Saturdays with the Stars: Season 1 Recap

Ida Lupino & Ann Sheridan, two of our
stars kicking their heels!

With yesterday's sojourn into the South Pacific, we have finished our first season of "Saturday with the Stars!"  I'm not much for naval-gazing (mostly because I am aware this blog is not read by swaths of people), but I am really, really proud of this past season.  When I came up with this idea, I mostly wanted to see if I could do it for a year, and with one exception (you won't be able to tell this unless you were paying really close attention because I pre-dated the article, but when I was suffering from a 103-fever & pneumonia, I published one article on a Sunday), I did!

This year has taught me about the careers of twelve amazing artists, and I hope you learned some things about them too.  I had never really done something like this with actors, focusing instead on genre or something arbitrary like Oscar nominations, but getting to see the progressions in these women's careers was eye-opening, noting the similarities as well as the differences in their journeys.  I am struck by how expansive the universe of classic film is still to me some 25 years after I first started to delve into it. This year we watched movies that I'd never even heard of until I included them in the project, and made a bunch of "deep cut" discoveries.

We'll begin our second season in a few days (click here if you want to learn more about it), but before we go I am a lover of lists, and wanted to rank a few of the movies we watched this year.  I'm appreciative to all of these actresses for the education & cinematic pleasure they gave me during this journey, so I'm only focusing on the positives (no "worst of" lists).  If you have enjoyed this series, please feel free to comment or tweet this post-I'd love to have more people joining us in Season 2.  And if you have opinions on these actresses (or further research I should do), share in the comments as well!

Favorite Performances from Each Star
January: Ann Sheridan-Woman on the Run
February: Virginia Mayo-Along the Great Divide
March: Cyd Charisse-The Band Wagon
April: Alice Faye-Hello Frisco Hello
May: Linda Darnell-A Letter to Three Wives
June: Lizabeth Scott-Too Late for Tears
July: Rhonda Fleming-While the City Sleeps
August: Ruth Roman-Lightning Strikes Twice
September: Esther Williams-Bathing Beauty
October: Hedy Lamarr-Ecstasy
November: Ida Lupino-The Hard Way
December: Mitzi Gaynor-Les Girls

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell
Alice Faye
Rhonda Fleming
Ida Lupino
Lizabeth Scott

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell, A Letter to Three Wives
Alice Faye, Hello Frisco Hello
Ida Lupino, The Bigamist
Ida Lupino, The Hard Way
Lizabeth Scott, Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

The Band Wagon
The Bigamist
Brigadoon
It's Always Fair Weather
Les Girls
A Letter to Three Wives
The Man Who Came to Dinner
My Darling Clementine
Strangers on a Train
Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Performances of the Year in these Films (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra
Kirk Douglas, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Nanette Fabray, The Band Wagon
Patricia Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train
Van Johnson, Brigadoon
Kay Kendall, Les Girls
Janis Paige, Silk Stockings
Ann Sothern, A Letter to Three Wives
Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train
Monty Woolley, The Man Who Came to Dinner

OVP: South Pacific (1958)

Film: South Pacific (1958)
Stars: Rosanno Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston, Juanita Hall
Director: Joshua Logan
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Sound*, Scoring, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Mitzi Gaynor-click here to learn more about Ms. Gaynor (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I am frequently asked (oftentimes by myself while standing in front of a mirror) "what is the most high-profile classic American film that you've never seen?"  This year, thanks to "Saturdays with the Stars," I have officially removed two of my most common answers: Strangers on a Train, which we covered in our month devoted to Ruth Roman, and for our final episode of this season, South Pacific (I genuinely don't know what my answer to this question is now, as I saw Dracula last year and I'm running out of obvious classics that I'm missing...maybe something more modern like Die Hard?).  It's hard to underscore what a big deal South Pacific was in its era.  It was the top-grossing movie of 1958 (nearly double the next biggest competitor, Auntie Mame), and had run on Broadway for years before finally making it to the big-screen.  It's also impossible to underscore how much this meant for Mitzi Gaynor's career.  While she had been headlining films for nearly a decade by the time South Pacific came out, this was undoubtedly her "big break," the movie that might catapult her from leading woman to "star of the decade" sort of status.  Alas, for Gaynor, this was to be the peak, not the start of a new plateau, for her career though at least she has one immortal film on her resumé (more than most can claim).

(Spoilers Ahead) For those unfamiliar (I had seen a stage production of the movie), South Pacific centers on a military base in World War II near Tonga, and is based on the novel Tale of the South Pacific by James Michener.  The film is more of an ensemble than you'd expect from a musical, particularly a Rodgers & Hammerstein production (where side characters are there to bemuse, not to steal focus), but the main lovers are Nellie Forbush (Gaynor), a young nurse stationed there from Arkansas , and Emile (Brazzi), a Frenchman who owns a plantation in the region and once killed a man.  The film, unusually for a romance, starts in the middle of their affair, with them already in love (for a nearly three-hour movie it's weirdly plot-heavy, so this is for the best), describing how they met through "Some Enchanted Evening."  While they are falling in love, and deciding if they should spend their lives together on this remote island so far from Nellie's home, we also meet Lieutenant Joe Cable (Kerr), whom the enigmatic Bloody Mary (Hall) has designs on, and lures him, along with a randy, bumbling soldier Luther Bills (Walston) in hopes of Joe marrying her beautiful daughter, a young Polynesian woman named Liat (France Nuyen).  Racism rears its ugly head in the back half of the film as Joe refuses to marry Liat despite being in love with her, and Nellie does the same to Emile when she realizes that he has mixed-race children from a previous relationship with a Polynesian girl.  Emile then volunteers for a risky mission with Joe & Luther, during which Joe is killed, and eventually escapes, just in time for Nellie to have realized the err of her bigotry, and decide to live with Emile and help him raise his children.

Like I said, a lot of plot.  South Pacific is generally considered at once one of the best scores in the Rodgers & Hammerstein collective, and one of the most politically-charged books in their canon...and generally considered to be the most polarizing of all of their screen adaptations (though for my money Carousel is the weakest of the bunch).  The film is shocking in how progressive it is about race, particularly for a film that starts out with Juanita Hall, a biracial woman who is half-black but not Asian, in yellowface in the opening number.  The movie's best aspect to its plot is having blonde-haired Nellie, the sort of heroine we expect from these movies (pretty, strong-but-feminine, and of course white), try to explain her bigotry about her husband having had a mixed race relationship, but failing to do so.  Almost any other script of this era would have had Nellie be understanding from the start or had her be a bit crueler to have us expect this from her, but that's not how South Pacific rolls.  Instead, Nellie is shown to be the ugly one when she has to break up with Emile, though she comes to her senses later, the same as Joe is for denying his love for Liat.  In a number called "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" (which southern legislatures tried to get banned from touring productions of the musical in the 1950's), Joe sings about how racism isn't something you're born with, but instead you learn to hate people because of whom your family hates.  It's a powerful number, and a powerful message inside a film that normally wouldn't have such a meaning.

That said, South Pacific is not my favorite Rodgers & Hammerstein movie.  While it feels less jarring now than it did in 1958 thanks to the likes of Steven Soderbergh & Clint Eastwood, the color lenses during the musical numbers add little to the film other than to wash out the stars.  It sounds like director Joshua Logan was hoping to soften the tropical scenes to make them seem more believable (despite filming in the Pacific), but it comes across as hokey.  In the context of the film, it feels like the movie is boxing in the most memorable moments rather than letting them wash over the audience.  The film also struggles in going from stage-to-screen.  For starters, the lip-syncing is jarring (particularly John Kerr's voice is absurd), as the powerful voices don't match the actors (only Gaynor & Walston of the main singers in the film are doing their own vocal work).  Additionally, the dance numbers aren't impressive at all.  The opening scene, where all of the sailors are half-dressed (literally one man has the name "Stewpot" written across his white crop top shirt), looks like a gay porn.  I'm not knocking this motif (for realz), but it's the biggest dance number in the whole movie & they barely move.  Having someone like Gaynor, who could hoof better than pretty much any woman in pictures at the time, starring in an epic musical and not having her do a major number is absurd.

The casting is also a bit questionable.  Brazzi is handsome and debonair, but he does not have chemistry with Gaynor.  Gaynor is probably the right choice for this film (I've heard criticisms of her being miscast), but I wish the film had grounded her casual racism a bit more before the big climactic scene (another case of not adapting the picture to the big-screen).  Gaynor, as we saw a couple of weeks ago with The Joker is Wild, was capable of big dramatic work, but it's hard to elevate a character like Nellie without a bit more nuance, and the script isn't giving us that & Gaynor isn't able to do this in her numbers, which are the fluffiest of the movie.  John Kerr is sexy AF as Joe (seriously-I audibly catcalled at the screen at one point), but he suffers a similar fate-probably the right casting, but the staging & transition to film doesn't work for this character.  Juanita Hall's work is so over-the-top that I don't really know how to judge her performance, only to say that the "Bali Ha'i" number is far more alluring on stage than it is here, but still impressive (it might be one of those numbers that's impossible to ruin).

The film won three Academy Award nominations in 1958.  It's surely a result of the film's polarizing effect that it didn't compete for Best Picture despite it being the highest-grossing film of the year; generally a film that looks and acts like South Pacific would have competed in the Best Picture & Actress categories based solely on that box office.  The Cinematography nomination is the one I'll quarrel with the most-the South Pacific looks great (even though it sure looks like they're filming in Hawaii, rather than Tonga), but the color filters are off-putting and add little to the picture, so I wouldn't have included this as a nomination.  The sound makes sense (everyone sounds great, particularly Giorgio Tozzi in "Some Enchanted Evening,"), but the casting department hurts this argument by having Brazzi & Kerr lip-syncing voices that they simply cannot mirror in their spoken performances.  The most-earned nomination is Scoring, which the film lost to Gigi (a picture that dominated the Oscars, though like South Pacific it didn't get its leading lady into contention), but as I stated above-the stage-to-screen translation doesn't work.  All-in-all, South Pacific has some truly glorious moments, but it's more a fascinating failure than it is an epic masterwork, or a celebrated classic like The Sound of Music.  I'm going with 3-stars as I liked it, but not higher as I understand its flaws.

The movie didn't score Mitzi Gaynor an Oscar nomination, instead only giving her a Golden Globe citation.  One wonders if an Oscar citation might have enticed her to stay in Hollywood a few years longer.  She only made three more movies after South Pacific, with her final farewell to Hollywood coming in 1963's For Love or Money with Kirk Douglas.  Gaynor would instead migrate to Vegas, becoming a genuine star in the nightclub circuit for years, achieving levels of fame there that she never captured on the screen.  Career highlights would include getting top-billing over The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and receiving the longest standing ovation in Oscar history for her bubbly performance of "Georgy Girl" at the 1966 Oscars.  Decades later, she's still entertaining, and even has an active Twitter account where she shares memories of Hollywood's Golden Age.  We'll start our second season of "Saturdays with the Stars" on January 1st, but not before I give you one last little treat from this season on Monday.

Why the DSCC Can Still Endorse Candidates

DSCC-Backed MJ Hegar (D-TX)

In 2018, the DCCC has a pretty much unimpeachable record.  Despite the news' focus on the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, the reality is that the organization had an incredibly strong scorecard, wading into primary after primary with near universal success.  By my count they only lost two open primaries, neither of those candidates ultimately winning in the general election out of over thirty races launched.  All-in-all, this is an impressive track record for a powerful organization in DC.

And yet the DCCC just two years later has been almost silent on endorsing in competitive primaries. While DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos has been out speaking about candidates, there is so little consideration within the DCCC for endorsing candidates that they haven't even updated their website-it still lists the plethora of 2018 candidates they endorsed on their site instead.  Democrats have an enormous number of competitive primaries in states ranging from Montana to Georgia to Texas, but the DCCC is silent on anything other than incumbent protection.  While organizations like Emily's List are willing to go into competitive primaries, the House Democrats' campaign arm is withdrawn, only issuing the most calming of platitudes for candidates, not wanting to risk the ire of the party's most progressive wing.

It's understandable.  Right now, the DCCC is being mocked all over social media for backing Jeff van Drew just days after he walked over to the other side of the aisle.  Not wanting to look a fool in an era where AOC is literally so famous she's being parodied on Saturday Night Live, they have backed off, highlighting incumbents (again, to some chagrin in an era of AOC), but shying away from getting into myriad primaries.  This is obviously to avoid the perception that they are hampering the grassroots movement, but they do so with some risk.  For example, one could reasonably guess that had former Rep. Brad Ashford won the NE-2 primary rather than the more liberal Kara Eastman, he might have been able to close the 2-point gap that Eastman got to in the moderate Omaha district and win the seat.

The Republican campaigns have struggled with this as well, and for longer than the DCCC.  They've promoted candidates in the NRCC with the "Young Guns" program, but it's pretty much toothless in helping to influence primaries.  In the upcoming race for CA-25, because two candidates have already qualified for the fundraising/organization thresholds, they're endorsing both candidates, essentially making their backing meaningless.  The organizations still have a powerful function-they decide when it comes to the general elections which campaigns are worth airlifting 6 or 7-figure ad buys into, but in the past decade these campaign arms have essentially lost one of their most powerful attributes: significant endorsements in the primaries.

Theresa Greenfield (D-IA)

That is, except the DSCC, the Senate Democrats' campaign arm.  Run by Catherine Cortez Masto, but really run by former DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer, the DSCC has landed itself into pretty much every competitive Senate race in 2020.  In fact, one could argue that while the other three campaign arms have all but given up on getting into primaries, worried about upsetting the left, the DSCC has never been so fervent.  So far they have endorsed nine challengers to Republican seats: Mark Kelly (AZ), Al Gross (AK), John Hickenlooper (CO), Theresa Greenfield (IA), Barbara Bollier (KS), Sara Gideon (ME), Cal Cunningham (SC), Jaime Harrison (SC), and MJ Hegar (TX), as well as one challenger in an open seat, Ben Ray Lujan (NM).  This is despite the fact that many of these candidates have competitive challengers in their primaries, particularly Gideon, Hegar, and Cunningham.

The DSCC getting into these races comes at some risk, but not as much as you'd think so far.  The left has not really rallied in a major way around one of the people who would be to the left of one of these candidates and could be a viable general election contender (think someone like Betsy Sweet in Maine or Andrew Romanoff in Colorado), and it's possible they just skip it.  The Senate Democrats have picked the most well-known figure in each field, and has strategically skipped select races so far.  Georgia is hosting two competitive contests next year, but so far the Democrats have not weighed in on one of the most competitive races on the map, perhaps hoping that at least one of the higher-tier candidates jumps over to the special?  And while it's obvious she's their preferred candidate, Amy McGrath has not gotten an official endorsement from the DSCC in Kentucky though she was heavily recruited by Schumer (probably to help avoid Mitch McConnell using it as a talking point).

There's a lot of argument from a pragmatic standpoint that the DSCC should get out of these races.  At some point they're going to get egg on their face here-an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-style candidate is going to break past a DSCC-appointed candidate and win the general, getting into the Senate with a grudge.  But for now I wonder if they're making the smarter decision here.  By getting their candidates through, and as many of them as possible, they guarantee that the "Brad Ashford"-style candidates can break through to the general.  That way they have the best-polling/fundraising candidate, and while that can be a problem (look at someone like Phil Bredesen or Ted Strickland, where arguably a younger, more unknown figure might have been a smarter investment), it also means that they don't leave any seat with an unelectable general election candidate; there's not always reward, but there's also never any risk.  Having this kind of control over their candidates certainly would have helped the Republicans hold Alabama in 2017, or wouldn't have left them with unelectable options against someone like Jeff van Drew last cycle (when the RNC basically pulled support for the then-Democratic van Drew's opponent).  2020 will be crucial for the DSCC-if these candidates fail to inspire, there will be added pressure to not pick so many candidates that fit a certain mold since their strategy failed.  But if Schumer is able to win back the majority with this slate of nominees, he'll have a team that's loyal to him and his process, ensuring that the DSCC can exert a control that the other three congressional arms find enviable but unattainable.

OVP: Bombshell (2019)

Film: Bombshell (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Mark Duplass, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Kate McKinnon
Director: Jay Roach
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Charlize Theron, Supporting Actress-Margot Robbie, Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We're nearing the end of the year, though anyone knows that the cinematic year ends not on December 31st, but sometime in mid-January when Oscar nominations are announced (and here, we'll be doing most of our genuflecting on the year and decade in late January/early February due to truncated release schedules).  As a result, we're getting through a lot more 2019 films in the comings weeks, and one of them today is Bombshell, currently in theaters.  The film tells the tale of the Fox News scandals of 2016/2017, ones that informed the presidential campaign (though unlike the fates of people like Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes, Donald Trump was not punished for his perpetual harassment and assault of women...hopefully in 316 days that will change).  Here we focus on figures like Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, whose role in the MeToo movement is undeniable, even if they remain polarizing figures on both sides of the aisle.

(Real Life Doesn't Need Spoiler Alerts) The film is mostly focused on Megyn Kelly (Theron) during the peak of her fame at Fox News, where she went from being the star of a primetime opinion show to being a mainstream superstar thanks to her professional arguments with Donald Trump (played here by the president himself through archival footage).  While Kelly is trying to find ways to balance her conservative boss's (Lithgow as Roger Ailes) beliefs with her increasing disgust at Trump himself, we see two other women who are trying to find their footing at Fox News.  We have Gretchen Carlson (Kidman), a former beauty queen who has been demoted to an afternoon talk show slot, and whose more liberal (for Fox News) political beliefs also feel alien to Ailes, whom she accuses of punishing her for not giving in to his advances.  Finally we have Kayla (Robbie), an aspiring (fictional) Fox personality (who unlike Megyn & Gretchen genuinely believes in the conservative movement, and not just playing a part) who works first for Gretchen and then Bill O'Reilly, but in a rare opportunity finds a way to meet Roger, and in the process he starts sexually harassing her and forcing her to perform oral sex on him in order to get ahead in her career.  All of these women's worlds collide when Gretchen publicly states that she was harassed by Ailes, upending the power dynamic at one of the most powerful organizations on earth.

The film is told in many ways similar to the recent political Adam McKay movies The Big Short and Vice, where the leading women will talk directly to the camera (Megyn most frequently, but definitely Gretchen at one point).  This can be off-putting, and is more miss than hit when films try it, but I kind of liked it for Bombshell.  The film's most impressive feat is the recreation of actresses as distinctive as Theron into exact replicas of their Fox News personas (the men are also impressive, though Lachlan Murdoch owes Jay Roach a muffin basket for having a bearded Ben Lawson hunkify him for the big screen).  Having these personalities, whom the world is used to talking "directly to them" do so on a big screen makes sense-it instantly establishes them as Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, rather than just actors on a screen in convincing makeup.

The movie is hard to watch, particularly the scenes with Kayla.  Perhaps because Kelly & Carlson's endings are so well-known (Carlson would win the lawsuit but has yet to land a high-profile news gig, Kelly would leave Fox but never escape its stench, failing spectacularly at NBC), Kayla is the audience surrogate, and the one with the cruelest fate, so the fact that we don't know how her story makes it all-the-more-heartbreaking when it ends with her essentially being assaulted (repeatedly) by Ailes.

All three actresses are good.  This isn't a film that would require great acting, and it occasionally slips into caricature.  It's so fun to watch some of the recreations of these people, and getting to judge from the seats people that liberals hate (make no mistake-while the issue of sexual harassment should be nonpartisan and is treated as such here, Jay Roach knows that it's going to be people who hate Fox News who will be seeing this movie and has acted accordingly with the script...my packed audience occasionally booed certain people from their seats), that you would be forgiven for seeing some of these people, especially side characters like Jeanine Pirro, as nothing more than cartoons.  But these are world-class actors, and they find their moments.  I keep thinking of the cautiousness of Kidman as Gretchen, someone smarter than the men in the room but who knows she has to play the part of a former beauty queen to stay in the game, slowly breaking out of her shell.  There's also the great scene where Megyn talks to Kayla, and then refuses to take any of the blame for shielding Roger because she can't face the fact that while Roger is the one who is to blame here, her silence made Ailes rich, Kayla vulnerable, and continued a network that would eventually elect Donald Trump.

This is perhaps the only time in the movie that the film really hints at what is the biggest problem for this picture-that we're left with Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson as our heroes.  I talked about this at the time, but Carlson & Kelly as heroes didn't sit well with people on the left who had seen them as enemies for years.  It's easier to separate the real-life good they did with taking down Ailes with the horrible damage they did when they were at Fox News, but watching them in a movie is different, and the balance isn't right.  We don't see enough of the moments where Carlson dumbs down television by being someone educated at Oxford who claims there's a "War on Christmas" and not enough time is spent on Kelly essentially putting her career ahead of women's rights & helping in a large part to hurt women everywhere by forgiving Donald Trump.  These pop up occasionally, but it feels more like a "cover your butt" move from Roach than trying to incorporate these very complicated, nasty bits of these women's legacies into a film that wants them to just be feminist trailblazers.  This is a pity, as Bombshell is very watchable, and they have the likes of Theron, Kidman, and Robbie ready to not just be movie stars, but find the souls of these women, even if they are complicated.

OVP: Marriage Story (2019)

Film: Marriage Story (2019)
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta
Director: Noah Baumbach
Oscar History: 6 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Actor-Adam Driver, Actress, Scarlett Johansson, Supporting Actress-Laura Dern*, Score, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

In a different era, Marriage Story would have been a bigger deal.  In the 1970's through the late 1990's, films like Marriage Story, ones about complicated adults going through a real-life chapter, would have been a box office gold mine, not just a movie that seems intent on winning Oscars.  While I saw this film about two weeks ago, I wanted to let this simmer for a while, and perhaps that was a bad idea (in the cynical age of social media, everything, including something as hard-to-watch as Marriage Story, is rife for meme-ification).  But this is a complicated movie, one that's worth investigating even if it's not the cultural touchstone that it could've been, and might be the first time I saw Netflix get a "prestige" picture that could well have gotten lost in the cinematic shuffle, rather than just calling "dibs" on an Oscar contender that would have made it with AMPAS anyway (like Roma or The Irishman).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on the crumbling marriage of Charlie (Driver) and Nicole (Johansson).  The film opens with the two making a list about the things they like about one another, but Nicole doesn't want to read it & Charlie does.  This is a projection of where we're headed in the movie.  Charlie has been fine in their relationship for a year, focusing on his physical and emotional wants above Nicole (even having a brief affair), while Nicole has been trying to dampen her own passions, her own ambitions & career successes, to put her husband and son above her own dreams.

The film then shows what a divorce between two people who clearly loved each other at one point looks like.  It's filled with hate, and envy, and pettiness, but also it's filled with broken hearts over losing someone you clearly once loved.  Marriage Story is hard to watch, because it doesn't shy away from how tough it is to admit defeat after taking a vow of "forever."  There are scenes where Nicole has the upper-hand, and then later where Charlie does, using the confidences they had for each other, the trust they had in each other, against one another.  The film's most famous scene is the fight they have in Charlie's new apartment, where they start screaming their hatreds at each other, eventually trying to hurt one another in the biggest way possible, and perhaps yelling more at themselves & the fact that they hate that they still feel for each other because it would make this entire process easier.  It's a fascinating movie, and one that feels personal & universal, something difficult for such a subject.

The acting in the movie is uniformly good, though the two leads steal the show.  Dern, Alda, & Liotta all get showy parts, but they're playing hilarious caricatures more than they are flesh-and-blood human beings; Dern is the best of the three (I could totally see her winning the Oscar for this), but they are inconsequential to the emotional crux of the film.  It's Driver & Johansson's show, and two of my generation's best actors get full-range to explore Charlie & Nicole, giving us imperfect, real, genuine human creations for the screen.  Driver singing "Being Alive" and realizing that this chapter of his life is over, or Johansson's quiet realization of what she signed up for when Charlie doesn't get equal custody-it's breathtaking acting, and a true showcase for both performers.

Cats (2019)

Film: Cats (2019)
Stars: James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Francesa Hayward
Director: Tom Hooper
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The first Broadway play I saw was Promises, Promises starring Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.  It was a magical experience, one that set off a love affair with Broadway that continues to this day (every time I go to New York, I see 4-5 shows on the stage).  But a decade before that, I got my proper introduction to high-caliber productions when I was in London, and saw Cats in the West End (I still have my Playbill, and can see it from where I'm typing this).  I loved it-Cats would not go on to be one of my favorite plays, though thanks to buying a CD of the soundtrack I know every word of it (Phantom would be the musical that would dominate my young, closeted high school years), but it has a special place in my heart as a result of its introduction for me to the world of theater.  I have no problem with its nonsensical plot and occasionally bizarre musical numbers, and was one of the few people when the trailer arrived who wasn't prone to mockery (though I did think the digital fur was a step in the wrong direction).  As a result, I was going to see this movie no matter how bad the reviews were, as I wanted to relive the magic, if that was still possible, of the first time I saw this production.

(Spoilers Ahead) The plot of Cats is at once very easy to explain and rather confusing if you start asking questions.  Essentially, a group of cats get together each year and audition for Old Deuteronomy (Dench), an aging and wise cat, for a chance to, well, die, and be reborn as a new feline.  This year we have a variety of candidates, ranging from Gus the Theatre Cat (McKellen) to Jennyanydots (Wilson) to Bustopher Jones (Corden), but the clear frontrunner for the audience is the cat-in-the-shadows Grizabella (Hudson), who is seen as a former glamour cat by all except the new cat Victoria (Hayward), who sees her potential.  However, the wicked Macavity (Elba), threatens to upend the whole operation as he slowly kidnaps all of the cats who are competing so that Old Deuteronomy will be forced to pick him as the cat that gets a new life.  In the end, Macavity is punished for his wickedness, and Grizabella is sent off to start a new adventure in the next world, while Victoria joins the rest of the "Jellicle" cats in the streets, finally finding a family.

Here's where I am going to start the contrarian reviews-I didn't hate Cats, in the same way that I didn't hate the stage play.  I know it's been long fashionable to hate the latter, something that's going to quickly become true of the former, but I don't get the vitriol.  This is weird-something like Ford vs. Ferrari is a story that's particularly dreadful.  There are fun musical numbers in this film.  Obviously there's the "Memory" showstopper from Hudson, who is generally a questionable choice as an actor but can pull off great character work through song, and does so here.  But we also have a great tap number in "Skimbleshanks" and the infectious opening "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats," and I even liked what Jason Derulo did with "Rum Tum Tugger."  Cats is a musical that's more for dancing than it is for singing, something alien to our "park and bark" modern-era of cinematic musicals.

That said, there are definitley problems with the film.  Putting aside the bizarre sexualization of the cats, the CGI is clunky.  While there are moments (like Taylor Swift's descent during "Macavity") where the cats look pretty much perfectly in sync with the fur and their bodies, other times Jason Derulo & Francesca Hayward genuinely look like floating heads on the screen.  Any time we aren't singing we have a problem, as Wilson & Corden doing their schtick (which genuinely would work on me-I don't dislike them like Twitter seems to do) feels a bit too reliant on cat-to-human jokes and less on genuine humor.  The sound mixing is downright dreadful on a few numbers-when your orchestra is drowning out Jennifer freaking Hudson, there's a problem in the control room.  Worst of all is the direction-Hooper doesn't know how to adapt this to the real world in the way he's supposed to (this was a problem to a lesser degree with Les Miserables), and frequently it feels like a filmed play in the worst possible way.  The "Ad-Dressing of the Cats" is awful and he deserves to be on film probation for making Dame Judi Dench endure such a travesty, with her breaking the fourth wall and singing that clunky number with every audience member wondering if the film was about to end thanks to the poor pacing.

So I'm going with 2-stars.  I considered three because honestly there were moments I felt found the weird wonder of the "now and forever" Cats and I feel like the internet is being collectively unfair to the film by comparing it to a travesty like Battlefield Earth.  It's become clear that at this point every actor in this movie needs to get their agents on the phone fast and book a crowdpleaser, as this isn't just a "derided" movie, it's the kind that takes on John Travolta's career and throws it in the garbage.  But it's also not a good movie-the failings are there, even if it's not "the worst film ever made."  So should you see it?  I think it is the sort of film that should probably be seen to be believed, but if you know the stage show by heart you'll be entertained, though not surprised.

OVP: Les Girls (1957)

Film: Les Girls (1957)
Stars: Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor, Taina Elg
Director: George Cukor
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Costume Design*, Art Direction, Sound Mixing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Mitzi Gaynor-click here to learn more about Ms. Gaynor (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We pick up with Mitzi Gaynor just over a week after her last film.  We've had some movies from the same year for a star in this series, but I don't think we ever had two films so close together as The Joker is Wild and Les Girls, which is our picture this week.  As a result, we don't have a lot to update you on with where Gaynor was in her career, though you have to give her credit for going from the diva behavior of Frank Sinatra to the psychotic perfectionism of Gene Kelly.  But the reason I picked this film for our penultimate Gaynor film is that it comes from MGM.  The bulk of Gaynor's career was alternating between Fox and Paramount, and while she made musicals for both studios, MGM is really the lot where the singers & hoofers went.  However, in the 1950's they were more obsessed with our March star Cyd Charisse than any other actresses, and quite frankly were about to be done with big-scale musicals.  Les Girls wasn't the last significant musical to come out of MGM (that would be Bells are Ringing three years later), but it was Gene Kelly's final musical for the studio.  So I wanted to see, with the clock ticking, if they had the right part for Gaynor, and what she'd look like in a musical the way only MGM could make them.

(Spoilers Ahead) Les Girls takes part in three acts, focusing on three different dancers in the film, all representing different countries: the American Joy (Gaynor), the British Sybil (Kendall), and the French Angele (Elg, who is really Finnish but her character is French).  Angele is suing Sybil for libel in court (the film seems to have weirdly been inspired by Rashomon in the way it delivers its story), stating that Sybil lied in her book about the three women.  We then flash back to first Sybil, then Angele, and finally the man that came between them their dancing costar-director Barry (Kelly) taking the stand to straighten things out.  The film ends with us realizing that it was Joy that Barry was in love with the whole time (Hollywood law dictates that Kelly go after the biggest name in the cast, after all), and all three women end up happily ever after...with Joy keeping an eye on her new husband, whom she suspects maybe had a little bit of romancing with the other two women to keep their stories straight.

The movie is weird for an MGM musical because it's the plot that actually dominates the tale, rather than the musical numbers.  There are a few lovely song-and-dance scenes (I loved the saucy "Ladies-in-Waiting" with the peekaboo costume design, and the ballet duet between Gaynor & Kelly was sublime), but it's actually the plot and the witty banter that keeps you there.  It's the rare movie where generally pretty much everyone upstages Gene Kelly, who is mostly just there to pitch woo and be a dance partner, as it's the women that steal the entire film.  Gaynor is great here-she's relegated with the least flamboyant character, but she gets a lot of snappy one-liners that generally made me cackle.  Elg and Kendall both get the better parts, though, and they tied at the Golden Globes (can you imagine that happening today-two actors from the same film tying for an award?!?) for Best Actress.  If I had to pick a favorite it'd probably be Kendall, who is delectable on the stand throwing bon mots at the judge; leave it to George Cukor to direct a musical with Gene Kelly and still make it all about his actresses.  While Elg is still alive and worked for decades on the stage (she was in the original cast of Nine on Broadway), Kendall (who was once married to Rex Harrison) died tragically young at the age of 32 from leukemia just two years after the release of Les Girls.

The film won three Academy Award nominations, each deserving but to different degrees.  Like I said above, the musical numbers are fine, if only 1-2 are really memorable, so I feel like the Sound citation is more because there was a lack of musicals in 1957 to throw this one toward.  The Art Direction and Costumes are sublime, though.  Orry-Kelly is clearly in heaven getting to parade the three beautiful leading actresses in an array of matching, carefully-constructed outfits, and the set design, particularly the girl's compact but believable apartment, is brimming with detail.  This movie competed with Funny Face in both those categories, so the OVP for this field is going to be hell, but I was utterly charmed by Les Girls and don't really understand why this isn't a more celebrated MGM musical.  Next week we will conclude our look at Mitzi Gaynor, and our first season of "Saturdays with the Stars" with a different film that won a trio of Oscar nominations & a trophy...on one enchanted evening.

5 Thoughts on the Impeachment of Donald Trump

Every news organization in the world this morning will be writing an article about impeachment, which occasionally is an indicator that I shouldn't.  After all, it's hard to find something unique to say about the impeachment.  But sometimes history demands you put your thoughts down for posterity, and I do feel that there are couple of things that (cynically) people are proclaiming that aren't correct.  With that, I'm going to share five thoughts on yesterday's impeachment of Donald Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

1. Trump's Impeachment is a Big Deal

Lost in the era of Trump is the knowledge that, at some point, Trump's time in the public spotlight will reduce, and eventually extinguish all-together, making him someone just in a textbook that you read about in the same way you do Lyndon Johnson or Warren. G. Harding.  Yesterday was the day that Donald Trump will be remembered for.  If we think back on people like Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton, literally the first moment from their presidencies you remember are either their impeachment or their resignations.  Trump will forever be marred as a president that broke the law and that the majority of the US House (the largest number ever to convict a president) chose to impeach him.  Trump is not a president you assume will be preoccupied with legacy (and seems incapable of understanding that he has failed), but the Trump legacy is going to stand apart as one that was associated with criminal behavior, now with a public repudiation that will be on the records of history.

President Donald Trump (R-FL)

2. We Don't Know What This Means

That being said, most Americans are focused on the short-term, and certainly most pundits are, and here's a dirty secret-no one knows what this means.  Some point to polling that shows Donald Trump's approval up as a sign that the impeachment isn't helping him, but if that were the case, the congressional Democrats' numbers would also be hurt, and they haven't been (they still show a 7-point enthusiasm advantage).  The reality is that, like most things in Donald Trump's presidency, it's not clear what will hurt or help.  Many assumed that his presidential nomination was doomed when the Access Hollywood video was released, yet he still won.  Many have assumed that his coalition of conservative and Midwestern states would be his stronghold, and it could well be...but Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, & Minnesota all elected Democratic governors last year.  The reality is that it's not clear impeachment made any impact one way or the other, and that might well be the case in a polarized country.  But people who assume this hurts Trump should look at his polling in Wisconsin for proof that it doesn't appear to have harmed him, while those who are panicked that this helps Trump should remember that Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton's parties all lost the next time they were on the ballot-no impeached president's party has ever won the next election.

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN)

3. The Defectors are an Eclectic Bunch

With one exception, there wasn't a lot of suspense surrounding yesterday's vote-it went roughly as expected.  Going into the day, most Democrats from Trump districts had announced that they would be voting for impeachment, all three Republicans from Clinton districts said they would vote against the impeachment.  This speaks in part to the fact that most incumbents still view their primary as one of the harder elections than the general (thanks in large part to gerrymandering).  In the coming days, it's possible we could see a telltale sign of polling if, say, Ron Kind (D) of Wisconsin or Brian Fitzpatrick (R) (two of the most vulnerable incumbents as a result of this) were to announce a retirement.

That said, five people crossed over in some capacity.  Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) voted for both counts, which was no surprise as he had basically switched parties for this exact reason.  Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), who represents a seat that went for Trump by 30-points, clearly got the okay from Pelosi that he could vote no and still keep his Agriculture chairmanship; Peterson has been a long-rumored retirement, which could still happen, but one wonders if this is an indication that he will stay on for another term.  Peterson is unique in that he is well-liked enough (and Minnesota has open primaries) that he would probably be fine avoiding a progressive challenger here.  Jared Golden earned a spot as a political trivia question by voting for one count but not the other (essentially infuriating everyone-I have no idea what Golden was thinking).  And finally there was Jeff van Drew, who has clumsily been hiding the secret that he would switch parties today, and only waited so that Trump could have the graphic of multiple Democrats defecting on impeachment.  Van Drew has already drawn a quality Democratic opponent in Brigid Harrison, a local political science professor, and will probably struggle to get through the Republican primary as a result of being their opponent for two decades, but Trump at the very least got his graphic, even if van Drew appears to have destroyed his long political career and reputation in the process.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)

4. Tulsi Gabbard's Long Con

Those four all definitively switched sides-the same can't quite be said for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.  The Hawaii congresswoman, who is currently running for president, voted "Present" for both counts, also making her a political trivia question, and opening up questions about her motives.  Unlike Golden, Van Drew, and Peterson, Gabbard doesn't represent a district that Donald Trump won, so there was little practical use of her not voting "Yes" here-in fact, she represents one of the most liberal districts in the country, one that backed Hillary Clinton by 30-points.  Gabbard's defection speaks to a hoodwink she's been perpetrating all year with her presidential campaign.

I'm not going to mince words here-I agree with Hillary Clinton that Gabbard is, if not a "Russian agent" (I don't have enough knowledge to say that), someone who is clearly helping Trump and Russia's cause in getting the president a second term.  Gabbard's decision to vote "Present" has destroyed her chances of being the Democratic nominee (the nominee will have supported the impeachment hearing in either actual vote or at least in public statement), so her career in Hawaii is over.  What appears to be happening is Gabbard is looking at running for a third party bid, perhaps as a "former Democrat" who could siphon off votes from the eventual nominee by giving progressives or moderates who don't like the nominee, but might hold their noses, a chance to vote for a "qualified" candidate in the form of a sitting member of Congress.  In a lot of ways she's taking on the role of Jill Stein, except with a stronger national backing and the ability to use her voice in Congress in a way that Stein never could.

Sen. Susan Collins (D-ME)

5. The Senate Implications Could Be More Direct

The Senate will (or could...still waiting to see how Pelosi & McConnell handle their stalemate) vote on this, which may have more direct impact on the elections.  The vast majority of the senators in 2020 have not had to face the public since Donald Trump became a political figure, and as a result the voters may be more likely to want to unleash the "Trump Era" onto these figures in a way similar to the long list of Republicans who lost in Clinton-won districts in 2018.  Doug Jones and Cory Gardner will be put in impossible situations, where they have to vote the party line in a state that will almost certainly back the opposite party at a presidential level.  Jones & Gardner are likely to lose regardless of this vote, though, next year.  Someone like Susan Collins is running in a state that the Democrat would be heavily favored to hold (Maine)-a vote to quickly dismiss the charges against Trump by Collins would be another hit on the bipartisan image that she once trumpeted, but has now largely gone to shatters since 2016.  Then there are figures like Gary Peters, Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst, and Martha McSally, all voting in swing states and having to face their state's voters in 2020-while none are expected to go against their party, they still run the risk of alienating moderates in their state and decreasing split ballots, which could be a problem if their party isn't winning their state.  Senators like Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema will be fascinating to watch in general, but that'll be a conversation for a later date as neither will face voters again until Trump is either long out of office or in the final year of his presidency.

My Ten Favorite GTKY Questions

For people who have been around here a long time (bless you), you have seen a lot of articles and series, some of which persist to this day (like this and this), others of which we don't really do anymore or do so sporadically.  This morning, I decided to do an installment of "GTKY Sunday" a series we used to do a number of years ago where I let you know a little bit more about my tastes, but because it's a week where I don't really feel like discussing the impeachment (I'd theoretically write an article about Jeff van Drew, but I don't want to waste the ink until he figures out what he's doing with his life), we're going to have this be a Thursday article.

For GTKY Sunday this week, I recently made a list of ten of my favorite GTKY questions, which is a passion of mine.  I am a weird combination of naturally curious about other people and extremely introverted, so having a few GTKY questions in your back-pocket to make people feel at ease (and by people I mean me), feels like a good idea.  You can totally steal these for your next date/party/long car ride, or better yet, answer them in the comments yourself if you so choose (or provide your favorite GTKY questions there as well!), but I figured I'd ask them and then answer them here on the blog this morning!

1. Describe the Perfect Sandwich

This is one of my all-time favorites mostly because it allows people to be mentally creative, and also if it's on a date, gives you an idea of what kind of food they like without asking something as generic as "what kind of food do you like?"  For me, this is easy-one of the things I miss most about living in New York City (a long list) is easy access to delis, which are not as plentiful (or as good) in the midwest.  Put me at a deli counter, and give me a pastrami & swiss on sourdough, with brown mustard and a pickle (on the side!) with BBQ kettle chips, a black-and-white cookie, and a Doc Brown's root beer, and I am in heaven.

2. What companies would you shill for for free?

Everyone always says "do charities count?" and no, they don't.  This is a question related to those commercials where people are giving testimonials about Proactiv, and you have to pretend they aren't paid to be there-what if you actually got the chance to speak for a company, and had to do it for free, what product(s) do you most believe in that genuinely you just want those organizations to succeed you love them so much?

Mine would be, in no particular order: Sleep Number (their mattresses solved my back problems within two weeks, and they never came back), Turner Classic Movies (now and forever), Barnes & Noble (my home planet), my favorite movie theaters in the Twin Cities (my all-time favorite, Willow Creek in Plymouth, I genuinely am a paid advertisement for since I'm always convincing people to go there), and, with apologies for the cliche, Ben & Jerry's.

3. What movie have you seen more than any others?

I'm a film fan, so people always assume I'm being judgmental with this one, but honestly the only answer I judge here is if you don't have an answer.  For me-this is simple.  When I was a kid, my brother and I got a copy of Clue on VHS from my grandma (my parents, who knew what was coming, I think had been reluctant to invite it into their home, which was a solid instinct), and we watched it all. the. time.  I've probably seen Clue at least sixty times through the years, and while there are other movies that I've seen more times than I can count (Sleepless in Seattle, Casablanca, The English Patient), Clue will likely always be my stock answer here.

Also, I'd shill for Clue or Clue for free.  And do-all the time.

4. First Celebrity Crush

I think my first celebrity crush was Wil Wheaton in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He was so smart, and his hair was so neat, and I was probably 9 or 10 when I was watching him on that show and thought he was dreamy.  It's also entirely possible that my lifelong celebrity crush Prince Harry (I have long had a thing for the redheads) might have been my first crush as we're the same age.  Colin Farrell was pretty quickly after those two, though, as I saw Tigerland when I was too young to see Tigerland, and it was...moving on.

5. What's the nerdiest thing about you?

I'm not sure if you know this, but I run a blog that specializes in discussions in classic film and elections analysis, somehow concurrently.  There are a lot of nerdy things about me (I have an annual awards show that I do with my brother every year, my house somehow has both a library for books and a library for movies/board games, I can name verbatim every Oscar acting nominee & every senator from the past three decades), but I feel like this blog might be the best testament to my nerdiness.

6. What was the last book you read?

Reading is something that is important to me, but reading is oftentimes perceived as kind of pretentious, and I feel like this question is a way to invite a conversation about literature into the dialogue without forcing the other person to prioritize their own reading tastes.  It also gives you an indication of what they actually read (because it's a recent book) than what they want people to think they read.

I'm in the middle of Olive Kitteridge right now (I like to read all of Oprah's Book Club selections because she does such a good job of finding ways to curate the conversation of the book you're reading and make you think about it in new ways, but I want to finish the first book before I get to Olive Actually), but the last book I finished was Slaughterhouse Five, which I read for a classic book club I'm in, and I don't think I'd ever actually read it (I might have tried in college, but never finished it).

7. Someone gives you $100 million-you get to start a foundation in your name, but you can only focus on one idea-what is it?

I have a lot of charity passions, but if I'm going to make something personal and real, it'd be focused on film preservation and getting rare films into the public.  Through efforts like the Oscar Viewing Project and Saturdays with the Stars (I know I already brought them up-this is a GTKY, I'm going to be passionate about the things I love!), I've found that there is a shocking amount of films that aren't properly lost (like The Mountain Eagle or The Patriot, where copies of the films genuinely don't exist), but are simply lost because no one has ever put money into bringing them onto DVD or a streaming platform.  I'd use my foundation to bring those out to the public consciousness, and make them available for scholars and film fans.

8. What is your Ted Talk about?

I kind of stumbled on the order here, because it's about how we need to do a better job at preserving our cultural touchstones through more preservation of film, TV, and music (these are good separate questions, and I'm not entirely certain why I put them back-to-back when I was prepping this article, but just go with it).  My second Ted Talk will be about how midterms are more important than presidential elections.

9. What is a talent you can do better than 99% of people?

Oscar trivia.  I know on this blog I do have the ability to look things up when it comes to Oscar discussions, but most of it I'll (humbly) admit is the result of me just knowing the answers.  I will put myself up against anyone when it comes to Oscar trivia.

10. What is your favorite unsolved mystery?

This is such a good one, and it's also a good way to gage how into conspiracy theories other people are.  For me, as I'm not a big conspiracy theory person (I find them fascinating in a "what if" sort of way, but I don't believe them), the answer is "what happened to the Mary Celeste?"  You can read more about it here, but essentially it was a ship that was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872.  No one was onboard when they found it, but it was seaworthy, its cargo was intact, and there was little sign of disturbance.  The captain's log hadn't been used for ten days, and no one onboard was ever heard from again.  This fascinates me because it didn't appear to be a mutiny, the ship wasn't overtaken by pirates (there'd be more disturbance), and it clearly didn't sink.  What happened to this phantom ship?  I heard about this as a kid, and it's still my favorite historical whodunit.

OVP: Film Editing (2016)

OVP: Best Film Editing (2016)

The Nominees Were...

Joe Walker, Arrival
John Gilbert, Hacksaw Ridge
Jake Roberts, Hell or High Water
Tom Cross, La La Land
Nat Sanders & Joi McMillon, Moonlight

My Thoughts: I have had a lot of success in the past year with mandating specific dates for activities or things on this blog (Saturdays with the Stars, our Film Noir Month), and while I have been reluctant to introduce too many new routines in (for risk that I simply won't be able to accomplish them), we're going to be making a second pact with you the readers going forward on this blog, and that is OVP Ballot Wednesday.  I'm at the point now where I can pretty much guarantee that by the time I finish one of these series, I'll have seen all of the films of an additional contest (I actually only need to watch ten more films and I'll have four more years finished for this project), so committing to doing this weekly feels like an easy promise from a "you'll have things to do" standpoint, and I'm a big fan of saying something out loud in hopes that it will entice me to do what I promised, so we're going to do that here.  I might stray in the sense that if I have a lot of these backed up I'll include a spare article on a different day to keep me from being super over-stocked, but for now I'm making a promise that every Wednesday you can tune into TMROJ and get a look at one specific Oscar Viewing Project race, and today that is Best Film Editing of 2016.

This is probably a good place to rejoin this list (as always, links to past contests below), as all five of these contenders were Best Picture nominees.  We'll start with La La Land, because I kind of want to get the negative out of the way.  La La Land is not an ugly film, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's also the sort of movie that feels poorly-paced, and its sound work is egregious.  I will get to this a bit more in a few weeks, but that opening number on the LA freeway is terribly edited, with shots feeling blurry and the orchestra drowning out the singers.  That in some part falls to editor Tom Cross, who should have been able to bridge together scenes in a more cohesive way to make the larger-scale dance numbers not feel like such a jumble.  Combined with a last act that's best attributes are stealing from movies like An American in Paris and The Band Wagon, and you have a film whose editing leaves much to be desired.

Hell or High Water is the kind of movie that frequently lands here because the Academy liked the movie, not because its editing is impressive in any meaningful way.  The film is good-I love a western with a ticking clock-but there's nothing technically significant about this picture's editing, and it's not clear that the movie was assisted by Jake Roberts, as the script is arguably its tightest and best part.  I loved the scenes in the wide expanses, the way that it keeps briskly going, but the pacing in the casino scenes aren't nearly as interesting, and you kind of want to learn more about the inevitable showdown between Pine & Bridges than some of the times the movie gets sidetracked.

Arrival is the sort of movie that only the most ambitious of editors would envy.  You're given the project of doing flashbacks, frequently in sequences where it has to make sense on re-view that it's a flashback, but not always clear initially, and you have to do so without really giving hints about what is happening on the other side of the alien lens.  You also have to make what should be pretty dull scenes (like the ones where Amy Adams is essentially interpreting another language) pop, which is what happens here-they're arguably the best scenes in the movie.  Arrival is brilliantly cut, deliberately paced, and kind of a testament to how good editing can elevate a film.

Hacksaw Ridge, on the other hand, is unable to achieve such distinction.  They're given a pretty dry film (Gibson's movie is not terrible, but it's also not great), and expected to make it sing, which they do in some sequences.  The battle scene, where Andrew Garfield, unable to kill in combat, starts sending down soldiers, is thrilling, but it's also the climax of a movie that has stretches that are needlessly violent and confusingly homoerotic (seriously-someone on that set was working through some repressed feelings here).  The beginning of the film, though, is awful, and since it's setting up the entire rest of the movie, I feel like something vital didn't get brought to the floor there.  But (as you're going to find as we continue analyzing this movie further), the picture is better than people gave it credit for in 2016 due to the anti-Gibson fervor, and the action sequences are well-done.

Moonlight is the most obviously impressive film of the year from an editing perspective.  It has to be tricky to take two different trios of actors, playing the same part, and find ways to connect them across 15 or so years without it being too wink-y or repetitive.  Moonlight therefore shows the gradual crescendo of Chiron's life, as he moves from Little all the way to Black, with seamless precision.  There's never a moment that feels spare or unintentional, making it not only a powerful film, but arguably the tightest script of 2016.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Eddie Awards have nominees for both Drama and Comedy/Musical, all five of the Oscar contenders translated at their ceremony.  Drama went to Arrival, besting Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Manchester by the Sea, and Moonlight, while Comedy picked La La Land over Deadpool, Hail, Caesar!, The Jungle Book, and The Lobster.  BAFTA went with Hacksaw Ridge for the win, defeating Arrival, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, and Nocturnal Animals (huh?!?).  The sixth place seems certain to be Manchester by the Sea, though looking at my predictions at the time I did guess OJ: Made in America as having an outside shot.

Films I Would Have Nominated: Oscar and I had a lot of different opinions in 2016, but toward the top of the list would be his editing choices.  I would have found room for Jackie, which tells its tale seamlessly even though it's spread across jumping timelines, and definitely The VVitch, which was terrifying and had to be cut "just so" to ensure that the ending worked as well as it did.  Lastly I'm going with Everybody Wants Some!!!, which was one of my favorite films of 2016, and is proof that a comedy can feel like an auteur feature without needing to lose its humor.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar copied BAFTA and went with Hacksaw Ridge in what I'm guessing was a close contest with Arrival and La La Land.

My Choice: In a very tight race between Arrival and Moonlight I'm going to go with Joe Walker, the more difficult task with the bigger payoff.  Behind them would be Hell or High Water, Hacksaw Ridge, and then La La Land.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree with me that Arrival was the best of this bunch, or is someone out there willing to fess up to being a fan of Hacksaw Ridge?  Anyone curious how the better-celebrated Manchester by the Sea got dumped in favor of Hell or High Water?  And how weird would it have been to have the longest-film ever nominated for an Oscar be nominated for the editing prize?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2016: Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2016

Past Best Film Editing Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

Saturdays with the Stars 2020: Sex Symbols

We still have two more films left to profile with Mitzi Gaynor for our 2019 series (as well as a recap of the entire season), but I am excited to announce today that we'll be continuing Saturdays with the Stars in 2020!  I have adored writing this first season, arguably my favorite thing I've done on the blog since kicking off the Oscar Viewing Project, and to keep my love afloat, we will be picking a new theme for 2020: Sex & Hollywood.

One of the things that struck me while researching the twelve women we profiled in 2019 is how often the women, particularly in conversations about their careers, spoke about how their beauty made them feel pigeon-holed in their careers.  Stars like Linda Darnell or Hedy Lamarr, who had long, accomplished careers, almost always ended up being pushed aside for their beauty, frequently with their films simply exploiting their looks at the expense of their talents.  This is a problem that has always been pronounced in Hollywood, and is hardly limited to actresses of the Golden Age-you just need to look at Oscar winners like Charlize Theron or Halle Berry on a magazine cover to know that Hollywood is oftentimes too focused on their beauty at the expense of taking a constructive look at their creative efforts.  This is particularly true for women that are more often described as "sex symbols" than actresses or artists, and so I am increasingly curious about women who have bore the burden of this title, and take a more objective look at their filmic output and acting performances, rather than the glamorous facades that were almost always the most played currency for the actresses thanks to studio marketing.

As a result, for 2020 we will be looking at the careers of twelve women who in the public consciousness are thought of as "sex symbols first, actresses second."  This is obviously subjective, but I think the dozen women that I've chosen it's fair to say that even if they are celebrated as actresses, their physicality or sexuality take a larger stage in their careers than their films do.  Actresses like, say, Ingrid Bergman or Elizabeth Taylor or Faye Dunaway are incredibly beautiful, but thanks to Oscar wins and auteur interest, I'd argue they are thought of hand-in-hand with being actresses (we will profile one Oscar winner in this series, but you'll understand why she's included when we get to her).  Like last season, we will focus exclusively on films that I have not seen, so as I'm coming at these actors with as fresh of eyes as possible (plus, so I can see some new-to-me movies); this may mean for some of the more well-known actresses we'll be getting to "deep cuts" in their careers rather than their most famous roles, but we'll discuss that when we get to such stars.  We will start in the 1930's (with apologies to Clara Bow and Theda Bara), when studio machines seemed to discover the first seismic sex symbol who would be the model for about four decades of future sex symbols, and then end in the 1970's.  This isn't because I don't have any interest in going past this era with this series (I may devote future seasons to more modern stars), but because in the late 1970's we saw a drop-off in the women that were in the mold of the traditional cinematic "sex symbol."  Instead, that trope over the next few decades went to TV (Farrah Fawcett, Pamela Anderson, Sofia Vergara), as well as accompanied the rise of the supermodel (Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks), and then eventually pop stars (Madonna, Beyonce, Katy Perry) and reality TV figures (Paris Hilton, the entire Kardashian clan).  Film sex symbols became rarer in the era of the blockbuster, with only figures like Jennifer Lopez and Megan Fox enjoying runs that compared to the stars of previous eras.  As a result, we'll end this series in the 1970's, but in the meantime I'm excited to share this new season with you, as we take a look at the actual filmic output of twelve of Hollywood's most famous bombshell actresses.  We'll kick off with our first star on New Year's Day.