My 2017 Oscar Ballot

Last year I broke a rule on the blog over whether or not I would create my own nominations for the Oscars for posterity or wait until the OVP comes out.  As I am nearly always behind on that project (why is that you're always behind on every single project...or is this just a "John" problem?), and that by the time we get to 2017 in the OVP you'll have mostly forgotten about this post, I figured "why not?" once more.  So without further adieu (and skipping the Foreign Language Film, Documentary, & Shorts categories, as I haven't seen many of those yet...though I would have found room for In a Heartbeat somewhere), here are what I would have picked if I ran the Oscars this year:

Picture

Call Me By Your Name

Coco

The Florida Project

God's Own Country

Lady Bird

Winner: This is an easy call.  Call Me by Your Name has been my favorite movie in years, a wonderful, simple love story that I'll probably watch for a third time this weekend-without a doubt the movie I'm rooting for on Sunday even if it has no shot of winning.

Runner-Up: I would have to give this one to the smart, confident Lady Bird which unfolds so breathtakingly and is so assured, it would have been a likely Best Picture contender for myself in a different year.

Director

Sean Baker, The Florida Project

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name

Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

Lee Unkrich, Coco

Winner: I'm not a huge fan of the Picture/Director split, and really I don't think a film is stronger than CMBYN, so I'd go with Guadagnino again here.

Runner-Up: I'd probably pick Nolan, whose Dunkirk ages magnificently in the memory and is a visual & technical masterwork.

Actor

Timothee Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats

Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name

Josh O'Connor, God's Own Country

Alec Secarneau, God's Own Country

Winner: What a great year for gay cinema, honestly.  I do wish at least one of these actors was truly gay (I actually don't know the sexual proclivities of the GOC guys, but haven't seen either mention a boyfriend in interviews), but hand's down the winner here is Chalamet, easily the best performance I saw all year.

Runner-Up: It's weird to pick this, because it's probably Hammer though his performance wouldn't work without Chalamet's.  It might honestly be O'Connor for the final ten minutes of GOC, which wouldn't work if he hadn't invested so much into that performance the previous two hours.

Actress

Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project

Florence Pugh, Lady Macbeth

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Kristen Stewart, Personal Shopper

Kate Winslet, Wonder Wheel

Winner: Ronan is doing something entirely different here than we're familiar with here (Lady Bird is such a diverse creation compared with Briony or Eilis), and is just terrific.  I heard someone describe this as "her Annie Hall" a month ago and I haven't been able to shake that that's a completely accurate description.

Runner-Up: It's a small sacrifice considering the progress we've made in the #MeToo movement this past year, but in literally any other year Kate Winslet would be looking at a second Oscar for her spellbinding work in Wonder Wheel.  Considering how good Ronan is, it says something that I spent most of awards season still thinking Winslet might deserve to beat her.

Supporting Actor

Timothee Chalamet, Lady Bird

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Ian Hart, God's Own Country

Lucas Hedges, Lady Bird

Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name

Winner: With Hammer up in lead (I'll buy both arguments on that, but feel like if you look at it genuinely it's a double lead film with one lead being better than the other), it's an easy call for Stuhlbarg, whose final speech is so good you forget he was excellent the whole time.

Runner-Up: The most disappointing thing about this Oscar season has been the way that Willem Dafoe, longtime character actor and brilliant performer, is completely missing the track on his deserved Oscar for yet another breathtaking piece-of-work (perhaps his best?!?) in The Florida Project, particularly when it's easier to see Rockwell coming back to the Dolby than the much older Dafoe.

Supporting Actress

Holly Hunter, The Big Sick

Gemma Jones, God's Own Country

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Winner: Metcalf.  There's a lot of great work in this lineup, but Metcalf is on another level in her performance, grounding her Marion with so many brilliant touches she both becomes a specific character and literally every person in the audience's surrogate mother.

Runner-Up: It is a true joy that Manville finally got the Oscar nomination she deserved seven years ago for Another Year.  The cherry-on-the-top of this is she deserved this nomination too, as she brings so much unspoken tension to her work in Phantom Thread.

Original Screenplay

The Big Sick

Coco

The Florida Project

God's Own Country

Lady Bird

Winner: Gerwig's tale of her (fictional) adolescence is such a strong debut you sort of fear for her follow-up.  How could anyone make a film so confident, full of terrific characters & dialogue, again?

Runner-Up: Sean Baker's Florida Project is that rare combination of great acting & great directing making a fine picture, but it wouldn't function without a strong scripted foundation guiding us to those harrowing final moments of Moonie's childhood.

Adapted Screenplay

Call Me by Your Name

Lady Macbeth

The Lost City of Z

Wonder

Wonderstruck

Winner: In a weak year for this category, CMBYN stands out in an even bigger way.  James Ivory's movie is filled with quotable dialogue and great plotting, never staying too long on any moment in a whirlwind romance.

Runner-Up: I'm torn between Lady Macbeth and Wonder, but I'm going with the former as its ending is better.  Really, everything about Lady Macbeth is about juxtaposing the curt, specific dialogue uttered by Florence Pugh with the desolate world around her.

Original Score

Coco

Darkest Hour

Jane

Phantom Thread

Wonderstruck

Winner: I'm aware that it occasionally overpowers the picture itself, but Philip Glass's dominant score in Jane is just magnificent, and it gives a life/personality to a documentary in a way I can't remember music doing in the past.

Runner-Up: Thank the lord that the Academy finally acknowledged that Jonny Greenwood has been doing just fabulous work with Paul Thomas Anderson the past decade.  Phantom Thread may be his showiest bid yet, and glides across the film like a lace ribbon.

Original Song

"Mystery of Love," Call Me By Your Name

"Never Enough," The Greatest Showman

"Un Poco Loco," Coco

"Remember Me," Coco

"Visions of Gideon," Call Me By Your Name

Winner: Movie songs should always aid the film, so it's not enough to just be a good song, you also have to become entwined & aid your picture.  This is why it flummoxes me that anyone could see CMBYN and not want to give credit to those final moments of Elio with "Visions of Gideon."

Runner-Up: I really want to pick something other than CMBYN, but "Mystery of Love" is equally moving, if not quite as well-positioned in the picture and deserves the silver over "Remember Me" (great year for this category).

Animated Feature

Coco

The Lego Batman Movie

Loving Vincent

Winner: It seems so prosaic to pick Pixar for this as it's such a default answer, and if it makes you feel any better I don't always, but I can't deny that one of my favorite moments of the year was watching Coco come to life.

Runner-Up: A genuinely tough call.  I probably should pick Lego Batman Movie as it's a better film, though it's hard not to acknowledge the vast technical achievements of Loving Vincent.  The Oscars should go back to picking just three nominees in this category...and also these were hand's down the three best animated films of 2017.

Cinematography

Beach Rats

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me By Your Name

Dunkirk

Wonder Wheel

Winner: It's never entirely clear why Wonder Wheel is so breathtaking (even by Woody Allen's standards this is something else), but there are actual scenes where you're gasping simply because the lighting is so spectacular.  A film that grows on you, in part because of a sunset-dappled Kate Winslet.

Runner-Up: The first loss I'm giving CMBYN isn't by much.  I love the way that they filmed the scenes at night, sometimes like we're peering in on Elio-and-Oliver, and the lustful way that Armie Hammer is shot first from below, and then at eye level once we realize who he is.

Costume

The Beguiled

The Lost City of Z

Phantom Thread

Victoria & Abdul

Wonderstruck

Winner: It feels like a slight cop-out because it's SO central to the plot, but come on-how can you not pick the gorgeous, breathtaking work of Phantom Thread here?

Runner-Up: I found the work in Wonderstruck to be particularly divine, so full of flavor, character, and considering how slim the costume budget was, prudence.

Film Editing

Baby Driver

Beach Rats

Call Me By Your Name

Dunkirk

The Florida Project

Winner: The best films make you want more, but know you don't need it (and shouldn't need it).  There are no spare seconds in Call Me By Your Name, everything feels exactly as it should be with little excess.  A bit of a miracle for a film that does clock in at just over two hours.

Runner-Up: It had to have been an odious task for Lee Smith to try and piece together those battle shots, with so much of Dunkirk reliant on you feeling like you're within the fight.  He succeeded, and man do I hope he finally gets his Oscar on Sunday.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

I, Tonya

Wonder

Wonder Woman

Winner: I am leaning a bit more on hairstyling than makeup here, but honestly no movie relied more on this department than I, Tonya to create the characters we see before us.  Double cheers for the exact way they recreate Tonya's makeup, excessive but trying for a glamour she's not allowed to reach.

Runner-Up: The battle makeup is pretty standard, but the hairstyling in early scenes is so terrific it's hard to fault Wonder Woman here.  There's a reason you wanted to recreate that Amazon look for Halloween.

Production Design

Blade Runner 2049

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

The Shape of Water

Wonderstruck

Winner: I have never wanted to go to a museum more than after I saw Wonderstruck.  Brimming with detail & period consistency, it fills every scene with magic & makes you feel like you've fallen into a classic children's novel (which, admittedly, you have).

Runner-Up: Occasionally limiting yourself accentuates what you've put out even more, and that's the case with Blade Runner 2049, who uses minimalism effectively to highlight the mechanical, lost aura of this world all the better.

Visual Effects

Blade Runner 2049

Dunkirk

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

War for the Planet of the Apes

Winner: In a year that really had no "YOU MUST AWARD THIS!" types of films (Avatar, Gravity, etc), perhaps it's best to give this to Blade Runner 2049, surely the most stylish and sophisticated film when it comes to its effects.

Runner-Up: I was torn about giving it to Dunkirk instead, whose use of practical effects is worthy of praise.  Those aerial flights alone astound months after catching them in the theater.

Sound Mixing

Baby Driver

Call Me By Your Name

Coco

Dunkirk

Get Out

Winner: One if by land, two if by sea, and three if by air...I don't really know the point of trotting that phrase out, but it seems appropriate when discussing the bravura sound work of Dunkirk, which jolts you in with those opening sequences and keeps you present with every eerie silence or cascade of bullets atop the water.

Runner-Up: I love the rustling trees, easily-incorporated music, and the whispered conversations that make CMBYN so smooth.

Sound Editing

Baby Driver

Blade Runner 2049

Coco

Dunkirk

The Lost City of Z

Winner: Again, how do you listen to Dunkirk and not acknowledge it deserves this trophy?  The film's realism is astonishing, and Nolan makes every pop and shot count in this picture.

Runner-Up: The vroom vroom of Baby Driver's car chases recall in many ways The French Connection and Drive, perhaps the highest of compliments.

There you have it.  If I was giving out Oscars this year Call Me by Your Name would claim six, with the only other multiple-winners being Lady Bird and Dunkirk.  What are your favorites, and which of my nominees are you head-scratching about?  Share your thought below in the comments!

Can the Democrats Afford Their Own Tea Party?

Christine O'Donnell (R-DE)

I have witnessed a lot of eventful Election Nights, but few will ever compare to September 14, 2010.  At this point in 2010, it seemed pretty clear that the Democrats were about to be clobbered in the coming November, with the House likely lost and the Democrats potentially vulnerable in the Senate despite a double-digit margin-of-victory.  Longtime incumbents like Blanche Lincoln, Russ Feingold, and Harry Reid seemed like goners, and even seemingly immobile figures like Barbara Boxer & Patty Murray were looking vulnerable.  The Delaware Senate seat appeared all-but-lost, with Rep. Mike Castle, a Delaware institution, looking probable to add "US Senator" to his long resume, surely besting little-known County Executive Chris Coons...and then came Christine O'Donnell.

Few primary victories (or losses, depending on how you look at it) that I can remember have so totally transformed the dynamics of a race.  While I've seen races ultimately decided by a primary, this went from "Likely Republican" to "Likely Democrat" pretty much overnight, and making it more glaring-Republicans knew it.  There was no indication going into this election that Castle was tarnished by a scandal, there was no mystery about O'Donnell's credentials or ability-to-win.  Just days before the election, a PPP poll had shown Castle up on Coons by ten-points, while Coons led O'Donnell by more than that.  A political gadfly with no (successful) elective experience, O'Donnell was a treasure trove of opposition research (for all that is holy, she ended up having to release an ad where she said "I'm not a witch...I'm you"!).  It was perhaps the biggest shot-in-the-foot I've ever seen in the decades I've watched electoral politics.  While ultimately it didn't matter for the majority (the Democrats lost 7, not 11, seats), it very nearly cost them the Senate.  Keep in mind that Michael Bennet, Patty Murray, & Harry Reid were all in dead-heats (or in Reid's case, an underdog) headed into Election Night.  All three of them go, and suddenly Delaware decides the majority of the US Senate.  Suffice it to say, it was entirely possible that the Republicans knowingly gave up their future majority simply because they didn't want to endorse a moderate (who had been beloved to that point).

This Tea Party mentality, the conservative-at-literally-all-costs (even losing) tactic to politics has become a mainstay of Republican politics in the years since.  It's impossible to think of Donald Trump or Roy Moore winning their nominations in an era without Christine O'Donnell.  This has resulted in the hard-right scoring the occasional major victory (Trump being the clearest case), but losing most of these elections or at the very least alienating their moderate wing, which could result in them getting blown-out-of-the-water in suburban swing districts this November.  But it has also mostly stayed on the right side of the aisle.  Democrats have by-and-large given little heed to challenging incumbents of their own party, and usually when incumbents were ousted in primaries, it was because of something other than ideology (like a scandal or a clearly "out of touch" incumbent).  Incumbents like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Blanche Lincoln have survived liberal challenges, and even people like Hillary Clinton or Jeff Merkley have taken being the "Democratic frontrunner" in a primary and taken down hard-left challenges.  But the cracks in the Democratic establishment's armor are showing a bit more in 2018, which makes me wonder if we might be about to see a Tea Party emerge within the Democratic Party.

Marie Newman (D-IL)

This past week, after all, longtime Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is a California institution (and really a political institution in general) wasn't able to win the Democratic endorsement of the California Democratic Party, favoring State Senate President Kevin de Leon (though neither received a high-enough percentage of the vote to win the actual endorsement).  In Illinois, Chicago fixture Rep. Dan Lipinski is facing the true "fight of his political life" against a first-time candidate Marie Newman, who has used Lipinski's anti-gay rights and anti-abortion views against him in a district that has usually been more socially conservative.  State Sen. Jeff van Drew, a New Jersey pol who was seen as one of the best recruits by the DCCC this cycle, appears in danger of losing from the left over the donations he received from the NRA while he represented a conservative State Senate seat.  And Laura Moser is wearing her recent criticisms as a badge that she's "too progressive," railing against the DCCC in a way you rarely see on the left but oftentimes see on the right.

These are all major politicians in major races, albeit with differing layers of consequence.  California Senate and Illinois-3, for example, will likely go to the Democratic nominee regardless of whom they are considering who the GOP put up & the tilt of their districts, while NJ-2 and TX-7 are much more up-for-grabs in a battle to get to 24 seats.  However, this is all indicative of what the Democratic Party will tolerate.  The DCCC made headlines when it publicly questioned whether or not it would endorse pro-life candidates earlier this year, and activists were furious when they said that they would.  In the wake of Trump, it's probable that these differences will matter less because people will hold-their-nose if it means a defeat to the president in the midterms, but going into 2020 when there are several dozen Democrats looking at the race for the White House, it's sure to make Hillary vs. Bernie look like a kind-hearted picnic.

As for me, I tend to think that ideological purism in a party is usually bad, with the only exceptions being when we don't have to risk Republican victory.  With gerrymandering and simple geography against us (Democrats live in denser neighborhoods than Republicans), the reality is that the Republicans can run conservatives in every district in America and get to 218 seats, but Democrats cannot.  As a result, I'm not comfortable, with, say, throwing Jeff van Drew out in NJ-2 for a hard-left challenger when it's clear that would cost us a very winnable seat.  I also think that dying on the Laura Moser cross is idiotic, both because she has a mountain of baggage that could cost her the election, but also because it's an historically Republican seat and a more moderate candidate would probably be better until it proves itself a bit more reliable.  Van Drew may be more conservative than I am and Moser may be more in-line with my politics, but I am a pragmatist first-and-foremost.  I grew up in Collin Peterson's district, after all-I know what it takes to get a Democrat elected in red country, and occasionally it's admitting you aren't going to get everything you want.

Conversely, though, Lipinski's seat is a surefire Democratic winner (it's a Hillary district where the Republican candidate is a Holocaust denier), and he has been a thorn-in-the-side of women's rights and gay rights for far too long.  I'm very proudly supporting Newman there, and hope she takes him out because we shouldn't have to worry about a Democrat in a district that blue being in favor of basic progressive causes.  That might sound like political purism, and to some extent it is, but it also is a way of reflecting the views I have, albeit while not costing my party a seat (Newman's going to be a Pelosi vote the same way Lipinski has been).  I also theoretically would be fine with challenging Feinstein, though I am supporting her more because with Trump still in office, I think we need at least one major moderate vote on the Senate Judiciary in case we have an impeachment trial, though I am leery about the Democrats getting 51 seats and then Feinstein being the vote that lets Anthony Kennedy be replaced with a Trump-appointee (if some moderator could ask Feinstein about that, I'd be pleased).  But right now I'm fine with Feinstein, even if I'm aware that de Leon isn't going to cost us the seat in deep blue California.

Still, though, this is a movement to keep an eye on.  Jeff van Drew is the most extreme end of "sacrificing a seat," but no one saw Christine O'Donnell coming either.  Currently there are Z-Grade liberal challengers to people like Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, & Heidi Heitkamp that would completely doom the Democrats' prospects at getting to 51 seats.  Right now they're just gadflies, but in a year where the Democrats are getting far more active in their primaries, it's worth watching if 2018 produces another September 14, 2010.

OVP: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Film: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Stars: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges
Director: Martin McDonagh
Oscar History: 7 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Actress-Frances McDormand*, Supporting Actor-Woody Harrelson, Supporting Actor-Sam Rockwell*, Film Editing, Score, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Modern culture is strange in terms of how we assess film.  In a deeply, politically-charged world where literally everything anyone does can be met with the height of people screaming from the rooftops (I'm not even a little bit immune here, though I've been trying to check myself lately), it's interesting to watch how other people's reactions to a film can affect our own, and how something as immersive as sitting, alone, in a quiet theater can occasionally result in you not noticing the politics of what you're viewing until you're out of the theater.  This was my initial thought on Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a movie whose rough edges don't hang well when you let them sit for a while, but undeniably has some interesting moments & framing devices.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's plot is relatively straight-forward.  Mildred Hayes (McDormand), after her daughter is raped-and-murdered but the suspect is not brought to justice, puts up three billboards outside of her town calling out Police Chief Willoughby (Harrelson) for not making enough progress in the case.  As these things do in modern culture, the media picks up on the story and the police department are at a standoff of sorts with Hayes and the legality of her calling out the police chief, with one particular office Jason Dixon (Rockwell) taking a lot of chagrin to Hayes's actions.  The film unfolds with Willoughby committing suicide as he's suffering from terminal cancer, and both Jason & Mildred coming to terms with their shortcomings, eventually setting off to kill a man they suspect of raping a woman, though not Mildred's daughter (the film doesn't ever reveal who killed her daughter, and we're largely left to believe no one will ever know).

The film has a lot of complicated questions hanging over it, and this is almost certainly where the controversies surrounding the film started.  After all, we live in a world where we answer questions in a 140 (err, 280)-character soundbyte, and that doesn't really allow for nuance.  Some of these controversies I think are interesting.  I like the way that they handle McDormand's reaction to her daughter, and the fact that, she's right-the longer you keep a case in the public eye, the longer our ADD-addled media will focus on it (making it more likely that there's an arrest).  Some of the film's comments on the media are dead-on, and I think creative protesting is always interesting (and easily duplicated, apparently).

That said, the film's problems lie more in the controversies surrounding Sam Rockwell's Jason Dixon, and the film's inability to handle a heightened reality.  It's hard to judge Rockwell's performance (he's the strong favorite for this Sunday's Academy Awards), as his character is so poorly written, and I'm kind of flummoxed how this is the performance that both won the longtime character actor his first round of accolades as well as that he's besting both his (significantly better) costar Harrelson & the miles-ahead-of-him Willem Dafoe.  Dixon is outwardly, and near constantly racist, driven in part by an odious mother who has a nasty relationship with her son.  He's had multiple instances where he abused his power to hurt the African-American community in his town, and yet is still on the force.  That's not uncommon in this day-and-age (Black Lives Matter is a movement for a reason), but the film handles his racism callously.  In a lot of ways it reminded me of Matt Dillon's work in Crash, where we're expected to dismiss all of the hate that was in his heart earlier in the film because he has a sick father (in Rockwell's case, a domineering mother), but I'm not buying it.  No character gets away with being the proper hero here (only Lucas Hedges' Robbie can clearly be called innocent on all accounts in the film), but the ending where he is now tied to the "root for her" character of Mildred rang super false to me, and made me wonder what was the point of McDonagh's script.  Sharp banter and wordplay are injected in this film with relish, but that doesn't make up for some serious gaps in its plotting.

And while the dismissive attitude toward racism may be the film's most egregious sin, it's not the picture's only one.  For starters, it's never clear how grounded we are in reality here.  One could argue that in a highly-conservative rural town, that John Hawkes' character might get away with burning down the billboards or that Sam Rockwell might get away with mistreating the black community (this is wrong, but not without a toe in reality), but Mildred Hayes would have ended up in jail long before she and Jason became Thelma-and-Louise.  After all, she clearly burned down the police station, and assaulted three teenagers in broad daylight.  The film wants to be both a grounded drama AND be in the vein of some of McDonagh's past works like In Bruges, where it creates its own heightened reality.  You can't have it both ways, and the ending of the film doesn't jive with these moments.  Combined with a lot of very convenient plot points (Jason just happens to be in a that bar when he has a complete dead-end...I mean, come on!), this is lazy writing from McDonagh, a filmmaker who is way better than that as In Bruges proved a decade ago.

That said, this is not a film without merit, and I get why people like it.  A disappointing ending doesn't stop the fact that the story at its center is compelling.  McDormand carries the picture well, even if I didn't care for Rockwell (who is not a supporting part, and I'm not hearing enough people point that out), and I love some of the places she took the performance.  There's a great scene about halfway through when we get an insight into her relationship with her daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton), and realize some of her anger is aimed at herself, and that Angela wasn't the cherubic girl we assume earlier in the film when we assume she's similar to Robbie, but instead the "bad girl" who is so often blamed by the plot for her actions.  It seems odd that McDonagh takes a more progressive stance when it comes to his treatment of women than of race, but it's out there.  I also loved McDormand's unspoken history with John Hawkes, showing the strange pull of both loving-and-hating a man (both actors nail their parts), and while I wouldn't have nominated him, Harrelson continues to be one of the under-sung character actors of our era, giving a great first-half arc to his part.

It has to be said that while I'm giving this a low score, it didn't start that way.  Some movies age well in the memory, others you are forced to pick apart when someone points out obvious flaws in their structure and when you suddenly realize that you were swept up in the fine acting and quick banter.  Three Billboards is one of those pictures, so while I get why it might win the Oscar on Sunday (it's not a movie that's as obviously bad as say Crash was a decade ago), it's still not an appropriate Best Picture winner.

OVP: The Post (2017)

Film: The Post (2017)
Stars: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Carrie Coon
Director: Steven Spielberg
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Picture, Actress-Meryl Streep)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All right, first off I apologize for the tardiness in getting this (or really any) articles out in the past few weeks.  Between a well-needed vacation and a promotion that turned into two jobs for a while, I am now in need of another vacation and basically gave up anything in my life that didn't have to do with work, sleep, or attempting to get to the gym (and decidedly in that order).  However, I'm dog-sitting this morning and work seems like it has hit the end of the tunnel (or at the very least I'm no longer working two jobs), and so I can start getting back to the other things in my life, including TMROJ.  This is obviously a "just in time" situation, as it is now Oscar week, and I have been sitting on a bushel of Oscar-nominated films from this year (including five Best Picture nominees), and as I'm sure you'll all move quickly on from the pictures of 2017 in a matter of days, I needed to get my thoughts out about at least the top prizes.  So, provided I don't get sucked down an occupational vortex again, you'll be getting a review of one of this year's Oscar-nominated films every day until Sunday.  We'll start with that rare film that somehow scored a Best Picture nomination and still managed to be a nominations-disappointment, The Post.

(Spoilers Ahead) The thing that made The Post so ridiculous headed into this year was that it felt like the sort of movie that you'd see on a comedic parody of the Oscars. 3-time Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg directs 2-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks and 3-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep in a film about journalistic integrity in the first year of Donald Trump's presidency?  Biopics, morals, political relevancy...honestly-this was already a nominee before it began.  When it came out and made a lot of money (which it did, even if it was mostly earned under-the-radar), it still felt like it could be a threat, but the love for the film never materialized even if respect for it was there.

That's likely because The Post, while always very handsome, is only skin-deep.  The film is approaching a powerful subject (whether or not The Washington Post and The New York Times had the right to publish The Pentagon Papers), but it feels hollow as we never really get to know the characters surrounding us.  The only person that Spielberg seems to care about is Meryl Streep's Katherine Graham (or perhaps it's just that Tom Hanks, who has been on a role lately in his career, fired a dud with his Ben Bradlee caricature), and Streep feels a bit out-of-her-depth in such a conventional, "straight" role after playing so many characters with quirks and comedic crutches.  Don't get me wrong, Streep is by no means bad (she lands some of the bigger moments like the way she adjusts to a world where she's the "most powerful" person in the room but never gets to behave like it, and I loved her moneyed relationship with onscreen daughter Alison Brie), but after years of Doubt or Into the Woods or Florence Foster Jenkins, she struggles when the script isn't there and she can't be "quirky, relatable, beloved Meryl" but instead has to find her voice in the film.  One of the reasons I've struggled with Big Little Lies casting Streep is that unlike Kidman, Witherspoon, or Dern, Streep hasn't done a work that good (and demanding) in a long while.  She certainly was capable of such things in the past (it's jaw-dropping to watch Streep today where she's somewhat relying upon her "Greatest Actress of All-Time" title in each role) compared to something like Kramer vs. Kramer or Silkwood, where she's spellbinding in a way she really hasn't been since Devil Wears Prada, or perhaps even Bridges of Madison County, but here she feels adrift, hitting a home run as often as she settles for a single.  She's still the best part of the movie, but this is not a master class in filmmaking, and honestly it'd have been fine if this was one of those rare years Meryl got snubbed by the Oscars.

That said, this should be no person's idea of a bad movie, and it isn't.  The film pops along, and Spielberg is so good at set-up and intrigue that you occasionally forget that you're watching a movie you know the ending to, with Graham's ultimate decision to print the papers seemingly up-in-the-air until she says the word.  The film has a fine supporting cast, and while they are given nearly nothing to do, they're all too talented not to at least occasionally shine (I love, love, loved Jessie Mueller as Judith Martin, my favorite journalistic nod of the movie).  The last twenty minutes (and in particular the last 90 seconds) nearly ruin the picture (Spielberg's ability to end a movie has completely been destroyed since his AI/Minority Report double whammy), but it's still fun.  It's just not one of the nine Best Pictures of the year...not even close.

So You Want to Be a Senator...

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN)

Yesterday, I had the great privilege of meeting Minnesota's newest senator, Tina Smith, at an event where she discussed the recent votes for DACA, as well as the Douglas High School shooting and the upcoming Farm Bill that she has already, just a month in, taken a leadership role on in the Senate.  It's not often you get to meet a US Senator (I've been following and volunteering for decades in politics and I've only met five), and so I figured I would mark that occasion with a little discussion about previous elected experience about elected officials.

Because Smith, who (thanks in large part to a cascade of both Democrats and Republicans who turned down a chance to run for her seat) appears to be the likely favorite to win the remainder of Sen. Franken's term this November, is unusual in her political history.  A longtime political operative in the DFL, Smith has only ever been elected to one other political office, that of lieutenant governor, an office that historically has had little power (outside of Texas), and isn't a great stepping stone to higher office.  Frequently it's the kiss-of-death when it comes to gubernatorial campaigns if you run directly from being LG to Gov (in the same way that Martin van Buren & George HW Bush are the only sitting vice presidents to succeed the man they ran with) but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the top ten most common political or, particularly, elected offices that current members of the United States Senate held prior to serving in the Senate.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), during her term as Lieutenant Governor

10. Lieutenant Governor-5

Lieutenant governors are on this list thanks to Hawaii.  While five senators have served as LG's prior to being in the Senate (Smith included), two of those senators (Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz) both used the spot as a springboard to the Senate.  And in the case of Hirono, she had to take a detour to the US House after a failed gubernatorial bid before she eventually became a senator, running for the retiring Daniel Akaka.

It's worth noting that two of these LG's (Jim Risch and Tim Kaine) served as governor as well, that being their more important resume-line when they ran for the Senate, and Hirono arguably being more palatable as a Senate candidate because of her time in the House.  Smith is the only current member of the Senate whose only elected position was as Lieutenant Governor, but unlike Brian Schatz (who was appointed from LG to the Senate), she won't have to endure a tough primary right out of the gate.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: None, really.  Smith's already a senator, and no other lieutenant governor appears to be a likely candidate for the Senate.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), when she was CA Attorney General

8. Attorney General-8 (tie)

Attorney General is the most glamorous statewide constitutional office, and almost always seems like a stepping stone to higher office (or at least is the first person you look to to run for the governor's mansion or the Senate).  This is true for most of the eight former AG's who have won the Senate seat, as all but two of the Democrats who have served as AG held no office between their time in the Justice Departments for their states and the Senate.  The two exceptions were Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who served briefly as the Last Frontier's AG and then became the director of the state's Natural Resources Department under Sean Parnell, and Tom Udall, who parlayed his career as the state's top law enforcement officer into a decade in the House before becoming a senator.

What surprised me amongst the eight people who had held this seat is that only half of them (John Cornyn, Kamala Harris, Richard Blumenthal, & Sheldon Whitehouse) went directly from the AG's office to the Senate.  In addition to Udall and Sullivan, you also have Catherine Cortez Masto, who took a two-year break from politics before running for her mentor Harry Reid's seat, and Heidi Heitkamp, who took a dozen year's between her failed run for governor in 2000 and running for Kent Conrad's seat in 2012.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Two Attorneys General are running as Republican challengers in Trump states: Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Patrick Morrissey (West Virginia)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), duirng her time as mayor

8. Mayors-8

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this project was realizing that there are more mayors in the Senate than I anticipated.  This is because most of the mayors that do run for the Senate or Governor do so rather unimpressively, and indeed among these eight mayors only two of them (Bob Corker & Dianne Feinstein) didn't hold another office between their time in the mayor's office and being a senator (and in Feinstein's case, she had pursued being governor in 1990 & lost before she became the Golden State's long-serving senator).

While very populous areas like Richmond (Tim Kaine), San Francisco (Feinstein), Newark (Cory Booker), and Tulsa (Jim Inhofe) all had senator-mayors, it's fun to note that some relatively small cities have been the jumping-off points of the careers of future senators.  Bob Menendez, for example, was mayor of Urban City, not even in the ten largest cities in his state, while Mike Enzi served as Mayor of Gillette, Wyoming, before he became a major fixture in the Wyoming State Legislature.  And of course it's worth remembering that former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, before he became a longtime member of Congress, was the mayor of Burlington, VT.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Amongst major candidates, we have former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen, Lou Barletta, who served as mayor of the small Pennsylvania town of Hazleton, and Jim Renacci, who was mayor of Wadsworth, Ohio before going to Congress.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), as Jackson County Prosecutor

7. County Executives-9

While only three current senators went straight from being a county executive to serving in the world's most exclusive club, nine of them got their starts in county government.  Oftentimes organizations like Emily's List will try to recruit women to run for positions in county government in large part because they know that these officials end up moving onto higher office and state legislatures, and indeed the United States Senate.

Most of the people who have served in county government have been out of it so long you don't really think of them as having that on their resume, including Claire McCaskill (Jackson County prosecutor for 5 years), Tim Scott (an 8-year veteran of the Charleston County Council), and Jim Risch (Ada County Prosecuting Attorney).  Three senators have gone straight from a county job to the US Senate: Amy Klobuchar (Hennepin County Attorney), Mitch McConnell (Jefferson County Executive), and Chris Coons (New Castle County Executive).

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: It's a surprisingly sparse list, as the only candidates I can really find with county-level experience are Jenny Wilson (Salt Lake County Councilor) and Leah Vukmir (a Milwaukee County Executive).

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), when he first took public office

5. No Elected or Major-Appointed Experience-10 (tie)

In an era where we cry "throw the bums out" on a regular basis and claim all of Washington is corrupt, it's no surprise that a number of senators have had no previous elected experience, nor have they held a major federal office like cabinet secretary.  People like Orrin Hatch, for example, went straight from being a very successful attorney to winning something of an upset victory over Sen. Frank Moss (ironically, Hatch, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, won on a platform of term limits on his first run for office, proving truly no one ever cares about term limit promises).

A lack of elected experience hardly means a disinterest in government affairs, however.  While people like Hatch or David Perdue seemed to seemingly decide one day "I'm going to be a senator," others had toiled in DC or their state capitols for years prior to making the jump to elected office.  Mike Lee and Ted Cruz had both served in gubernatorial administrations, and Elizabeth Warren & Michael Bennet had both served in past presidential administrations.  Susan Collins had run for governor just two years prior, and Rand Paul was the son of a congressman.  The story of the person who just randomly decides to run for office usually starts a bit lower on the totem pole, rather than shooting straight to be Mr. Smith going to Washington.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Weirdly, none.  The NRSC largely got elected officials (even if they weren't all the ones they initially hoped for), and the DSCC mostly got incumbents, so it appears likely every freshman senator starting next January will have some government experience.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), when he was in the Richmond City Government

5. City Government-10 (tie)

It feels weird to think of city governments being the byproduct of future senators, since our city officials are our neighbors and friends who know us by name, but that's oftentimes where things begin for US Senators, including ten that are currently in office.  Unlike the county boards, however, not a single one of the current US Senators went directly from being a city official to the US Senate.

That doesn't mean that they didn't have impressive careers in city government, of course.  Tim Kaine & Cory Booker parlayed their city council posts as a stepping stone to becoming mayor, and the likes of people like Gary Peters or Martin Heinrich transformed their city posts into runs for the state legislature, and then Congress.  Perhaps the most famous city official currently in the Senate would be Dianne Feinstein, who after years on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors ended up becoming mayor upon the death of George Moscone (who died in the same assassination that killed gay rights activist Harvey Milk).

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Again, a shockingly light list considering that this is a pretty basic building block to higher office, but Jim Renacci (Wadsworth City Council President) and Beto O'Rourke (El Paso City Council) both had runs in city government before going to Congress.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), when she was governor

4. Governors-11

I could do a whole other article about the art of governors running for the Senate, and indeed, it is a much-discussed topic.  Nearly always sought after as potential Senate candidates since they know how to win a statewide race, governors also have historically hated being in the exhausting, deliberative body & also have not always been ideal candidates, frequently not being able to transition from running as a state candidate (where partisanship is less important) and a federal candidate (where it's essential).

Still, though, eleven current senators have also served as governors, ranging from those directly elected from governor to the Senate (John Hoeven & Maggie Hassan) to those who took a bit of a detour (Angus King waited a decade between being governor and running for the Senate, & Jeanne Shaheen, Mike Rounds, & Lamar Alexander also had big breaks in their terms of service).  Jim Risch, whom I am finding may have the most fascinating resume in the US Senate in terms of prior experience, actually only served briefly as governor before becoming lieutenant governor again, and then went to the Senate.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: We have three former governors that are running (or seem likely to run) this year.  They include sitting Florida Gov. Rick Scott (who hasn't officially announced yet but is widely assumed to be a candidate), former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, and Mitt Romney, who could become only the second person ever to represent a different state as governor and as a senator (the first being Sam Houston).

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), when she was in the State Senate

3. State Senate-24

Now we're moving away from the small cliques of previous experience to genuinely statistically-significant numbers.  The State Senate (or the upper house of each state-some have weird names), has been the home of 24 current future senators.  Frequently it's commented upon how the Democrats saw their bench wiped out during the Obama years, and that's evident here because state legislators are going to be the people that eventually run for Congress.

While many of the state senators who eventually became senators had a step in-between (such as congressman or governor), that isn't the case for all of them.  Jon Tester, for example, was the Montana State Senate President before he won a bit of an upset victory in 2006 to become a US Senator, while the likes of Patty Murray, John Barrasso, & Joni Ernst all made it straight from the State Senate in their states to the hallowed halls of the Senate Chamber.  Many eventual senators took leadership roles during their time in the State Senate, including Mike Crapo, Mike Rounds, and, yes, Jim Risch once again.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Here the list gets quite a bit longer, with seven serious candidates being state senators at some point in their careers: Kelli Ward (AZ), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Kevin de Leon (CA), Matt Rosendale (MT), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Evan Jenkins (WV), and Leah Vukmir (WI) all having served in their state's senate.  De Leon, Ward, & Vukmir are running with the State Senate being their most recent elected experience.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), during his time in the State House

2. State House-30

I suspect mostly because there are more people who have served in them, period, but State House members do outnumber State Senators when it comes to the current lineup in the United States Senate.  Thirty (nearly a third) of all US Senators got their starts in their state legislatures.

Five of these thirty went straight from being a member of their State House to the US Senate, all but one of them having had a position of leadership in the body prior to joining the Senate.  They include Alaska House Majority Leader Lisa Murkowski, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, and North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis.  The only person who was elected straight from being a state legislator to the Senate was Deb Fischer, who won an unusual primary in 2012 that she likely wouldn't have emerged victorious in had it been a one-on-one race (she only got 40% of the vote).  All-in-all, this is a very common resume-item, but unless you're leading your State House, it's probably unwise to try and run straight for the Senate.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Again we have seven, though not entirely the same seven: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Kevin de Leon (CA), Luke Messer (IN), Mike Braun (IN), Matt Rosendale (MT), Evan Jenkins (WV), and Leah Vukmir (WI).  Braun is the only candidate whose most recent elected experience is the State House.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), then in the US House

1. US House of Representatives-50

If every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president, as the saying goes, then every member of the House looks in the mirror and sees a senator, and with good reason: members of the House tend to get promoted to the US Senate with immense frequency (it happens literally every two years), as is evidenced by exactly half of all US Senators having served in both chambers.

Typically members of the House don't serve there for a long-time until they serve in the Senate.  While there are exceptions to this rule (Ben Cardin, Bernie Sanders, & Ed Markey all served very long careers in the House before becoming senators), most only last 4-6 terms before they seek a promotion.  Some members of the Senate, in fact, only served one-term in the House before they moved up (Maria Cantwell & Tom Cotton come to mind).

There are a lot of systematic reasons for a congressmen being attractive Senate candidates.  For starters, they know the issues of the day and know how to handle the rigorous DC press corps already.  Secondly, they are clearly someone who has enough ambition to run for federal office & has followed through with victory, and that kind of drive/determination isn't easy to find in a politician.  And perhaps most importantly, unlike governors or state legislators (or ordinary people), they can stockpile money in their House seats for years and transfer that over to a Senate run thanks to campaign finance laws.  That's a big help in an era where a competitive Senate race can cost tens of millions of dollars.

2018 Challengers to Join the List?: Clearly, House members got the 50% memo as we have a lot of them running in 2018.  They include: Martha McSally & Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Luke Messer & Todd Rokita (IN), Jacky Rosen (NV), Kevin Cramer (ND), Jim Renacci (OH), Lou Barletta (PA), Marsha Blackburn & Stephen Fincher (TN), Beto O'Rourke (TX), and Evan Jenkins (WV).  All but Fincher is a currently-serving member of Congress.

The Art of the Reconsidered Senate Run

It happens literally every cycle, without fail-someone decides to publicly toy with "reconsidering" a retirement.  Sometimes this totally works (Marco Rubio last year, for example), other times it's just a ruse (Jim Edgar & Tom Kean have made something of a career of these trial balloons).  Every time, however, the press falls over themselves saying this is a game-changer, and with a president that is getting mildly more popular (though still unpopular by definition) and closing generic congressional ballots, the Republicans in the Senate seem to be begging the first-tier candidates who turned them down earlier in the cycle to reconsider, particularly Sen. Bob Corker (TN), Rep. Ann Wagner (MO), and Rep. Kevin Cramer (ND).  I decided to take a look at where these three races stand, why the Republicans want to get a new candidate, and whether or not I could see this actually happening again.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)

Tennessee

The Apprehensive Recruit: Bob Corker, a two-term Republican senator (and former Mayor of Chattanooga), who at 65 decided he'd had enough of Washington, particularly with President Trump regularly waging public wars with him on Twitter.
Why He Declined in the First Place: Corker has become rather famous as a pain in Donald Trump's side, regularly criticizing the president, and being one of the senators POTUS despises the most from his own party (after, of course, Jeff Flake).  That was going to be a huge burden in Tennessee, where the president still has strong approval ratings, particularly amongst Republicans, and quite frankly I don't know that Corker would have made it through the primary.
Why the Change of Heart: Corker has, in recent weeks, been less critical of the president, and has not dampened speculation that he could make a play for a third term.  Part of that comes from worry about the Republican field (that's true, in fact, of all three of these races).  Polls have shown Marsha Blackburn, the polarizing congresswoman who is the frontrunner to get the nomination with Corker out-of-the-way, in a statistical tie with likely Democratic nominee Gov. Phil Bredesen, with some polls going so far as to indicate Bredesen would beat Blackburn, who has a long history of making "bold" statements on cable news (remember, she's the congresswoman who debated Bill Nye about the existence of climate change).  Corker's reentry could potentially stave off Blackburn as the nominee, giving the Republicans a better shot here in a seat they almost certainly need to control the chamber.
Then Again...: Blackburn has doubled-down that she is not getting out of the race, saying anyone who doesn't think she can win the general election is "sexist" (that's not really how sexism works, but that's a topic for a different day), and Corker still would have to mend fences with Trump to take back his office, something that could be demeaning for the longtime politician.  Additionally, considering the "RINO" attacks that he could endure, Corker could actually be a worse general election candidate than Blackburn, albeit in a different manner.  If a conservative third party candidate gets in, he could easily split the vote with people who loathe him for criticizing Trump, therefore handing over the election to Bredesen in a different fashion.
Odds of Running Again: 25%

President Donald Trump with Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)

North Dakota
The Apprehensive Recruit: Kevin Cramer, a three-term Republican congressman who declined this race during the low point of Trump & Republicans' popularity last month.
Why He Declined in the First Place: Unlike Corker, this wasn't because Cramer didn't have the support of the president.  Indeed, POTUS truly wanted Cramer to run for the seat, and was hoping he would take on freshman Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.  Instead, he declined largely because at 57 he'd be giving up his safe Republican seat in a tough election against a woman that he could very easily run to best in six years, or potentially try for John Hoeven's seat if he were to retire in 2022.  That was a risk he wasn't willing to take, and declined the race knowing that the Republicans didn't have any first-tier candidates left for the seat.
Why the Change of Heart: No one probably is taking the Republican generic polling data to heart more than Cramer, who is not just a politician basking in the glow of public adoration one more time (it's always a good color to be courted for higher office, even if you don't run for it), but instead seems to be genuinely interested in running.  Gary Emineth, the former chair of the North Dakota Republican Party, has already dropped out of the race assuming Cramer would run, and Republicans seem legitimately worried that State Sen. Tom Campbell could be a treasure trove of opposition research for the Heitkamp campaign.  Campbell, who would certainly be the nominee at this point were Cramer to decline the race, reportedly was involved with a specious lawsuit to get more money from his mother's life insurance program (after she died), and his bank has foreclosed on a number of North Dakota farmers.  Those would both be easy commercials for Heitkamp to use in an ad (as someone who lives in the neighboring state of Minnesota, I can tell you that an ad featuring a bunch of farmers talking to the camera about losing their family farms to a "greedy bank" would be a VERY effective ad here), and Campbell's strangely progressive views on hemp & marijuana could also cost him support from older voters, who could easily view Heitkamp as "one of the good ones" when it comes to Democrats and just vote for her instead (or stay home).  Plus, because of federal laws that allow someone to transfer money from their House to Senate campaign with ease, Cramer actually has considerably more cash-on-hand than Campbell does, even though he's not actually running for the Senate (though neither comes remotely close to what Heitkamp has on reserve).
Then Again...: I don't have a lot of then-agains for the GOP here-it's pretty clear that Cramer is the preferred candidate for a reason, and while Heitkamp would never be safe this far-out, it's entirely possible that Campbell could make her this cycle's "Bill Nelson in 2012" or "Susan Collins in 2008," someone who was theoretically vulnerable but the party could never get their act together.  However, Cramer still wouldn't be the clear frontrunner in November were he to run, and the risks are still there for him if he ran (he could sacrifice a safe seat for a loss that would kill his political career).  Plus, Cramer is not the perfect candidate for the seat; his comments when it comes to women, in particular, mirror that of Rick Berg in 2012 in a lot of ways and could be used by Heitkamp to repeat her successful first-term campaign strategy.
Chances of Running: 75% (and rising)

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO)

Missouri

The Apprehensive Recruit: Rep. Ann Wagner, a three-term congresswoman who represents the St. Louis suburbs and also served as State Party Chair and an ambassador (to Luxembourg) under George W. Bush.
Why She Declined in the First Place: Wagner was the real canary-in-the-coal-mine situation for the Republicans' recruitment problems this cycle.  She had long been expected to run for Claire McCaskill's seat, and was seen as arguably the best recruit prospect in the country at the time.  McCaskill is famously one of the country's best fundraisers, and while Wagner hasn't gone toe-to-toe with her in that regard, she's certainly gained fame in fundraising for a reason, and after the infamous "legitimate rape" moment from Todd Akin six years ago, the GOP really wanted a female candidate against McCaskill to prevent any screw-ups that could cost them again with moderate women.  Wagner, however, saw the political landscape as being too tough for her to win statewide (like Cramer, she has a much stronger shot at winning her House seat than a statewide race), and declined the opportunity, likely thinking at only 55 she could take on McCaskill in six years, or perhaps make a play for Sen. Roy Blunt's seat in 2022 when he'll be in his 70's.
Why the Change of Heart: Josh Hawley.  Republicans, who are still skittish after Akin (before Akin's comments on "legitimate rape" it was widely-assumed that McCaskill couldn't win reelection with Mitt Romney at the top of the ticket), see some parallels between Hawley and Akin.  Hawley's recent comments about how the sexual liberation of the 1960's led to a rise in human trafficking were widely criticized, and received rebukes from both McCaskill (her Twitter quote read "I didn't go to one of those fancy private schools, but the history lessons I learned in public schools & Mizzou taught me the evidence of trafficking of women for sex goes back to before 2000 BC," getting not only a solid burn on Hawley, but also showed her Missouri bonafides, as the younger Hawley hasn't spent much of his adult career in the Show Me State) and Wagner ("It is imperative Congress understands the severity of #HumanTrafficking & #sextrafficking in our communities. We must approach this issue in a bipartisan way and with the urgency it deserves—not just during Human Trafficking Awareness Month, but always."). Combined with anemic fundraising numbers and his short political career that could be rife for McCaskill to campaign against (he was only just elected to public office in 2016), and Wagner looks a lot more appealing. Plus, the makeup of Wagner's district makes her a bit more vulnerable in her seat than she was a few months ago. She has a challenger who has so far run a solid campaign (Cort VanOstran) and the wealthy suburbs she represents are the type that seemed less infatuated with Donald Trump in 2016 than past Republicans (Mitt Romney did 5-points better in Wagner's district than Trump). If she's in a tough race either way, why not make a play for the promotion?
Then Again...: Hawley isn't going anywhere, and he's got the Republican establishment backing him. Wagner isn't the field-clearer that she would have been a few months ago, and unlike Cramer, it's not entirely clear she'd be the frontrunner to win the nomination were she to reenter (despite a solid play by VanOstran, she's still decidedly the frontrunner to win reelection in MO-2). She'd be taking two very real risks (taking on both Hawley and McCaskill), and it's near certain that McCaskill would have a tougher race in 2024 than 2018 considering it's a presidential race. I think patience will be a virtue here, and Wagner isn't going to risk a near-sure-thing for a bloody race with two statewide officeholders without more guarantees.
Chances of Running: 10%

OVP: Lady Be Good (1941)

Film: Lady Be Good (1941)
Stars: Robert Young, Ann Sothern, Eleanor Powell, John Carroll, Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien, Lionel Barrymore
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Original Song-"The Last Time I Saw Paris")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I think one of the strangest things about the Oscar Viewing Project (and there are a lot of strange things about seeking out truly random films from each year, realizing what the Wonder or Marshall of 1941 is), is that you learn some of the truly bizarre "footnotes" of Oscar history, perhaps one of the stranger ones being Lady Be Good.  A romantic comedy-musical from the early 1940's, it's pretty standard fare, with some truly memorable numbers (including Eleanor Powell's spellbinding "Fascinating Rhythm"), but the film's only claim to fame with Oscar was its song "The Last Time I Saw Paris," a staple of the era that has been recorded by everyone from Dinah Shore to Connie Francis to (inevitably) Tony Bennett.  The problem is, though, it's not an original, and wasn't written with this movie in mind.

(Spoilers Ahead) The song, in fact, was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II, but had become a radio staple circa 1940, with Kate Smith's version being the most popular cover.  However, MGM, smelling a way they could take advantage of a hit song for their new musical, included the movie in the picture, a fitting ode to a movie that regularly praises Kern specifically (the two lead characters Dixie Donegan and Eddie Crane, played by Ann Sothern & Robert Young, respectively, are both songwriters).  Sothern performs the song in tight closeup (unusually tight for a film of the era), and because the rules at the time for the Oscars more mandated that a film use a song, rather than it be original, the film won the Oscar.  Kern so hated that he won for a song that he hadn't originally intended for the picture that we got the very stringent usage rules we have today (which has cost numerous songs, including "Come What May," their chances at the Oscars).

The song itself is hardly special in the film, and while Sothern does a lovely job at it, honestly this is the rare musical film that doesn't really need music (the dancing's the best part, anyway).  The movie follows Dixie & Eddie as they marry and attempt to divorce twice, realizing that the chemistry of their relationship fizzles when they mix marriage with work, but that they clearly love each other.  A kindly judge (Barrymore) overhears much of the story (which is told by Sothern as part of her divorce testimony), and doesn't grant them a divorce at the end because he sees that they clearly belong together.  It's a cute movie, and while it is very predictable, there are some game performances in the film that make it charming.

Sothern, for example, a finely gifted comedienne, is charming and winning in the lead.  Robert Young, whom I have developed an allergy to through the OVP (every era has a few performers I cannot get behind at all, and he's one of them), is mercifully quiet for most of the film, as it's really Sothern's show and he's along for the ride, so he doesn't distract like I suspect he would have otherwise.  Skelton is a genuine supporting part, and great with Virginia O'Brien (whom I want to see a lot more of, fast, as her schtick is quite modern and reminds me of Kristen Schaal in a lot of ways).  Best of all is Eleanor Powell, dynamite as Sothern's best friend (Powell gets top billing for the picture, but she's most definitely a supporting player), who is flirty & deadpan with a hapless John Carroll, and an absolute marvel in two dance numbers, one with a dog (who two-steps along with her!), and a scene that has to be watched to be believed, where she tap dances for four straight minutes alongside a sea of dueling grand pianos.  Powell, who really doesn't get her due these days, has become a favorite of mine in the OVP (a reverse Robert Young), and this may well be my favorite performance of hers yet.

OVP: The Insult (2017)

Film: The Insult (2017)
Stars: Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha, Rita Hayek, Camille Salameh, Diamond Bou Abboud
Director: Ziad Doueiri
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Lebanon)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the things that Donald Trump has taken away from me when it comes to the movies is that frequently I find the phrase "that would never happen in real life" to always have an asterisk next to it.  We live in a world now where people get outraged and upset over literally everything (new plan for myself-don't go on Twitter that often, because you're starting to fall into this pattern).  And frequently when you see a turn-of-events in a movie, you get that sense that they are taking it to the worst possible conclusion, even if it means that they are sacrificing realism in the process.  Trump, of course, was in fact the worst possible scenario, and the world that he celebrates, of intolerance, bigotry, and assumption is at the heart of The Insult.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Insult is the rare Oscar-nominated foreign language film that feels universal in its message even though it's clearly addressing a problem specific to Lebanon.  This is unusual for Oscar in this category, where the films that they do nominate either have problems that directly (and narcissistically) involve the United States (I cannot begin to tell you how many World War II dramas have been cited by the Oscars through the years), or they are very specifically showing the world of the country they are from.  Here, though, we see both a modern-day Lebanon (in many ways it feels like Asghar Farhadi's look at domesticity), as well as a universal tale of bigotry and hatred, with a Christian Lebanese man named Tony (Karam) sues a Palestinian refugee Yassar (El Basha) after Yassar a seemingly minor altercation between the two men escalates.

The film's politics aren't always easy to digest, but they are smart enough to give us a few crib notes on why these two men are fighting (relating back to the complicated relationship between Israel, Palestine, and the rest of the Middle East).  Political films from other countries are occasionally difficult to follow as you aren't sure where an animosity comes from (other countries may struggle to understand, why, exactly, our country is so obsessed with abortion but not birth control, if you want an American comparison), but The Insult doesn't suffer from this hiccup.  Instead, it gives us a solid foundation, and then runs amok with it, making these two men stand in for a proxy political fight between two different sides that seems prone to a Civil War.  Honestly, in a pre-Trump era I probably would have let my American ignorance get the better of me here, thinking that this was a suspension of reality too far, but honestly-America is regularly set ablaze by the smallest of indiscretions (look at how everyone threw Meryl Streep under the bus for the Harvey Weinstein harassment...even though there's literally no proof she knew anything about it and she denounced him afterwards!).  There's a lot of changed reality and timeliness to The Insult, and the way that small incidents can escalate quickly.

I just wish the movie was any good.  The film itself is played too cookie-cutter, with a script that's lazy and frequently feels like it's indulgent.  The scene where we figure out the counselors on each side are in fact father-and-daughter is pathetic as a record-scratch, to the point where I almost laughed out of pity for the person who thought this was a good idea, and the inevitable overtures between the two wronged parties feel too easy and too hackneyed.  Farhadi would never have given us characters with such little nuance, and while the screenwriters are clearly observant to public culture, they are not good storytellers.  This would have made a great think piece, but as a movie, the film itself falls flat.