Widows (2018)

Film: Widows (2018)
Stars: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall, Liam Neeson
Director: Steve McQueen
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Oh man did I get behind on my reviews.  Theoretically I will be going to the movies in a few hours, but it could well just be one flick as I am so behind on my film reviews, particularly for 2018 pictures, that I could easily spend the next day just writing up here and still not get caught up (I am a Thanksgiving orphan today, but am thankful for all of those near and far that I love, particularly this year).  We're going to start out by reviewing the most recent movie I saw and see how far I can get while working my way backwards, with Widows being a picture that I caught on Tuesday night.  Steve McQueen's latest has had a lot of press in the past few days for a poor marketing campaign that resulted in a disappointing box office performance even though the reviews have been kind, with many wondering whether or not it will miss major Oscar nominations like McQueen's last film (Best Picture victor 12 Years a Slave) as a result.  While I can't get to the Oscar question quite yet, I can definitely add in my two cents on the film, and its misleading advertising campaign.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on the lives of three widows whose husbands, members of Harry Rawlings's (Neeson) mob, recently died.  Harry's widow, Veronica (Davis), is a stoic woman who used to represent the teacher's union, and seems intent to know as little about her husband's dealings as possible, though you get the sense that she knew roughly what was happening and just didn't care.  The two have a seemingly strong marriage, but as the movie progresses, in flashbacks we understand that it was more complicated than that, with their son dying at the hands of a white police officer, and them being increasingly isolated from each other in the years since.  Harry's death resulted in roughly 3 million dollars being burned up, and the two men he stole it from Jamal Manning (Kaluuya), a candidate for alderman, and his sadistic brother Jatemme (Kaluuya), threaten to kill her if they don't get the money.  She recruits two other widows whose husbands died in the same sting that killed Harry named Linda (Rodriguez) and Alice (Debicki), and they plan on finishing Harry's next heist, robbing from the home of Jamal Manning's opponent Jack Mulligan (Farrell), who is looking to succeed his father Tom (Duvall) as City Alderman, with his eyes on one day becoming the Mayor of Chicago.

That's quite the thick plot, and the film, clocking in at 129 minutes, might get its best compliment from me in that it makes total sense and doesn't meander too much as we get to the eventual showdown.  There's little excess here, and McQueen has assembled the sort of ensemble you can only get if your last film won Best Picture.  Seriously-these are some of the best actors working (I haven't even mentioned Carrie Coon, Cynthia Erivo, & Jacki Weaver, all of whom are also on the call sheet), and you don't pull together thespians like this without some terrific work being had.  Debicki has gotten the lion's share of the kudos, and it's partially because this might be her most mainstream effort yet, going toe-to-toe with someone like Viola Davis, but it's probably just because she's sensational.  There's this great scene where she has to play opposite Weaver as her mother, trying to hold back an array of emotions, while the wrong ones keep sputtering out, and I loved the way she seems to be both a vulnerable person and someone who could take on the likes of Davis's Veronica.  Kaluuya gets the showiest part in the cast as Jatemme, a monstrous close-to-cameo role where his huge eyes and deliberate line readings result in genuine fear whenever he's on screen, but Debicki probably is the one who will get the most offers out of this film, and considering I've been cheering her on for years now, that's reason enough to see Widows.

The problem for McQueen's film is that it is marketed as an art house film, but it's frequently too conventional for such things.  That seems to be a problem for box office in recent years (look at something like mother! for another example), but he'd have been better off selling this as a smart action movie, which is what it is.  The further he delves into the marriage of Harry (who, spoiler alert again, is in fact not dead but shacking up with Carrie Coon and their infant son) and Veronica, the less we know about our leading lady.  Davis is a great orator and speech-giver as Veronica, but I'll admit that this felt more like her just showing off than finding a depth in her character.  I had a similar problem with parts of her performance in Fences, with her feeling too theatrical in her delivery, but chalked that up to her having played the part in the Cort Theater and it just came naturally after inhabiting the role for so long.  Widows doesn't have that excuse.  Davis can be mesmerizing, but I left knowing nothing about Veronica, to the point where the ending makes little sense (she sees Alice and smiles...but did she even like Alice?  And why-they hated each other right up until the end of the movie?).  There's stuff on the page that Davis could have taken advantage of, but her marriage feels paint-by-numbers, with her grief only informing certain checks on the film (I loved the way she brought her dog with her everywhere after Jatemme threatened him, not wanting to lose another loved one), but it feels like something was cut or missing on the editing room floor.  Like I said, these actors are too good to be left with a bad movie, which this certainly isn't, but it's also hard not to feel disappointed that considering the talent on-display here (Gillian Flynn wrote it!) that we didn't end up with an indisputable classic.

Life of the Party (2018)

Film: Life of the Party
Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Molly Gordon, Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph, Matt Walsh, Julie Bowen, Luke Benward, Jacki Weaver, Stephen Root
Director: Ben Falcone
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Melissa McCarthy has been a proper movie star now for about 7 years, ever since she stole the show from a slew of (then) more famous actresses in Bridesmaids, scoring an Oscar nomination for her role as Megan and transforming that into superstardom.  Since then, she's only once come close to the magic of Bridesmaids (that'd be Spy), but has been a persistent, bankable presence at the box office.  Her films regularly are profitable, perhaps in part because they aren't particularly expensive, and in particular she's become noted for her collaborations with her husband, actor/director Ben Falcone.  This is their third outing together, and so far they have yet to hit the mark.  Unfortunately, that streak continues with this picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) Life of the Party focuses on Deanna (McCarthy), a middle-aged woman whose life has largely been being a devoted wife-and-mother to her husband Dan (Walsh) and daughter Maddie (Gordon).  After dropping their daughter off at school, Dan admits that he has been having an affair with local real estate magnate Marcie Strong (Bowen), and wants a divorce.  This leads to a quick decision by Deanna to go back and complete her degree, wanting to take a course in archaeology, with her befriending her daughter's sorority, particularly another slightly older student named Helen (Jacobs) and romancing a handsome young student named Jack (Benward).  Along the way, she relates a bit better to her daughter, her parents, and to herself, as she owns her power and starts to create a better future for herself as a single person.

The film is pretty generic, but that frequently works for comedy's with a comedienne as talented as McCarthy.  After all, some of the better comedies of someone like Myrna Loy or Cary Grant were also pretty flimsy when it came to plot and they worked out fine.  The problem lies in the direction and writing of the film, and perhaps most importantly, the story-boarding, because Life of the Party doesn't really seem to have a point-of-view.  The film unfolds with Deanna's seemingly perfect relationship with her daughter being in jeopardy as Deanna becomes more popular than Maddie, but that lasts for only about six minutes before (inexplicably) the teeth come out of that plot and they're best buddies.  The same could be said for her relationship with her ex-husband, where he acts almost staggeringly cruel to her, to a comedic point that feels improbable (no one is that mean to someone they share a child with, certainly not in front of that child).  There's a scene late in the picture where Deanna comes across deliberately cruel billboards in front of her ex-husband's second wedding reception that read "Better Life, Better Wife," which seems preposterous to think he would do that and still maintain even a somewhat healthy relationship with his daughter, which he purportedly does.  Deanna isn't cruel or even particularly unattractive, so this feels like just lazy, directionless plotting to feed the next comedic set piece.

McCarthy is a game performer, and too funny for this movie to suck, and she was smart enough to hire a great supporting cast (particularly Rudolph as her supportive, horny best friend), but it's time to admit that she should be giving better than this to her fans.  It might sound cruel, but honestly-Ben Falcone has not proven himself an adept director of his own wife.  Throughout the movie, they confuse where they want to take this character-is she growing, or finding she was fine all along?  Is her May/December romance real, or just hormonal?  Is her daughter angry at her (or her father), or is she just happy-go-lucky?  These are issues you should have a perspective on by the time the credits roll, and that you don't shows a sincere failing in the writing and direction of this picture.  McCarthy is a good actress, and when paired with a strong director (Paul Feig, presumably Nicole Holofcener later this year), she can give a dynamite performance in a funny film.  But Ben Falcone can't deliver on that front, and they're both hurting their brands by continuing to try in a field they continually fail.

OVP: The Disaster Artist (2017)

Film: The Disaster Artist (2017)
Stars: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver
Director: James Franco
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I have never seen The Room.  I feel like I needed to get that out of the way before I started this review, because so much of what seemed to inspire love for The Disaster Artist (it was a surprisingly packed theater for a Saturday matinee, and one that was predominantly male and under 40, which is again a shock for such a time of day) seemed to stem from inside jokes in the picture.  The end credits of the movie, in fact, show the Francos' film seen next to the legendarily awful picture by Tommy Wiseau.  The reasons I've never seen The Room are A) I am almost certainly asleep at midnight, even on a Saturday, and if I'm not I better be within 50 feet of my bed or couch and B) I'm not a huge fan of the hate viewing.  I don't love watching mediocre movies (exception to the rule: I kind of have a thing for campy Vincent Price or Universal Monster horror films), as there are so many good movies, books, TV, or the like that I'll never have enough time to see that why should I make time for something truly terrible?  One could argue there's an experience to be had in seeing The Room, and perhaps someday I'll give it a try, but I'll start by saying the celebration of mediocrity is "too hip" for me, and I've never gotten the point.

(Spoilers Ahead) As a result, I will say that about twenty minutes into The Disaster Artist I realized that I was not going to be a fan.  Because a lot of the precipice of The Disaster Artist, and truly the ending of the film, is centered around the idea that we should celebrate people's success, even if they truly don't deserve it.  The film centers around Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) and Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), two real-life figures who went to Hollywood to try and succeed, but like so many ultimately found that they didn't have connections or the talent to be able to flourish in the entertainment business.  As a result, thanks to an enormous sum of money that Wiseau has access to (one of several mysteries that remain annoying unanswered in the picture), they create a movie called The Room, funded for nearly $6 million, that is clearly utter garbage, but filled with aspiring actors and film professionals that are also struggling to get a big break in a real movie.  This is where the bulk of the buzzy cast comes from-Rogen, Weaver, Graynor, Hutcherson, Zac Efron...it's a cavalcade of Hollywood players impersonating "nobodies" onscreen...perhaps a cruel joke as Franco could have used this time to maybe throw in some actors who could use big breaks similar to what Wiseau & Sestero desperately craved, but I digress.

Anyway, the film's central theme is predicated on either looking on in awe as a cult classic movie is made, or specifically what your impression of Wiseau as a film character is.  Franco's mannerisms as him seem incredibly accurate (I watched some tapes of him after the movie, and it's a dead-on impersonation), but let's not confuse mimicry for fine acting, because that's not what's going on here.  Franco's Wiseau is unknowable, but he shouldn't be-he might be a mystery in real life, but Franco should have an understanding of what the character knows and he doesn't seem to get there.  Is he desperately in love with Greg, or does he suffer from mental health issues?  Wiseau feels like he's deranged in Franco's eyes, someone who isn't necessarily dangerous but clearly has no idea of social cues and needs professional help.  It feels insulting to continually make fun of such a person, which is what the movie does.  Quite frankly, it crosses the line into areas that made me very uncomfortable, getting cheap laughs off of the behavior of someone who seems unwell.  Wiseau's final moments, where he is basically tricked into enjoying the reaction of the audience (who thinks his dramatic picture is a mocking joke) should be heartbreaking, but the way that Franco frames it is uplifting, as if to celebrate that people loathe his art.  Some have speculated in real-life that Wiseau is a performance piece, someone who has created a persona that has continued for decades in a similar mode to that temporarily undertaken by Joaquin Phoenix or Andy Kaufman, but there's no hints of that in The Disaster Artist.  Instead, it just feels cruel, and reliant on a cliched narrative to get its point across in the process

Without some sort of understanding of Wiseau's motivations or reasonings, the movie fails.  James Franco's work is all surface-level, technical skill but with no investment other than doing a reliably good impression.  His brother Dave, who has never exhibited the same acting chops as James, gets a more knowable character but even there he fails.  We never get an understanding of whether or not Greg resented Wiseau taking away his more conventional career path (there's a scene in the film where the real-life Bryan Cranston offers Greg a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle, a huge break for an aspiring actor, but Wiseau demands that Greg turn it down and continue on their film), or why Greg seemed to like Tommy.  Honestly-a movie centered around a friendship should have a better understanding of why they are friends, but Dave Franco's work here is too 1-dimensional & cheeky and you leave without any understanding of Greg, whose book the picture is based off of (and as a result, should be an easier task for an actor).  About the only person who is passably good in the film is Weaver, who manages to sell a difficult and schmaltzy scene where she points out why her a struggling actor on the set who could have a normal life with her husband, is willing to endure the madness of the movie-because it's as close as she'll ever get to realizing her dream of being a professional actor.  That's clearly the message The Disaster Artist is trying to achieve-that a warped ending to your dream is still a dream fulfilled-but it does so without understanding its characters, plot, or even deserving such credit.

Top 10 Films and Performances of the Decade (So Far)

The Film Experience, one of my favorite blogs and a daily part of my routine, recently put out a list of the Top 10 Best Performances of the decade so far.  I decided to take that a step further and actually do both my favorite performances and my favorite films of the 2010's (have we decided what we're going to call this decade yet?),  Weigh in with your own in the comments.  First the movies:

10. Carol (2015)

9. Pride (2014)

8. Gravity (2013)

7. Drive (2011)

6. Brooklyn (2015)

5. Short-Term 12 (2013)

4. Weekend (2011)

3. The Social Network (2010)

2. Boyhood (2014)

1. The Tree of Life (2011)

And now the top ten performances...

10. Viola Davis (The Help)

9. Garrett Hedlund (On the Road)

8. Cate Blanchett (Carol)

7. Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

6. Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

5. Brie Larson (Short-Term 12)

4. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

3. Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)

2. Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

1. Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life)

Stoker (2013)

Film: Stoker (2013)
Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Dermot Mulroney, Jacki Weaver
Director: Park Chan-wook
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Nicole Kidman remains one of the most vitally interesting movie stars on the planet.  After she won her Oscar for The Hours, most people dismissed her in light of the creative misfires of Bewitched and The Stepford Wives, but the reality is that she has subsequently created some truly mesmerizing movies on-screen, frequently working with creative auteurs and totally deserving a second Oscar along the way.  She adds to every film that she's in, and is always a reason to seek out a movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) And she can add to a film that is itself a completely hot mess, which unfortunately Stoker is.  I saw the movie Saturday, the first English-language film directed by Park Chan-wook (whose Oldboy I had...complicated feelings for), and written by Wentworth Miller (yes, THAT Wentworth Miller), was a bitter disappointment after some truly creepy set-up and some great looking trailers.  The film is about a girl named India (Wasikowska) who has lost her father and is forced to live with her mother Evelyn (Kidman) and her previously unknown Uncle Charlie (Goode).

The film surely knows how to put in a solid set-up.  You see Uncle Charlie cleverly try to seduce Evelyn (successfully, as the film continues), while stifling all of the voices of reasons surrounding her.  There's a terrific scene about halfway through the movie where Jacki Weaver, playing a great aunt to India, has the good sense to go to a different hotel in town, all the while being tracked down by Charlie, who has great hollowness in his eyes as he kills her.  The scene is marvelously acted by Weaver (who adds marvelous moments to a very brief on-screen role), and is the sort of crisp, enigmatic we-learn-more-but-in-the-process-less-film acts I have encountered in a while.

Unfortunately, the movie cannot sustain this momentum, and the most obvious answers to the movie (that Uncle Charlie killed India's father and that he did it out of jealousy of his happy life) are in fact the correct ones.  No amount of theme-altering music and wide-eyed stares from Goode and Wasikowska are going to make me believe that India is going to shoot her mother instead of her uncle in the end, and the ending seems to not jive with the character onscreen.  India spends the final moments before she becomes her uncle on the road, murdering at will, killing a state trooper who had interviewed her earlier.  This is a moment that doesn't quite jive with the rest of her character, and left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Overall, the plot in the second half cost the movie a lot of points with me, but so did a few of the performances.  Goode is perfectly cast in theory, and again, the first half of the film works with him.  He's so handsome that you want to give him a metaphorical inch to see what he does with it, even if he might use it to murder you (there's a scene late in the movie where Kidman's Evelyn is caught between knowing he will kill her and potentially having sex with him, and she chooses the latter, and Goode's intense magnetism makes you believe that most people would have done the same in that situation).  He's not a particularly strong actor, though, so when he has to actually do something other than allure, I found him to be a bit out-of-his-league, and as the serial killer at the center of a mystery, that's an unforgivable blow to a movie.

Wasikowska, is a strong actor, but doesn't seem to know what to do with this film.  She was so good as a stoic, broken-down Jane Eyre a few years ago, but cannot do the same with India-she's too old in real life to appear so naive in the film, and her heightened senses trait adds nothing to the actual film (again-the script was not taut in the final thirty minutes).  She also is not a strong choice for a woman who is playing both a wallflower and a femme fatale.  She has the look down right for femme fatale when she needs it, but she doesn't have the confidence quite yet, and becomes too sheltered in her wallflower period of the movie, meaning both ends of the spectrum come across as hokey.  The entire film I was wondering where the girl who was so terrific in Jane Eyre was, and while I will continue to seek her out in the future, I am a little bit nervous that she may have just landed one truly great performance and cannot replicate it (we'll see-I'm hoping to hit Tracks in the coming weeks).

That said, Kidman is magnetic as her dragon mother.  This so easily could have descended into Joan Crawford-level camp, but Kidman keeps that just out of reach.  You slowly begin to have hatred for her, but never quite enough to push us into rooting for India-Evelyn's shallow, egotistical, and not a good person, but India appears to have made no efforts through the years to get to know her mother, and perhaps Evelyn is the only redeemable person on the screen.  It's a tricky tight-wire act to follow, and it takes an actress as principled as Kidman to keep it in-line.

Still, though, that's not enough to recommend this picture, which I don't, but perhaps you do?  If you're a fan of the movie, let me know why in the comments.  And wonder what sort of movie this would have been if we'd seen it from Kidman's or Jacki Weaver's eyes (I think it could have been more interesting, personally).

My Thoughts on the 2014 Fall Season

I recently asked my brother to, with Community now off the air, name the smartest show on network television.  It was honestly a struggle for both of us to come up with a reply.  Eventually he said The Good Wife (which I don't watch but hear excellent things about-I'm just averse to serials and a bit too late to the party though I'm smart enough to know it's the only show on CBS that television connoisseurs will actively cop to watching) and I said Bob's Burgers (which at its best hits early Simpsons level quality) and we moved on, but the fact is that people just don't go to network television anymore for smart TV.  HBO, Showtime, AMC, FX, Netflix-these are where the truly groundbreaking television shows are.  People certainly still watch network television, but it's not where the best-of-the-best is housed, and no one expects the next zeitgeist hit to be on network television.

Honestly-if someone asked you to name your favorite shows, would you even list more than one network show?  There are still some that people would list (Scandal, The Good Wife, Nashville, and Parks and Recreation come to mind), but even those would be on your guilty pleasure list.  I still watch some, but most are more out of habit than anything else, and even those are relics.  Community and How I Met Your Mother both disappeared this past year, I couldn't handle New Girl anymore, my once beloved Glee I'm so behind on I'll just catch up when it's all over on DVD, and all but three of the remaining shows are FOX Animation Domination Sunday, which is more of a before-bed comfort food than something that I actively involve myself in.  Of the three live-action shows, the newest is five seasons' old Modern Family (which actually had a pretty strong fifth season, even though it's totally uncool to say that).  The other two are The Big Bang Theory (which, while occasionally funny, has long since slipped from clever into cloying and probably would be headed to a pasture next year except the money is too good) and Parks and Recreation (enjoying that brilliant rejuvenated confidence that comes with knowing you're about to have your final season).  Overall, though, I watch no network dramas anymore (and that's generally the genre I gravitate toward) and haven't picked up a new series in three seasons.

So I look into this new list of shows with a lot of heartache and fingers crossed-I don't want to give up on network television (there's still a place for quality half-hour sitcoms and I still wave the flag for Lost), but I'm being given little choice since most of the new season seems like a letdown already. The below are the top five (the number one being of the most interest) that I want to watch this fall.

5. Uninteresting Shows with Interesting Actors

No, that's not the name of the series (though, in a season with The Mysteries of Laura...).  There are a number of shows that have actors that I am particularly intrigued by and generally enjoy, but their shows have giant red flags.  Octavia Spencer is perfectly-fitted for a lead role on a television series with her comic timing and ability to balance it with gravitas (that Murder, She Wrote reboot idea was great and I don't know why it didn't go anywhere), but Red Band Society looks like the sort of thing I just couldn't handle every week (though the trailer got me a bit choked up).  I am all for gay characters on television and Laurie Metcalf is wildly under-appreciated, but she could do so much better than The McCarthys (which looks like it was from Will and Grace season one except it's sixteen years later).  Alfre Woodard should be president, but not when I have to also watch Katherine Heigl.  Casey Wilson was a riot on Happy Endings and has terrific sitcom timing, but Marry Me seems like it will be cancelled by November.  And John Mulaney is adorable and funny in his stand-up, but should have been able to swing better than what FOX just gave him.  If the reviews improve on any of these shows or there's a surprise ratings hit I'll probably check in because I want these actors to do well, but I'd really prefer them to have good material more.

4. The Flash (The CW)

I don't watch anything on The CW.  To the point where while I was researching it I referred to it as the WB.  That's how both old and out-of-it I am.  That said, I cannot help but be intrigued enough by The Flash to want to put it in an actual listing here instead of just dismiss it.  The show seems to have that nice comic-book vibe but without going so heavy-handed quite yet.  I also am marveling at how the show is able to sustain the special effects.  The thing I don't think that network television has quite realized about what people are craving in cable and premium television is the anthology sort of story-the way that there's a patience in the plotting and that people don't have to worry that the show won't be here next week (you at least get a season finale, for example).  There is a place and a time for serials, but if networks want to get back to creating great, watchable dramas like Lost or Desperate Housewives (or wonder why Scandal works so well) it's because there's a vision for the show.  The Flash seems to have an understanding of that.  Plus, Grant Gustin is crazy hot.

3. Gotham (FOX)

I didn't really want to list both of the comic book shows in the Top 4, but you give me a better solution. The cast isn't what you'd call awe-inspiring (I rather enjoy Ben McKenzie, but have never been able to say the same about Jada Pinkett Smith, and I'm not really familiar with the rest), but again-I'm willing to get behind a series that clearly has a story and a direction to tell, even if it's a story and direction we've seen before.  I'm in desperate need of a network drama to work, and this has that vibe that it could be a huge hit.  Plus, there's at least some fireworks and potential in the trailer, and unlike some past fall seasons, this is probably the highest concept series that we're going to get this year (it's really light on high-concept, probably because Revolution failed so spectacularly).  Color me intrigued, though wishing we could find another universe to play around with.

2. How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)

An incredibly saucy title, this trailer is the only one I actually watched twice.  Dean Thomas goes to law school is initially what I got (Alfie Enoch plays what looks to be a main character), but really, this trailer is all about Viola Davis.  Davis' momentum couldn't be hotter right now (I'd argue she may well have deserved both of those Oscars), and while I think that she isn't quite right for television (she's more of a movie star), that doesn't mean she cannot sell it, and she genuinely seems to be having fun with a sly role.  Throw in the only gay character that seems to actually, you know, be gay in one of these trailers (The McCarthys subscribes to the sexless Will Truman avenue of portrayal) and a wickedly fun plot (is the entire trailer just from the pilot or throughout a season-it has the vibes of both, which shows that it could be quite sustainable) and you have the recipe for something I want to watch.  Finally, after years of oddly protesting, I will be watching a Shonda Rhimes' series.

1. Gracepoint (FOX)

I'm aware this is super bratty to put at number one, and honestly, I probably should have just gone with HTGAWM at the top slot, but this trailer is so good.  The only problem with it, quite frankly, is that it's a limited series (based off the hit Broadchurch from the BBC, the show will only run for ten episodes).  Otherwise, the show has a Twin Peaks meets Prisoners vibe, and what a cast!  David Tennant, Anna Gunn, Nick Nolte, Jacki freaking Weaver!  You couldn't ask for a better crew, and Nolte and Weaver in particular seem to be A) incredibly well-cast and B) wickedly fun to watch.  I genuinely cannot wait for this series to premiere.  If only the networks would have this sort of confidence with an open-run series, they'd be in a far better place.

Those are my list (decidedly light on comedies-I'm not big on any of them at this point).  What are yours?  What are you dying to see this fall?  Share in the comments!

Top 10 Women Who Should Join Twitter

While I was doing my daily check-in with all things social media yesterday (anyone else find Pinterest particularly slow?), I was thinking about the people who I wish were on Twitter, but are not.  I started to make a list for a post, in fact, and ended up with six women listed before I got to a guy, and so I figured I’d make this post gender-specific.  Here are the ten women I wish were on Twitter but aren’t:

10. Catherine Deneuve

The gorgeous, icy French actress recently turned seventy (Happy birthday!) and is an icon of French cinema.  She’s worked with Roman Polanski, Luis Bunuel, Francois Truffaut, Jacque Demy, and Lars von Trier-you know those five combined have some epic stories she could start sending out (seriously-has this woman written a memoir?)  She’s also very politically active and is a fashion icon.  Who wouldn’t want to follow her?

9. Sofia Coppola

I promise this list won’t be made up entirely of enigmatic, fashionable women (okay, I don’t promise that at all-if I was straight I’d clearly end up turning into Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, brought down by my own personal Barbara Stanwyck).  Coppola regularly finds herself making interesting movies and gallivanting around the world to film festivals and New York and Italy.  For the record, I also think that all of these people should be on Instagram in addition to Twitter.

8. Jacki Weaver

Have you ever seen Jacki Weaver, the deliciously talented woman who won our 2010 OVP Award, in an interview or a speech?  She’s an utter delight-regularly talking about her ex-husbands/lovers and her experiences with directors and her love of acting.  Throw in some recent Senate polling numbers and that’s basically all my Twitter feed is.  Melissa Leo is there Jacki-sign yourself up!

7. Patti LuPone

LuPone is the grand dame of Broadway-every young actress on Broadway wants to be her (and, let’s face it, so do a lot of young actors).  LuPone, though, has something vital to being a great presence on Twitter-she has opinions.  Lots and lots of opinions-she takes great stances about audience etiquette on Broadway (a worthy topic) and wrote a deeply juicy memoir a few years back that would translate well to the occasional shade-throwing tweet.

6. Meryl Streep

In my heart, of course, Meryl is always first place, but that would be too expected so I'll keep her in sixth.  Meryl is funny, elegant, charming, and always nails every interview that she’s ever done.  Plus, she’s worked with every single person in Hollywood, so you know she’d be having great back-and-forths with Jane Fonda or Leo DiCaprio on Twitter.  Come, join the party Meryl!

5. Lauren Bacall

For a while there, there was a rather popular fake Bacall Twitter feed where the Oscar-winning actress slammed Twilight and made up saucy stories about her fellow Golden Age stars.  Wouldn’t it be a hoot to have the frank and delicious real thing on Twitter, telling us what it was like to go to the Brown Derby with Vivien Leigh and Joan Crawford?

4. Pippa Middleton

I know the rest of the world might be “over” her (she’s not even a godparent, sad face), but I cannot get enough.  My day is instantly brightened with some sort of Pippa news and I am waiting to see when she’s engaged.  Plus, this is the closest I’m going to ever get to Kate joining, and you know that Pippa would snap a few candids with nephew George!

3. Tilda Swinton

Doesn’t it feel like Tilda Swinton, who is so intensely quotable and always popping up in some avant garde conversation, is already on Twitter?  It does, but she isn’t, and it needs to be rectified.  The Oscar-winning actress is a fountain of great opinions, is constantly working on interesting projects and with hip artists, and is a fashion icon.  Who doesn’t want to see what Tilda wears on laundry day, or if Tilda Swinton has a laundry day?

2. Jennifer Lawrence

Lawrence has famously taken a stance against Twitter, but we all weren’t going to join Twitter until we did, so it’s just a matter of time Jen.  More than any other actor of her generation, Lawrence isn’t afraid to go there with a naughty story or a saucy aside.  Twitter was born for Jennifer Lawrence to join-let’s get a behind-the-scenes look-pretty please Katniss!

1. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

Only an idiot would need me to explain why this is something we all need more than oxygen and water.

Those are my ten (err…eleven)-what are yours?  Which famous ladies (or gents) would you like to see on Twitter?

OVP: Supporting Actress (2012)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2012)

The Nominees Were...

Amy Adams, The Master

Sally Field, Lincoln

Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

My Thoughts: My computer is giving me a bit of a headache (actually, scratch that, the internet is being slow-Word is just fine), so my patience in writing this may be up after a while, and I might have to take a break before I pile into writing the lead categories.

But for now, I'll tackle the supporting players, and we'll start out with the supporting player who is the lead in her film, Helen Hunt.  Like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Supporting Actor, which we just discussed (click the Supporting Actor link below to peruse), this puts me in a bit of a quandary when it comes to ranking these performances, as Hunt is quite good in her movie, perhaps the best she's been since Mad About You, and better than her work in As Good As It Gets, but it's a bit unfair to compare her screentime with that of someone like Jacki Weaver, who is fifth lead at best in her movie.

But I digress, and will use Hunt's presence as a lead as a tiebreaker against her if I need to do so.  In the meantime, let's revel in the excellence on display here.  Forget for a second that there was definitely something brave about doing nudity at Hunt's age (or at least that's what the press said-personally if I looked as good as Hunt does, I'd be at the beach all the time, and it would have nothing to do with bravery).  What we have with Hunt is a miracle of filmmaking-an actress that gets to play a sexually-charged character who doesn't have to fall into romantic love or sacrifice a part of herself for a true character arch.  The best acted scene of the film was Hunt's breakdown in the car, with her crying about something she doesn't quite understand, and Hunt letting that abandon fly with little regard for comprehension.  Why this scene works, though, is because Hunt has established this woman as independent, as professional, and as someone who has done her job for many years and will continue to do it for many more.  The majority of films want to completely reinvent a person in a movie, but life doesn't work like that.  Hunt's performance understands this, and shows small shifts but no great leaps, and that makes her work so much richer.

Sally Field, on the flip side, may have wanted a bit more leaps in her character.  There was a lot to admire in Field's consummate work as Mary Todd, driven primarily by the fact that we so consistently underestimate Field as an actress.  She's a strong performer, but because we frequently associate her with Gidget and the Flying Nun and her cheerful, perky demeanor, we forget that she can do great things in front of a camera when she has opportunity, and that's apparent in her many duet scenes with Day-Lewis.  What I didn't like about this character, though, was the way that she tried too hard to rewrite Mary Todd Lincoln.  We are aware that the depictions of the "Mad Mary Todd" may be historically inaccurate, but her melancholy becomes far too ambitious, far too minute for the audience (it also bugged me to no avail that they rewrite Mary Todd but kept Lincoln a saint, though that's something I discussed rather handily in the review of Lincoln, so check that out if you're curious).  It's nice to have Field back in a great film (and to have an actress of a certain age getting cast for a role that could have gone with a much younger actress), but this is fine, not necessarily great.

Anne Hathaway is, in a lot of ways, very similar to Sally Field.  Both actresses had beginnings in wholesome, commercial-but-not-necessarily art fare (Princess Mia, anyone?), and both are far better actresses than their reputations have allowed.  I know that it is all the fashion to diss Anne Hathaway these days, but she's an actress of great talent despite her punching bag status, and her work in Les Miserables is proof of that.

Fantine is a killer part for anyone to play, and likely would have resulted in an Oscar nomination for almost anyone considering the prestige behind this project-she gets to play a prostitute, a destitute mother, gets a killer solo ballad, and gets to die.  That's the stuff that Oscar dreams are made of, and so Hathaway was almost always going to get nominated here.  What sets her apart, and allowed her to stampede over Field and Adams (her nearest competition), was that she sells the work, body-and-soul.  That gut-wrenching performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" finds the pain in the character, and with Marshall so wisely deciding to have her do it live, it allows for little imperfections in the execution and emotional baggage to land in the character.  Fantine is far too saintly for my liking, but Hathaway's performance is not-it gets to the woman behind the saint, and shows us a flesh-and-blood person.

Amy Adams, on the other hand, is not playing a saint, and may in fact be playing the devil, a change of pace for an actress that also has her perky baggage (Princess Giselle, anyone?).  Adams is a bit of a divisive figure amongst Oscar critics (she's been nominated four times in less than a decade), having been so rewarded and everyone has at least one performance they feel didn't deserve to be included of hers (for the record, that performance is never Junebug, still her best work).  I was of the camp that her portrayal of Peggy Dodd deserved inclusion.  Adams character choices are so calculated, but so is her character.  This is a woman who has a backbone of steel and the conscience of a sociopath-she's willing to stamp out all in her way, but you don't realize that until it's too late.  It helps that Anderson cast Adams, an actress whose characters always deserve the benefit of the doubt, to make her late decisions as a character, when Freddie has been used to her advantage and is now going to be tossed aside, all the more sinister.  A brava performance, and one of my favorite pieces of work from her.

The final nomination was our surprise inclusion of the acting races, Jacki Weaver.  Every year one actor gets in despite no precursor buzz, and this year it was Weaver.  The nomination was oddly reminiscent of Alan Alda's in 2004 for The Aviator, where a Best Picture frontrunner manages to scoop along a nomination for one of its lesser performances in a category that was fairly confused about who should be the final nominee.

I did enjoy Weaver's work here, I have to say, but there's nothing remotely special about it that warranted an Oscar nomination.  She plays the feeble side wife, who has dealt with mental illness for years (probably decades) and is used to her routines, and her crabby snacks and homemades.  Weaver is a welcome presence in everything she does (she's intensely watchable as an actress), but aside from her chastising Cooper in the car in the film's opening scenes (the scene that clearly won her the nomination, with a lot of help from Harvey), there's nothing that stands out about this performance.  Hopefully this nomination leads to more people giving Weaver great work (she was spectacular in Animal Kingdom, after all), but it's a nomination that never should have happened.

Other Precursor Contenders: As Jacki Weaver wasn't nominated by any of the precursors, we saw at least one additional name in all of precursor awards.  At the Globes (where Hathaway won), Weaver's place was taken by Nicole Kidman's bawdy work in The Paperboy.  At the BAFTA Awards, the adage "never underestimate Judi Dench" stuck quite nicely, with Dame Judi getting cited for her work in Skyfall (again, Hathaway won).  And at the SAG Awards, where Hathaway was again victorious, both Weaver and Amy Adams were left out, with Kidman and Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel both making the cut.  Smith, Kidman, and Ann Dowd in Compliance were the frontrunners for Weaver's spot, and considering her upswing career lately, my gut tells me it was Smith who was in sixth place.

Films I Would Have Nominated: The most egregious snub was for Dowd, as she was the only one of the women that was hunting for the nomination that I would have nominated without hesitation.  One could make the argument that she's the lead (a fair argument, to be sure), but either way she deserved inclusion for her naive fast food manager with low self-esteem.  Dowd's lack of a nomination is particularly depressing because we saw what a fifth place Oscar nomination did for Jacki Weaver's career a few years back for equally deserving work in Animal Kingdom.  I also find that Emma Watson is slowly becoming one of the actresses to watch of Gen Y, with her work in Perks of Being a Wallflower being so real and lovely.

Oscar’s Choice: Hathaway walked away with the category so handily it's hard to decide whether it was the obvious contender of Field or one of the other three women who came in second place (since Hathaway likely grabbed 70% of the vote, I would buy the argument that anyone other than Weaver was in second place).

My Choice: I'm sad I don't get to be a contrarian, but I'm going with Hathaway as well-it's too good to ignore.  In second place, I'll break the tie with Adams trumping Hunt's leading work, followed by Field and then Weaver.

We now have just the Big 4 to go!  What did you think about the Supporting Actress Oscar race?  Is anyone still Team Anne, and if you aren't, who were you rooting for (and please don't say "Anyone but Hathaway")?  Is there anyone out there who was cheering for Weaver?  And with a nail-biter sixth place race, who do you think was the closest to taking the final slot?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2012: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2010, 2011