly old-fashioned as including jokes about Jews running Hollywood. Also, I don’t recall there being a backlash three years ago after Steve Martin (co-hosting with Alec Baldwin) described Inglourious Basterds nominee Christoph Waltz’s character as a Nazi hunting Jews, then spread his arms wide and declared, “Well, Christoph? The motherload!” On the contrary, it was one of the best lines of the night, and received the laughs to prove it.
The joke about actresses giving themselves the flu to fit into their dresses bothered some, but did anyone make a peep after the Golden Globes, when Tina Fey described The Hunger Games as what she called the six weeks it took her to fit into her dress? If there were complaints, they sure weren’t loud. I don’t need to tell anyone that Hollywood celebrates beautiful women and sets unrealistic expectations when it comes to the female body image. That’s a problem, but as long as the entire red carpet tradition at the Oscars and every other award show continues, creating pressure for women to pour so much energy into selecting gowns and jewelery and to look amazing or be torn apart in fashion magazines, the culture will persist. Suddenly Seth MacFarlane is a misogynist for cracking a joke about it?
Yes, he joked about Chris Brown and Rhianna. So has every late night comedian, over and over again. I don’t see them getting raked across the coals. Yes, there was a song called, “We Saw Your Boobs.” Yes, it was silly and a little crude. But no, it wasn’t a statement that actresses are only worth paying attention to when they take their clothes off, nor was it indicative of a night where every introduction or comment on an actress focused on her beauty or looks – another complaint I read somewhere after the show, which was untrue. He introduced plenty of women without referencing their looks, including presenters Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Garner, saying “both have played government agents and both have kicked ass onscreen in every sense.” Nothing about their beauty, just their talent. And since Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Jennifer Lawrence were all willing to participate in the boobs number, can’t everyone just lighten up? (No, I suppose if that argument worked there wouldn’t have been any controversy last year about The Help or this year about Django Unchained. Just because certain members of a group take part in something doesn’t mean other members of the same group won’t take offense.) MacFarlane was accused of insulting Adele’s weight when he joked that Rex Reed would be coming out to review her performance, but I saw that not as knock on Adele, but a joke about Rex Reed being an asshole. (For those who didn’t get it, film critic Rex Reed made some obnoxious comments about Melissa McCarthy’s weight in his review of Identity Thief a few weeks ago. He deserved the scorn that came his way. MacFarlane doesn’t.)
It wasn’t just journalists slamming MacFarlane. Actress and Oscar night presenter Jane Fonda, as well as Girls creator and star Lena Dunham weren’t impressed, and just within the last couple of days, Jamie Lee Curtis and Geena Davis have weighed in as well. It’s particularly disappointing to see fellow artists bash MacFarlane in the media. While they, along with anyone else, have the right to be offended by his routine, artists know what it is to take risks and put yourself out there, so I would think they would at least refrain from airing their grievances publicly. All but Dunham are Academy members, and if they felt the need to voice their concerns, they could have done so in private communication to the Academy’s president. Their opinions are certainly valid. But people have varying barometers of what is and isn’t offensive. Curtis starred in True Lies, which faced charges of misogyny and furthering stereotypes of Arabs as terrorists. Dunham has been accused (absurdly) of racism and nepotism. They’re bothered by MacFarlane’s jokes? Fair enough. But I’m bothered that fellow artists who have been in his position can’t muster a little empathy. They don’t have to like what he did, but they don’t have to attack him in public for it.
I was happy to see some writers come to his defense, and female writers at that, like Victoria A. Brownworth in The Advocate (though I think she might go a bit far in the other direction when she describes the ceremony as “a veritable paean to women.”) Even better was this letter to The Hollywood Reporter from an anonymous female development executive, who discusses some of the ways that sexism is rampant in Hollywood, and says that the problem needs to be addressed in more fundamental ways than tearing apart Seth MacFarlane for doing what a comedian does. A similar argument about women in Hollywood was made by Katherine Lampher in The Christian Science Monitor, though she is less forgiving of the host.
MacFarlane is not a traditional stand-up comic or performer by trade. He has hosted Comedy Central roasts and private ceremonies like the Writer’s Guild Awards, but the global exposure of the Oscar stage is new to him. Still, the Academy leadership and the show’s producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron were willing to take a chance on him, and he took the chance too. Not only did he take it, but he jumped into the deep end. According to Zadan and Meron, MacFarlane was much more involved in all aspects of planning than most hosts. He attended every production meeting along the way, and threw himself into the process. Even at the show itself, he put himself out there more than the typical host just in the sheer amount of the proceedings that he participated in. I don’t remember another host being onstage as much as MacFarlane was. He introduced almost every presenter himself, a task that is usually more evenly split between the host and the anonymous, disembodied announcer. He also was there to throw to each commercial break with a tease of what was coming up. The guy was working it. Many critics described him as coming off smug, amateurish and self-involved. I disagree completely. I think he was comfortable, confident, and fulfilled a host’s duties admirably. He was enjoying himself, and wasn’t afraid to show it. Not every joke landed, but he was quick on his feet when something fell flat. After the off-color joke describing John Wilkes Booth as the actor who “really got inside Lincoln’s head” did little to impress the crowd, he swiftly recovered by expressing surprise that 150 years was still too soon, and that he had some Napoleon jokes coming up that would really make them mad. When his joke about the heavy use of the N word in the Django Unchained script being based on Mel Gibson’s voicemails elicited an uncomfortable reaction, he went with it by asking, “Oh, so you’re on his side?”
Critics were too busy sharpening their knives to notice many of his safer but still funny lines throughout the night, like introducing presenters Zoe Saldana and Chris Pine as “current Star Trek stars and future Priceline.com spokespeople,” or bringing out Daniel Radcliffe and Kristen Stewart with the line, “He’s a boy wizard and she’s a girl vampire. So together they’re pretty much everything the Christian right says is wrong with Hollywood.” He took aim at the Academy’s general failure to nominate blockbusters by describing The Avengers as “the most popular movie of the year, which is why it’s only nominated once.” And he had a great line about the cast of Prometheus coming out to explain “what the hell was going on there.” His bit about Daniel Day-Lewis’ immersive method being challenged by encountering signs of modernity like cell phones and a free-roaming Don Cheadle was terrific. And he got off to a great start with his opening line of the night, “The quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh beings now,” a reference to Jones’ stone-faced reaction to a hilarious Will Ferrell-Kristin Wiig bit at the Golden Globes. MacFarlane succeeded, as the side-by-side shows.
The fact is that much more of MacFarlane’s material worked than didn’t. Sure, there were some groans and a few examples of muted applause, but by and large the audience was with him. These critics who ripped his performance should try listening to the room. Perhaps the noises at their Oscar party, or the sound of indignation boiling in their own heads drowned out the consistent laughter of the crowd that followed most of his jokes. The same thing was true of Letterman’s hosting gig. People still talk about it as a failure, but if they actually go back and watch, they’ll find that Letterman was a hit with the audience. Hosting the Oscars is always described as a thankless job, and the reaction to MacFarlane’s performance goes a long way toward proving it. People complain when they think the host is too bland or safe, and they complain when the host pushes buttons and dares to slightly shake up an event which they describe, year after year, as dull and bloated. Make up your minds, assholes. Or better yet, shut up altogether. The Academy’s risk in hiring MacFarlane paid off with a show that accomplished two positive things: it got people talking, and scored the best ratings in four years, with a significant gain in the 18-49 demographic that is probably due, at least in some part, to MacFarlane. I’m happy to see they have defended him in the face of the negative onslaught.
For those who disliked MacFarlane’s performance and might see some victory in his post-ceremony tweet that he would never host the show again, they should know that he said the same thing before the show even happened, citing the amount of work and the time commitment. I hope that when it comes time to choose the next host later this year, the Academy leadership and show producers – whoever they may be – don’t play it safe as a reaction to this backlash, and instead once again choose someone interesting but still appropriate (i.e., a comedian). Last year, right after the Academy’s new president Hawk Koch was elected, there were rumors that he had reached out to Lorne Michaels to produce the show and Jimmy Fallon to host. ABC supposedly didn’t like the idea of Fallon, time-slot rival to their own Jimmy Kimmel, hosting a big program on their network, so it didn’t pan out. Or so the story goes. But Michaels and Fallon…now that’s an Oscar combo I’d love to see. As for Tina Fey’s insistence that she would never host? That’s kinda like what J.J. Abrams said about directing Star Wars. I’m sure she could be convinced.
THE AWARDS
Now with all of that out of the way, we can get to what the show is actually about. This year, the wealth was nicely spread around, with eight of the nine Best Picture nominees winning at least one award. Only Beasts of the Southern Wild went home empty-handed, but let’s be honest: for such an outside-the-mainstream, low-budget film from a 30 year-old first time director, just being at the Academy Awards with four major nominations was a huge victory. Life of Pi led the night with four awards, Argo and Les Misérables took home three, Lincoln and Django Unchained each won two, while Silver Linings Playbook, Amour and Zero Dark Thirty all claimed one. Non-Best Picture nominees Skyfall, Anna Karenina and Brave also emerged as winners.
-For my own part, out of 24 categories, I called 19 correctly, missed three (Supporting Actor, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design) and abstained from two (Live Action Short, Documentary Short). Better than I thought I would do in this unusually unpredictable year. Many of my personal picks missed out, but I was largely satisfied with the slate of nominations this year, so I felt good about how things unfolded. There were no travesties of Oscar justice or unexplainable headscratchers.
-Chief among the new records set and pieces of trivia inscribed was Daniel Day-Lewis becoming the first person to win three Best Actor awards. He also became the first actor to win for a Steven Spielberg movie. Argo became the fourth movie to win Best Picture without its director being nominated. At age 22, Jennifer Lawrence became the second youngest Best Actress winner ever, behind Marlee Matlin, who was 21 when she won for Children of a Lesser God. “Skyfall” became the first song from a James Bond movie to win, and George Clooney joined some elite clubs this year, as the person to receive nominations in more categories than anyone else, and only the sixth person to win in both acting and non-acting categories.
-Of all the awards, the one that surprised me most was Christoph Waltz’s Best Supporting Actor win for Django Unchained. Not because I didn’t see it coming at all (I predicted De Niro, but acknowledged that Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones both had a strong chance), but because it just seems strange that Waltz is now a two-time Oscar winner. He’s great, and I’ve enjoyed not just his winning performances, but those he gave in between in Carnage and Water for Elephants, but a two-time Oscar winner? After less than five years in Hollywood? It’s a neat, but slightly bewildering accomplishment, especially considering that his characters in Inglourious Basterds and Django aren’t that far apart. He joins an impressive roster of two-timers that includes Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman, Jodie Foster, Anthony Quinn, Maggie Smith, Denzel Washington and Jessica Lange. Waltz’s win is a testament to how much voters obviously enjoyed his performance, and how expert he is at delivering Tarantino’s dialogue. It really is a match made in heaven with those two.
-The other big surprise of the night, though less high-profile, was the tie in the Best Sound Editing category. It was only the sixth tie in Academy history, and lent some unexpected drama to a category that doesn’t get its due from the average movie or Oscar viewer.
-The Best Animated Film win for Brave was a nice triumph for Brenda Chapman, who conceived the film based on personal experience and was Pixar’s first female director until she was replaced during production by Mark Andrews. It was a shocking development at the time, with almost no details given, though ultimately Chapman shared directing credit on the film with Andrews. Now she’s an Oscar winner, and whatever tension might exist between them, you would never know from the way they interacted on stage or in the press room, where they posed for some goofy pictures. (One thing, though: if I were Andrews, I’d probably have hung back so Chapman could speak first.)
-One of the other big stories that has emerged from Oscar night, though less visibly to the average viewer than the MacFarlane brouhaha, centers on the Best Visual Effects triumph for Life of Pi. As I had mentioned in my predictions post, this widely expected win occurred under a storm cloud: Rhythm & Hues, the primary visual effects house that worked on the movie, has been in financial trouble recently and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a few weeks ago. When the quartet of winners took the stage, speaker Bill Westenhofer thanked Ang Lee, the talented crew and his family before bringing up the sad irony of winning the Oscar as the company – and the entire VFX industry – is in such dire straits.
As a former employee of a VFX company, with many friends still there, I hear about these issues often. In simplest terms, studios want to pay as little as possible for visual effects (and for everything else, no doubt). In order to secure business, facilities have to bid the work at numbers far below the actual cost. Compounding the problem, other countries offer tax incentives and cheaper labor to the studios in order to lure business (within the U.S., other states outside of California, where the industry was born and raised, also have tax incentives). The result is that VFX artists increasingly live migrant lifestyles, bouncing around from shop to shop, state to state, sometimes country to country in order to make a living, and even then they still have to put in impossible hours to complete the work on time as studios demand increasingly complex visuals at lower and lower prices on shorter and shorter delivery schedules. The piece of the pie these companies and artists receive is small to nonexistent, and they are not represented by a union. Despite the fact that year after year, the highest grossing movies are driven by visual effects, the industry is being destroyed by the studios which are unsurprisingly fixated on their bottom line. Rhythm & Hues is just the latest company to go under, and everyone in the industry is feeling the squeeze. VFX artists organized a protest near the Dolby Theater on Oscar night to call attention to the problem, and newly minted Oscar winner Westenhofer tried to address the issue…until the orchestra started playing the Jaws theme to send him on his way, an obnoxious though not atypical move at the Oscars year after year. Then they cut his microphone altogether – more obnoxious, less typical.
When the winners arrived on stage, there was unusually loud applause and hooting from the audience. Maybe there were just a lot of Pi fans out there, or maybe people were happy to see this team win in the face of R&H’s financial difficulties. Either way, Westenhofer hadn’t been talking that long before the music started to play, and cutting off the microphone was a real bullshit move. I’ve said time and time again that whether it makes compelling TV or not, winners should be allowed to complete their speeches. Most are considerate enough not to drone on endlessly. Oscar night is first and foremost about the film community honoring its own, and so the honorees should be accorded the respect of having their moment.
All that said, the VFX community reacted harshly not just to Westenhofer’s treatment, but to two other speeches of the night, complaining that Ang Lee and Best Cinematography winner Claudio Miranda didn’t thank or acknowledge the work of the VFX artists. I’m less sympathetic to these rebukes. First of all, most people who take the stage to accept an Oscar are not used to being in that kind of spotlight. By all accounts, it’s an extremely surreal and disorienting experience. Even a pro like Jennifer Lawrence was quickly at a loss for words, and forgot to thank her director David O. Russell and the all-powerful Harvey Weinstein. When Hilary Swank won her first Best Actress award, she famously forgot to thank her husband. People are not always at their most eloquent or most focused in that moment. If you saw Miranda’s speech, the guy could barely speak coherently, and acknowledged as much. I’m not about to accuse him of slighting the VFX teams. As for Lee, he began his speech by thanking the 3,000 people who worked with him on Life of Pi. No, he didn’t call out Rhythm & Hues specifically, which would have been nice given what’s happening to them. But I don’t believe that not mentioning them was disrespectful or meant to neglect their invaluable work. I’m sure every contributor to the movie could make an argument for why their discipline should be mentioned. The problems in the effects industry are bad, but they are not singular. Plenty of other sectors of the economy, in and out of the film industry, face problems comparable to those the VFX industry is caught in. Members of the VFX community should be upset about what’s happening, but they should also focus on the real problem and not lash out at people who didn’t thank them in an award speech. The industry could absolutely benefit from even just a couple of powerful, respected directors taking up the cause with the studios – a James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, David Fincher or Tim Burton – somebody who understands the importance of VFX, uses them consistently and has made the studios a lot of money. But the difference is not going to be made by a quick mention in an Oscar speech, and VFX artists would do better to direct their ire elsewhere and cut these guys some slack.
-Not all the drama on Oscar night happened on stage. I liked this story, about a producer of Best Animated Short winner Paperman being temporarily ejected from the auditorium for throwing a few paper airplanes from her seat when the movie won.
-Poor Anne Hathaway. Some people really just don’t like that girl. I’m not one of them, and although I have described her before as sometimes coming off as over-the-top in her eagerness and enthusiasm, I usually find her to be a class act with a good sense of humor. She has been ridiculed by people throughout the season for some of her speeches (she’s given a lot of them), which have been called insincere and rehearsed. Rehearsed? She’s admitted to practicing her speeches, but how is that any different from writing a speech or a list of names and reading from it? It’s just a different way of being prepared in case you win. I think what people have called a lack of sincerity is actually an abundance of it; she’s so sincere that it bugs people. Throughout the awards season I’ve found her speeches to be gracious, warm and genuine. She’s consistently and eloquently acknowledged her co-nominees, her cast and crew, and she has impressively avoided breaking down in a fit of tears, which…c’mon, Hathaway totally seems like the type who might lose it when winning an award, especially an Oscar. But she hasn’t and she didn’t. So don’t let the haters harsh your buzz, Anne. (I will say though, I wish you had cracked a joke about being back on the Oscar stage for the first time since your maligned hosting gig. And it would have been funny if you thanked Susan Boyle. And it would have been cool for you to mention that your mother played Fantine years ago in a traveling production of Les Misérables, making your win for playing the same character even more special. Cause that does make it more special, right? Or have I crossed an inappropriate line from telling winners what they should say to telling them what they should feel as well?
-The best speeches of the night came toward the end of the show. I still think Lincoln writer Tony Kushner should have taken home the Best Adapted Screenplay award, but I really liked what Argo winner Chris Terrio said about using intelligence and creativity to solve problems nonviolently.
I also liked Quentin Tarantino’s speech, calling out the actors who bring his characters to such memorable life, as well as all the other nominated writers for doing such great work.
Daniel Day-Lewis, always great with a speech, was no different last night, and once again had the crowd rolling as he described how he and presenter Meryl Streep had swapped roles, Abraham Lincoln for Margaret Thatcher. I kept hearing comments from people who were surprised by his humor, but in my previous post I provided links to other speeches Day-Lewis has given throughout the season, all of which have shown him to be as funny as he is humble and appreciative. How great would it be to see Day-Lewis in an intelligent, highbrow comedy? Somebody needs to get him in a room with Alexander Payne!
Best Actress winner Jennifer Lawrence took a spill on the way to the stage to accept her award, but superstar that she is, she humorously and gracefully brushed it off and went on to deliver an appreciative speech, despite her spinning head causing her to forget a few key people (which she rectified later).
And when Ben Affleck got to make his speech for Argo‘s Best Picture win, he once again spoke from the heart, echoing his BAFTA speech by thanking the people who have helped him rebuild his career. It’s a shame that Affleck missed out on the Directing nomination, because he almost certainly would have won had he been there. But given the way his career is going, he may get another chance before too long.
THE PRODUCTION
The show may have been long and overstuffed this year, but the stuffing was at least well-made, and attractively presented. The sets were beautiful, and I especially liked the background that looked like hundreds of slender stalks of light. It was like an electronic-age update of the set for The Police video “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” I half expected to see Sting frolicking in between the rows of light.
(Click Image to Enlarge)
-Once again, the show was directed by Don Mischer, and once again he proved he sucks at this. To his credit, he did better than the last two years when it came to showcasing celebrities in the crowd, but he still failed to spread the wealth around and provide a sense of the famous faces in the room. There was a point in the show when MacFarlane acknowledged the show’s producers Zadan and Meron, and then director Mischer, calling the latter “masterful.” At that moment, the master cut away to his favorite thing: a wide shot of the middle of the auditorium, with no recognizable faces. Later, when MacFarlane said, “How great was Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty?” Mischer again cut to middle of the crowd, where we caught a glimpse of Renee Zellweger and Queen Latifah, but not Jessica Chastain nor anyone we recognized as connected to Zero Dark Thirty. When Reese Witherspoon was onstage introducing the first three Best Picture nominees, the camera cut to the contingent for the first two, Les Misérables and Life of Pi. But for some reason, despite knowing where all the nominees would be seated, the cutaway that should have showed the Beasts of the Southern Wild camp instead found Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. It would have been nice to have one shot all night of Beasts director Benh Zeitlin, to show the new kid on the block reacting to his first Oscar experience. But the only time Zeitlin was on camera was during the few seconds when the envelope for the Best Director award was opened. All the directors were on camera at the moment, except for David O. Russell, who was for some reason replaced with Emmanuelle Riva. It’s not like Mischer didn’t know where to send his cameramen to get the right person in the shot, but nevertheless he failed to do so. Throughout the night, he missed obvious opportunities to cut to certain audience members when they were being mentioned from the stage. Some of those mentions were spontaneous, and maybe a cameraman couldn’t get there in time, but others were during planned portions of the show, like the aforementioned Best Picture intros. He couldn’t have cut to the Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty crews when their movies were discussed? This is the third year in a row that Mischer has directed the show, and the third year in a row that the show has been incompetently directed. When are they gonna dump this guy? I’m sure he’s nice and all, but maybe it’s time he hung up his headset.
-Speaking of those Best Picture montages, kudos to whoever put them together. They were nicely assembled, providing a good sense of each movie and not just looking like excerpts from the trailers.
-The majority of The Avengers cast – Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson – took the stage to present awards for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. After cinematographer Claudio Miranda had finished his speech and left the stage, the presenters returned to the mic and, as you saw in the clip above, Jackson started to announce the Visual Effects nominees before Renner and Ruffalo interrupted him and told him he had just skipped a bunch of text. Downey started to chime in with some words about it being a big year for effects-driven films, but Jackson comically argued that they should honor the artists by simply presenting the award. It was an awkward bit of business, since it wasn’t clear if Jackson really had skipped a chunk of the presentation, or if the jokey bickering was in fact planned and there was no skipped material after all. I still don’t know the answer, but if it was the former, then the visual effects community was slighted again…and this time it would be worth getting pissed.
-The James Bond tribute was a bit of a disappointment. The producers said in an interview before the show that the intent was always to focus on the music of Bond, in keeping with the theme of the night, and that there was never a plan for the six actors who’ve played 007 to unite onstage. There were still rumors that there had indeed been an attempt to bring the Bonds together, but that Sean Connery and perhaps Pierce Brosnan were holdouts, killing the whole deal. Regardless, even as just a tribute to the music of Bond, the presentation was lacking. After a nice intro by Oscar winner and Die Another Day Bond girl Halle Berry, we were treated to a run-of-the-mill montage accompanied by the James Bond Theme, and then an instrumental of “Live and Let Die.” Not even the actual song with lyrics, but just an instrumental. I did enjoy the way that dovetailed right into the arrival of Shirley Bassey, looking great at 76, who belted out an impressive rendition of “Goldfinger.” I applaud Meron and Zadan for getting Bassey onto the show, but the rest of the tribute was sub par. Why was “Live and Let Die” the only song featured, and why was it not even the actual song? Where was “For Your Eyes Only” or “Nobody Does It Better”? Could they not have gotten at least one or two more singers to come on the show and perform their songs, at least partial versions, if they were concerned about time? Why not fold Adele’s performance of “Skyfall” into this segment, with more Bond clips projected behind her? (And when she did perform later in the show, why was she set so far back instead of out closer to the audience? Bad staging, that.) The tribute was a nice idea, but it should have been better.
-Did anyone notice that as Seth MacFarlane began to acknowledge the orchestra, the music swelled so loud that he could barely be heard, then sharply pulled back before rising again almost loud enough to drown him out as he continued his salute to their contribution? No? Nobody? Well…it made me laugh.
-The tribute to recent movie musicals was another mixed bag. It was strange to begin with that only three movies were featured, especially when one – Chicago – was executive produced by Meron and Zadan, and another – Les Misérables – was a nominee for Best Picture, giving it more attention than any of the competition. Why focus on recent musicals only? Maybe because the Oscars featured a big tribute to movie musicals just a few years ago, when Hugh Jackman hosted? Okay, so they wanted to spotlight musicals of the last decade, rather than the decades worth featured in that big number from the 2008 show. Even then, why just Chicago, Dreamgirls and Les Misérables? There were plenty of other movie musicals to showcase. How about Sweeney Todd, Nine and Moulin Rouge? The Producers, Hairspray and The Muppets? Even Team America and A Prairie Home Companion could qualify as musicals. But these movies were all ignored.
As it was, the tribute began with Catherine Zeta-Jones performing “All That Jazz”, but it seemed a bit pointless since the whole number was staged exactly as it was in the movie. Why not try to bring something new to it, at least? (I also read some comments online that Jones was clearly lip-synching, but if it was true, I didn’t notice.) She was followed by Jennifer Hudson belting out “And I Am Telling You”, her signature number from Dreamgirls. The power of her vocals brought the crowd to their feet, but I’m not crazy about the song, which lacks a compelling melody and just seems designed for an impressive voice to screech and roar. The best number of the tribute was easily the Les Misérables medley. I was concerned this would flop, as medleys always run the risk of being corny. But it turned out to be excellent. It started off with a solo Hugh Jackman performing the nominated song “Suddenly”, then nearly all of the film’s main cast joined in bit by bit for the soaring number “One Day More”, with a dash of “I Dreamed a Dream” for good measure. Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen’s presence seemed to be for inclusion’s sake only, since neither got to solo or even duet, and they aren’t actually part of “One Day More” in the film. Still, the whole performance was stellar (even Russell Crowe, whose singing in the film has earned more derision than it deserves) and was the highlight of the segment.
-One of the coolest things the Academy did this year was hold a contest for film students asking them to make a 30 second video explaining what they would contribute to the future of movies. Six winners were selected and invited to the Oscars to help hand out the statues, in lieu of the nameless spokesmodel types that usually do the honors, and Academy president Hawk Koch even introduced them all by name. I could have done without that part; no offense to them, but that time would be better spent letting a winner complete their speech. But the contest and opportunity is a great idea, and I hope the Academy makes it a new tradition. The winning videos can be seen here. (I like the second and third.)
-Why do people keep asking Kristen Stewart to present awards? She’s terrible at it. Whatever charisma or talent she brings to her performances, she brings none of it to her real life public appearances. She mumbles, she fidgets, she looks down, over and around…if it’s an effort to court younger fans, there are plenty of others who can accomplish that.
-Why does Kristen Stewart keep agreeing to present awards? She has often admitted that she’s uncomfortable and awkward in the spotlight, which is fully apparent from the way she mumbles, fidgets and looks down, over and around as if she can’t wait to get off the stage. Maybe she looked so sullen because of her fresh Razzie win for the final Twilight movie. Nah…she always looks that sullen.
-Although the emphasis on Chicago was a sort of ego-stroking gesture on the part of Meron and Zadan, it was nice to see Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger, Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones present together. Where has Zellweger been these last few years? And where was John C. Reilly? I hope his absence was due to unavailability, because if they failed to invite him, that would be an egregious oversight…not to mention an ironic one for the guy who sang “Mr. Cellophane.”
-It seemed a little odd and unfair that only three of the five Best Original Song nominees were performed live on the show. After Hugh Jackman sang as part of the Les Misérables medley and Adele got a big moment to sing “Skyfall”, Norah Jones was trotted out in the middle of the Best Song presentation to perform “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from Ted. It’s not a long song to begin with, but even so it was a truncated version. And did Jones even have time to exit the stage before the envelope was opened declaring a different song the winner? (Not that Jones would have taken the Oscar had the song won, as she didn’t write it, but still…kinda makes her performance, which already felt like an afterthought, seem all the more pointless.) Then there are the other two nominees, which were only featured as clips. “Before My Time” from Chasing Ice was performed in the film by Scarlett Johansson, who wasn’t at the Oscars due to her schedule on Broadway, but they could have found somebody else to perform the song. And “Pi’s Lullaby”, performed by Bombay Jayashree, would have lended itself to a nice visual presentation if the producers had worked it into the show. Maybe there was a reason they didn’t…but like I said, it seemed odd.
-Only two things were less surprising than wins by Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway: Iran complaining about Argo‘s Best Picture win, and idiots complaining about Michelle Obama. Yes, when Jack Nicholson came out to present Best Picture, he introduced a surprise co-presenter. The First Lady appeared onscreen via satellite from The White House (awkwardly flanked by a number of military personnel in what looked like the most uncomfortable reception ever). The First Lady, of course, was all class and elegance as she talked about the importance of movies and then opened the envelope to reveal Argo as the winner. The idea to have Mrs. Obama on the show came from Harvey Weinstein’s daughter, and Weinstein helped make it happen. I suppose this year was a fitting one for something like that, with a number of Best Picture nominees being so politically relevant (Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, even Beasts of the Southern Wild and Les Misérables), but really it was just intended as an unexpected treat. Of course, not everyone saw it that way. Blowhards who feel the need to politicize everything expressed their disgust at the First Lady’s appearance. I love reading through some of the comments mentioned in this article, because it demonstrates what imbeciles these people are. I expected them all to be conservatives, but I stand corrected: one of the quoted douchebags is MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch, whose remarks include calling Mrs. Obama “uninvited.” Yeah, that’s right, dipshit. She just took over the satellite feed and inserted herself into the Oscars. Do you know what “invited” means? You should look it up, and then use it properly, because you can’t possibly be stupid enough to think that she crashed the Oscars. Then there’s conservative Jennifer Rubin’s comment about Mrs. Obama “intruding” and feeling “entitled.” Hey moron, it’s not intruding when you’re asked to be there, nor are you being entitled when you accept an invitation. And to the Fox News fuckwad, Todd Starnes, how did Mrs. Obama “make it about herself?” She was asked to be there, and she talked about movies – same as any other presenter. Surely the conservative critics would have had complete respect for the Oscars had Michelle Obama not appeared, because, you know, conservatives love Hollywood. And as the article above points out, other First Ladies and even Presidents, including Laura Bush and Ronald Reagan, have been involved in past Oscar ceremonies, either in pre-taped appearances or in the case of FDR, a live radio address in 1941. So get over it. I’m only interested in one narrow-minded, politicized Oscar critique, and that’s Stephen Colbert’s.
Anyway, my only issue with Mrs. Obama’s presentation was her overly worshipful talk about the impact of movies. Not her fault; I’m sure it was written for her, and that sort of inflated praise is a hallmark of Oscar night. The Academy loves to give presenters long paragraphs about the power of movies. I love movies like I love little else, but even I tend to roll my eyes at this. Other than that, I thought the First Lady’s involvement was pretty cool. And I’m glad to see she’s brushing off the criticism without a second thought.
THE DRESSES
While critics were busy tearing up Seth MacFarlane for demeaning women, others in the media engaged in the time honored tradition of passing judgement on dresses and gowns, and by extension, the ladies wearing them. Well who am I to question this practice? I appreciate a nice Oscar dress and the person inside it as much as anyone, and among those whose Oscar night looks jumped out for me were Halle Berry, Jennifer Aniston, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lawrence, Sandra Bullock, Samantha Barks, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Garner, Helen Hunt, Naomi Watts and Jessica Chastain.
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Ladies, kudos to your good taste and your designers’ skills. And you’re all damn fine actresses to boot.
THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS
As always, Oscar Sunday was preceded by the breezier, more casual Saturday celebration at the beach in Santa Monica known as the Independent Spirit Awards. I like to take a detour and mention these, since they can sometimes be forgotten in the shadow of the golden guy. Silver Linings Playbook was the big winner, with awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their roles in The Sessions, while Best Supporting Actor went to Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike.
The Spirit Awards are typically a loose and irreverent affair, and there are usually some great moments to emerge, whether courtesy of hosts, winners or presenters. The highlight this year came with the first award, Best First Screenplay, which was awarded to Derek Connolly for Safety Not Guaranteed. Although he seemed a little shell-shocked when he took the stage, he spoke logically and coherently. Well apparently he was totally plastered and just kept going on and on. I don’t know what happened in the room, but the TV broadcast, which was an edited version of the show and aired later in the day, jumped ahead five minutes to an amusing effort by Bryan Cranston to help presenter Kerry Washington get Connolly off the stage. The blitzed winner seemed oblivious to their intent, but finally allowed himself, with a bemused grin, to be led offstage.
The clip below covers the first fifteen minutes of the show, which includes a great opening monologue by host Andy Samberg, and the announcement of Connolly’s category. It ends as his name is called, and you can click here for the next segment, to see the bizarre moment that transpired when he got onstage. Those who felt the Oscars were too heavy on jokes about women and decried the lack of dick humor would do well to watch Samberg’s opening.
And with that, the 2012 awards season finally comes to a close…unless you’re holding out for the MTV Movie Awards in April (nominations were just announced…and surprisingly, given their track record of late, it’s a solidly non-embarrassing line-up). It’s been one of the more unusual years on the awards circuit that I can remember, with the kind of excitement, tension and twists worthy of the movies themselves. I’m sure next year will go back to business as usual, with a bunch of frontrunners on an inevitable march to victory. But here’s hoping for some similar excitement.
On Tuesday, Roger Ebert 
Although Ebert became widely known because of the TV show, his career began and ended with the written word. The thumbs up/thumbs down rating system that he and Siskel introduced provided a simple way to offer opinions to the mass audience (and was sometimes scoffed at by more “serious” critics for being too simplistic), but what kept Ebert relevant for me even long after I’d stopped watching the show was his writing. He wrote about film so knowledgeably, passionately and entertainingly. Reading Ebert, you could see how smart he was and how well he understood film, yet he always talked about it in a way that was accessible and straightforward. He was the first person to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism, and right up until the end — as the lengthy “leave of presence” blog post linked at the beginning demonstrates — he was still writing with warmth and enthusiasm.
Elsewhere in Westeros, Robb secretly married Talisa, while Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie escaped servitude at Harrenhal thanks to help from supercool mystery man Jaqen H’ghar. Winterfell was left burned and deserted after an ill-advised invasion by Theon, who betrayed Robb after being shamed by his asshole father and sister. He was knocked unconscious by his own men after the castle was surrounded by loyal northmen, but that was the last we saw of him. Bran, Rickon, Osha and Hodor left the ruined Winterfell to head north toward The Wall, on the instructions of the dying Maester Luwin. Beyond the Wall, Jon Snow and Qhorin Halfhand were taken prisoner by wildlings after Jon couldn’t bring himself to kill the captive redhead Ygritte. Quorin sacrificed himself by loudly accusing Jon of being a traitor and dueling with him until Jon killed him—a ploy to gain the trust of wildling leader Mance Rayder and infiltrate his camp. Samwell had the bad luck of coming across a massive army of White Walkers, though they seemed unconcerned with him as he hid in terror behind a rock. And across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys ventured into the House of the Undying and reclaimed her kidnapped dragons from the über-creepy warlock Pyat Pree.
Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have said from the beginning that their goal was to reach season three. If the show lasted long enough that they could get to events that will occur this season, they would be happy. No problem there. The show’s huge ratings left little doubt that they would make it to this point, and over the next 10 weeks, we’ll see what they’ve been so excited about. They referred early on to an event which they called only the RW scene, saying that to use the actual words instead of just the initials would constitute a spoiler. I accidentally found out what RW stands for, but I’m not sure how much of a spoiler it is, since at this point I still have no idea what it means or suggests. In my naive eyes, the words could be interpreted in a variety of ways. But given how eager Benioff and Weiss have been to depict it on the show, it’s gotta be major. They’ve also hinted about at least one upcoming scene so hard to take that even the crew choked up during filming. Is it this RW scene they’re referring to? In the aforementioned Entertainment Weeky cover story, they won’t even use the initials anymore to describe it. (They must have forgotten that they already used them in past interviews…unless there’s another infamous scene coming up that can be abbreviated for non-spoiler conversations). Whatever this mystery event is, if everyone is being so protective of it and the crew is getting teary-eyed while filming, it probably forebodes death for at least one favorite character.
I’m running a bit wild here, so let me bring it back around to the season at hand and what we can expect. I’m of course wondering what will become of Theon. He seems primed to be one of the first casualties, but how will it happen, if it does? The previews above show a quick glimpse of his sister Yara, but there’s been no sign of Theon in any of the commercials. Will he be brought back to Robb, and will Robb be able to go through with killing him?
And what of Robb’s vow to marry one of Walder Frey’s daughters? I can’t blame the guy for choosing Talisa over any of the Frey girls, but it’s been stressed that the promise is not to be thrown off lightly. The Stark/Frey marriage wasn’t supposed to take place until the war was over, but will the repercussions of Robb’s union with Talisa be seen this season?
THE HOST
Yes, he joked about Chris Brown and Rhianna. So has every late night comedian, over and over again. I don’t see them getting raked across the coals. Yes, there was a song called, “We Saw Your Boobs.” Yes, it was silly and a little crude. But no, it wasn’t a statement that actresses are only worth paying attention to when they take their clothes off, nor was it indicative of a night where every introduction or comment on an actress focused on her beauty or looks – another complaint I read somewhere after the show, which was untrue. He introduced plenty of women without referencing their looks, including presenters Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Garner, saying “both have played government agents and both have kicked ass onscreen in every sense.” Nothing about their beauty, just their talent. And since Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Jennifer Lawrence were all willing to participate in the boobs number, can’t everyone just lighten up? (No, I suppose if that argument worked there wouldn’t have been any controversy last year about The Help or this year about Django Unchained. Just because certain members of a group take part in something doesn’t mean other members of the same group won’t take offense.) MacFarlane was accused of insulting Adele’s weight when he joked that Rex Reed would be coming out to review her performance, but I saw that not as knock on Adele, but a joke about Rex Reed being an asshole. (For those who didn’t get it, film critic 
MacFarlane is not a traditional stand-up comic or performer by trade. He has hosted Comedy Central roasts and private ceremonies like the Writer’s Guild Awards, but the global exposure of the Oscar stage is new to him. Still, the Academy leadership and the show’s producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron were willing to take a chance on him, and he took the chance too. Not only did he take it, but he jumped into the deep end. According to Zadan and Meron, MacFarlane was much more involved in all aspects of planning than most hosts. He attended every production meeting along the way, and threw himself into the process. Even at the show itself, he put himself out there more than the typical host just in the sheer amount of the proceedings that he participated in. I don’t remember another host being onstage as much as MacFarlane was. He introduced almost every presenter himself, a task that is usually more evenly split between the host and the anonymous, disembodied announcer. He also was there to throw to each commercial break with a tease of what was coming up. The guy was working it. Many critics described him as coming off smug, amateurish and self-involved. I disagree completely. I think he was comfortable, confident, and fulfilled a host’s duties admirably. He was enjoying himself, and wasn’t afraid to show it. Not every joke landed, but he was quick on his feet when something fell flat. After the off-color joke describing John Wilkes Booth as the actor who “really got inside Lincoln’s head” did little to impress the crowd, he swiftly recovered by expressing surprise that 150 years was still too soon, and that he had some Napoleon jokes coming up that would really make them mad. When his joke about the heavy use of the N word in the Django Unchained script being based on Mel Gibson’s voicemails elicited an uncomfortable reaction, he went with it by asking, “Oh, so you’re on his side?”
-Of all the awards, the one that surprised me most was Christoph Waltz’s Best Supporting Actor win for Django Unchained. Not because I didn’t see it coming at all (I predicted De Niro, but acknowledged that Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones both had a strong chance), but because it just seems strange that Waltz is now a two-time Oscar winner. He’s great, and I’ve enjoyed not just his winning performances, but those he gave in between in Carnage and Water for Elephants, but a two-time Oscar winner? After less than five years in Hollywood? It’s a neat, but slightly bewildering accomplishment, especially considering that his characters in Inglourious Basterds and Django aren’t that far apart. He joins an impressive roster of two-timers that includes Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman, Jodie Foster, Anthony Quinn, Maggie Smith, Denzel Washington and Jessica Lange. Waltz’s win is a testament to how much voters obviously enjoyed his performance, and how expert he is at delivering Tarantino’s dialogue. It really is a match made in heaven with those two.
-Poor Anne Hathaway. Some people really just don’t like that girl. I’m not one of them, and although I have described her before as sometimes coming off as over-the-top in her eagerness and enthusiasm, I usually find her to be a class act with a good sense of humor. She has been ridiculed by people throughout the season for some of her speeches (she’s given a lot of them), which have been called insincere and rehearsed. Rehearsed? She’s admitted to practicing her speeches, but how is that any different from writing a speech or a list of names and reading from it? It’s just a different way of being prepared in case you win. I think what people have called a lack of sincerity is actually an abundance of it; she’s so sincere that it bugs people. Throughout the awards season I’ve found her speeches to be gracious, warm and genuine. She’s consistently and eloquently acknowledged her co-nominees, her cast and crew, and she has impressively avoided breaking down in a fit of tears, which…c’mon, Hathaway totally seems like the type who might lose it when winning an award, especially an Oscar. But she hasn’t and she didn’t. So don’t let the haters harsh your buzz, Anne. (I will say though, I wish you had cracked a joke about being back on the Oscar stage for the first time since your maligned hosting gig. And it would have been funny if you thanked Susan Boyle. And it would have been cool for you to mention that your mother played Fantine years ago in a traveling production of Les Misérables, making your win for playing the same character even more special. Cause that does make it more special, right? Or have I crossed an inappropriate line from telling winners what they should say to telling them what they should feel as well?
-Only two things were less surprising than wins by Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway: Iran 
I Am DB 