Big Eyes (2014)

Film: Big Eyes (2014)
Stars: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Jon Polito, Krysten Ritter, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp
Director: Tim Burton
Oscar History: The film did pretty well with precursors (including a Globe win for Amy Adams), but no dice when it came to AMPAS.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Can we first just commend everyone involved for attempting something different here?  Tim Burton decided not to hire Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp for the leads (when he so easily could have).  He also decided to go with a lower key film, which was a nice change of pace from the garishness that has been on display in other recent pictures.  And I am in love with the fact that this film exists to begin with-most biopics are stories that we generally already know.  Here Burton took a topic most of us are familiar with (Margaret Keane's iconic doe-eyed children have become ingrained in pop culture in a way only rivaled by Warhol's soup cans and Koons' balloon dogs) but a story most of us were not (it's neither something that just happened nor something that has been told a hundred times like, say, a biopic on Abraham Lincoln).  And it wasn't about a straight white dude overcoming obstacles!  All of this is to say that the film gets far more points from me as a result of it having its heart in the right place, even if it doesn't quite succeed in that most important of tasks of being very good.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is the tale of noted kitsch artist Margaret Keane (Adams), and the strange journey to how she lost and eventually gained back her artistic identity.  The film follows Margaret through her early life (when she leaves an abusive husband) to her second marriage to smarmy Walter (Waltz) to eventually her civil trial to gain recognition for her work.

The film is at its best when it focuses on Margaret herself.  Adams is strong in keeping Margaret, a woman with this wonderfully-felt world of artistic genius, on the sidelines of her own life.  It would be so easy to make her a martyr, but instead Adams does something just different.  She occasionally has moments when Margaret could seize what is hers but doesn't because her priorities are in a different order.  Like most of us in life, she knows that we all have wants and we all want more than we can have, but we put our eggs and our collateral into what matters most at the time.  Initially, while Margaret finds Walter's plan to steal her artistic output appalling, she's more concerned with making a second marriage work in a time period where opportunities for women are scarce.  If seeing a number of OVP films (for recent examples see here and here and here and here and here) over the past couple of months has indicated anything to me, it's that attitudes toward women, and in particular successful women, were considered abhorrent at the time, and I wouldn't remotely doubt that Margaret saw how little people would care for her success as a female, so she gave in in hopes that her daughter would have a better quality of life as a result.

However, Adams is smart enough to slowly let little protestations out regarding her husband's treatment of her, and thankfully it wasn't just when he starts to abuse she and her daughter (though that becomes the last straw).  Instead, it's when she realizes that he wasn't down-on-his-luck, but instead it was when it was obvious that everything about him was a lie, that he couldn't paint and his history in Paris was a complete fabrication.  I love that the film actually embraces that she is something that he will never be, no matter how he tries: she's an artist, she has talent, and the film doesn't remotely shy away from this fact.

The film fails, however, when it gives equal billing to Walter.  I know that occasionally truth-is-stranger-than-fiction is a rough go-through for filmmakers, and this was certainly the case in bringing Walter Keane, who by all accounts was a delusional sociopath, to the screen, but that doesn't mean there's a reason for bad acting.  And that's what Christoph Waltz does in this movie-he's really, really bad.  The early scenes he's occasionally subdued, but it's never believable that such a man could be considered charming, instead coming across as smarmy.  No one would give this particular man money, and no one would trust a word he said.  Waltz plays him as a cartoon of a used car salesman rather than someone that could envelope the country in a major fad of personality.  So awful is he by the courtroom scene that you actually want your money back when he randomly decides to cross-examine himself on the stand, imitating Perry Mason before constant scolding from the judge.  The movie needs more of a challenge when it comes to Walter-we know that Margaret eventually wins, but the movie shouldn't have made her victory the critical juncture in the screenplay without it seeming like more of a challenge for Walter.

Those are my thoughts on what is a very watchable, if only okay movie.  I loved the concept, liked the Adams, hated the Waltz, and would like to see Burton show this kind of restraint with a big-name property again.  What about you?  What did you think of Big Eyes?  Share in the comments!

OVP: The Imitation Game (2014)

Film: The Imitation Game (2014)
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Charles Dance
Director: Morten Tyldum
Oscar History: 8 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Benedict Cumberbatch, S. Actress-Keira Knightley, Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design, Adapted Screenplay*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Sometimes when it comes to a movie you have to consider not only what is in front of you, but also what could be onscreen.  Part of why people see a film like, say The Imitation Game and yawn is not because the subject isn't fascinating, because it is.  This is a really cool story, one of the most fascinating from World War II and that's saying something because there are millions of stories from WWII that have come out in movies, television, literature, and sitting around learning about the War from first-hand experiences.  And as we learn every day, through the deaths of countless veterans of that time period (look at someone like Louie Zamperini dying just months before his story was told onscreen, or any number of our grandparents, including one of mine earlier this year), those stories can quickly disappear if we don't have a pen-and-paper handy.  So it's important that a film like The Imitation Game is made, because Alan Turing's story is one that deserves a big-screen treatment.  It also deserved to not be told in a glossy, occasionally lovely but always less-than-honest retelling like it did with Morten Tyldum's epic, near certain to win a mountain of Oscar nominations but deserving of very few.  Because when you have a real story in front of you, a real opportunity to give a well-rounded introduction of a man who affected the lives of the entire world but is little known to most of it, only telling partial truths is not the way to address such a life.

(Spoilers Ahead, though this is a very famous story and doesn't really need the alert) The film is the tale of Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) and the Enigma project in World War II.  The film is told over three periods of Turing's life, though principally on his efforts during the war to break German codes in order to end Hitler's attempts to overtake the continent.  The film also alternates with Turing's early adolescence, when he becomes infatuated with a boy named Christopher and toward the end of his life in the early 1950's, when he is arrested for committing homosexual activities (still illegal in England until 1967...and before you think "that's insane" the law wasn't overturned in Scotland/Northern Ireland until the early 1980's and wasn't fully overturned across the United States until 2003).  Cumberbatch plays Turing in the latter two periods, and with the exception of the World War II period, the focus of these time periods in on Turing's orientation.

The film's problems I knew coming into the picture, but before I properly dissect those, I want to look a bit more into the other aspects of the film.  The movie is at its best when it's an uplifting underdog tale.  In this way it mirrors recent Best Picture winner The King's Speech, a film that holds up better in memory than it does in execution partially because the grand uplifting moments of the film are the best part, which is also the case for The Imitation Game.  When "Christopher" finally can break the Nazi code-it's a moment of absolute thrill.  When we see Alan finally come out to his fiance Joan (Knightley) we get a wonderful piece of acting that's incredibly memorable.  Even the sappier scenes about how Alan needed to be different, needed to not be "the same" work well, partially because Keira Knightley is one of the best actors of her generation and can actually sell a line as clunky and wooden as "sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine" (wow, I have to hope that Knightley rolled her eyes when she was told by Graham Moore that she'd have to sell that chestnut).  The film is at its best as an uplifting period drama, which is not a bad thing in itself-any genre has the potential for greatness, and if that was all this was supposed to be, then that's swell.

Unfortunately, that's not what this movie is trying to be, and it's not what it is.  I frequently chastise friends and relatives who get far too bogged down in "it didn't copy the book" because movies need to succeed on their own, so if something doesn't work in translation for a Gone Girl or The Hobbit, then it's time to let it go when you get to the theaters.  This is equally true of real life-you can't shove an entire life into a pair of hours-certain things have to be cut even from the most mundane of existences.  However, when you make a certain aspect of someone's life an integral part of your story, you have to spend more time on it.

The problem with The Imitation Game's treatment of Alan Turing's sexuality isn't just that it doesn't have a gay sex scene.  It's also that Alan Turing is too much of a contradiction onscreen to not need more explanation.  The way that Benedict Cumberbatch plays him is less like a man that was readily willing to engage the services of a prostitute twenty years his junior (which is why he was eventually arrested, for the record-you'd be forgiven if you missed that nugget as that character doesn't even get so much as a line in the film...he's just a face that is obscured by a window pane) and more like Sheldon Cooper armed with a British accent.  The entire first third of the film, in fact, is simply the Sheldon Cooper routine (for those unfamiliar, Sheldon is the character played by Jim Parsons on The Big Bang Theory...also, get a television), which makes it all the more unlikely to the viewer that he was willing to throw away an entire career on something he knew to be illegal.  In fact, he looks and acts with his on-again/off-again fiance Joan in a very similar way to his childhood infatuation with Christopher.  There is no intimacy between the two of them, in the same way with Joan (who is, like-it-or-not, the love of his life in the movie, at least until that computer starts working).  The movie makes sure we see Alan as less of a sexual being and more as someone who is desperately lonely.  The film's major miss is not a lack of sex, but instead a lack of reason for Turing's later sexual escapades-we don't see a man who seems perfectly content being celibate throughout the entire war as being someone who would later go mad and decide to get frisky with some random trick.  We see Alan as deeply matter-of-fact and only willing to pursue the things he enjoys, and yet he hates the gay aspect of himself onscreen (it is seen as nothing but shameful and a burden), so we need something more, a reason why he was willing to break an (unjust, but still on the books) law.  And like it or not, filmmakers, a gay sex scene may have been what solved that issue (seeing Alan in that situation would have shed a lot of background on his personality), and it's not particularly perverted to ask for it.

This massive miss in the screenplay deeply hurts Benedict Cumberbatch's performance.  Cumberbatch already has a serious case of the scenery-chewing (did you see Star Trek into Darkness?), and when he's called upon to add an element lacking in the script, we see him equating homosexuality with a series of prissy rejoinders and constantly bent wrists.  In many ways his work here is similar to Philip Seymour Hoffman's in Capote (another film that throws a main character's sexuality out-the-window when it could be quite useful to explaining an enigmatic central figure).  Cumberbatch seems okay onscreen when it's just a series of one-dimensional side performances from Charles Dance (can this man just be in anything-even in something so underwritten he's marvelous?) and Matthew Goode (for someone so handsome and constantly cast, I really wish I could find one role that he was actually great in), but when Keira Knightley shows up he's kind of screwed.  Knightley's Joan isn't content to being just a supporting wife-she's also deeply aware of the constant dismissals of her gender.  Like Alan, Joan is also unfairly attacked for something that society finds off-putting (here, a working woman), but unlike Alan we see what affect this has on her.  The script is kinder to Knightley, but that doesn't mean that she isn't willing to sell the hell out of her big scenes-the moment when she is willing to give up everything that society has impressed upon her as successful for her gender (being a wife and a mother) to play a beard to a man who is willing to let her continue her scientific work...she's dynamite.  The film has fine scoring, limited but lovely costumes, and very lived-in sets, but the principle nomination that it truly deserves is the one that Knightley seems certain to get.

And before we end the review (the movie is going to land on at least a half dozen OVP lists, so we'll be dissecting this thing for months), I want to put in a personal plea on what is so important about this particular film to myself and other gay-lesbian audience members.  When it comes to the Oscars, timing is critical.  You think Meryl Streep would have won her Oscar for The Iron Lady if she hadn't been losing for three decades prior to it?  You think that David O. Russell and David Fincher aren't keenly aware that the next few years is the moment when they're going to make it with Oscar?  Winning an Oscar is a marathon, and after losses for Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and The Kids Are All Right in recent years, plus with the Academy's continued stress on diversity, it's very likely that a gay Best Picture is coming.  This may be the only gay Best Picture that we see in the next forty years (don't believe me?  Look at how many films dealing with racial Civil Rights have won the top Oscar...hell, look at how many films with exclusively female leads have won the top Oscar), and so I'm really hoping that it's not for a film that is willing to dismiss all aspects of being gay except for using the word-that would be a pretty damn hollow victory.  The Imitation Game isn't what anyone should consider a bad movie, but when it has the weight of something like Brokeback's loss nine years ago riding on its coattails (a film that didn't just throw out the gay sex to make it more palatable to straight audiences, even at a time when that might have been easier) and a movement that still hasn't remotely reached its finish line, it shouldn't be considered passable as a consolation Oscar.

Those are my (rather lengthy) thoughts on one of the most critical films of the Oscar season-what are yours?  Did you agree with me that the film needed to focus a bit more on its central character's sexuality, or are you all on-board with what came across onscreen?  Did you learn more about Alan Turing?  Where do you think Imitation Game will rank when it's put alongside Selma, Birdman, Boyhood, and The Theory of Everything in the Best Picture race?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

2015 Predictions

It's time to make New Year's predictions for 2015!  Last year, I gave this a shot and my results were questionable at best (I got 6/20 on the political predictions and 5/14 on entertainment...possibly 7 depending on the Chastain and Pixar ones).  Despite these terrible prediction ratios, I'm going to give it a shot again this year, though since it's an off-political year, I'm giving the twenty predictions to entertainment.

20 Predictions About Entertainment

1. Seth Rogen and James Franco receive a standing ovation when they present an award at either the Globes or Oscars.

2. Jennifer Aniston takes at least one major Best Actress prize from Julianne Moore, though not the Oscar.

3. Avengers: Age of Ultron ends up making more money than Star Wars, but Star Wars gets a better Rotten Tomatoes score and more Oscar nominations.

4. Viola Davis gets an Emmy nomination while Kerry Washington does not, receiving calls of racism since two black women aren't nominated in the same category despite history indicating they probably would normally be.

5. At least one major celebrity will be outed by a phone hacking.

6. Kelli O'Hara finally takes home a Tony Award for her role as Anna in yet another King & I revival.

7. Kristin Chenoweth ends her unusual Tony Award nomination drought when she is nominated for On the Twentieth Century.

8. The end of Glee results in a number of articles about how the show never lived up to its pilot, despite it being relatively strong its first couple of seasons.

9. Ansel Elgort ends up signing a major leading role with a prestige director, as well as a superhero role in an upcoming comic book film.

10. Stephen Colbert's turn on the Late Show will receive mixed reviews at best.

11. Spy with Melissa McCarthy ends up being another massive hit, causing her to FINALLY get her first Golden Globe nomination.

12. Adele releases her third album and it becomes the highest-grossing record of the year, despite most complaining it isn't as good as 21.

13. Rush Limbaugh will say something truly despicable about Michael B. Jordan playing the Human Torch in Fantastic Four, and no one on the Right will call him on it.

14. Neil Patrick Harris will sing at least two musical numbers during the Oscars, the latter involving rapping and "edge" and yet neither will land properly.

15. Shane Dawson will quit YouTube as an onscreen personality.

16. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will give birth to a baby girl, and Elizabeth will be one of her names, though not necessarily the first.

17. In retaliation, Kim Kardashian will become pregnant yet again.  Her sister Khloe will become one of the biggest tabloid cover models of the year when she ends up in an equally high-profile relationship with another celebrity, causing accusations of a feud between the two.

18. Justin Bieber will be arrested.  Possibly so will Lindsay Lohan, but no one will care.

19. One Direction break-up rumors will fly when the band members start recording duets as solo artists, though they'll stick it out through the year.

20. Looking will not get strong enough ratings, resulting in it being cancelled during its second season, which will cause at least two rants on this blog.

15 Predictions About Politics

1. President Obama's approval ratings recover in the face of an improving economy, though they never steadily remain above 50%.

2. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and Chris Christie all declare their intentions to run for president.

3. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Paul Ryan do not.

4. Rep. Tammy Duckworth becomes the Senate nominee for the seat in Illinois.

5. Sec. Alison Lundergan Grimes watches her once promising career go up in flames as she loses reelection in Kentucky.

6. The Democrats also lose the governor's race in Kentucky without picking up Mississippi or Louisiana, marking their lowest count of governor's mansions in 17 years.

7. Gov. Peter Shumlin, despite a major push by Republicans, will win another term in Vermont despite a weird aberration in the voting law that has left his race undecided months after the November elections despite him winning the popular vote.

8. Sen. Barbara Boxer's retirement will cause major headaches for Democrats in California, as a number of ambitious Democrats enter the primary, causing worries of two Republicans advancing to the runoff.

9. Former Senator Russ Feingold will run for his old seat in the U.S. Senate, setting up a marquee matchup against the man who defeated him in 2010, Ron Johnson.  Other former senators such as Mark Begich and Kay Hagan will be courted to run for seats in their states, but will ultimately decide against it.

10. No member of Congress will switch parties.

11. President Obama will end up signing the Keystone Pipeline into law, but not without at least one major concession from the Congress (likely on immigration).

12. Bernie Sanders decides to run for president under a third-party banner, potentially causing him to be dumped from the Democratic caucus of the Senate and causing major comparisons to Ralph Nader.

13. Harry Reid and John McCain both end up running for reelection, with McCain getting a very strong third party challenge from the right.  As a result, expect maverick McCain to disappear into arch-conservative McCain for a while.

14. George W. Bush hits the campaign trail in the South for his brother Jeb, ending both his moratorium on campaigning and his silence on the Obama administration.

15. The NRSC and NRCC go back to continually out-earning the DSCC and DCCC.

And those are my predictions for this upcoming year-what about yours?  What are you expecting to see in the year ahead?

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Film: The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Stars: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Nat Wolff, Sam Trammell, Willem Dafoe

Director: John Boone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars (I know, I’m as shocked as you are…let’s discuss)

On occasion, you run into movies that you, if you’re proper and rational, shouldn’t remotely love.  You look at the films and realize they’re cloying and manipulative and filled with emotional buzzwords like cancer and first love and whatever we used to call the term for YOLO before that insidious acronym enjoined our collective social medias.  You see that the main actress is playing a character far too world-weary even for someone dying of a disease or that her love interest is far too perfect, the sort of boyfriend you dream of when you’re trying to comfort yourself after yet another emotionally-stunted set-up, even if you’re fully-aware that he couldn’t possible exist in real life.  You recognize the silliness of hiring an Oscar-nominated actor to play a Snidely Whiplash-style author that you’re certain will have an epiphany before the film ends.

You do all of these things, and yet, in spite of yourself, you end up falling in love with the movie.  Call it An Affair to Remember.  Call it Notting Hill.  Call it The Notebook.  Or, in this case with one of my favorite cinematic experiences of the year, call it The Fault in Our Stars.

(Spoiler Alert) I cannot even tell you how much I hate myself for loving this movie.  I was texting my brother through part of the film about how Ansel Elgort’s character is the sort of person that decent women (and a few men) end up single or settling because they believe he can exist in real life, like an adult version of Santa Claus.  The scene where he protests that he’s still a virgin because he lost his leg to cancer felt like almost annoying pandering to the audience to make his relationship with Hannah Grace (Woodley) more chaste; a guy that gorgeous, charming, and sweet is going to have women all over him, regardless of his limb count.

But it’s impossible not to love his Gus.  While he occasionally becomes the manic pixie dream boy, he is so charming and affective that you don’t particularly care.  The scenes where he’s flirting with Hannah Grace are effortless charm.  This is clearly an actor who is going to have his pick of parts for years to come.  It helps that Woodley is grounded in a wonderfully-felt performance, never quite feeling too precocious, though not quite falling into the sap like you feel would be so easy to do, but Elgort feels like the real deal as well.  I’m already starting a countdown to the Half Nelson and Blue Valentine period of his career.

The film itself is wildly effective as a love story.  Perhaps because cinematically I’ve been a bit love-starved for straight-forward romances I couldn’t get enough of their fun and the care that John Boone puts into us getting to know these characters, particularly our heroine Hannah Grace.  We see the facades that they both built up for themselves and Boone does something marvelous with that: he doesn’t bust them over.  The people at the end of the film are the same as the ones at the beginning, deeply affected by their first taste of romance, but still grounded into being the same people.

The supporting players, like most romantic dramas, are a mixed bag.  I though the entire plot with Willem Dafoe felt indulgent (was this John Green’s proxy in the novel, cause if so he has some esteem issues to work through), and perhaps the only part of the film where the cloying actually sunk in-this was too much of a cartoon to actually make us care enough for him to be the messenger toward the end of the film.  Balancing him well was Laura Dern as a mother so desperate to keep her daughter alive-I LOVED the scene where she admits that she’s starting to take classes, that the shame of acknowledging her daughter will die soon and she’ll have to live on was so subtle, but perfectly felt.  I’m so glad she’s enjoying such a wonderful string of elevated supporting roles-I just wish she’d luck out a bit more and find a lead role.

All-in-all, even with the ending that you can see coming a mile away (the film cares too much about Hannah Grace to be, to quote The Hours, “the character who makes others appreciate life more”), I was still a ball of tears, crying on my couch while Hannah’s first love (perhaps, as is indicated, her only?) leaves her with the full experience of romance-not just the highs but the unspeakable lows.  I had not read the book, but I suddenly understand the woman who was dabbing her eyes on the bus a few months ago while finishing this novel.

We’re going to leave things there, but the damage is already done for me-loved it.  Loved every minute of it.  Even the parts I hated.  Anyone else loving this, which has become 2014’s Guilty Pleasure for yours truly?  Where do you see Ansel Elgort’s career going next?  How long before Shailene Woodley gets her first Oscar nod?  And which John Green book should I inevitably read first?  Share in the comments!

No Globe, No SAG...No Problem!

Jonah made it last year without HFPA or SAG...
who will do it this year?

Each year the alarms are sounded by Oscar pundits that "so-and-so" is out of the Oscar race due to them missing at either the SAG Awards or the Globes, and these warnings are not without merit.  The reality is that in this heavily publicized Oscar season more-and-more surprises are shut out each year as the Oscars voters rely heavily on what the press is saying to fill out their ballots.

And yet, each year there is always at least one candidate that manages to sail on through and grab a nomination without a public blessing from SAG or the HFPA.  In the past ten years, only one year (2006) didn't end up choosing an entirely new name to add to the festivities.  Below are a list of the candidates that were new to the night in their years:

2013: Jonah Hill
2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emannuelle Riva, Jacki Weaver
2011: Gary Oldman and Max von Sydow
2010: Javier Bardem
2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal
2008: Michael Shannon
2007: Laura Linney and Tommy Lee Jones
2006: Zero (let's pay attention people-we've already been over this)
2005: William Hurt
2004: Alan Alda and Clint Eastwood

As you can see, it helps a LOT to be in a film that people are already watching.  Over half of these people were in Best Picture nominees, and Tommy Lee Jones is the only contender that was his film's sole nomination (and lest we forget, he was headlining the Best Picture winner that year), so keep that in mind if you're, say, cheering for someone like Hilary Swank to still make the cut.

As this is an Oscar-oriented site, I figured it would be worthwhile to investigate which performances this year are most likely to make this list.  Below you will find the Top 10 performances ignored by HFPA and SAG that may still wind up with an Oscar nomination:

10. Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars)

For Her: Woodley has had a major blockbuster moment this year, and that's impossible to deny.  On the heels of kicking off a new franchise with Divergent, she somehow made an even MORE successful hit with The Fault in Our Stars.  The Best Actress field is starting to close, but not so much that the door is shut, and Hollywood has clearly noticed that they got a new movie star this year.  They may want to reward that on their ballots.  Plus, a character with cancer is always a strong hook with Oscar.
Against Her: Woodley should have been able to score at the Globes.  Her newfound fame and red carpet looks are surely something that HFPA would latch onto before AMPAS, and this film already has some major debits (summer film, going for a sole nomination, teen drama).  She needed her name to be a bit more prominent in the game before the year began (in a similar way that Aniston needed to have some precursor love to stay in the conversation).

9. Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice)

For Him: I'm not counting if you received a BFCA nomination for two reasons for the purposes of this article.  One, because they have six-wide fields and that's just cheating, and two, the BFCA's irk me something fierce (they always talk about how much they "predict" the Oscars rather than honoring a specific film or actor for their work-we have hundreds of Oscar pundits, if you have your own televised awards show, you should have your own opinions and not give a damn about the Oscars).  This is all to say that I'm aware Brolin made a big jump in the conversation with a BFCA (or Critics Choice, if you would) nomination, and that's part of why I'm featuring him here.  The other part is that despite the lack of buzz this film has attracted, Brolin has been on everyone's favorite list from the cast, and as a former Oscar nominee, he's not that much of a stretch to make it without too much press.
Against Him: This race looks very set, and when that happens, cracks in the wall usually happen by way of a Best Picture frontrunner, which Inherent Vice decidedly is not.  Brolin also has missed just as often as he was nominated with Oscar-his only nomination was the one that they "had" to give him for Milk and not something optional like No Country for Old Men.

8. Rene Russo (Nightcrawler)

For Her: It's hard to imagine anyone seeing Nightcrawler for Gyllenhaal and not coming out equally as impressed with Russo.  There's some precedent here-Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock, for example, or Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense.  You come for one performance and decide to put two on your ballot.  The big name of the game with these sorts of citations is that you have to be seen, and Russo will be.  Plus, Oscar loves a comeback and after years of random wallpaper roles like Thor's mom, Russo is clearly having a moment.
Against Her: If Jake is scoring everywhere, why isn't she?  How is it that Tilda Swinton, for example, managed the sixth BFCA slot for a very autre-film when the prediction-loving body may have gone with something a bit more likely such as Russo?  Keep in mind every year we have random supporting performances in major films that inexplicably get no traction, despite being superb (see Sarah Paulson last year).

7. Tim Roth (Selma)

For Him: Speaking of comebacks, Roth, a veteran character actor, managed to nab a nomination 19 years ago for Rob Roy, but hasn't been back since.  This year he plays a villain (great for supporting actor) and a real-life person (Gov. George Wallace), both of which could make him a stealth nominee if Selma continues to grab heat.
Against Him: I mean, all of these people have trouble because they don't have enough precursor love, but with Roth it means something more because there's less room to up-jump his costar Tom Wilkinson, who has a bigger part and a more recent history with Oscar.

6. Bradley Cooper (American Sniper)

For Him: It helps that AMPAS clearly adores him (back-to-back nominations), and though the Best Actor field is likely a six-man race, it's a pretty even six-man race, which means that there could be a candidate that's just barely missing like Cooper.  If he gets an uptick in Clint support from the Academy (they do love them some Mr. Eastwood), I wouldn't be stunned if he's that candidate.
Against Him: American Sniper hasn't registered at all this awards season (the NBR doesn't count), and critics haven't been rallying around it (have critics even seen the movie?!?).  Could this be another J Edgar (and even that film managed precursors)?

5. Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner)

For Him: The other stealth Best Actor nominee, Spall has done well this season.  He scored a major prize at Cannes and followed it with a significant prize at the NYFCC Awards, which are historically very strong at predicting Oscar nominees.  Once-upon-a-time Mike Leigh had the magic touch with getting Oscar nominations for his performers.  If this film is gaining (my predictions indicate that it might be), this isn't out of the question.
Against Him: Leigh has never been good at getting nominations for his male actors (he's never actually done it-not even with Jim Broadbent in Topsy-Turvy) and the NYFCC is hardly a strong benchmark when you realize that last year's winner was Robert Redford.

4. Laura Dern (Wild)

For Her: She's clearly beloved (did you see that Hollywood Reporter interview-it was just a giant Laura Dern love-in), and this is the sort of role that Hollywood notices (woman dying of cancer, inspiring her daughter-I mean, come on).  She's been working the circuit hard, and it'd be a nice recognition for both her incredible post-Rambling Rose career and her dad's recent resurgence.
Against Her: Why didn't she get in with the Globes, and in general-what is up with the reaction to Wild?  Is it frustration that no one can actually watch the movie?  Is it the odd prejudice that awards bodies have to female-driven stories?  Or is it just that after Into the Wild and 127 Hours that voters are tired of seeing beautiful people traipse through the wilderness?  Whatever the reason, Dern clearly isn't striking the chord she thought she would.

3. Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)

For Her: The BFCA is getting name-checked more in this article than it has been in years on this blog, but let's not forget that when the field went six-wide, she was the one that benefited.  Cotillard has been on a roll all year, with two major films in tow and this is a critically-acclaimed film.  The pundits seem to be rallying for her, and there's a lot of support there.  And let's face it here-she's due for a second nomination after all of the strong work she's done since La Vie en Rose (arguably stronger than that initial role!).
Against Her: It's hard to make it for foreign films (she knows this more than anyone) and for some reason (the Cate Blanchett curse?) she hasn't been able to score since her win.  Plus, this year she has The Immigrant potentially taking away crucial votes from herself, which may matter in a tight race.

2. Carmen Ejogo (Selma)

For Her: Ejogo isn't a household name, but she's playing one.  Coretta Scott King, as a long-suffering wife of a hero, is the exact sort of role that the Oscars usually gravitate toward in Supporting Actress.  You could hardly describe Jessica Chastain as particularly safe, and if the Academy responds well to Selma (this appears to be the most important question of Oscar season right now, doesn't it-what does AMPAS think of Selma?) she could make it via Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook.
Against Her: She's not a household name-will people remember her without a stronger push?  Plus, from what I've heard this isn't a particularly meaty part (though that hasn't stopped them before...see also Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook).

1. Tom Wilkinson (Selma)

For Him: Playing a real-life person?  Check.  Meaty role in a Best Picture frontrunner?  Check.  Former nominee that hasn't won yet, but is clearly recognizable for AMPAS voters?  Check (twice-2001 and 2007).  Category that is perceived as weak due to the winner being a foregone conclusion so someone could sneak in at the last minute?  Check.  Clearly there's a reason I put Wilkinson at Number One.
Against Him: About the only thing going against Wilkinson is that he's missed with SAG and the Globes (particularly with the Globes, since they saw Selma) and that he's battling some very popular former nominees in Mark Ruffalo and Robert Duvall.  Otherwise, I'd say this is easily the most likely of these ten to make it, and could well be considered a favorite depending on how Duvall's chances in particular play out.

And those are the ten-what do you think?  Who has the best chances of the ten?  Do you agree with the lineup or should someone like Tilda Swinton or Hilary Swank still be in the conversation?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Mystery Street (1950)

Film: Mystery Street (1950)
Stars: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Jan Sterling
Director: John Sturges
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Motion Picture Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

There was once a time before television, if you can believe it, and in this era before TV the movies picked up the slack when it came to certain things we take for granted on the small screen.  Take, for example, shows like Law & Order or CSI-these are two of the most popular shows of the past twenty years, and persistently show the minutia of crimes being solved.  That's what's on display in Mystery Street, a dime-budget drama that likely got its nomination due to its continual devotion to creating a factual, reality-based movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The plot of the film is about as simple as you can get when it comes to a detective drama.  It opens with a beautiful blonde B-Girl (likely a prostitute...they figured out ways around calling them that back in the 1950's, but we know what they meant) named Vivian (Sterling) who is clearly in trouble.  She owes her nosy landlady (Lanchester) two weeks of rent and is intent on blackmailing a man from her past to get the cash.  She steals a car from a drunken stranger and then is shot by a mysterious man in the dark of night.

The film proceeds with Lieutenant Morales (Montalban) eventually taking the case, and using scientific reason and the latest technology, tries to deduce what happened to Vivian, first landing upon the hapless stranger whose car she stole and then eventually upon the actual killer in a pretty thrilling run through a train yard.  Along the way the audience learns about what it takes to actually solve a crime from a scientific perspective.

This is the aspect of the film that surely keeps this from being a dumpster bin B-movie that no one has seen in sixty years.  The movie actually partners with Harvard Medical school and in a scene that reeks of tedium (due to forensic science becoming integral to present pop culture years and years ago) we go through a step-by-step process of what happens when you examine a body.  There's expositional dialogue trying to convince people of why this was worthwhile (back then medical examiners didn't need medical degrees) and I'm sure it was thrilling to audiences who were learning about such things for the first time, but with the advantage of time (and knowledge) these scenes play as far too instructive and not organic enough to the actual film.

The acting in the movie runs the gamut.  I actually adored Jan Sterling's work early in the film-her blonde with an attitude was clearly part of a better movie, and she'd soon get bigger and better parts than this (Hollywood was paying attention), but someone like Sally Forrest as the wife of the initially accused stranger is just awful.  It may be that Forrest was much more at home on the stage (she played "The Girl" in the original Broadway run of The Seven Year Itch), but her acting is all-over-the-map.  The scene where she's packing and Ricardo Montalban is questioning her reeks of scenery-chewing, and the clunky dialogue is not helping matters (if you can't tell, I'm not wild about the attribute that brought this film to my attention).  All-in-all, even the hammy Elsa Lanchester cannot save this film from being exceedingly dull by the end of the picture, desperately still hoping for more of Jan Sterling's vivacity.

Those are my thoughts on this film, which my hunch is few of you have seen, but whose stars you might have opinions on so we'll start there.  Do you like Ricardo Montalban, or have a favorite Jan Sterling performance?  Do you ever find while you're watching old movies certain key attributes that clearly television stole as their own?  And does someone want to explain the precise difference between Motion Picture Story and Original Screenplay?  Share in the comments!

Ranting On...Carly Fiorina and the White House

Earlier this week I had the displeasure of seeing the odious Fred MacMurray picture Kisses for My President, a film that dealt with an issue we're still wondering about fifty years later-when will the United States finally have a female president and who will it be?  Women from Margaret Chase Smith to Geraldine Ferraro to Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin have gotten closer and closer to being the answer to that second question, but to no avail.  Recently, however, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has been making waves about an entrance into the Republican primaries for the White House in 2016, and I figured now would be the perfect time to weigh in on her candidacy and her chances.

I can actually answer the second point right now: Ms. Fiorina has about as good of a chance of being president as I do, and I'm legally too young to be president and not going to run.  The reality is that while she certainly has the money to buy her way into some early debates and get on the ballot, she in many ways is 2016's answer to Herman Cain.  She's wealthy, but her past campaigns indicate that she's largely tone deaf to general election concerns.  Her run against Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010 was less noted for her ability to win votes (she got clobbered in a year where the Republicans were beating basically everyone nationwide), and more by her bizarre campaign ads (remember the Demon Sheep?) and her personal attacks on her opponent's appearance (who can forget her open mic gaffe in regard to Sen. Boxer's hair).

The other major problem with Carly Fiorina, though, is that she's being treated with similar press as if she were a major candidate and not just a failed Senate challenger with a mountain of money, and I think that may reek a bit of sexism on the part of the media.  The reality is that if Fiorina were a white man, we wouldn't be hearing about her.  She'd be, at the very least, in the same laughable level as Donald Trump (though her fame isn't anywhere near that level, so we'd hear about it even less).  She wouldn't be put forward as an alternative to Hillary or a way to fix the Republicans' lack of female contenders in a race with 20 or so serious male contenders.

Fiorina isn't the solution here-it's either getting more women into positions of power (which, admittedly, the GOP started to do something about this past cycle with major victories in Iowa and West Virginia) or trying to convince the women who are in launching pads to political power to actually run.  The reality is that the GOP, despite having an overall deficit in the number of women that they have in office compared to the Democrats, may have just as many strong female candidates for the White House as the Democrats do.  The GOP has four sitting female governors (the Democrats, it's worth noting, only have one): Jan Brewer (AZ), Nikki Haley (SC), Mary Fallin (OK), and Susana Martinez (NM), as well as Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH), that have the exact right profile of someone who wants to run for president.  Any of these four women would receive (and deserve) the sort of press that Fiorina is receiving.  More importantly, these four women would be viewed by the likes of Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Rand Paul as someone to pay attention toward, serious threats for the office they're pursuing.  You can bet that some or all of these women are being listed as potential vice presidential candidates, and in the case of Martinez in particular, I would imagine that she's at the top of most lists.  If one of these women entered the Republican race (and quite frankly, I think one of them should as there's clearly an opening for a quality female candidate in this race-Fiorina got that right at least) they would be extremely formidable.

But the media cannot continue to treat gadfly candidates as serious to the race just because of their demographics.  The same thing goes for Ben Carson, a FOX News contributor that gets included in polls and is frequently speculated about for a presidential run, even though he's never held major political office or is not in a national position of authority (like, say, a general or Supreme Court judge) to actually be considered a serious option for the White House.  Carson's only major calling card for the GOP is that he's African-American in a race that doesn't have a serious African-American candidate for the White House.  The media should be commended for trying to diversify the presidential race, this is true, but they shouldn't be doing so by short-changing the credentials of the candidates in a way that they would if Fiorina or Carson were straight white men.  There are qualified and diverse candidates in the GOP-either push one of them to get into the race or bemoan the lack of diversity in the field.  Don't try to make third or fourth tier candidates look better just to make the GOP primaries look more diverse than they are.

The Cate Blanchett Curse

Tilda Swinton and Marion Cotillard continue to be at the edges of this year's Oscar races, and while I doubt that either of them ultimately ends up with a nomination in a few weeks, I came across a bit of trivia a few weeks ago that I've been dying to incorporate into an article, so I figured I would today.

Swinton and Cotillard, it should be noted, both won Oscars seven years ago for decisively different performances.  Swinton, long a major player in the avant garde of cinema, won for her role as a in-over-her-head attorney in Michael Clayton while newcomer Cotillard pulled off her Oscar for playing legendary French singer Edith Piaf.  In the years since, you'd be hard-pressed to find two actresses with more impressive filmographies.  Cotillard was the best part about Nine and brought a marvelous femme fatale to Inception, while totally dominating the complicated Rust & Bone.  Meanwhile Swinton gave the best performance of her career in 2009's Julia, and followed it with impressive work in I Am Love and a major Oscar-push (she got cited at the Globes and the SAG Awards) for We Need to Talk About Kevin.  This year they each have a pair of films (Cotillard's The Immigrant and Two Days, One Night, Swinton's Grand Budapest Hotel and Snowpiercer), but cannot seem to catch any Oscar buzz.  In fact, despite both having starred in major films since their Oscar wins, neither of them have managed to land an Oscar nomination since.  There are a variety of reasons for this, of course: both of them star in more provocative films than Oscar is used to, Oscar generally sours on someone a bit once they win (Matthew McConaughey, I have a feeling this will mean you), and there are only five slots-someone's got to be ousted.  However, I propose another reason: the Cate Blanchett Curse.

What is the Cate Blanchett curse, you ask?  This is the fact that the beautiful and talented Cate Blanchett, who has won two Oscars and lost four, has a weird history with the women who have beaten her for the Oscar, in that they have never returned to the Oscars as a nominee.  In 1998, Blanchett enjoyed her first nomination for Elizabeth, and lost in a tight race to Gwyneth Paltrow.  Paltrow, despite a promising career and years of moviestar-dom ahead of her has never been nominated in the years since.  Blanchett won in 2004, but in 2006 she once again lost for Notes on a Scandal to Jennifer Hudson in her film debut.  Hudson has won a Grammy in the years since, but never has returned as a nominee.  And in 2007 Blanchett had the dubious distinction of being nominated twice and losing both (for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I'm Not There), and as we've already explored, Cotillard and Swinton have never returned.

You're telling me I'm just being paranoid?  This is clearly a coincidence?  Think again.  Meryl Streep, the most nominated actor in the history of the Oscars, has a number of performers who have beat her and had success later; Jodie Foster, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Smith all spring to mind.  The same goes for Jack Nicholson (Jack Lemmon, William Hurt) and Kate Hepburn (Greer Garson, Anna Magnani).  In fact, while it's quite common for an actor's final nomination to be the one they win for, no other actor with Blanchett's nomination count can equal her feat.  To add further proof, with the exception of Thelma Ritter (who lost to Shelley Winters in 1959, who would go on to gain two more nominations), every actor with six nominations or more has had at least two of their conquerors go on to be nominated.

This curse, thankfully for some, doesn't appear to crossover to other awards shows-just the Oscars.  The likes of Natalie Portman and Nicole Kidman have tussled with Blanchett at the Globes and lived to tell the tale, while Cotillard and Maggie Smith have trudged on with the BAFTA.  However, as you are opening your presents this holiday, be warned-there are four actresses out there whose present-receiving days are long done.  Those who defeat Galadriel only do so once.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that whether you're enjoying today with friends, family, or this is just a day off from work that you have a wonderful day.  For me, all I want for Christmas is peace, love, and maybe this fella:

Under the Skin (2014)

Film: Under the Skin (2014)
Stars: Scarlett Johansson
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

I frequently find myself stating that I'd rather watch a failed but unexpected movie than a fine but boring one.  This is partially because I see a LOT of movies, and after a while it takes a bit of work for you to actually get excited about a film.  There are only so many random love stories or biopics about great men or superhero films that you can come out with before the entire genre is in desperate need of an upheaval.  This is why I get so damn excited when something like Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin comes along.  It may not be what you'd consider particularly coherent, and occasionally it's hard to follow, but it's a film that you don't know the direction it's immediately headed, and has something beautiful and unexpected about it.  It's the sort of film you desperately want to recommend, but you have to know the person well before you give that go-ahead.  It's also the sort of film that's hard to describe, but we'll give it a shot.

(Spoilers Ahead) Trying to boil down the actual film into a plot description is a largely pointless affair, as the plot isn't really what you're here for, but suffice it to say, the film is about a beautiful woman (Johansson) who seemingly, at the beginning of the film, steals the identity of another woman.  She cycles through the streets of Glasgow asking men for directions, and occasionally giving them rides.  Being that she's Scarlett Johansson, when she offers to take them home with her, they gladly accept, but are in for a rude surprise when she, well, murders them.  The film follows this pattern, not afraid to be slow and deliberate while always being captivating, until the final moments when it's revealed that she's an alien.

This is the basic plot, but the film itself dares to be something real and unique.  Glazer, trying very much to find a middle ground between Kubrick and Malick, hits a sweet spot and somehow is able to find both men in his movie.  Frequently we find Glazer's camera just sort of meandering, letting us take in the entire scene and not just what is immediately happening onscreen in a split-second frame.  Kubrick did this (and Bergman mastered it), but you see different corners of the movie in a way that you wouldn't normally be able to do so.  You see, for example, the terrificly shot sequence where a swimmer tries to save a drowning couple while their toddler cries on the beach.  Most directors would have shot this scene in close-ups, giving us exactly what he intended for us to see, but not Glazer.  Instead, he gives us multiple different happenings on the screen-a drowning couple, a heroic swimmer, and a crying baby, and dares us to pick which one should be the focus of our attention.  It's moments like this in the film that truly captivate.

The film lives and dies on whether or not you find Scarlett Johansson alluring and intoxicating despite the danger.  It says something that most of the men she picks up were not in fact actors, but instead simply guys who were willing to get into a beautiful woman's car (seriously-can you believe that-how much was the insurance to be able to do that with a movie star like Scarlett?!?).  Her woman is intensely alluring.  Even after we essentially see some of these men die, we still don't know whether or not to believe she's the good guy or the bad guy-that's truly compelling acting, and something that I think should be noted when directors hire Scarlett, who has largely been on fire in the past few years creatively.

The film is not shy about sex and nudity, it should be noted.  It's been a while since I've seen a film that makes sex interesting, but Glazer's movie does that.  The film, interestingly enough for a movie that has Scarlett in various states of undress, is just as preoccupied with obsessing over the naked male form.  There are scenes where hunky but very real-looking men (the kinds you see walking on the street...because that's who they are-that fact completely blew my mind) walk into a black abyss with a full-on erection, totally at the mercy of their hormones and willingly going to their deaths.  The film is obsessed with arousal and foreplay-there's something forbidden, frightening, but decidedly erotic about the pickup scenes, particularly the ones after the initial plunge, as we know where things are headed and we know when the deviations in the alien's plan start to appear.

The movie never really has to go anywhere.  We know, thanks to the motorcyclist that follows her (probably another alien) that whether or not she continues with her journey (she is doused in flames in the final scene by a rapist) that the aliens will continue on whatever their quest will be.  It's a fascinating look at appearance, seduction, and sex, and I have to say I'm more and more intrigued by what Jonathan Glazer, who has only made three films in his career, will be doing next.

Those are my thoughts on this taut and well-felt thriller.  How about yours?  Did you enjoy this abandonment of form, or do you prefer something more conventional?  Where does Scarlett, who is starting to turn into Nicole Kidman without the Oscar in hand, go next with her career?  And what actor do you want to be Glazer's next muse?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

1000 POSTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, after several years of writing, I have officially hit 1000 posts on the blog.  I cannot even describe to you how exciting this is for me.  When I restarted this blog two years ago, I couldn't have imagined that it would soon become a daily blog, one that has received over 100,000 visits, and where we have meticulously chronicled five years worth of Oscar races, read through hundreds of film reviews, parceled through everything from the Midterm elections to what the royal baby should be named to my dating life.  We've commented on topics of the day, dissected through movies, television, and politics, and yes, even ranted a bit.  For those of you who have made this blog a part of your daily routines, I cannot thank you enough-we'll be getting back to our regularly scheduled blogging this afternoon, but until then, Darren and I are both glad you came!

OVP: I Married a Witch (1942)

Film: I Married a Witch (1942)
Stars: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Cecil Kellaway, Susan Hayward
Director: Rene Clair
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

With the Oscar Viewing Project, I do find that I am slowly but steadily losing my "viewing virginity" with a number of classic film stars that I had apparently never gotten around to watching, and that includes Veronica Lake.  Lake was a movie star for Paramount in the 1940's and while her most famous role remains Sullivan's Travels (still need to see that) she's probably better known today for being Kim Basinger's doppelganger in LA Confidential and for being one of the movie stars that ended up inspiring Jessica Rabbit. Like several other actors of her era (Betty Hutton, for example) Lake ended up having a weirdly compelling real life story, becoming one of Marlon Brando's many lovers and like Hutton eventually became a waitress when she had burned through all of her money.  She eventually ended up dying at age 50 of hepatitis.  This is an (albeit sad) interesting story.  Unfortunately for me, I Married a Witch is not.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Jennifer (Lake) and her father Daniel (Kellaway) who are burned alive during the Salem Witch Trials, but not before putting an evil curse on the Wooley men who accused the two, dooming the men to always end up marrying shrewish, cruel women.  We come back to the present (well, 1942) and the current Wallace Wooley (March) is about to get married and is on-track to become the next governor of Massachusetts.  His fiance Estelle (a young Susan Hayward) is constantly berating him and clearly only marrying him because her father is making her.

After lighting strikes the tree that Jennifer and Daniel have been hiding in, Jennifer plots to take revenge on the present Wooley by making him fall-in-love with her, ruining his life by showing him something that he can't have.  Unfortunately, she accidentally drinks the love potion and ends up falling in love with him.  The rest of the movie is a series of mishaps, with Wallace slowly falling for Jennifer but her father Daniel is constantly trying to keep them apart in a variety of ways (including a morbid suicide scene where he wants to send Wallace to the electric chair, and another scene where Jennifer fakes her own death).

The film courts macabre humor with more abandon than you would expect. I don't know if it's because I've been more sensitized to such things through the years, but you'd never be able to make a picture like this where a main character is so cavalier about ruining someone's life through sexual blackmail and murder (at least not and call it a comedy afterwards).  The film's side characters are all a bit stock for me.  I get that Hayward, for example, is playing a cartoon, but did she have to be such a harpy (the film's words, not mine)?  It gives little indication why Wallace, who is an affable enough chap, would have sold out so ferociously as to marry her just for a higher office he throws away rather cavalierly later in the picture.

That lack of reason may be the film's biggest problem.  The movie occasionally has Wallace falling in love with Jennifer through magic, but that's only fleeting.  The film relies heavily on Wallace actually falling in love with her, and there's really no reason he would outside of looks, which makes him a pretty horrible protagonist.  This is because Jennifer is a truly vapid and awful human being.  The film wants her desperately to be Susan Vance from Bringing Up Baby, or perhaps even an early incarnation Samantha Stephens, but Susan and Sam were both insanely likable.  Yes, they had their flaws, but you still wanted to love them.  Jennifer is constantly trying to ruin Wallace's life for her own selfish gains, and the school girl/naive aspect of her persona border on the creepy.  Lake is indeed beautiful in the role, but she adds nothing to it and if this is what she brings to a film, I can see why she never graduated into iconic status like Rita Hayworth or Lauren Bacall did as her peers.

The film received one nomination, one of those countless nominations for Best Score that emerged during this period.  I have to say that while it's cute, and would indeed eventually inspire Bewitched, there's nothing particularly excellent about it-it's just a playful little score.

Those are my thoughts-anyone want to disagree with me?  Has anyone out there seen I Married a Witch, and if so what did you think?  For those that haven't, is there a Veronica Lake performance I should look for to wash the stench off of this one?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

December Oscar Predictions: The Best Pictures

And here we are-the last of our five-part series of write-ups predicting the Oscars.  Like I said, I suspect we'll be getting back into the field a bit more before the nominations are actually decided, but most of the major precursors have been announced so we definitely have as good of a handle as we're going to get on the field before we actually learn who is about to have the high point of their career.  If you missed past write-ups, they are here: visual, aural, acting, and directing/writing.  Now, onto the Best Pictures...

Picture

The thing to always keep in mind is that with the new "between 5-10" race that's been happening for the Best Picture field, we could end up with any number of contenders.  Since we'll at least have five, let's get those out of the way.  The Imitation Game has Harvey backing it, and even last year when most of Harvey's films bombed he still landed a spot for Philomena.  Boyhood and Birdman have split the critics prizes pretty much evenly, and there's no reason to doubt either of them.  With both of its leads looking to land nominations, The Theory of Everything has that As Good As It Gets feel of a film that can't be taken down.  And finally there's Selma, which is riding both a huge crest of support at nomination time and a feeling that the movie is quite "relevant" to voters.

Outside of those five, however, I don't know what's going to happen.  I am genuinely curious to see how Sony's contenders, for example, end up playing-will AMPAS voters, who are savvier than the public about knowing what films are from which studio, support the studio after they canned The Interview (a choice that can't be popular with the artists in Hollywood).  If so, movies like Whiplash, Foxcatcher, and Mr. Turner, movies that otherwise would have a strong chance at one of the 6-10 slots, could end up losing out on momentum.  The Grand Budapest Hotel has been gaining great steam after an impressive run at the Globes and the SAG Awards, and if Wes Anderson does indeed make the Best Director list as I predicted yesterday, this could also be nominated (I suspect that Moonrise Kingdom was tenth place in its year, so Anderson has been on the cusp for a while now).  David Fincher's movies have been doing well with AMPAS in recent years, and Gone Girl was a major hit in a category that is begging for one.  Warner Brothers doesn't have a horse in the Top 5 race, but it might try to push one of its movies like Inherent Vice or in particular American Sniper into the race so that it's not left in the cold.  Disney ran an awful campaign last year with Saving Mr. Banks, but don't entirely shut out Into the Woods as a result of that.  I suspect that if Harvey really wanted to make a push for the film St. Vincent is the sort of movie that might play well with older AMPAS voters (it did better-than-expected with precursors).  Major kudos for the lead actors could push films like Wild, Still Alice, or Nightcrawler into the spotlight, and though his film was considered a disappointment, Christopher Nolan made it for Inception and could theoretically make it again with Interstellar.  Finally there's Unbroken, a movie that has clearly lost its shot at winning the big trophy, but may be too large to completely dismiss in a race that allows for up-to ten pictures.

My Predictions (I'm going with nine...until Oscar proves otherwise that seems like the sweet spot number): Birdman, Boyhood, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Unbroken, Whiplash

Foreign Language Film

The short list has been announced, which means that we know films like Canada's Mommy and Belgium's Two Days, One Night are not going to get their anticipated nominations.  I suspect that the other major frontrunners, however, will, and Ida (Poland) and Force Majeure (Sweden) both make the final cut.  Seven films remain for the final three slots, with a lot of potential for first-time-nominated countries: Estonia (Tangerines), Mauritania (Timbuktu), and Venezuela (The Liberator) are all competing for their first nominations (Venezuela, as we wrote a few months back, has been waiting a LONG time for this recognition).  Leviathan, a critically-acclaimed masterwork from Russia, won raves from Cannes, but might be a little bit too "complicated" for this category which goes a bit more middle-of-the-road.  A film like Wild Tales from Argentina could play well, as that country has done strongly here in the past, as has the Netherlands, though there's not a lot of heat coming from Accused.  And this category is occasionally completely out of left field, so it wouldn't be too shocking if the clear ninth place (Georgia's Corn Island) ended up with a surprise nomination.

My Predictions: Force Majeure, Ida, The Liberator, Tangerines, Timbuktu

Animated Feature

The Globes did little to help with predicting here, as we saw the five frontrunning English-language films land nods, but traditionally at least one foreign language film eventually scores with Oscar.  It's hard to imagine that The Lego Movie or Big Hero 6 miss at this point, as the former is the clear frontrunner and the latter is animation powerhouse Disney's only real contender.  How to Train Your Dragon 2 underwhelmed in a major way, both with the box office and with audiences, but some key pundits cannot stop talking about it and in a year where there's not much else going on, I suspect it's one of the five.  The final slots, though, seem to be a battle between four films.  Laika has made it in both of its past attempts, but people seem to be less enthused about The Boxtrolls, and it will take the film's universally celebrated technical aspects to carry it over the edge. The Book of Life wasn't what you'd consider a commercial or critical success, but it did land that fifth Globe slot and this category isn't as obsessed with box office as some others are (at least when it comes to who is nominated).  GKids, which has become an almost default nominee in this field since its stunning inclusion five years ago for The Secret of Kells, has two major contenders: The Tale of Princess Kaguya (which has been dominating the critics prizes that didn't go to The Lego Movie) and Song of the Sea (which had a great showing at the Annie Awards).  Any of these four could make it in the final two slots, but for now I'm guessing...

My Predictions: Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Lego Movie, The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Documentary Feature

The shortlist has come out after another stirring and superb year for the documentary.  Certain films like Citizenfour and The Overnighters have taken the bulk of the critical love this year, though there's clearly some sentiment to Life Itself, an emotionally powerful look at the life of Roger Ebert.  Frequently it's important to look at the actual subject matter of these films, and that could leave a film like The Last Days of Vietnam (about the Vietnam War), Virunga (about the struggles for natural resources in the Congo), The Case Against 8 (gay marriage), or The Kill Team (about PTSD with American soldiers) with a leg-up over some of the other contenders.  Finding Vivian Meyer was one of the biggest documentary hits of the year, so I wouldn't totally count that out, and Keep on Keepin' On (about a jazz prodigy mentoring a blind student) could be the "softer subject" nominee that usually comes each year.  There's also the chance that film legend Wim Wenders scores his third Oscar nomination with The Salt of the Earth (both his citations have come in this category before).

My Predictions: Citizenfour, The Overnighters, The Last Days of Vietnam, Life Itself, Virunga

And there you have it folks-my predictions in all of the Oscar categories.  What are your thoughts on the predictions?  What are you expecting to see and what will surprise?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Kisses for My President (1964)

Film: Kisses for My President (1964)
Stars: Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen, Eli Wallach, Arlene Dahl
Director: Curtis Bernhardt
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars (if I could go lower I would-this is the worst kind of movie)

In 1964, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine did something no woman had ever done before: she had her name put into nomination by a major political party's convention.  She wouldn't win, of course, but it was an incredible step forward for women in a time when few women held political office.  Sen. Smith had served in office since 1949, was the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, and as a fifteen year veteran of the upper chamber, would have been considered a serious contender regardless of her gender.  In fact, Smith was once considered for the vice presidential nomination in 1952 by General Eisenhower, and though she had a solid quip when asked in 1952 what she'd do if she ever woke up in the White House (she said, "I'd go to Mrs. Truman and apologize...then I'd go home"), she made it so that it wasn't a laughing matter for a woman to be considered for the highest office in the United States.

Fifty years after Sen. Smith's nomination, we still don't have a female president, but the concept is hardly alien to the United States.  Dozens of states have had female senators and governors, and it's not a matter of if but when the country will elect a female president.  Still, I can't help but feel, while I was watching the Fred MacMurray comedy Kisses for My President that some of the attitudes of the film still exist and how the film, which I found offensive, patronizing, and vomit-inducing, probably wouldn't make me want to throw my TV out the window so much if it didn't still have a nugget of truth regarding people's attitudes toward women in high office.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about the first female president, Leslie McCloud (Bergen) who was recently elected to the White House in large part due to the overwhelming support of the entire female populace, but it's more about her husband Thad (MacMurray) and his ability to cope with his wife being the most powerful person on earth.  The film follows Leslie as she must deal with a series of crises, including giving foreign aid to a dictator (Wallach) while balancing her husband's insecurities and occasionally wandering eye, as well as her children's well-being.  At the end of the film, it is not she but her husband who saves the day, and she ends up being pregnant and resigning the presidency to take care of her family.  The last line of the film, in fact, is a crack by her husband about the superiority of his gender since it took 40 million women to get her into the White House and only one man to get her out.

The entire film is, of course, incredibly dated, and I'm aware that the film was made in 1964 and attitudes have shifted greatly, but let's not pretend that the concept of a female president wasn't real (there's a reason I brought out the anecdote about Sen. Smith).  Women would continue to grow in stature and in 1972 three female House members (Bella Abzug, Patsy Mink, and Shirley Chisholm) would go on to run for the Democratic nomination.  The idea that a woman wouldn't be able to handle the presidency is pretty much on-display this entire film, and I found it appalling.  It's quite clear that the director only thinks of Polly Bergen's Leslie as a prop, someone that could play the part of the president but who couldn't actually do it.  The idea that a man would resign the presidency would be unthinkable in a movie of this era, much less to take care of his wife and children.  You also see that in the idiocy that Thad would continually be bothered by his wife's success-he would have been able to tell early on that she was going to win, and it's foolishness to think they wouldn't have discussed his role before the inauguration.  It's also foolishness to think that someone just "randomly" becomes president like it seems Leslie did, and if so, she wouldn't just resign it at the drop of a hat.  It takes hard work and determination to reach that high of an office, and the film is downright offensive in the way it treats its title character, and Fred MacMurray has never been more unlikable.  Arlene Dahl and Eli Wallach are both laughably bad in their supporting roles; honestly, the only person remotely resembling passable acting is Polly Bergen, and she gets nothing but grenades of awful chucked at her by the screenwriters.

The film earned one Oscar nomination, and I'm sad to say (considering the quality of the film) that the costume designs are pretty good.  The film is all modern clothing (there's no period aspects to this), but the clothing worn by Bergen is chic and elegant-a combination of Wallis Simpson and Jackie Kennedy-it looks like something Peggy Olson would have worn on Mad Men if she'd had the budget to buy Chanel.  Dahl's wardrobe is deliciously trampy, overtly feminine but with a hint of the gaudy.  I truly hope that The Night of the Iguana or Edith Head's A House is Not a Home manages to be something special, as I would hate to give the OVP title of Oscar-winning to such garbage.

Have you seen this film?  Are you just as appalled as I am by the plot and characters (and especially that corny ending)?  Do you feel that these stigmas still exist about women running for higher office?  And where do Howard Shoup's designs fall in your opinion in regard to the Best Costume category?  Share in the comments!