Calling the Oscar winners, weeks in advance

Look, this isn't rocket science.

I missed on Lupita Nyong'o and "20 Feet From Stardom". But you know what? That's still really freaking good for calling the awards shortly after the nominations were announced. So... toot toot.

Oscar winners, weeks in advance

The trick to correctly predicting Oscar winners this far out is to remember that it's not about how those performances made you feel -- in fact, you don't even need to have seen the films in question to get them right. Rather, it's about figuring out which performances and films Hollywood tastemakers wish to emphasize as representative of what Hollywood is capable of doing.

So... at this early stage... here's the consensus...

Best Picture -- 12 Years A Slave

Best Actor -- Matthew McConaughey

Best Actress -- Cate Blanchett

Best Supporting Actor -- Jared Leto

Best Supporting Actress -- Jennifer Lawrence

Best Director -- Alfonso Cuaron

Best Documentary -- The Act of Killing

Best Visual Effects -- Gravity

And the other categories have yet to settle.

Everyone loves Disneyland until you think about it for too long

1 -- Every time I see a trailer for "Saving Mr. Banks", I'm reminded of the description from E.L. Doctorow's "The Book of Daniel" which says Disneyland is "a sentimental compression of something that is already a lie".

Though I haven't seen it, something tells me (it's a Disney movie) that "Saving Mr. Banks" doesn't plumb those depths.

2 -- The last couple of times I've seen "Mary Poppins" as an adult, I've been blown away by how dark the movie's last twenty minutes are. The children run away into the dark alleys of pre-war London, where strange, sick people lurk, and there's no one to protect them. It's as disturbing as anything in Disney's children's movies this side of Bambi's mother's death and Nemo's mother's death. In many ways, "Mary Poppins" turns the trick that "Hook" unsuccessfully attempted: make a movie that's dressed up as a children's movie, but aimed at parents and that's about parenthood.

In the details, 'Elf' is about so much more than spreading Christmas cheer

I laid down some thoughts on the modern Christmas classic "Elf" for the New York Business Journal. Go read it.

On the surface, the 2003 Will Ferrell vehicle “Elf” is about the triumph of sincerity over cynicism and jadedness. But, barely masked by the bright colors and vibrant scenes in Midtown Manhattan, the movie also depicts a secondary, unacknowledged, story, one in which the modern American economy comes in for some pointed criticism.

Casting Wonder Woman, inevitably, leads to whining

Post by NPR.

Here's the thing about casting actors for live-action depictions of beloved characters in our modern age: It's almost impossible for filmmakers to avoid criticisms from the characters' most ardent fans.

On NPR, Glen Weldon pointed out that Zack Snyder is going through this process right now with his casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. I've long maintained that the most obvious person to cast as Wonder Woman is Beyonce, but I also say that as someone who doesn't have much emotional stake in the matter, and who mainly wants to see Beyonce in the role because I suspect it would create all sorts of cognitive dissonance for fans who think of Wonder Woman as Linda Carter, not the canonical comic book character.

I'm also the kind of person who has suggested that Wonder Woman is the perfect property to use in a television show about a group of friends, one in which the super heroine is merely one of the ensemble, famous and powerful but at the same time just one of the men and women in a tight-knit group of friends who are all fleshed-out characters, themselves. And that's because the Wonder Woman canon has been malleable from the start; she has multiple canonical origins, and so it's not really heretical to re-imagine her as someone who has a close group of friends with whom she shares her secret identity*.

*So help me, don't call it a "Millenial show"...

But how Wonder Woman looks is not up for debate among the entitled masses. Weldon has it right that, ultimately, the character's physicality doesn't matter as much as her gravitas, but that how she looks is what fans can see and complain about right now, so they will. Alyssa Rosenberg gave us, to my mind, the classic description of this phenomenon in examining why so many people have written online that they will be disappointed unless Matt Bomer and Alexis Bleidel are cast in a Fifty Shades of Grey movie. Bomer and Bleidel's physical appearances roughly match the appearances as described in the book... and nothing else matters. Not their willingness to take on those roles, and not the filmmakers' opinions of those actors' talents.

But while Fifty Shades has yet to play out completely, Snyder can also turn to the controversy surrounding Jennifer Lawrence's casting as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games movies for evidence that if the actor's appearance inspires only some gnashing of teeth, the movie is well-made, and the acting is satisfactory, that will be good enough for the non-zealous. Because, again, before the movie comes out, all we have to go on is what Gadot looks like, and so that's what the nitpickers will nitpick.

The inversion of gender tropes in The Hunger Games, in one quote

You could argue that Katniss' conflict between Peeta and Gale is effectively a choice between a traditional Movie Girlfriend and a traditional Movie Boyfriend. Gale, after all, is the one whose bed she winds up steadfastly sitting beside after she helps bind his wounds. Gale explains the revolution to her. She puts up a plan to run; Gale rebuffs it because he presumes himself to know better. Gale is jealous and brooding about his standing with her; Peeta is just sad and contemplative.

Gale works in the mines, not in a bakery. He's a hunter. He grabs her and kisses her because he simply must. He's taller. (Real talk: HE'S THOR'S BROTHER.)

Linda Holmes gets it right on one of the most appealing aspects of The Hunger Games.

The Onion AV Club on "Last Action Hero"

Link: The Onion AV Club on "Last Action Hero"

I’m not just saying it because David Arnott (a different one!) got a screenwriting credit on “Last Action Hero”, but the AV Club’s retrospective and assessment reminds me of my longstanding contention that this movie is ripe for a remake.

A successful Hollywood movie remake has to meet both of these conditions:

1. The original cannot have been a fondly-remembered hit in the US in its own right.


2. The original must be a flawed movie in some respect, which the remake will aim to fix.

Otherwise, you’re just re-shooting “Psycho” because you can, sullying everyone’s reputation in the process, or you’re nakedly attempting to jump-start your son’s solo movie career while inadvertently prompting people to re-appreciate just how good “The Karate Kid” was in the first place.

"Last Action Hero" meets both conditions. Few remember it fondly, and there are some key flaws in the movie’s execution that minor tweaks would fix for modern audiences.

Which movie would you most like to see remade? (Future post idea in the same vein: “The Break-Up” should have been an iconic movie.)

Protip: To be the Blues Brothers, you MUST wear hats. Otherwise, everyone will think you’re the Men in Black.

I made a slide show of Chicago-centric Halloween costumes, and this picture might be my favorite.

(Image cc-licensed: "The Blues Brothers" by Robb Ebright)

My final offer is this: nothing

Given Erick Erickson’s prior admission that he straight-up lied to his readers in order to play partisan cheerleader in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, why does anyone give credence to anything he writes anymore? Here’s his latest example, posted on October 7:

Republicans are winning the shutdown fight, and Democrats know it…

The polls are shifting against the Democrats. They will continue to shift as more and more Americans realize that this fight is fundamentally about the letter they just received informing them of massive premium increases.

That analysis was, in a phrase, laughably wrong. Here’s CNN’s recap of what happened to Republicans.

To put it in pop culture terms, the best explanation for what happened that I’ve heard is that the Democrats were Michael Corleone, and the Republicans were Pat Geary.

"You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing."

This can’t keep happening to conservative Americans without an eventual reckoning. That the GOP, as an organization, managed to breeze right past the presidential election without honestly re-evaluating their own strengths and weaknesses will keep coming back to bite them as long as they maintain their insularity.

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Nobody ever talks about how, in Balboa-Creed I, Rocky would’ve scored a first-round knockout if only he’d gone to the neutral corner right away. Dude went on to a legendary career, but he botched the fight in that moment.

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The entire Hunger Games trilogy is a descent into PTSD. Thus, the first half of the second book is a representation of how Katniss feels when she’s no longer being stimulated by the arena. Her mind’s been blown out just like, literally, her ear was blown out. So, the third book takes that to its logical conclusion. The same amount of “action” takes place, but there’s a LOT of dead time in the narration, and a LOT of stuff happens without Katniss and she only learns of it in retelling, because she feels lost, disoriented, and unable to fully comprehend everything that’s going on. The author’s choice of ending is remarkably brave in that way. I felt disappointed that it seemed to go out with a whimper, but that’s just a reflection of what happened to Katniss. She’s a shell of her former vibrant self — forever. And nothing can fix it. Not Gale. Not Peeta. Not children. Nothing.

I’m not sure the movies are headed that direction, but the trailer for “Catching Fire” seems to show that the series’s makers may have the guts to follow through on the books’ most difficult twists.

(Note: I originally posted a variation of this in a comment on McCovey Chronicles.)

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In honor of the Twinkie’s return next week.

Let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie 35 feet long, weighing approximately 600 pounds.

Django Unchained: We have to demand more

(Guest post by Ben Valentine)


I did not go into Django Unchained expecting to dislike it. Quite the opposite; I really, really wanted to like to like the movie.

Full disclosure: I’m mixed-race with African and European Jewish heritage. While my ancestors were not slaves in the American South, they were in the Caribbean. And the only Quentin Tarantino movies I’d seen before this week were Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2, and I didn’t like them all that much.

Despite my hopes, I didn’t find Django satisfying. It wasn’t cathartic, even when it was telling me that’s how I should be feeling, and I left the theater struggling to articulate why. [Warning: spoiler alerts upcoming…]

Encircled

(Guest post by Zachary Geballe)


Many of the ancient Greek philosophers believed the circle was the most perfect form that existed. This notion did a great deal to inform their views on the universe, and has come down to us through any number of traditions. Even after the death of the idea of a perfectly circular universe died at the hands of Copernicus, Galileo, and others, the circle remains a potent symbol. Two recent films, Cloud Atlas and Samsara, explore the presence and potency of the circle in modern life.

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Was 1960 the last election when the GOP made a serious play for black votes?

It’s kind of amazing that Richard Nixon was using this rhetoric in 1960, and then in 1968 used racial resentment as a wedge issue. More amazing? That no Republican running for national office would be caught dead saying these words today.

We’ll have more on Barack Obama’s (likely) victory tomorrow. And if Mitt Romney wins? Well, that would be a bigger shock than finding out Magic Mike is actually a dark, bleak, pessimistic recession film. (Which I found out yesterday!)

Pitch Perfect: You know what you're getting, but it's better than that

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Over the weekend, my wife and I couldn’t agree on whether we wanted to see Flight or Argo, so instead we settled on Pitch Perfect. Let me throw this out there: it’s about eight thousand times better than I expected.

The Princess Bride is unrepentantly sexist

Rob Reiner’s 1987 film, The Princess Bride, has become a modern classic thanks to its clever wordplay and twists on timeworn fairytale tropes. But what sets it apart from even the most irreverent and challenging modern children’s entertainment, such as Shrek or Harry Potter, is that it risks putting its characters in truly frightening situations with malice in the air, rather than cartoonish, bloodless, or off-screen mayhem.

For the most part, those risks pay off. To children, Inigo Montoya might be just a swashbuckling swordsman with a fantastic mustache and a desire to avenge his father’s death. However, there’s an implied horror to Inigo’s story about the six-fingered man killing the elder Montoya and slashing eleven-year-old Inigo’s face that only adult viewers can fully appreciate. And when Inigo finally confronts the six-fingered man and disarms him, he forces the villain to beg for mercy before thrusting a sword through his chest and calling him a son-of-a-bitch. Name another children’s movie featuring a vengeance execution. That Reiner and screenwriter William Goldman pull it off without a screeching shift in tone is a testament to their skillful storytelling.

However, the movie fails in one important respect which, once I noticed, ruined much of it for me: The Princess Bride is unrepentantly sexist. Lest you think its sexism is merely one of the aforementioned twists on timeworn fairytale tropes, it isn’t. Rather, the movie makes clear that women’s value lies in how much men, specifically, value their beauty and loyalty, not their character. Worse, it makes clear that when a woman acts affirmatively on her own behalf, she will be punished. Harshly.