WHAT THE OSCARS CAN LEARN FROM THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS

Elizabeth Banks getting carried offstage by an actor playing a stripper playing a fireman; aka winning at life

I know you all looked at the title of this post and went “What the fuck, dude, what are you, writing for Slate now?” If it's any reassurance, I'm not suggesting stupid shit like “the Academy needs to be more populist in its selections” because Oscar movies are certainly not a representation of the artistic elite in cinema; Oscar movies are just as much comfort food as the stuff that wins MTV Awards, just for the palates of people who've graduated from high school. Also, for all everybody's griping about inevitability, let us remember, the Oscars did give Best Picture to a black-and-white French movie with almost no dialogue this year, and whatever you thought of it, that is something. But let's not revisit that whole fuckin mess again. On to lessons:


1—Lighten up, Francis

Look, art is important. It's a prism through which the great mysteries of life can be contemplated, it gives us language to describe the exalted, and it's as old as human beings themselves, suggesting that it's a fundamental part of our character as a species. Cinema is art. But the Academy doesn't have anything to do with art, and the fact that they pretend to when at least three out of every five years shit happens like The King's Speech beating The Social Network or Crash beating Brokeback Mountain or Slumdog Millionaire running unopposed or Forrest Gump beating Pulp Fiction or Ordinary People beating Raging Bull or Rocky beating Network/All The President's Men/Taxi Driver/Bound For Glory is absurd. To clarify: this isn't about my personal taste. In every single one of those cases, the ambitious picture that dares to be dark (and, in every case except the Rocky one, is the only one that people still actually watch) lost to the reassuring, safe, forgettable picture. The Academy awards artistic achievement by accident, not by design.

So, as long as they're going to be kind of silly and dick over great filmmaking, why not let their hair down and embrace the silliness? Russell Brand is hit or miss as a stand-up—a little of his I'm-above-this breeziness and faux-edgy political humor that's designed to seem to the audience like he thinks it's going over their heads but is really supposed to flatter them for “getting” the “joke” goes a long way—but his hosting was in another fucking galaxy from Billy Crystal's this year because some of his jokes actually worked. Not to mention, one of Russell Brand's biggest strengths in a context as silly as an awards show is the way his perpetually sighing vocal delivery reminds everyone that what's going on is not serious. Because it's not.


2—Categories like “Best Kiss” and “Best Fight” are not stupid, they're actually great

A continuation of point 1. These categories are the greatest strength of the MTV Movie Awards, after its realization of its own existential absurdity. Considering that the Oscars are—whether they admit it or not—about what makes movies fun rather than great, why not have Best Kiss? Or Best Fight (maybe expanded to Best Ownage Sequence to allow car chases and shit as well)? Or Best Villain?

This isn't about getting more people to watch the Oscar telecast, because fuck that (and in any case the MTV Movie Awards ratings were down almost 30% this year, making it a less-than-ideal commercial model). I'm just saying, if they gave out Best Fight right after the dead people montage and then the clips of the nominees are things like Iko Uwais ramming a fluorescent light bulb into a dude's throat, that would be awesome.


3—Wiz Khalifa and The Black Keys showing up for no apparent reason

If you need to make it sound more pretentious call it the “Luis Buñuel Memorial Appreciation For The Stochastic and Ridiculous Nature Of Existence.” Also, the performance the Keys did with Lifetime Achievement Award winner Johnny Depp (who, it should be noted, looked like he was having infinitely more fun than he does whenever he shows up to lose an Oscar) is something the Oscars should do: if someone gets a lifetime achievement award for being an awesome performer, they should have to perform. The fact that Johnny sat in with the Keys on guitar and proved that, while he looks perfect as a rock 'n' roll guitarist, he kinda sounds like shit is even better: the performance should have to have a degree of difficulty increase. Make Francis Ford Coppola juggle. The what-the-fuck quotient would actually make that shit interesting.


4—The MTV Movie Awards are only two hours long

This is tricky for the Oscars, because the best speeches are ALWAYS for the awards “no one cares about” (implying, falsely, that anyone gives any appreciable degree more of a fuck more about Best Actor and Director; half the audience is watching for the dresses and the other half's attention is drifting toward the blog posts they're drafting about what bullshit it is that Terrence Malick doesn't have more Oscars that William Wyler). But dudes, you need to tighten. Not shorten. Just only put in what needs to be there. The fact that some fuckfaces at MTV who give their Best Picture award to Twilight are doing a better job than you should make you jump out the fucking window in shame.


5—Show clips from upcoming releases

So, to explain: I watched the MTV Movie Awards instead of the Game of Thrones season finale because I was lured with beer and a post-show trip up to a roof deck and it was gorgeous out Sunday night. And I have no regrets, because the company was great and I was able to catch GoT first thing the next morning online. I already forget who won what except for Kristen Stewart earning the nickname “Pinner” after the variety of joint, because pinners are skinny, white, and full of weed, and so is she (I'm not judging, I think she's great, I'm just saying, girlfriend was fuckin hiiiiiiigh). But one thing I do remember is the coming attractions.

They debuted the trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I don't really care about except I hope it does well so Emma Watson gets her post-Hermione career off to a good start. And, later, they made a gigantic hullafuckinbaloo about an EXCLUSIVE NEVER-BEFORE SEEN clip from The Dark Knight Rises. Which I knew wasn't going to be anything really new but still, I can't lie, I got excited. And went ahead and spent a couple minutes speculating about the structure and how Anne Hathaway figured into things. So, you know mission accomplished.

It sounds like (and sometimes is) conceding the lack of interest in the history of movies to advise the Oscars to stop the all-necrophilia-all-the-time act and focus on the present and future, but there's a way to do it right. First, acknowledge past, present, and future as one, rather than just incessantly venerating the past, and all too often the wrong parts of the past. So, yeah, look back. Then there are the awards themselves, which acknowledge the present sufficiently. But seriously, what the hell's wrong with being like “movies are still a vital, thriving thing, and here's what we've got in store”? Nothing. Don't hard sell it up too much, but a trailer or two wouldn't do any harm, especially when presented the way the MTV Movie Awards did, bringing out Christopher Nolan to a thunderous ovation—seriously, a director getting that kind of reception? Kinda cool—to say a few opaque words before unveiling the clip. Most of it was stuff we've seen before, with the exception of a little dialogue between Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but hey.


Now, the Oscars aren't in such dire shape that they really need fixing. They are what they are. And heaven knows taking too many pages out of the book of an entity that hails fucking Twilight as any kind of superlative is problematic. But none of these suggestions would hurt. At all. Especially the one about lightening the fuck up, which really is the one from which the other four derive. Silliness is a virtue, and so is self-awareness, Oscar.

TEN FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE 84TH ACADEMY AWARDS

Jessica Chastain, a much nicer subject for contemplation than the awards themselves

“A fucking low-budget silent black and white film wins best picture, and everyone's like, 'UGH, how annoyingly predictable.'” —Bastard Keith

There was always something a little off about the Oscars this year, and nothing more so than that The Artist, which is, as my good friend Bastard Keith observed in the above quote, a fucking low-budget silent black and white film, being the anointed Best Picture winner. Since the beginning of the awards season. Which started in fucking September this year. Whether or not the movie was good, this decision was made a long time ago, and has little apparently to do with The Artist as a movie.

When you get down to it, this year's whole Oscars had nothing to do with 2011 in movies. The true theme of the year, to me, was well- and intelligently-done genre filmmaking. My favorite for the year, Attack The Block, was that. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was that. Drive was that. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Moneyball (which is a sports movie.) Relax the quality standards a little bit, and Fast Five qualifies (it was certainly wildly entertaining and brought off with great skill), as does The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a marvel of technique and polish, which obfuscated its manifestly stupid story. Relax the “genre” qualification and you can make a case for Midnight In Paris as SF. Of those, only Midnight In Paris ever had a chance of winning an Oscar (which it did, for Woody's terrific original screenplay.)

For non-genre pieces, there was the gorgeous (and, naturally, doomed in terms of wins) The Tree Of Life. And the splendidly observed drama The Descendants. And David Cronenberg pulling one of those Scorsese Age of Innocence “hey, I'm going to make a period drama that's just fucking seething with intensity, except mine's going to have BDSM in it” acts with A Dangerous Method. And Shame (oh, Shame . . .) And Martha Marcy May Marlene. And Take Shelter. Of these, The Descendants was the Midnight In Paris, as above, winning only for Adapted Screenplay.

With all those movies, across a spectrum with “worthy of an Oscar nomination or two for some particularly notable aspect” on one end and “legitimately great” on the other, the three most talked-about movies of the year were The Artist (more talked about than seen), Hugo (same), and The Help (widely talked about and widely seen; The Artist and Hugo combined did about a third of The Help's business.) The Artist and Hugo were both about really interesting things (actually the same interesting thing: the early days of movies) and didn't hold up to close critical scrutiny, which is kind of fitting actually, since they're both more about loving the movies than thinking too hard about them (though, in Hugo's case, Martin Scorsese is, it goes without saying, someone who also thinks very hard about movies.) And The Help is a fucking disaster, but it's an extremely well-acted disaster that raised the profile of two wonderful actresses, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis. Yet, those three pictures dominated the Oscar race and all the discussion thereof. And they're set almost completely apart from any of the other movies listed above. (Ed. Note: do not bring Midnight In Paris into this. I know I wrote about all three of them in the same post a few months ago, but Midnight In Paris is notably apart, not only for being a Woody Allen movie, but also for being set in the present and coming firmly down on the side of “living in the now” rather than romanticizing or overly dwelling on the past.)

The Oscar show itself was fucking weird. Here's what I learned, took away from it, observed, and so forth:

1—Billy Crystal sucked. It wasn't just that he didn't have a single funny joke all night. It's not even that he alternated between a kind of listless plodding and laughing at his own terrible jokes (when he wasn't outright fucking them up) . . . all right, fuck it, the blackface really did not go over well. I know he was famous for his Sammy Davis Jr. impersonation (thirty fucking years ago . . .) but seriously, dude? It's fucking 2012. If you really wanted to relive your youth, Billy, why couldn't you have just told Jessica Chastain or somebody “you look MAH-velous”? Take your blackface and shove it up your ass, if there's any room in there with your head.

2—Viola Davis . . . wow. It's hard to remember an actor who was that much of a favorite, I mean universally considered a lock, not win. There she was on the red carpet beforehand, in her own hair, talking about the speech she had prepared. She had to be fucking certain she was going to win. And then she didn't. It's important to remember that this was not a deliberate slap in the face, or a rebuke for overconfidence, or a reminder of her place. It was a bunch of dumbasses who don't think about their votes (I had a real eye-opener of a conversation with a SAG actor I know about voting in the guild awards recently. The individual in question had seen a grand total of one of the nominated movies and proceeded to simply check off that movie in all categories. I've had it confirmed for me by someone else who Knows Things that Oscar voting in the categories where you don't have to prove you've seen all the movies is exactly the same) voting for Meryl Streep instead. And not even out of outright racism. I think it's just name recognition. But goddamn do I feel bad for Viola Davis. I fucking felt like I'd been punched in the stomach and it wasn't even me. And I didn't even fucking like the movie. Ugh.

3—The blog Big Hollywood officially has to shut down now. There is no way a sane person can accuse Hollywood of liberal bias on a night with blackface routines, people winning Oscars for playing Margaret Thatcher, and the entire motherfucking night was about the fucking past.

4—It's not all bad. Those dudes who won for editing Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were awesome; they got up there and started talking and then they got scared with all the people looking at them and instead of doing something embarrassing they acknowledged that they were nervous and couldn't think of anything to say and took off. I liked those guys. As I did the high-off-their-motherfucking-asses dudes who won for Animated Short. They were just like “faaaaaaar fucking out, we're at the Oscars, dude, and we're kind of gay except maybe we're just high as tits, even we're too high to tell!”

5—In a related note, I liked that Robert Richardson got up on stage and was awesome for fifteen seconds and then just tipped the fuck out, even though—awesome as Hugo looked, and as much as RR was responsible for that—it's just not right that Tree Of Life didn't take that. The whole movie in Tree Of Life, even the parts when you're not supposed to, you're like “Wow, this is some excellent cinematography.” With Hugo a lot of it's the FX, the production design, Marty, Thelma, but with Tree Of Life it's just Terry Malick telling Emmanuel Lubezki “I want it to look like this,” Emmanuel Lubezki going, “Sure thing, sir . . . okay, how's this?” then Malick going, “Perfect. Thanks.” and then Lubezki going, “You're welcome.” Still, if you're going to lose to someone, it might as well be Robert Richardson.

6—Christopher Plummer was awesome. And now we no longer have to be like “why the fuck hasn't Christopher Plummer won an Oscar yet?” and retroactively try to give him one for Star Trek VI (a fine piece of cinema.)

7—Alexander Payne's (credited) co-authors on the Descendants script doing that brief sight gag about Angelina Jolie's dress was the second funniest thing that happened all night. Chris Rock's entirely-too-brief bit introducing Animated Feature was the funniest. Twitter erupted with people going “PLEASE, CHRIS, STAY AND HOST THE REST OF THE SHOW!” the second he was gone. Both had an air of “I do not give a fuck” that was extremely welcome.

8—I am extremely happy that A Separation broke the unfortunate streak of “if you've heard of it, it won't win” in the Best Foreign category. A Separation is a legitimately great movie, and its director, Ashgar Farhadi, gave what if you were paying attention was a pretty ballsy speech, with all kinds of “fuck you” signifiers to the Iranian ruling regime, while having nothing but love for the people themselves. Because, ya know, they may not have nuclear weapons but they do throw directors in jail. If it comes down to it, some country should give Farhadi auteur asylum (France is good like that, then he can have lunch with Abbas Kiarostami sometimes) so he can keep making movies because damn. A Separation is really, really, really fucking good, and I'm really glad it won.

9—Whoever was mixing the sound needs to be bashed repeatedly in the nuts with a cricket bat and given a refresher course in not fucking ruining three-quarters of the evening with that digital gurgling and that horrible harsh ring the main microphone had whenever anyone talked into it. Just about the only time all night when that fucker wasn't feeding back at a frequency that probably ordered every dog in America to activate plan Alpha and kill us all was when it cut out in the middle of the Documentary Feature guys being excited. Which was a total dick move, because they totally cut it out on purpose to keep those guys from talking. I mean, seriously, everyone saw it and knew exactly what you were doing, fuckface in the control room. You didn't fool anyone.

10—Did I mention how fucking terrible Billy Crystal was? He was AWFUL. Even the one notorious David Letterman year wasn't this bad, because aside from the infamous “Uma, Oprah” thing that Dave didn't let die, the rest of the night he was funny. The only funny thing Billy did all night was kiss George Clooney, and Clooney was the one who sold that bit. But, thankfully, Billy may have sucked but he didn't suck for long: it was one of the quickest-feeling Oscar shows I can remember, and apparently only ran long by 20 minutes. So there's that.

But yeah, I'm ready to be done with all this shit. Only 10 of my 20 picks were right, and the only award all night that really bugged me was Viola Davis losing. I sincerely hope that this is the last time Billy Crystal is invited back, as well as the last time Viola Davis has to get kicked in the ass like that. And may I never the rest of my days see such a disconnect between what actually happened in movies in a given year and what Oscar thinks happened in a given year. People need to start playing with the Harvey Weinstein playbook. It's not his fault that he has the magic formula, but monopolies inhibit progress. The Oscars, having taken this trip back through the looking glass, would best be served by moving on. And with that, so shall I.

RACE IN CINEMA MONTH: AN IN DEPTH REVIEW OF CRASH

Fuck Crash.

YOUR GUIDE TO THE LAST OSCARS BEFORE THEY ABANDON ALL PRETENSE AND JUST CALL THEM THE HARVEYS

“Holy shit am I glad I decided not to host.”

Despite the weary tone of my picks post, I'm determined to have fun with the Oscars this year. Of course, there's more to it than who wins—most casual moviegoers don't even really give a shit most years, not having seen more than like one or two of the movies, and those rarely ones that are set to win anything—and in that spirit, it's time to speculate about goofy bullshit that has nothing to do with the competition at hand. Because, as Crash Davis put it so well, “It's fun, goddammit.”

---The all-important Cameron Diaz/Jake Gyllenhaal Memorial Golden Giraffe Ass Award, given to the presenter who's so stoned they can barely read the teleprompter: it's extremely tempting to go with Zach Galifianakis here, because, I mean, dude. But I beg to differ. Not only is it a loaded field (double entendres so hot they're pornographic, that's the Movies By Bowes ™ way), but this is the lone hope for any real entertainment value this evening. While Halle Berry reliably always seems half in the bag at these things, I think the Giraffe Ass (as in, “higher than”) goes to Christian Bale this year. I think he's just awkwardly Method enough to need to blaze before appearing in public as himself. Angelina Jolie is going to seem like the runaway winner (she's been looking alarmingly wan of late) but after she tests negative for any recreational substances, Bale will go home the triumphant winner. Though Bradley Cooper is a dark horse candidate, as are the Bridesmaids gals (they seem like the sort who would build a gravity bong just for the fuck of it, don't they? I mean that in the best possible way, of course.)

---Christopher Plummer's acceptance speech is going to be pure class. Christopher Plummer's the fuckin best.

---Tina Fey will be funnier in ten seconds than Billy Crystal will be all night.

---Which brings me to something I want to address, because back in the day I loved Billy Crystal, and when he was on point he was the best Oscar host there's been in my lifetime. But there was a point a few years ago when he suddenly and irrevocably became Old. Since that probably sounds ageist, I should clarify that being Old and being regular old aren't the same thing, as, for example, Clint Eastwood is old but he's not Old because he still fucking owns, not to mention he could almost be Billy Crystal's dad. I'm mainly worried because of something Billy said in Entertainment Weekly, about how his centerpiece bit is going to be this long-ass thing about how much the Oscars have changed since he first hosted them. And I hate to say this, much as I loved When Harry Met Sally and even Running Scared back in the day, but Billy: nobody gives a fuck. Prove me wrong and be funny, please. I want to be wrong about this.

---Sacha Baron Cohen will be mildly amusing, and the entire media is going to have a gran mal seizure freaking the fuck out about how “controversial” he was, FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Dudes, lighten up.

---Over/under on Harvey Weinstein jokes: an assload. Take the over.

---Elizabeth Taylor is going to bat cleanup in the death montage, and get the most applause. Whitney Houston will be close, as will Sidney Lumet, but this is Hollywood. Vegas probably isn't even taking action this year. (And yes, I know that's morbid. But people do bet on this; I can neither confirm nor deny having won $20 on Heath Ledger beating out Ingmar Bergman that one year, but I can confirm I was not proud of myself.)

---Best dress: Viola Davis. She has to look right when she wins.

---Worst dress: I'm afraid some stylist is going to fuck Jessica Chastain up. Not much basis for this, but with her coloring, thing's can get precarious. All right, now I have to stop before I have to rename this Movies By Mr. Blackwell.

---And, finally, this is vague as shit, and probably wishful thinking, but I have an odd feeling something really weird is going to happen at some point that's going to overshadow the whole evening. Something in the same event genre as that streaker who tried (in abject fucking failure, of course) to overshadow David Niven in the 70s, except I think it'll have something to do with politics. Maybe this is just because I'm so desperate for something memorable to happen.

Anyway, that's all I got this year. I'm going to go to the fancy beer store and get a moderate amount of something good, which is more my speed these days than a lot of something shitty. I'll be livetweeting at @moviesbybowes, so follow me if you don't already, and get ready for an unbumpy ride.

C'MON OSCAR, LET'S GO FOR A RIDE, VOL. III: 2011-12 PREDICTIONS

Spoiler alert: this movie is going to win most of them.

The 84th Academy Awards draw near. This year's theme is “let's get this shit over with.” For a number of reasons, this year's Oscars arrive under a cloud of grumpy “fuck this shit”ness from large portions of the critical community. Normal people (no faintly condescending “civilians” talk about the Oscars; being a non-civilian Oscar watcher is hardly a badge of honor) are like “oh, the Oscars, yeah, let's get a couple bottles of something tasty and look at the dresses and stuff” and you know? I'm starting to really come around to that way of thinking. There've been years when I'd have let stuff like Albert Brooks not getting nominated for Drive bug me for months and would occasionally rant about it unsolicited for years.

But ya know what? Sometimes something has to happen that's that retarded to really open people's eyes to the lovely, relaxing life afforded to those who don't give a fuck. So much nicer this way. Cuz I mean holy shit. We shouldn't be having Oscars this year without Albert Brooks being nominated. Drive, while not a picture that should have really won anything other than one for Brooks, deserved at least as many nominations as The Tree Of Life (and Tree of Life deserved three times as many as it got). And yet, here they are. Even Led Zeppelin realized that what is and what should be are two different things, and they were on so many fucking drugs a couple songs later on that same album Robert Plant was taking his girlfriend to Mordor on a date. So don't let's stress. Instead, may we all enjoy ourselves Sunday. And now, in the immortal words of Clarence Williams III, “This . . . is what's gon' happen!”:


Best Animated Short Film: no idea
Best Live Action Short Film: got me
Best Documentary Short Subject: fuck if I know
Best Documentary Feature: something about Very Serious Things

Honesty is the best policy. No one knows who the fuck's going to win these. But these are always the ones that have the best speeches, because the people who make these kinds of pictures are nerds who are thrilled as fuck to be there, and kinda crazy to boot, both of which the Oscars need more of.


Best Visual Effects: Hugo

Hugo may have had a wonky structure and may not have given us a reason to care about any of the characters until past the halfway point, but it sure did look cool. And, while if this was an award given out to the movie with the best visual effects, Rise of the Planet of the Apes would win as decisively as Caesar won the revolution, but that's not how things work in Oscarville, so it's Hugo. But this is no tragedy, because Hugo was quite the technical achievement, and for all my bitching about what's wrong with it, it's the work of a master filmmaker and a meaningful work of art.

Best Film Editing: The Artist

This was a tough pick, actually, and I went back and forth on it a bit before realizing that a) I was daydreaming, b) the reason I was daydreaming was because I was cranky that this category wasn't Drive, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Tree Of Life, either Tintin or War Horse because Spielberg, and Hugo, and c) dude, it's going to go to The Artist because The Artist is going to win everything it's nominated for with two exceptions. It's winning this one because people are oohing and aahing that they managed to cut without sound, which I'd find more impressive if that wasn't exactly how I learned how to edit. If all those hours I spent watching 16 mm films of sunflowers expressing the incomparable pain of being an upper-middle-class teenager mean I get to win an Oscar for Best Editing someday, it'll all have been worth it.

Best Costume Design: The Artist

Cuz Dujardin's tuxes and Bejo's dresses were pretty bangin'. Also, The Artist is winning almost everything this year.

Best Makeup: The Iron Lady

It'd be nice if this was the Harry Potter franchise's token Oscar for the fact that it made almost $8 billion. (Ed. Note: Holy fuck, the Harry Potter movies grossed almost $8 billion. That's fucking insane.) But the only people in the industry who like the Harry Potter movies are the people at Warners backstroking naked through cash and British actors, every single one of whom appeared at some point or other in the franchise. So, I guess The Iron Lady people win for keeping Meryl Streep from getting rusty? I don't know, I only care about Best Makeup because makeup nerds give fun speeches.

Best Cinematography: The Artist

Again, if meaning existed in the universe, Lubezki would win for Tree Of Life, but because the assignment of meaning is arbitrary and purpose is widely assumed in the absence of any supporting evidence, he will not. The Artist is winning almost everything this year.

Best Art Direction: Hugo

Here's why I've been prefacing “everything” with “almost” when talking about The Artist. This award was fucking invented for work like what Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo did on Hugo. So it wins.

Best Sound Mixing: War Horse
Best Sound Editing: War Horse

Lumping these two in together because most people who don't really pay attention to the particulars of sound design do too. Which is why, as Mark Harris pointed out, War Horse wins because cannons. (You'll also note a lot of my picks are the same as his because he's really smart and knows a lot of stuff and even such a sage as I knows when to listen to superior wisdom.) It takes both because no one gives a fuck except sound people. Though it would have been rad as tits if The Artist was nominated for these so it could win both these too and the TV could just cut to Harvey Weinstein giving the finger and laughing his ass off.


Best Original Song: “Real In Rio,” Rio

Everyone's picking “Man or Muppet” because it's a better song, but that's not how this works. And someone needs to be kicked repeatedly in the balls for there only being two nominees and for “Life's A Happy Song” not being one of them.


Best Original Score: The Artist

Everyone who noticed that massive chunk of the Vertigo score that Ludovic Bource ganked is going to shit kittens all over again (full disclosure: I've seen Vertigo, Vertigo's great, and the music in Vertigo is great, but I had to have it pointed out to me that The Artist straight up Puffysampled it [Puffysampling, if you remember 1997-9, is when you take a whole fucking song and call it a sample] because I am not, contrary to what my many lovers and copy editors may protest, perfect.) And while I feel for their blood pressure, I'd just like to calmly propose we either drop the “original” from the title of this category or add a second one that's just “Best Music” or “Bangin'est Tunes” or “Damn, That Shit Was Dope” or some such, that covers music that existed prior its use in the given movie. Not that anyone's ever going to do this, because it makes too much sense. But it'd sure solve the kitten-shitting epidemic in the critical community.


Best Foreign Language Film: In Darkness

I forget whether my winning streak in this category is four or five years long (which probably means it's ending this year) but in layman's terms, the reasoning goes like this: the picture you've heard of in this category never wins. And this year, A Separation is the movie everyone's heard of, and whoa baby is A Separation good. It's tremendous. But its chances of winning are about .00000001% this year because a) anti-Muslim and anti-Iranian fucktardery but more importantly, b) everyone's heard of it and a lot of people have even actually seen it, which is the death knell for a Best Foreign Language Film nominee. Remember how in Hitchhiker's Guide, they realized that the one guy who was making the decisions about literally everything in the entire universe was an Asperger's case living alone on a deserted planet with only his cat (or was it his dog? it's been a while) as company? Some time in the next five years we're going to find out some eccentric old person in Los Angeles is the only eligible voter in this category (there's a complicated procedure by which you have to prove you've seen all five movies by the voting deadline to even cast a vote) and has been deliberately fucking with us ever since Luis Buñuel died, out of grief. Just watch. Oh, and by the way, when one of the four movies no one's ever heard of is about the Holocaust, it's the prohibitive favorite. Also it'd be nice if Agnieszka Holland wins because she directed a bunch of episodes of The Wire. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but it's the same kind of thinking Academy voters do when voting, so it's fitting.


Best Animated Feature: Rango

The sleeper pick for the most secretly lulzy dramatic subplot in Oscar history: they're going to have to give an Oscar to the guy who directed the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Oh, that's gonna be great. Gore Verbinski should just read his resume as his acceptance speech: “Who'd have thought the guy who directed The Mexican, the American remake of The Ring, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies would ever win an Oscar? America's the greatest country in the motherfuckin' world!” At which point Morgan Freeman should join him on stage and say with a huge smile to the universe in general, “You have been trolled.”


Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Of all these picks, this is the one of two that's most likely to be wrong. So instead of fucking around, I'll “show my work” as they used to say in math class: Moneyball is the best adaptation in the bunch, because even though it wasn't easy and Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller put that fucker together like Frankenstein's monster, they still managed to put together a pretty damn good script (the fact that none of the stuff with the daughter had anything to do with anything, and her presence being actually a net loss for the movie because that damn song she kept playing on the guitar hadn't even come out yet at the time the movie took place, was ultimately forgivable; think of Hollywood like an addict, and things like giving the protagonist a superfluous kid as like a former smoker having one late at night while drunk) from one of the most apparently unfilmable books like ever. But no Oscar voters read books, so scratch that. And scratch Hugo, because if it was winning a bunch of other Oscars it would get this one too because all the Hugo voters would just be going Hugo Hugo Hugo all down the line, but they're not because Hugo's only going to win two. If I was voting for any of these five, I'd have gone Tinker Tailor because Tinker Tailor was tits and if you don't like it you can blow the mole on top of the circus who's been there for years. This one:

But The Descendants winning ain't no problem at all, because The Descendants was great. Anyone with a stick up their ass about Alexander Payne at this point, just knock it off. Seriously, just don't even. When you dis Alexander Payne, you dis yourself. Motherfucker.


Best Writing – Original Screenplay: The Artist

The Artist is taking almost everything this year, volume 5. They're not giving this to Woody because they know he's not going to be there (which is dumb, because Midnight In Paris was awesome), and they're not giving this to Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumolo because girls don't write, you silly (which is also dumb because Bridesmaids was also awesome, and moreover fuck Hollywood in the face for its sexism). A Separation is the best-written movie in the category, but it's not getting the Almodóvar lose-for-foreign-win-for-Screenplay Talk To Her treatment because Iran is scaaaaaaaaaaaary (seriously, it'll be to the entire world's benefit once America is toilet-trained . . .) That leaves Margin Call and The Artist. One movie that's about how a bunch of Evil White Guys In Suits crashed the economy, and one movie about a really handsome guy who looks good in a tux and is a really good dancer and the plucky drop-dead gorgeous girl who looks good in a dress and is also a really good dancer and how they both are adorable. QED byetches.


Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

I'm a little confused as to how Bérénice Bejo slipped through the cracks of The Artist's near-sweep, but these things happen. Also, Octavia Spencer put in a tremendously charismatic performance with a bunch of different layers, each one of which she executed marvelously. So, no complaints here. And, in any case, none of The Help's problems were anything to do with the cast. It helps (Ha! See what I did there?) that the Oscars have so little to do with movies, because as infuriating and painful as The Help was to sit through, I like being able to openly root for Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis to win Oscars for the sake of their careers (and because they were both legitimately awesome) without it being an endorsement of the movie they're winning them for. To clarify, I'm both rooting for her and rationally think she's going to win, although there's considerable precedent for weird shit happening in this category. Don't be surprised if Melissa McCarthy pulls off an upset, or if Bérénice Bejo makes it a clean sweep for The Artist, but the odds-on favorite (call it like 5/2 or thereabouts) is Octavia Spencer.


Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Speaking of infuriating and painful movies. But I come not to bitch about Beginners, I come to praise Christopher Plummer. Sure it's a “for services rendered” Oscar, but they give those out all the time, and to far less awesome actors. So what if this should be Albert Brooks' victory lap? “Should” doesn't count for much with Oscars, and it's a shifting quantity anyway. Of these five dudes, there's no overwhelming reason anyone other than Plummer should take it, so just sit back and enjoy the awesome speech that's virtually guaranteed when he wins.


Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help

Along with her castmate Octavia Spencer, this is why it fits nicely that the Oscars are during Race In Cinema Month here at Movies By Bowes ™. Viola Davis should win Best Actress because she's awesome and has “paid her dues” (which is dumb but a real thing in Oscarology, just like the belief that Billy Crystal is still funny) and her performance was so good it made a movie I didn't like completely engrossing whenever she was on screen. That's why she should win. The fact that she'd be only the second black Best Actress is cool concomitantly. But it's still really cool. I think she edges Meryl Streep, in no small part because of the secret Masonic oath the Academy apparently took in 1983 that Meryl Streep would never win an Oscar again after her first two.


Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Brad Pitt is the victim of people in the Academy being lumpen little fucking assholes about The Tree Of Life. If it had gotten 15 nominations like it should have (yes, I know this is stupid, I'm at least kind of kidding), he would have been the runaway favorite because Jesus Hieronymous Christ was he good in that movie. In Moneyball, he's great and he holds it down and, sure, if he won it would be fine, but he's not going to. George Clooney was tremendous in The Descendants, and if it was the movie that was winning everything this year he'd be a shoo-in. But it's not. Demián Bichir, I can't tell you about, because I haven't seen that movie, but neither have most of the voters. Scratch. Would that the reason I listed the nominees in this order was because I had any kind of basis for saying it was between Gary Oldman and Jean Dujardin, but no. Gary Oldman has no shot, despite being soooooooooo good as Smiley. Nothing would make me happier than Gary Oldman finally winning an Oscar. (Okay, that's hyperbole, but it would own.) But don't get me wrong, I have no beef with the fact that Jean Dujardin is going to win this. Dude's a straight-up for-real movie star, and he was great in that movie. And his acceptance speech is going to fucking rock. Fuck the Francophobes.


Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Meh. Not thrilled about this one, but it's inevitable. If only Terry Malick won and he sent the dinosaur to accept it for him. Then again by this point I'll be drunk enough that I'll think that's what's happening anyway.


Best Picture: The Artist

So, okay. Here's the deal. I can't speak for every film critic, blogger, or pundit out there, nor would I dream of doing so. All I can say is that the way I read the situation is this: the reason all those people are bummed out about The Artist sweeping this year is that we were never given a choice. This isn't like last year when The Social Network was all good in first place and the Academy went “waaaaaaaitaminnit” and remembered there was a Weinstein Company picture in the race and gave everything to The King's Speech, a mediocre movie at best. The Artist actually is good. And, at least formally, it's a little adventurous, being an almost entirely silent movie. It is the kind of movie to which it's paying homage: a big, emotional crowd-pleaser that doesn't entirely hold up to close scrutiny.

Which is the thing about the Artist bitching in the blogosphere: the kind of people who scrutinize movies closely and found the handful of things wrong with The Artist are flummoxed as to how anyone could possibly vote this as Best Picture. The thing about The Artist is, and this is backed up by a lot of anecdotal evidence of people I know who've seen it, when you just sit back and watch it, it washes over you and it's an absolute delight. The people who told me this are people who love movies, who see a lot of them, who know a lot about them, but who don't necessarily approach movies analytically all the time. They fucking love The Artist. And, to a certain degree, I went to The Artist back in November as one of those people. I wasn't on the hook to review it for anyone. I could have decided to review it for this blog, but I just wasn't feeling it that day. I went to BAM for like a 2pm show or something, and it was me and six or seven old gay couples and we spent the hour forty happily crying our eyes out and not giving a fuck. I enjoyed that experience of seeing the movie enough that I don't want to go back and go over it with a fine-toothed comb, because I'll just notice more ways in which Hazanavicius blew the pastiche and things like the “natives” in the jungle movie-within-a-movie would annoy me—as my pal Isaac Butler so aptly put it, they're literally spear-chuckers—and I'd end up being all pissed off and disillusioned and probably mad at myself for being a sucker for not giving a fuck the first time. But why do that if I don't have to?

This (obviously) isn't an artistic justification for The Artist to win Best Picture. But there's a fine line that needs to be drawn, that explains a LOT about the Oscars: they're not about film. They're about The Movies. Film is a medium that affords ambitious artists opportunities to make profound personal statements through the confluence of moving visual images, the juxtaposition of those images, sound, and the interplay between image and sound. The Movies are things people go to to laugh and cry and be awed. Film is something experienced proactively. The Movies are things experienced reactively. Both use the same equipment and techniques, and there's plenty of overlap in the resultant motion pictures, but the Oscars are about The Movies. This is why it has to be The Artist, in a triumphant landslide, because it's a movie about The Movies that is The Movies. It doesn't even really have all that much to do with Harvey Weinstein. The Artist is exactly what this whole Oscar thing is about.

So have fun on Sunday. Suspense about who's going to win is not, by any means, the whole show.

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.....

This is serious. This is science. Hi, Jennifer Lawrence!

Earlier, I wrote a thing for Hudak on Hollywood about the Oscar nominations. Then a little later I was listening to Sasha Stone and Jeff Wells talk about the nominations on their podcast and it really dawned on me: giving too much of a fuck about the Oscars is a one-way ticket to Miseryville, population you. Sure there's dumb shit about the nominations this year. There always is. It's not a meritocracy, it's Hollywood's annual stretch to see if its dick still fits in its mouth. Now, auto-fellatio is impressive, physically, just as Hollywood glamour is impressive, physically. It's something not everyone can do. But it's still kind of ridiculous and funny, and if you get too deep in it, you get funny white stuff up your nose. I shall now retire as the king of all metaphors.

Oh, and Oscar night I'm going to be drunk and making lots of jokes. This ain't nothing to be taking seriously, no way.

IT'S OSCAR SEASON! (NO, IT'S WABBIT SEASON!)

L. DiCaprio (J. Edgar Parody) - watch more funny videos

Friend of the blog Samantha Mason (follow her, she rules) sent me this, and goddamn if it isn't great. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was actually Leo's inner monologue these days. It's funny cuz it's true, after all.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, OWNAGE

Oh, HELL yes. Everybody British is in this, espionage (from a novel by John le Carre, the best of the best at that), and cool 70s clothes? Sign me up. In my own blood.

By the way, while we're at it, the fact that Gary Oldman is starting to look like Bill Nighy is fun and everything, but give him a fucking Oscar already. You hear me, Academy? Gary Oldman not having an Oscar is proof that something is dreadfully, horribly wrong. You shall taste the wrath of the righteous should this apostate heathenry go on any longer.

DO I STUTTER?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE, IT'S ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY HARVEY WEINSTEIN SPENT ON YOUR MOVIE'S CAMPAIGN

Since who wins and who loses isn't decided on merit, if one can compartmentalize and enjoy the spectacle of a bunch of extremely rich people taking themselves extremely seriously, the Oscars can be a lot of fun. So, with my predictions about who's going to win out of the way, here's a bunch of good old fashioned bullshit (if you have to ask whether a particular prediction is serious, it's not):

---James Franco's timing is going to be a little off all night, but Anne Hathaway's going to be on point. By the end of the telecast, the audience will be begging him to shut the fuck up so we can focus on Anne's smile. Speculation that Franco's stoned will run rampant, but the real explanation is, he'll be distracted by the forty college degrees he's working on, the twenty-five movies he's directing, and the mistaken impression that he has a shot in hell of winning tonight.

---It'll be a good year for dresses. Some will actually look good, some will be mindbogglingly awful. But it won't be a boring year.

---Florence will be laid bare as the fraud she is without The Machine.

---Gwyneth Paltrow will make everyone go, “Damn, remember when she used to act? Fuck me I'm old.”

---The best speech all night will either be by the Foreign Film winner, or one of the shorts.

---Colin Firth will alienate the entire world moviegoing audience by pretending to stutter in his own acceptance speech; he'll later tell the media “I was having a laugh, is that so wrong?” and the media will go, “Yeah, stick to drama, motherfucker.”

---Tony Curtis will win a bunch of gamblers a shitload of money by batting cleanup in the Dead People Montage. Dennis Hopper, counterintuitively, will lead it off.

---Aaron Sorkin will be a giant cock in his acceptance speech.

---Something will go horribly wrong with the Oscars' “virtual stage” or whatever the fuck it is.

---The ceremony will run 27 minutes and 14 seconds over.

---Thankfully, no dumb political shit in the acceptance speeches this year. Smart political shit, on the other hand, will certainly ensue when the Wall Street documentary guy wins, but he'll be dignified about it. Fox will still jump on this and do a thing about how out-of-touch and left-wing Hollywood is, even though it'll ironically be the least partisan and most relevant political statement at the Oscars in decades.

---No Banksy. Sigh.

---Somebody's gawnna do a wicked retahded Bahstin accent joke at sam point duriness fackin show. It's nawt gawnna be fackin funny.

---This one I can guarantee: when the old guy who wrote King's Speech wins, I'm going to get up and go “David Seidler, I'm happy for you, and I'mma let you finish . . . but Chris Nolan wrote the most original screenplay of all time!” But since that's not actually true, and that joke is old anyway, I'll just be glad no one's around to hear me. Except you all, but hey. What's a blog for if not oversharing.

---Natalie Portman's loss is going to be treated like some gigantic upset, but remember, I fuckin told you so.

---The Cameron Diaz Memorial “Most Stoned Presenter Award,” won last year by Jake Gyllenhaal (who is presenting this year but will likely not repeat), should go to either Halle Berry or Matthew McConaughy.

---Value bet of the night: Me getting bored with the inevitable King's Speech sweep (and the related reaffirming of Harvey Weinstein as the Master of the Oscars) and switching over to the Knicks-Heat game, with 7 to 1 odds.

So yeah, I'll be watching alone, since all my friends are either having a quiet evening in with their wives/husbands or don't give a shit. But you can follow me on Twitter as I crack wise all night. Just be forewarned, if those tweets start being about Carmelo and Amar'e, it means the Oscars fuckin sucked this year.

C'MON OSCAR, LET'S GO FOR A RIDE, VOL. II: 2010-11 PREDICTIONS

Wave your gold statuettes in the motherfuckin air, and wave them motherfuckers like they were based on a selection process that was remotely a meritocracy rather than a labyrinthine web of politics and stupid old people bullshit! (Wait, that's not how the song goes?) FUCK IT, IT'S OSCAR TIME!!!

Last year's Oscars were largely a snore because there were two legitimately great movies (The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds), a handful of really good ones (like Precious and District 9, for one of the funnier juxtapositions in living memory), and a flaming $300 million turd (Avatar), and there was no suspense whatsoever about who was actually going to win, with the only surprise being that Katherine Bigelow actually won Best Director (which wasn't really even much of one). This year's a different story, as 2010 was one of the sneakiest good years for movies on record.

The year started out with a wet stinky fart with Avatar dominating the box office for like ever, since no one seemed to give a fuck that it was fucking retarded and that moreover the FX weren't even that cool (sorry, civilians, you can get the same experience by eating mushrooms and watching the Smurfs, for a lot less money) and then Clash of the Titans coming along being like “Hey, we can take the lead guy from Avatar and suck even more!” and civilized people generally reaching for the whiskey bottle and wondering whether the Vicodin would be better in pill form or chopped up and snorted.

Then all of a sudden in the middle of the year shit started to absolutely fucking rock. Inception, The Kids are All Right, Winter's Bone started a litany of interesting, ambitious pictures that held reasonably steady until the end of the year, by which time there was a legitimately impressive roster of releases, with some excellent performances by actors, some truly visionary directing, and some fuckin a solid writing.

This means that, unlike last year, there were actual worthy nominees who got snubbed; Chris Nolan took the most public hit, not being nominated for Best Director for Inception, whose editor Lee Smith got royally fucked, not even getting nominated for one of the most magnificent editing jobs perhaps in decades. Best Director and Best Editing are the only categories where they really messed up the nominations (well, and a couple others that we'll get to later). Best Director, in a just universe, looks like this:

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
David Fincher, The Social Network
Debra Granik, Winter's Bone
Chris Nolan, Inception

That's your five. Fuck David Russell and a polite request to vacate the premises to Tom Hooper and the Coen Brothers (who justfuckinbarely miss the cut, I am not pissing on True Grit in any way). But, hey, them's the bricks.

Also unlike last year, there's some actual uncertainty in the acting categories. Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz, and Mo'Nique had that shit on lock even before the nominations were announced. This year, they don't even need to bother announcing the other four dudes in the Best Actor category, but the other three acting categories are still kind of up for grabs (it's a shame Jennifer Lawrence ain't got a shot). This necessitates the finest in analysis, from Movies By Bowes' ™ crack staff of one crackhead. Let's start with the ones I haven't any fuckin clue about:


Best Foreign Language Film

Always the most arbitrary award, because it never goes to the one movie anyone's ever heard of. It won't be Biutiful for that reason (also it apparently kind of sucks), and it won't be Dogtooth because it was the one everyone jumped to when they went “well it won't be Biutiful because people have heard of it.” I'm rooting for the Danish picture In A Better World so one woman director gets an Oscar, since Debra Granik and Lisa Cholodenko got boned by the nominating committee.


Best Live Action Short/Best Animated Short/Best Documentary Short Subject

No fuckin idea. But hey, you don't know either, that makes two of us.


Best Documentary Feature

This category's the most fun it's been years, with three king-hell badass pictures right at the top: Exit Through The Gift Shop, which isn't going to win—alas—though not winning will actually probably be better for Banksy's career than winning, just because it's hard to be anti-establishment with an Oscar (just ask Eminem) and we fuckin need Banksy to be anti-establishment. Also, if he did some shit like accept the fuckin thing as himself it'd be like, “right, you really are just some dude from Bristol in his late 30s. Fart.”

That means it's down to Inside Job and Restrepo, which means it's a coin flip: do you go with the—former, intellectually harrowing account of how far up our ass Wall Street's dick is, or do you go with the—latter—viscerally harrowing thing about combat troops in war? Guess it all depends which side of the bed the Academy wakes up on, but it'll be one of those two.

That being said, the best movie in this category is Exit Through The Gift Shop. Hands fucking down. Banksy is a fucking god.


Best Original Score

Hans Zimmer, motherfuckers.


Best Original Song

I don't really give a fuck. Randy Newman? Sure, why not. I'll be taking a piss when this one's presented anyway. This is why we either need to take a page out of Bollywood's book and actually fucking write good songs for this category, or just change the goddamn thing to “Best Needle Drop” and give the award to the hipster who decided to score a gun battle to “Two Weeks” by Grizzly Bear.


Best Sound Editing/Best Sound Mixing

Both of these joints had best be going to Inception. I watched Inception with headphones on a train coming back from Christmas and I was like “fuck, they should call this movie Erection.” Because of the sound, you see. Well, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's suits ahem but that's not the point. Seriously, if either of these categories go to anything else, the whole thing is a fucking fraud.


Best Makeup

The Wolfman. Sure it sucked, but Rick Baker owns.


Best Costume Design

An utterly invalid category this year due to the absence of Inception. Any movie responsible for that many people calling me gay for babbling about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's tailoring should fucking win Best Costume Design. Point fucking blank.


Best Editing

No Inception = The Social Network by default. But it's fucking bullshit that Inception is not nominated in this category. Seriously, we need to find out whose wives Chris Nolan has been fucking.


Best Visual Effects

No Tron: Legacy (which should have won, not even being nominated is retarded) = Inception wins by default. “Oh, there's your consolation prize for not being nominated for editing, Inception.” Yeah, suck my dick, Oscar.


Best Cinematography

A good field of nominees. Can't really go wrong with any of them except The King's Speech, which isn't even that bad, it's just the weakest of the five. General consensus is it's Roger Deakins' year for True Grit; I was amazed that he hasn't won yet, and that shit was gorgeous, so it's not even a consolation prize.


Best Animated Feature

Fuck knows. Don't care. I hear How To Train Your Dragon is good, but as part of the .0001 “Fuck Pixar” % of humanity, I just don't want it to be Toy Story even though it will be. I'm sorry, Pixar movies are so emotionally manipulative it's scary: what happens when Disney decides to use those skills for evil? HUH???


And now . . . the biggies:


Best Adapted Screenplay

Aaron Sorkin and a cast of thousands, and could very well end up being The Social Network's token Oscar, if the Academy indeed makes the howlingly retarded decision to fuck David Fincher. Unfortunately, this means Debra Granik goes home empty-handed, but hopefully she cleans up at the Spirit Awards.


Best Original Screenplay

Chris Nolan should win, but they're probably giving it to The King's Speech, which annoys me because not only does it wantonly fuck Chris Nolan over it's also an insult to Lisa Cholodenko, which is just like goddamn it man. Fuck the Oscars are annoying sometimes. Anyway, in a just world this is a coin flip between Inception and The Kids Are All Right, because you cannot compare those pictures. But this is not a just world.


Best Supporting Actress

Anybody's guess. Most likely are Melissa Leo for The Fighter or Hallee Steinfeld for True Grit, but more likely Melissa Leo.


Best Supporting Actor

A two-man race between Christian Bale and Geoffrey Rush. Bale's not as much of a favorite as people seem to think, but he still probably takes it so the Academy never has to vote for him again for anything (people really don't like that cat for whatever reason).


Best Actress

Another two-way race, this one between Annette Bening and Natalie Portman. I don't know why everyone's so convinced Natalie Portman has this one in the bag, because I'm goddamn near positive Annette Bening's winning it. First of all, this is another instance where you can't compare the performance. Natalie Portman in Black Swan gives one of those high-wire act, teetering on the brink of madness performances that are really flashy and everything but really, bizarrely, aren't as reliant on talent as they are a willingness to push oneself. It still, obviously, takes talent to do it that well.

Annette Bening, on the other hand, gives a much subtler performance in The Kids Are All Right. Her character is a bit of a control freak, and extremely uptight, and in a lesser movie with a lesser actress could have just been the most annoying fucking person on the planet. In Annette's hands, the character becomes enormously compelling, human, and the kind of person the audience can actually relate to. That, clearly, is not a substitute for artistic achievement, but Annette's attention to detail takes surgical skill (and I'm not just phrasing it that way because she plays a surgeon, but holy shit, how bout that, huh?)

You can't compare the two performances, but I personally am taking Annette, and I'm taking her to win because of the Hilary Swank losses in '99 and '04. Politics are a way bigger part of this than anyone wants to admit, but in this case, it'd be a deserved win.


Best Actor

Colin Firth. The biggest lock the entire night. It ain't a race, it's a coronation. But oh . . . what about his speech? Bahahahahahaha TIP YOUR WAITRESS MUTHAFUCKAAAAAAAA


Best Director

Okay. Even if they hadn't fucked up the nominations in this category and Nolan was still in, it'd be a coin flip between David Fincher and Debra Granik, if we were doing this on straight quality, with no politics or box office or anything thrown in. So, post-fuckup, it should be David Fincher finally getting some recognition for being fucking David Fincher (and The Social Network was a worthy picture to win for). But lo and behold, there's this absurd tantrum the old people are throwing where they're pretending that The King's Speech is this legendary, earth-shattering thing. It's a good movie, but come the fuck on, man. And Tom Hooper's just sort of there. Best Director means Best Fucking Director. That means David Fincher, of these five.

The probability at this point is probably 60/40 for Tom Hooper to win, but don't be surprised if Fincher wins. The fact that he's the underdog is absolutely fucking ridiculous, though.


Best Picture

It's The King's Speech. It's been The King's Speech since the old people threw their coup d'etat and decided The Social Network never existed. It's not an apocalyptic disaster if The King's Speech wins (it is good), but it's a sign that critics are being more completely marginalized. Critics, the people who actually study movies, were all in agreement: The Social Network was by far the best movie of the year. Then all of a sudden the guilds with all the old people give out their awards and suddenly The King's Speech is the only movie that came out in 2010? Child please. The old people are just pissed because a movie about all that computer shit that they're still convinced is a fad—AFTER ALMOST 20 YEARS OF THE FUCKING INTERNET—had all these damn critics all in a tizzy. Again, The King's Speech is a good movie. And yes, The Social Network is, at best, a parable, and at worst near-total fiction. But for fuck's sake, it's a brilliantly made movie. It's the best Hollywood movie in years. The choice between a good movie, that's nice and makes you feel good, and a great movie, that's a work of genius and makes you think is not a fucking choice. Great is better than good. But people prefer to feel than to think, so it's The King's Speech.

This isn't even taking into account the other movies that were better than The King's Speech this year: Black Swan, Winter's Bone, The Kids Are All Right, Inception, True Grit (Dabangg, Endhiran, Tees Maar Khan . . .) But, in spite of all my ranting, the fact that there are this many pictures that were better than the (admittedly good) heir apparent to the Best Picture statue is a sign that 2010 was a pretty fuckin good year for movies.


The other, more general, good news is, to use one classic example, Citizen Kane is Citizen Kane and me and maybe other four people under the age of 60 have seen How Green Was My Valley. I'd say Fight Club has more enduring relevance than American Beauty, but that'd just make me mad about David Fincher inevitably getting banjaxed this year. But the point I started to make, with Kane, is that the good news is, it's just the Oscars. History has a better voting record than the Academy.

BREAKING NEWS: OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED, WESTERN CIVILIZATION HANGS IN THE BALANCE

No big surprises with the Oscar nominations this year. The only real mess is in the Best Director category, where a year after Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win Best Director, two women who made pictures even better than Kathryn's (Debra Granik with Winter's Bone and Lisa Cholodenko with The Kids Are All Right; they both got screenplay noms, but still) got passed over in favor of David O. Russell and Tom Hooper (the Coens took Chris Nolan's spot).

This is more a reflection of 2010 secretly being a really strong year for movies. Even though the summer really pushed the boundary of retardation (for more, see the Razzie nominations), there were a lot of really wonderful and interesting pictures this past year, certainly way the fuck more than 2009, where they had to stretch to find five nominees for most categories, and most of the ten nominees for Best Picture were laughable.

It's nice to see, even if Debra Granik got snubbed, to see both Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes nominated for their performances. Jennifer Lawrence is less a surprise (she's been getting oodles of press lately and looks like she's on the cusp of superstardom) than John Hawkes, who's been puttin in work for decades, and finally graduates from “oh, that guy, he's good” status to that rarefied “shit yeah, John Hawkes is in this” territory. (Ed. Note: to the truly anointed, such as the author and legendary all-caps raconteur ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER, this has been the case for some time, but Olympus is an exclusive address).

Also, no Best Costume design for Inception? Excuse me, I have to go cut myself and listen to Peter Murphy records.

Because I actually care about being right (not about the stupid Oscars, just in general) I'm going to hold off on making predictions about winners for a few weeks, but we can be certain of a couple things right now: Best Foreign Film is not going to be Biutiful, because people have actually heard of it, in accordance with the unwritten bylaws of that category.

If Banksy wins for Best Documentary I'm going to fucking plotz. The Oscars will turn in on themselves and rupture the space-time continuum if something that awesome happens.

Anyway, woo hoo Oscar nominations. Looks like Justin Timberlake's got longer to wait for his EGOT than I thought, but he'll still have it before he's 40. YOU CAN TAKE THAT SHIT TO THE BANK(SY). Okay, I'm going now. Here's the full list of nominees. Peace.