Oscar Predictions - 2013

Oscars are tomorrow! So it's time once again for Oscar predictions. This year is exciting, because there are a couple of races that look like sure things, but some that are wide open.

I take what I call a "Resource Allocation" approach to the Oscars. I start with the idea that there are some movies for which the nomination itself is the award; those probably won't win anything. Some of these are nominated in the technical/craft categories, like sound effects or music. Some are nominated for the "big" categories. The director of Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin, was nominated for Best Director. He's a very long shot to win, but the fact that he was nominated at all is a huge deal for him. These movies are generally very good, but not great.

But there are some movies that, at least in my opinion, SHOULD win something. These are the movies that either are great movies in and of themselves, or some aspect of them is great. For this year, these are the movies that I think should win at least one Oscar:

Argo
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Life of Pi

There are a couple of movies that are on the fence: they probably should win something, but it's as clear as the others:

Amour
Django Unchained
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

I would like to put Zero Dark Thirty in the first category, because I think it was a fantastic movie, but the torture controversy has weakened its chances. My feelings about the torture scenes in ZD30 are that if you were opposed to torture before, a movie will probably not change your mind. If you were in favor of torture before, this movie might confirm your opinion. But I don't think it's the responsibility of the filmmakers to take a position, and I think they handled it well.

Then I move on to which movies are most likely to win SOMETHING. This year, there are two virtual locks: Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, and Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables. I haven't followed the technical awards shows very closely, but there's a fairly good chance that Life of Pi will win at least one technical award, probably visual effects. I completely bought the idea that Richard Parker, the tiger, was real. So let's assume Life of Pi wins for visual effects.

That leaves Argo as the one movie among the "should" list that we aren't sure about. It's possible that Alan Arkin will win for Best Supporting Actor, but not a sure thing by any means. His performance was good, but his performance is not the reason it's a great movie. There are two other possibilities: Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The screenplay awards are sometimes a "second place" award for Best Picture or Best Director, particularly if the director is also one of the screenwriters. See Tarantino, Quentin, for Pulp Fiction. But Ben Affleck didn't write the screenplay. And Argo has been sweeping up all kinds of awards that suggest it will win Best Picture. So Argo looks like it's got an excellent chance of winning Best Picture.

In the "might" category, Amour might, and probably will, win Best Foreign Language. The categories that we don't know are:
Best Director
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Original Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay is also somewhat up in the air. Best Director comes down to Spielberg vs. Ang Lee. While I liked Life of Pi, and I think the technical aspects are amazing, the end of the story didn't grab me. I haven't read the book, but I've heard many times that it was considered unfilmable, because of the depth of the spiritual/religious concerns addressed. For me, the technical achievement overshadowed the story; I was blown away by the CGI, but the spiritual aspects of the story, while nicely done, didn't impress me as all that substantive. In terms of story, I think Spielberg did a more interesting job in Lincoln. Just taking on telling the story of one of the most famous men in history is an impressive feat. I felt like I learned something about how Lincoln actually got things done and how the American political process worked, which was wonderful. So Best Director to Spielberg.

Best Actress is a tough one, because there are two strong contenders, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain. Lawrence's performance was much more showy, and she showed a lot of maturity for an actress of her age (she's 22). Chastain's performance was much more restrained, but it's one hell of a role. My gut tells me that a lot of the women in the Academy would like to see more roles for women that are highly accomplished, very gutsy professionals. Also, I personally feel that, although Silver Linings Playbook is a very good movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, Zero Dark Thirty is close to a masterpiece, and a better movie that Silver Linings. Using my logic of a great movie deserving at least one Oscar, this could be the only one that ZD30 wins. So my pick is Jessica Chastain for Best Actress, because ZD30 should win something, and the fact that a female CIA agent is at the core is one of the things that makes it unusual.

We're left with Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. Screenplay comes down to Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained, although Amour has a shot as well. The writer of ZD30, Mark Boal, is also a producer, so this would be a good way of awarding that movie second place for Best Picture. Quentin Tarantino is the writer and director of Django Unchained. He wasn't nominated for Best Director, and he doesn't have a producer credit, so Best Original Screenplay would be the only way to recognize him directly for this movie. It's a very good script, but it's also very much a Quentin Tarantino script. Mark Boal told a story for which the audience not only knew the ending, but were very familiar with it. But it's still fascinating. Tarantino came up with a clever idea and executed it well, but I think Boal had the harder job, particularly given the level of secrecy surrounding the specifics. So I think Boal and Zero Dark Thirty win Best Original screenplay.

Which leaves us with two movies - Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook, and one category, Best Supporting Actor. I thot De Niro did a good job, but it didn't feel like a particularly meaty role for an actor of his caliber. He hasn't been nominated in a long time, but that's partially because he hasn't chosen a great role in a while. Tommy Lee Jones was very good in Lincoln, but he was playing a crusty old man, and we've seen him in that role before. Christoph Waltz has already won an Oscar for being in a Tarantino movie, and this isn't really a supporting role - he's in basically every scene until he's no longer in the movie, and he has far more dialogue than anyone else (at least it feels that way). But he carries the movie brilliantly. It's a very demanding role, and he pulls it off beautifully. Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor.

Oscars!

It's that time of year! Time for the Oscars! The ceremony is this Sunday (as if you didn't already know). The one bummer this year is that there isn't a lot of drama. Some of the categories are pretty much a lock - Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor for Inglorious Basterds, Mo'nique for Best Supporting Actress for Precious, Jeff Bridges for Best Actor for Crazy Heart. But the two big ones are a fascinating race, particularly since it involves an ex-husband and wife. Will Kathryn Bigelow be the first woman to win Best Director? Or will it be her husband, master craftsman James Cameron? Will they split the big prizes, with her winning Best Director and his movie winning Best Picture? That's my bet, because Avatar is one heck of a movie, and, even if the story is a tad cliched, the movie itself is an incredible visual spectacle, and Cameron does deserve recognition for that. I think he deserves recognition as a producer first, and director second, because I think he pulled off a small miracle producing this movie. I also think he did a very good job directing it, but I do take away a couple of points for the lack of imagination in the script.

The other sort-of controversy, which turned out to not be that much of a controversy, is the fact that there are 10 Best Picture nominees. There was quite the hullabaloo over this when it was announced, with strong opinions on both sides. Some thot it was a brilliant move, others thot it was the height of folly. I was in the middle. Yes, it could dilute the prestige, but it is not unprecedented - there were 10 nominees for several years at the beginning of the awarding of the Oscars, until 1943 - and it could be fun.

The answer turned out to be that it was a good move, largely because there are 10 movies worthy of the distinction of being a "Best Picture" nominee. Some people have issues with various nominations - a friend thinks The Blind Side stole a nomination from another, more worthy picture - but for the most part, each Best Picture nominee has received accolades as a very good movie.

Here's the list:

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglorious Basterds

Precious

A Serious Man

Up

Up in the Air

What's particularly impressive about this list is the diversity. There's something here for everyone, and for just about every demographic. There are two war movies, Inglorious Basterds and The Hurt Locker, but they couldn't be more different. One is a very gritty, realistic movie about Iraq, with a small cast, no stars, and not much plot. The other is a fantasy about WWII, starring Brad Pitt, with a very complicated story and lush cinematography. There are two science fiction movies - Avatar and District 9, but, again, they couldn't be more different. District 9 takes place in a filthy, disgusting ghetto/landfill near Johannesburg, while Avatar takes on the exquisitely beautiful planet of Pandora. There are two adult dramas set in contemporary America, The Blind Side and Up in the Air. One is a sentimental story about a white Christian woman in the South, her family, and her community. The other is a dark comedy about guy who has as few commitments and connections in his life as possible. An Education is about a cute British girl coming of age in the 1960's. A Serious Man is about a Jewish man coming undone in the 1960's. And then, of course, there's Precious, which is yet again different from all the others, and Up, one of the only animated movies ever to be nominated for Best Picture.

What a great crop of movies. Most of these aren't just different from each other - they are different from just about any other movie ever made. How many movies have been made about WWII that rewrote the ending? How many movie stars have made movies while at the peak of their stardom in which they played corporate hatchetmen who specialized in firing people? How many movies have been made about a guy who flies his house to another continent with balloons? And, of course, there's Avatar.

The Oscars this year also demonstrate all kinds of diversity in Hollywood, particularly geographic. There isn't much American about these Oscars. There are only three that take place completely in contemporary America - Precious, The Blind Side and Up in the Air. The Hurt Locker features Americans, but has all of about 5 scenes here, and was shot in Jordan. There are only three that feature American movie stars - Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, and The Blind Side. Of those, Brad Pitt was not in very much of Basterds, The Blind Side represents Sandra Bullock's first Oscar nom, and Up in the Air was that rare movie that scored two nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Meryl Streep, quintessential Hollywood royalty, scored a nomination for Best Actress for playing a famous American - Julia Child - who spends the entire movie in France. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon scored nominations for playing South Africans, in Freeman's case Nelson Mandela. Colin Firth, an Englishman, scored a nomination for playing a gay Englishman, in a movie directed by a gay man, Tom Ford, who made his name working for an Italian fashion house (Gucci). Christopher Plummer, born in Toronto, scored a nomination for playing a Russian, Tolstoy, while Helen Mirren, a Brit, scored a nom for playing his wife. Carey Mulligan, also English, scored a nomination for playing an Englishwoman. Penelope Cruz, who is Spanish, scored a nomination for a movie (Nine) that is sort of a remake of a movie by an Italian (8 1/2). The man who will probably win Best Supporting Actor, Christoph Waltz, is Austrian. Among Best Supporting Actor nominees, Stanley Tucci is American, but he stared in a movie directed by a Kiwi, Peter Jackson, who also produced one of the movies set in South Africa, District 9.

Looking down the list of nominated movies, in Art Direction, we find two 19th century English icons - Sherlock Holmes and Queen Victoria - another movie set in London, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and Avatar and Nine again. Among the Cinematography nominees, there is one movie with any scenes at all in America - and that's The Hurt Locker, with about 5 minutes in this country. The others are Avatar (another planet), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Britain), The Hurt Locker (shot in Jordan, takes place in Iraq), Basterds again, and The White Ribbon (Germany). Costume Design nominees include Bright Star, about John Keats (there's that 19th century England again), Coco Before Chanel (French), and Parnassus, Nine, and Young Victoria again.

Hollywood both is and is not quintessentially American. It is American because it is physically located here, but it is and is not American because it embodies the great American qualities of freedom, adventure, and embracing the new, without limiting who can experience those to just Americans.

The Hurt Locker

So I saw The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, currently frontrunner for Best Director Oscar (her chief competition being her ex-husband, James Cameron, for Avatar). It's about a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq war. That's it. There isn't much plot. These guys defuse bombs. Mostly IEDs lying on the street. They use robots when they can, but sometimes they have to walk right up to the bomb and disarm them. They have special equipment, like an armored suit, but it's still one of the most dangerous jobs in the armed forces, not to mention the world.


It takes place in 2004. That's about all you know about the world outside of this small group of guys. No mention of weapons of mass destruction, George Bush, or even Saddam Hussein. You're up close and personal with them, like they are with each other. They don't know each other before being assigned to watch each other's backs. They have different ways of seeing the world, different levels of appetite for risk. They don't always agree, which means that they occasionally have to challenge each other. They make mistakes, which, in this environment, can be deadly. For each other as well as themselves.


The movie takes no position on the war, just shows it like it is. But that becomes the best possible antiwar message, because you immediately understand how insane this reality is. This is what should be a normal country, with normal people trying to live normal lives. Even under Saddam Hussein, they managed to get on with their lives. Getting up in the morning, eating, drinking, doing their jobs, falling in love, arguing with friends and families. Playing soccer. Enjoying the sunshine. Then we started a war in the middle of it. And we're still fighting that war. They would like to be able to walk across the street, but there might be an IED there. And we're sending young men, almost none of whom speak the language, to fight this war. While these people have no choice but to try to get on with their lives.


The main character is a guy who is really, really good at defusing bombs, William James (Jeremy Renner, who deserves his Oscar nomination for Best Actor). But he's also something of a cowboy who takes some bizarre risks. Which means that he gets things done, but his risks don't always work out.

A war is a perfect frame for mixing the real and the surreal, because we, the audience, don't really know what normal is. What is over the top? I have no idea, because I don't know where the top is. A guy snipping the wires to defuse a bomb at the last second is an action movie cliche. Except that here the guy snippping the wires isn't a British spy wearing a tux, trying to save the world and the woman in a beautiful dress that he's been sleeping with. The guy snipping the wires is an American soldier in camo who is trying to save the lives of a few Iraqis and Americans. There are no beautiful women. This is not a fantasy. There is no escapism.

Bill James knows he's good at his job, but he doesn't know why he does it. He's very grounded in reality, completely aware of what he has to do. But he's also strangely detached from his own survival instincts. He's pragmatic, focused, competent, and professional.

And just a little bit insane.

My vote for Best Director goes to Kathryn Bigelow.

Inglorious Basterds

So I saw Inglorious Basterds, because when Quentin Tarantino makes a good movie, it's hard to ignore it, because it's probably a damn good movie. Tarantino may be the only person in Hollywood who enjoys his own insecurities. Fortunately for the rest of us, his talent - and ego - are greater than his nervous tics and personality quirks, so he can actually channel his bizarre obsessions in artistically productive ways. It's also quite helpful that his tendency towards self-indulgence is matched by a dedication to the craft of filmmaking. And it doesn't hurt that he's supported by a studio executive - Harvey Weinstein - with just about the same level of talent, ego, insecurities, and dedication to the craft.

Watching Inglorious Basterds, you get the feeling that Quentin Tarantino wakes up on the wrong side of ridiculous a little more than is really healthy. But you also get the feeling that one thing that pulls him back to the sublime is his technical brilliance, and his extraordinary command of pure technique. The cinematography particularly stands out. Much as I admire most of Pulp Fiction, I found the camera work uninspired. Not so here; Tarantino knows exactly how and when to take risks, and then pulls them off. There's not really anything flashy; it is simply superb. The same can be said of the performances. There is already much discussion of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Waltz as the Nazi Col. Hans Landa. He's certainly my favorite so far this year. I'm reminded of that old saying that the devil can be charming, and he almost makes you forget Hannah Ahrendt's observation that evil is banal. Until Tarantino cuts to shots of Hitler.

Brad Pitt won't be getting an Oscar nom, but only because he chose to deliberately go way over the top as Lt. Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds. This is one of Tarantino's riskiest bets, and it mostly pays off, but it definitely inches the film towards the absurd.

But then almost every other performance drags it back to wonderful. Melanie Laurent is a marvel as Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jew who runs a cinema in Paris. Diane Kruger shines as a German movie star. Tarantino's Promethean confidence in himself does wonders for his performers. His confidence is justified in part because he's providing them with the verbiage. One reason Brad Pitt can pull off a Tennessee accent that makes Bo and Luke Duke sound like Yankee frat boys is that he's interrogating German prisoners through the pen of Quentin Tarantino. It's not quite as memorable as Samuel L. Jackson's discourse on foot massages - which is one reason he's a movie star today - but it's still in the context of a Tarantino script.

Unfortunately for me, it's a little too much of a Quentin Tarantino script. What would a Tarantino script be without constant violence, highly choreographed gunfire, bodies everywhere? A more interesting movie, would be my guess. It's very tempting to analyze and criticize and comment and scrutinize and debate whatever message is in the movie, but I'm going to resist, not least because I don't think Tarantino himself really cares that much about a message. He's still having too much fun impressing himself and us.

Sitting in a bar afterwards, drinking a blueberry martini, I said to Peter, the friend that I had seen it with, "I'll be really impressed with Quentin Tarantino when he grows up." "But he never will," said Peter. Which with I could not help but agree.

Tarantino's technical ability as a filmmaker has progressed dramatically. He was always a brilliant writer, and he is now a craftsman of the highest order. But he is still too clever for his own good. I judge movies by their endings; whether or not everything comes together is the test, for me, of whether or not the director has had a clue what s/he is doing all along. The ending left me a little cold; the revenge fantasy felt too self-indulgent.

I can think of two reasons why Quentin Tarantino should ultimately grow up. One, because he will eventually be able to make the best movie that he possibly can, which I don't think he has done yet, and two, because then he might have a chance of winning the Oscar for Best Director.

Oscar blogging - a little late

So the Oscars happened last Sunday. I watched them in a pizzeria in Silver Lake. This post is a little delayed - I took a couple of days off of blogging. Sorry!

I was, of course, thrilled that Slumdog Millionaire won just about everything it could. I read a few comments that this reflected the increasing "globalization" of Hollywood. I actually disagree, but only about the degree, not the kind, of "globalization." Hollywood has had a global reach since its very early days. There have always been people from other countries working in Hollywood, and Hollywood has always made movies about other countries. Greta Garbo was Swedish. Some of our finest directors have been from other countries -Hitchcock, Billy Wilder. Heck, most of our monsters - Godzilla, Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong - are from outside the US. Even some movies that seem very "American" can be mostly foreign. Titanic, for example, is a classic American blockbuster. But the director, James Cameron, is from Canada, the Titanic was a British ship, it sank in the North Atlantic, Kate Winslet is British, and the movie was mostly shot in Mexico. Slumdog Millionaire just extended a decades-long process to another country. Some argue that this leads to homogenization. I think that's nonsense. Just look at the list of movies nominated for Best Picture. They're incredibly diverse. To say nothing of all the nominated movies in all categories. An awards ceremony with both "Hellboy II" (Makeup) and "The Duchess" (Costume Design) has a very broad reach.

I liked Hugh Jackman as a host, particularly the fact that he was very upbeat and excited. I like Jon Stewart, but I think I prefer Hugh Jackman's style for hosting the Oscars. It was refreshing not to have any snark or sarcasm, even though I love those when I watch The Daily Show. I thot his homage to the musical was fun, but didn't quite work - it had nothing to do with this year's Oscars (Beyonce, of course, was great). Speaking of musical numbers, combining the songs for Slumdog Millionaire with the other nominated song was interesting, but next year I would like to see all the nominated songs. Seeing the orchestra playing the nominated scores was cool, but the scores all seemed to blend together. I was watching them with a musician, and he explained that they just take the themes from the scores (or something like that), and that he would have preferred to hear the actual soundtracks. I concur.

I loved how they had one or two presenters give multiple awards, like production design and costume design. Good call. That really sped things up, which was great. I was also very happy that they dropped the idea of having the winners of lesser-known categories accept their awards from the audience. I thot that was tacky.

Having previous winners pay homage to this year's acting nominees seemed a little much. It was great to see people like Robert De Niro and Sophia Loren, but it got a little sentimental. These people have been nominated for Oscars - do they really need more adulation? I also don't like the fact that they don't do this for the other categories - do actors and actresses really need yet more attention than the below-the-line talent? But other people that I have talked to, particularly women, have been very positive, so it worked for some people.

Ben Stiller's imitation of Joaquin Phoenix was funny, but it detracted a little from the actual award (I think it was cinematography), and if you weren't aware of the reference, it probably seemed weird. The Oscars do have a worldwide audience, and not everyone watches Letterman. Natalie Portman, however, played her part well.

Tina Fey and Steve Martin were perfect. Gotta love them. The montages of action, comedy, and romance movies were all well done. Loved James Franco responding to his own performance in Milk. Queen Latifah singing while the montage of people who passed away was a very nice touch. I liked the multiple screens behind her, and was bummed we could only see one. Danny Boyle said that for the people in the theater, the show was great, and I believe him.

The camera work and the editing of the ceremony were very good.

The acceptance speeches were good to excellent, and mostly charming. Love Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet, both great. Heath Ledger's family was very gracious. Sean Penn was funny and humble, not qualities normally associated with him. I was glad he won. Philippe Petit, the French tightrope walker who walked across a wire stretched between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, was very funny. A coworker just watched "Man On Wire," the documentary that won the Oscar, and can't stop talking about it.

The dresses were almost uniformly gorgeous, with the exception of Reese Witherspoon's, which wasn't great. Anne Hathaway seems incapable of taking a bad picture or wearing anything less than a perfect dress.

Overall, a good night. The Oscars are constantly experimenting, and the Academy seems to be learning from experience. Here's hoping that next year's is even better.

Justifying The Oscars

Meghan Daum does not like the Oscars. She is also well aware that, in Los Angeles, this is not a popular topic. I can understand how she feels. I'm a big Lakers fan, but I can't stand the Dodgers, for which I am occasionally vilified in this town. However, my belief that the Dodgers are pathetic losers is usually justified when they fail miserably, which is a regular occurrence.

I like Meghan Daum, I even once went to a reading so I could hear her, and I even bought her book for her to autograph.

But I completely disagree with her about the Oscars, because she's totally wrong. She's obviously entitled to her opinion. But I have to disagree.

How many people genuinely care? Sure, they say they care. They enter the pools and watch the pre-event entertainment news shows and claim to have an opinion about one actor's performance versus another's. But do they really care, or do they just think they're supposed to care? Is watching the Oscars the best use of a Sunday evening, or is it an adult version of attending a high school pep rally for a football game, even if you neither fully understand the game nor give a hoot about the final score?

The answer is that they pretend to care because they really want to pretend, and sometimes they really do care. People make decisions, they identify with particular movies, they argue, they invest ego in their choices, and they make bets. Why? Partially because it's fun, but also partially because sometimes these choices do mean something to us. Some people think Steven Spielberg was shafted when Saving Private Ryan lost Best Picture to Shakespeare In Love, and will argue about it to this day. If you're a WWII veteran or are close to one, Saving Private Ryan may have been a deeply meaningful movie, while Shakespeare In Love was a romantic trifle. Lots of people were seriously disappointed that Crash won Best Picture. Some people think it was a crime when Pulp Fiction lost Best Picture to Forrest Gump. I still have no idea why Gosford Park won Best Original Screenplay.

But there's also a very LA-specific reason why people care about the Oscars. And by LA-specific, I mean entertainment-industry specific. Film, like most of the arts in this society, is constantly torn between art and commerce. Different people are involved in this business for different reasons. Some people want to make lots of money; some people believe in themselves as artists. There is an uneasy tension between the two that pervades the industry.

Except on Oscar night. On this night, it's all about art. Movies that made next to nothing compete with movies that made fortunes, and every one has an equal chance. Slumdog Millionaire violates all the rules for mainstream commercial success in Hollywood. It has no stars, the director isn't famous, and it takes place in a country most of us have never been to. And yet it is the front-runner for Best Picture, and it's practically minting money.

The Oscars are also about acceptance and reward of artistic excellence in an industry that has far more rejection than either acceptance or acknowledgement of great artistic ability.

Consider an average actress. Let's say she auditions once a week, and gets 2 gigs a year. That means that she is rejected about 50 times, and accepted twice. And one of those acceptances might be for a theater gig that pays next to nothing or a role in a student film that takes three days and pays nothing. Imagine going to 50 job interviews a year, and doing that for years. The same is true of most other professionals in this business. Writers collect rejection slips; producers work on projects for years that go nowhere. Shakespeare In Love was in development for 10 years. There are currently almost 1,400 movies on the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Many of those won't get made, and, of those that do, a fair amount will go straight to DVD. Of those that get released, a fair number will fail.

So for one night, art trumps commerce, and we all get to dream that maybe, someday, we will feel permanently accepted and acknowledged. It's fantasy, sure, but, then again, isn't escapism one of the reasons why movies exist in the first place?

Next year, Ms. Daum, I'm inviting you to my Oscar party.

The Impact of Milk

The WaPo looks at the cultural impact that "Milk" has had. It hasn't made much money; $27 million at the box office.

But my feeling is that it has had, and, more importantly, will have, a dramatic impact. The article points out that it has had a great impact on the younger generation, providing them a glimpse of what the gay rights movement was like back in the day. Because, let's face it, this movie is better than anything that will ever show up in even the most progressive high school textbooks.

As for the impact on the straight population? I think it will be nothing but good, largely because it's such a sweet, positive movie. The scene where he picks up James Franco is one of the most wonderful seduction scenes you will ever see, because it's just so obviously love at first sight. Sean Penn plays Harvey Milk as just a peach of a guy, the kind of man anybody would love to have as their neighbor or coworker or brother-in-law or friend. He's smart, funny, honest, brave and compassionate. What's not to love?

But there is one simple fact about Harvey Milk that may be the most inspiring, and which he had no control over. He is an American, and his story is a quintessentially American story. It's a story about love and freedom. What could be more American?

Jai Ho

This song has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. It plays over the credits at the end of the movie with the best title for a movie in a long time, Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire was not nominated for Oscar for Best Costume, but I think someone should win an award for the yellow scarf that Freida Pinto wears in this scene.

Number cruncing the Oscars

Some great Oscar predictions from Nate Silver, proprietor of FiveThirtyEight.com, crunched some numbers for the Oscars. Woo hoo! His predictions lend some credence to conventional wisdom; Heath Ledger is a lock for Best Supporting Actor, and Slumdog Millionaire is going to take Best Picture and Best Director. By his calculations, Slumdog has a 99% chance of winning Best Picture, while Danny Boyle's chances of winning Best Director are, if you can believe it, even better - 99.7%. Don't bet against those odds! (Complete list of nominees is here.)

For Oscar predictions I use what I call the "Zero Sum Karma Theory of Oscar Predictions." This theory says that there are some movies that deserve some kind of recognition at the Oscars, and will win at least one major award (i.e., not one of the technical or craft awards). A corollary of the theory is that all the recognition that some movies deserve is to be nominated, so they won't be winning anything, because, to paraphrase the cliche, it's an honor to be nominated for them. I put Frost/Nixon in this category. A good movie, but not great, and everyone involved should be happy with their nominations. I thot Frank Langella was very good as Nixon, but this year, Heath Ledger trumps everyone else. And not just because he died - it was just a mind-blowing performance. As a coworker puts it, this year, if I were one of the living Best Supporting Actor nominees, I wouldn't want to win.

I put Milk in the category of "good enough to deserve a major award." I think it will take Best Original Screenplay, which is sort of like second place for Best Picture or Best Director. It's particularly apt as second place for Best Director if the director is one of the screenwriters. This is one reason Quentin Tarantino won Best Screenplay for Pulp Fiction; he lost Best Director that year to Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump, so winning Best Screenplay was sort of a consolation prize. Although, in that case, I'm not even sure it was a consolation prize, because I think the screenplay for Pulp Fiction really did deserve an Oscar, and Tarantino's screenplay may have been better than his diecting for Pulp Fiction. His directing was solid, but the screenplay was, of course, brilliant.

So if Milk wins Best Original Screenplay, which it probably will (I thot the screenplay was excellent), then it will have won one major award. Which means that Sean Penn will not necessarily win Best Actor, although I think his performance was amazing. Which means that Mickey Rourke might win Best Actor simply on the strength of his performance. That's been known to happen - see Swank, Hillary, for Boys Don't Cry.

Silver predicts Tariji P. Henson will win Best Supporting Actress for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Again, the Zero Sum Karma Theory comes into play here. Another name for the Zero Sum Karma Theory is the "It's Gotta Win Something Theory." Benjamin Button is a huge, gorgeous movie, with some wonderful performances, but it falls short of greatness. I haven't seen any of the other movies (Doubt just sounds too depressing), so I can't make much of a comparison, but playing the adoptive mother of a man growing backwards is certainly a challenge. Button should win something, and this would be a good one; other than the two stars, Henson is at the core of the movie.

For Best Actress, Silver predicts Kate Winslet for The Reader. Again, haven't seen it, although I understand that she is naked for parts of it. That's interesting, but, then again, we saw Kate Winslet naked in Titanic. Oh, wait, this is supposed to be about the Oscars. Kate's main competition is Meryl Streep in Doubt, who of course is serious competition. The It's Gotta Win Something Theory says that Doubt does not have to win something, because it doesn't have a lot of nominations - four for acting, one for Best Adapted Screenplay. I have a feeling that for Meryl Streep to win her third Oscar, it has to be for something really stunning. I don't think this is it. I'm going with Kate.

Thanks Nate for the numbers! See you on Sunday, February 22, at 8:00 PM Pacific Time!

Slumdog Millionaire

So I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a movie whose best qualities can be found in its title: a simple, charming contradiction. What is a slumdog millionaire? "Slumdog" is not a term Americans are familiar with, at least they weren't before this movie, but it's not hard to figure out its meaning. A slumdog is a guy from the slums, lower class, vaguely dirty. A millionaire, on the other hand, is wealthy, possibly glamourous, maybe someone to be envied.

Two words, and yet a contradiction. I've been trying to think of another movie with a contradiction in the title, and I can't think of one. Right away, this movie has us thinking and wondering. How can a slumdog be a millionaire?

The contradictions don't stop there, they're just getting started. It's a grim romantic comedy, a love story inside a thriller. The plot elements are standard; an underdog, bad guys, a beautiful woman, impossible odds. But it's like nothing you've ever seen before. It's an American movie, released by a Hollywood studio, but it has almost nothing to do with America. It is a very Indian movie - it takes place in Mumbia, and was shot there, with Indian actors. But it is also a very multicultural movie - it was written, directed, and shot by Englishmen, and it features a game show imported from America. It takes place among the poorest of the poor, but it was partially shot with cutting edge digital cameras.

It's heartbreaking and heartwarming. It's gentle and sweet and brutal and violent. It is horrifying and beautiful. It's a story few people have ever heard, but everyone can relate to. It's cliched and original. It almost wasn't released in theaters, yet is in the front running to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot, because there is so much to tell, and so much of it that I don't want to give away. I don't want to give it away because I want you to discover this cinematic gift yourself. Because you have to see it. You must. Some movies that win Best Picture are controversial (Crash, Shakespeare In Love). If Slumdog Millionaire wins, it will not be controversial. Its closest competition is Milk, which is very well-made and features some fine performances, including a brilliant one by Sean Penn. Milk is a very good movie, well-paced, nicely shot; it has few, if any weaknesses. But Slumdog Millionaire is bottled lightning. Gorgeous, infectious bottled lightning.

So I am not going to tell you anything about the plot. All I am going to do is ask you some questions.

Are you a slumdog? Probably not. Have you ever been a slumdog? Probably not. Do you want to be a slumdog? I would guess absolutely not.

But are you a millionaire, have you ever been a millionaire, do you want to be a millionaire? I would guess the answers to those questions are maybe, maybe, and quite probably yes.

But when you see Slumdog Millionaire, you will understand when I tell you that we all want to be slumdogs. Because Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), the slumdog millionaire, embodies a few more contradictions. He's been oppressed, he's been betrayed, he's emotionally scared, and yet he's a hopeless romantic. He's a little bit of a geek, he's kind of shy, and yet he is what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as grace under pressure. Because most of all, this slumdog, this gentle soul in a violent world, is a hero.

Oscars!

Just as things are settling down to normal back there on the East Coast, with Obama taking charge of everything, life just heated up here in LA.

Oscar time!

The Oscars were announced this morning. The LA Times has the complete list of nominees. It's pretty much what was expected, although some people are disappointed that Dark Knight didn't score a nomination for either Best Picture or Best Director. The Reader got one of each. I haven't seen it, but I haven't heard the best about it, either. But it's a Holocaust movie, and there are several out this year, so it's not a surprise that at least one of them was nominated for the big two.

Heath Ledger, of course, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Dark Knight, and I think he deserves it. There are some questions about whether or not he would have been nominated if he were still alive. My answer is yes. His Joker is, in my opinion, simply one of the best villians in the history of cinema. I think he'll win.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button scored 13 nominations, quite the haul. I still have to see it. Slumdog Millionaire was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, which it richly deserved.

I am not going to make any predictions, other than Heath Ledger winning for Best Supporting Actor, because I haven't seen enough of the nominated movies. Although I do think Slumdog Millionaire will win at least one of either Best Picture or Best Director. I think Best Actor comes down to either Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke.

Let the gossip and arguing begin!

HSX Nominoptions

HSX floated Nominoptions last week. Nominoptions are options for betting on who will be nominated for an Oscar. There are options in eight categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and the Acting categories. There are 12 Nominoptions in each category, for a total of 96. The hottest one so far is for Heath Ledger to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for playing The Joker in Dark Knight. I'm sure he'll be nominated; apart from the sympathy vote, he simply played one of the best villians in the history of cinema.

Trading will be halted at 9 pm EST on January 21, in anticipation of the nominations being announced on January 22. That's two days after the Inaugural! That's going to be an exciting week.

I love Nominoptions because, first of all, it's a fun word to say, and second, because they represent Hollywood gossip in its purest, most raw, unadulterated form. Gossipy gossip at its gossipiest. Rumor, innuendo, hearsay, dreams and delusions of grandeur. Ridiculous ad campaigns for nobodies with a chance, or even famous stars with even less of a chance. Inflated egos, fingers crossed, thousands of people obsessively reading the tea leaves of obscure critics' awards, hoping for a sign of great things to come.

Then there are the denials, the dismissals, the absurd protestations of "Oh, I just don't care," "I'm excited just to be in a great movie with so many wonderful people," "It's all about the work," "I would be thrilled, of course, but there are so many wonderful writers/directors/actors/actresses/movies out there right now, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda . . . "

Some of which protestations might actually be true. Some of them actually mean it when they say they were excited to be in a great movie with lots of wonderful people. Others might be cynical enough not to care about winning an award. Others mights actually be secure enough not to worry about whether or not they are going to win an award. And still others know that they really aren't that great, they just look really good on screen, but they're thrilled to be making a lot of money playing around at being other people, and they have come to terms with that a long time ago, so they really do know that they don't stand a chance in hell at winning an award against people with real talent, and they're fine with that because they're married with great kids and they drive a nice car and live in a nice house and don't have any debt because they're actually decent, responsible people.

This last is a rare breed, but they do exist.

And then there are the people who actually deserve it. And some of them will be nominated. And some of them will deserve the award that they will win. And some people will think that all of the hype and nonsense and wailing and gnashing of teeth and bruised and battered egos and superficiality and obsession with fashion and who wore what will be worth it, because at the end of the day there are a few movies - just a very few - that come out every year that make you go "wow."

And one of those people who think it's all worth it will be me.

Juno

So I finally saw Juno. What a sweet movie. First of all, great names. "Juno MacGuff." Her dad is "Mac MacGuff." The boyfriend's name is Paulie Bleeker. How cool is that - naming a character after a street in Greenwich Village? It's a slightly dangerous name, suggesting that he's depressed and bland. Which gives the actor something to work against.

And ooh the dialogue - just cracklin'. No wonder Diablo Cody won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Of course, someone who comes up with the name "Diablo Cody" for herself clearly has a great sense of style. This was one of my favorite quotes, Juno explaining that her Dad named her after Zeus' wife:

Yeah and I mean Zeus had tons of ladys but I'm pretty sure Juno was his main girl. And apparently she was supposed to be super beautiful but really mean, kind of like Diana Ross.

Oooh, snap!

I liked that the plot was relatively straightforward but not obvious. There aren't any oddball twists or surprises, but you don't know what's going to happen. Solid performances all the way around. Jennifer Garner had one of the toughest jobs, playing an uptight yuppie who could also be a very nurturing Mom. I loved that she was so desperate to be a mother - that really gives the movie some soul.

One thing I didn't realize until after I had left the theater is that J.K. Simmons was in Jason Reitman's last movie, "Thank You For Smoking." Completely different characters - in Smoking, he's a tobacco lobbyist and a real jerk, yelling and screaming for most of the movie. Here, he's a solid, working class guy, not the most sophisticated man in the world, but a damn good father. That's always a good sign - if an actor of his stature works with the same director on a different movie, he obviously enjoys working with this director. Allison Janney, always a solid presence, is very good as Juno's stepmom. It's great watching her, because although, like her husband Mac she's not the smartest woman around, she's tough and competent, with buried depths of wisdom.

I have to admit, tho, as much as I liked Juno, I didn't love it as much as I loved Thank You For Smoking. Although, to be fair, I LOVE Smoking - that's one of my all-time favorite movies. I do think the script for Juno is slightly better - the ending of Smoking is a little problematic for me. I think Nick Naylor needed to enjoy his victory a little more. But Juno is a much sweeter movie. Of course, Thank You For Smoking is Exhibit A of dark comedy, so that's not saying much.

Jason Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman, who directed Ghostbusters. Ivan's last movie was "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," a waste of celluloid (although there is a bizarre B-movie charm to parts of it). To judge from that Uma Thurman misfire, Ivan isn't the director he once was. But the son has clearly learned great things from the father. The torch has been passed.

The Oscars

The Oscars were a few days ago, but I still feel the urge to comment. I liked Jon Stewart, I thot he was good, if a little subdued. Somehow that felt appropriate. I haven't seen Enchanted, but someone who has said that the musical numbers just couldn't come close to the movie. I'm glad Diably Cody won. There seemed to be something of a generational divide in the Best Picture race. There were four nominees aimed at older voters; Atonement, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood. All very serious, somber movies. And mostly about men. And then there was Juno, written by a woman, about a teenage girl. I think the generation coming up will be more open to movies by and about women.

Patrick Goldstein in the LA Times has a great piece about how to improve the Oscars. I really hope someone takes his advice. He's got some very good ideas.

There was also a plethora of awards for people who are not American. The LA Times:

"There Will Be Blood's" best actor Daniel Day-Lewis lives in Ireland, while "La Vie en Rose" surprise best actress winner Marion Cotillard makes her home in Paris. Spain's Javier Bardem was named best supporting actor for "No Country for Old Men," and Scotland's Tilda Swinton won best supporting actress for "Michael Clayton." Many of the evening's lower-profile awards -- for art direction, makeup, costume design and animated short among them -- went to non-American filmmakers and designers.

But this is now a new phenomenon. Tilda Swinton, who is from England, pointed out:

"Hollywood is built on Europeans! Go back and look"

She's right, of course. Some of the best directors were from Europe: Charlie Chaplin, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder. Lots of movie stars have come from other countries. Three of the four stars of Gone With The Wind were from other countries. Vivien Leigh was born in India.

But even most "American" movies have a strong interntational flavor. "Titanic" is a classic American blockbuster. But the HMS Titanic was a British ship, and it sank in the North Atlantic. The movie starred an English woman (Kate Winslet), was directed by a Canadian (James Cameron), and was mostly shot in Mexico.

Or another classic Best Picture blockbuster, Gladiator. A throwback to the old swords-and-sandals epics. But other than its cinematic origins, it's not very "American." It takes place in ancient Rome and was shot mostly in Europe and North Africa. It's directed by an Englishman, Ridley Scott, and stars an Australian, Russell Crowe, a Dane, Connie Nielsen, another Englishman, Oliver Reed, an Irishman, Richard Harris, and the only movie star from Benin, Djimon Hounsou.

Harrison Ford is famous for starring in two great series: Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies. Neither really takes place in America. And not much of either series was shot in the US; both series were shot all over the world.

Even the great fantasy series of the recent past were barely "American." The Lord of the Rings movies are based on books written by an Englishman who was born in South Africa, and they were shot in New Zealand, directed by a Kiwi. Harry Potter is almost entirely English. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies take place mostly in, well, the Caribbean, and star a couple of Brits, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, and an Australian, Geoffrey Rush.

So the fact that all of the Best Actors and Actresses were "foreign" should not be a surprise, but a sign of how strong Hollywood's connections to the rest of the world are. And a testament to how well America, at its best, engages the rest of the world.