OVP: Supporting Actress (2018)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Amy Adams, Vice

Marina de Tavira, Roma

Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone, The Favourite

Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

My Thoughts: Unlike Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress has some truly great performances in 2018 (the women definitely outshone the men in both lead & supporting in 2018).  The problem here, if we're going to call it one, is the reality of category fraud, which is a topic we discuss a lot on this blog (and they discuss virtually everywhere Oscar discussions happen online).  I tend to think of category fraud this way when it comes to the OVP-it's important to level the playing field a bit, so I remove one "star" from a five star rating if someone is committing category fraud to make it in this lineup, because otherwise it's not fair to those people playing in a smaller time slot.  However, I don't blanket refuse to give an award to a performance if, say, that bumps one nomination down to 4-stars and no one else is above a three (this has happened in a few races, like our 2005 & 2012 Supporting Actor fields)-category fraud performances can win, but they need to do so on a higher plane.

The reason I bring this up is that there is at least one surefire category fraud performance here, and debatably a second one.  The first that is obviously a lead is Emma Stone in The Favourite.  I'm not going to get into technical definitions of lead/supporting (while these can be fascinating, they also can border into the silly if you get too literal), but Stone is the lead in this movie-her story is central to the plot, even if Colman might reign as the queen.  So I'm taking a star off, which still puts Stone as one of the best performances in this lineup, because this is the best thing I've seen from her to date.  Her Abigail is spoiled, calculating, and as the film continues, truly amazing in the way she unfolds before our eyes.  It's terrific work from an actress who seems to be doing some of her most fascinating acting after she picked up her Oscar (which gives you the impression that she could well get a second one).

Her costar Rachel Weisz is a slightly different case.  I personally think this is a lead performance, though she doesn't have the screen-time that Stone or Colman do.  Sometimes movies have three leads, and her story is just as central as the others.  Normally for debatable performances I might toe-the-line & not knock down a star, but I don't quite see it that way here and am doing it for Weisz as well.  That's important to say again because Weisz is amazing in The Favourite.  This is some spellbinding work, playing someone who in some ways is similar to Abigail (ruthless, ambitious, greedy), but in other ways she has a different perspective (unlike Abigail, she cares about, perhaps even loves, the Queen but knows that to play such a hand would be to give a vulnerability she's not capable of).  Also, and I know this is an embarrassment of riches, but of the three women she's the best at delivering the film's delicious dialogue.

None of the other performances in the lineup are category fraud worries-the remaining ladies are 100% supporting performances.  The one who gives the Favourite ladies a run for her money is Regina King.  Her work in If Beale Street Could Talk is relegated to two major scenes in the movie, one with her daughter saying she's pregnant & the other in Puerto Rico.  The scene with her daughter, where she defends her child against the baby's other grandmother, is pure acting panache-great scenes, lines, & King aces it.  The Puerto Rico scenes are subtler, but they might be the more impressive achievement.  You see how her Sharon used to be, before she was a mother, the way that she still understands the appeal she once utilized to her advantage, the ease of a lifted veil when not assigned the responsibility of wife-and-mother.  It's technical wizardry from one of our best working actresses.

Amy Adams gets the best-written part in Vice, and probably the part that's the truest to life.  By all accounts Lynne Cheney, not her husband, was the "natural politician" and you see that in the way that Adams brings out her ambition from behind-the-curtain, knowing that she'd never be able to claim the mantle for herself because she was born at the wrong time.  But Adams can't explain why Lynne wants power, and that hurts the performance.  The problem with Vice is that McKay wants us to make these figures evil, but doesn't have the guts to just push that into "we're bad people" territory, thinking it's too easy of an answer.  But Adams' performance lacks that awareness, and it makes even the most ridiculous of scenes (like the infamous Shakespearean dialogue fourth-wall breaking) feel ludicrous, and not stylized.

Marina de Tavira is one of the most shocking nominations in recent history for this category, truly coming out of nowhere to get this nomination after no precursors (none) had paid attention to her.  She is solid in Roma-of the entire cast, which relies on naturalism, she's the professional actor of the bunch & it shows.  I don't buy that "newcomers are the best option" for vehicles like this (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't-we'll get into Yalitza Aparicio next week for my final thoughts), and De Tavira feels best-prepared to encounter some of the more literal aspects of Cuaron's class tale.  But she also isn't the focus, and it's not a daring performance or noteworthy one even if it's the best part in a great movie.  It's not her fault that she got upstaged by the water on the garage floor, because that's where Cuaron wants your attention...but she did get upstaged by it.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Regina King as their victor, and kept Oscar's lineup intact save for De Tavira (they went with Claire Foy in First Man instead).  SAG gave their trophy to Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) of all people, mostly because they skipped both King & De Tavira (their other nominee was Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots).  BAFTA also skipped both King & De Tavira, adding in Robbie & Foy, and here gave the trophy to Weisz, so a three-way split on the winners of the major precursors.  In terms of sixth place, I know that Foy, Blunt, & Robbie all have their acolytes here, but I honestly think it was Linda Cardellini in Green Book.  The film was very popular (it won Best Picture for a reason), she's in the "long-suffering wife" category, and De Tavira getting in makes me think that Oscar just wasn't feeling some of the other precursor options & was willing to go in a totally different direction.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: At some point we're going to need to see Ann Dowd get in with the Oscars.  She's been so good so often in the past decade we take it for granted, but the brilliant actress was once again marvelous as the enigmatic Joan in Hereditary, totally owning the screen.

Oscar’s Choice: Though the precursors were spread out pretty wide, I honestly think that King won by more than the range of winners would suggest-Weisz or maybe De Tavira could make a decent argument for second, but King's win feels like one of those JK Simmons/Allison Janney-style victories that happen where everyone's collectively like "oh, sure, she's great-let's make her an Oscar winner."

My Choice: I think there are three five-star performances in this lineup...and this is why I led with category fraud as an issue, because I'm going to give this to King as a result.  You'll see all three of these women in the My Ballot in two weeks, but the Favourite ladies will be in lead where they belong, and though Weisz (silver) and Stone (bronze) might be performances I like mildly better than King's, I'm going to stick to my rules and give it to the one true supporting performance.  De Tavira and then Adams round out the list.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone with Oscar & I in giving Regina King a trophy, or do you want to support an additional nominee?  What is the fairest way to handle an issue like category fraud?  And how often do we have performances like Marina de Tavira's lurking in sixth place, a total shock that we have no idea is sitting there?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2018: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Film: Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Stars: Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Owen Asztalos, Freida Pinto

Director: Ron Howard

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Glenn Close, Makeup & Hairstyling)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I like reading, but I don't do it as often as I should or like, and shouldn't get credit for being a devoted reader if you're a bibliophile (I put away maybe 15-20 books a year-consider that a "frequent reader" or a "casual one" on your terms).  So it's not often that I get to see a movie based on a book from the past ten years and say "I read the book," but Hillbilly Elegy is weirdly a movie I can claim that about.  I was in a book club briefly that was focused on more modern literature, and one of the titles that was chosen was JD Vance's memoir, and so I went into it with little knowledge of what it was about (I didn't read it), and came away...truly hating the book.  The book is part a story of Vance's rough childhood, with a drug-addicted mother & a hard scrabble existence in rural Kentucky & Middletown, Ohio, but it's also a disgusting, oftentimes prejudiced look at race, economics, education, & the government.  It is not a film that I would normally pay money to watch, but considering both Adams & Close are in the Oscar conversation (and that it was free on Netflix), I did catch it, and while it's an improvement on the book...well, you saw the star rating, right?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie alternates between 1997 and 2011, and focuses on JD (Basso as an adult, Asztalos as a child), whose childhood is spent in near constant states of disarray due to his mother Bev's (Adams) issues with drug addiction, while as an adult he feels out-of-place with his Ivy League colleagues as he tries to get an internship as a second year at Yale Law.  JD is forced to take a trip back to see Bev, risking his interview, because she's become addicted to heroin, and has hidden his girlfriend Usha (Pinto) from them because (without saying so, but it's the clear implication) she's not white & he's not sure how his mother will handle that.  As the movie goes along, we see JD's relationship with his grandmother Mamaw (Close), which greatly influenced his life as she was a stabilizing factor in him not ending up like his mother, and in the end he gets the internship (abandoning his mother at a hotel after giving a speech about "family coming first" without even a hint of understanding the irony of that action), and as we see over the credits, his mother becomes sober & he marries Usha.

Ron Howard does a decent job of repurposing really problematic source material, even if he isn't always successful-I want to give the film that before we start because it could've been considerably worse.  Howard, unlike Vance, is a Democrat, and therefore doesn't share all of Vance's beliefs, and cuts out a lot of Vance's libertarian views on welfare (which are hypocritical in the books as he ignores the moments in the story when his family does take government money or charity), as well as Vance's problematic views on race.  Howard tries as hard as he can to simply make this a sentimental story about family & hard times, something that he has done before, and with great success.

But JD Vance is not Jim Lovell or James Braddock...he's no hero, and he's certainly not compelling.  Howard likely couldn't get the rights of the book & totally sideline JD's narrative in favor of the more interesting one between the two principle female characters, and as a result we are left with a rather ordinary child whom everyone keeps saying "has promise."  The reality is, though, that he doesn't-JD as written in the movie doesn't appear to be that smart.  In a truly uncomfortable scene, one that is meant to show the "otherism" of the intellectual, moneyed counterparts of his at Yale, he attacks them for thinking ill of his mother, but before that talks about his family as if he's ten, attacks their own experiences, and he does appear to have a severe lack of maturity & worldview that makes JD the character insufferable throughout (this was one of the many problems with the book).  JD is unlikable, and while obviously he rose above tough surroundings to make it to Yale (one has to assume that he has a modicum of intelligence, or at least ambition, in real life to get to that level), the character in the movie is hopeless.

You of course don't buy a ticket to this movie to talk about JD, even though it's his story; you buy it because Amy Adams & Glenn Close are starring in the movie.  I'm sorry to say that if you're here for them to finally win their overdue Oscars, they're either not getting them or they're getting them for the wrong performances.  Adams has no grounding in this woman, playing each scene to the hilt & creating no consistency in her; the script does her zilch favors (as does the entire quandary around JD being a black hole for charisma), but this is the worst performance I've seen from Adams.  It's a mess from a brilliant actress.  Close is better, and the only thing remotely worth saving in this movie (she plays her part much more subdued than Adams), but it's still dismissible, and she cannot ground the childlike idolization of Mamaw with her being a real woman.  It's a part that'd be easy to root for if you liked the movie...but I cannot fathom why someone would like this movie.

OVP: Supporting Actress (2005)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2005)

The Nominees Were...

Amy Adams, Junebug
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

My Thoughts: There are a few of these contests where I am sluggish about doing the writeup because the winner is so obvious to me in my brain, it feels like I'm not going to find something new to write about the victor.  The 2005 Best Supporting Actress race, though, I'm nervous about for a different reason-I genuinely don't know who is going to win.  I have wrestled with this race for years, and while I picked a winner at the time, I've sort of just chalked it up as a "good year" rather than committing since whom I would select (if I had "tie" cards to play in this series, this might be one of the times I'd pull one out).  However, the whole point of this project is to get officially on the record, and to pick even in tough races, so I'm going to do just that.  But first, I'm going to buy myself some time by writing about the two women that won't be winning.

First off is Frances McDormand.  McDormand is a great actress, and while her curmudgeonly offscreen persona has started to seep into her performances as of late (in many ways she reminds me of Meryl Streep in that regard), she's a fantastic presence.  The problem here is that that star persona is really all she has going for her-her work as Glory Dodge is all grit, but not enough substance, and there's not enough there for us to really vest in her character and her role in Josey's tale.  In a lot of ways this should mirror Cher's work in Silkwood, but unlike Cher, McDormand doesn't give us enough hiding behind the surface to make this character compelling, and thus this feels like a coattail nomination for a popular actress.

The other nomination that is going nowhere in terms of the win is Catherine Keener.  Keener's work is better than McDormand's-she gives Harper Lee a sense of understanding & patience that feel like genuine character assets.  My favorite part about great supporting performances is that they are small, but feel like they could carry their own movie they have so much backstory in their reactions.  Keener has that, but the script isn't interested in her journey as we continue on, totally devoted instead to Truman, and while that isn't Keener's fault, compared to three movies where the actors are doing best-in-career work, it's hard to compare the two.  Still-a solid piece-of-work from an actress that always elevates her movie.

Which brings us to the big three, starting out with Amy Adams.  Her Ashley is so good; Adams had been teetering toward stardom for years when this film was released (particularly with her showy role in Catch Me If You Can), but this brought her to a new echelon.  Ashley is a difficult part, as she's so earnest & forthright that it'd be easy to play her for laughs, or to make the audience feel like they're in on a joke against her.  Adams doesn't do that-Ashley is a real human being, someone who understands pain, but doesn't feel it needs to discussed in the sort of hushed tones we expect from film character's experiencing heartbreak and tragedy.  Adams' work is occasionally marred by Junebug's lack of focus with its other characters-she's giving 110%, but the inconsistencies of the other characters are not overcome by the script, and thus she occasionally feels a little out-of-place, but that's just looking for faults-this is possibly Adams' best work 15 years later.

Michelle Williams' Alma has the smallest amount of screen-time of the three women I'm considering for this trophy, but she makes every second count.  Williams plays Alma as the sort of woman who was trained to be a wife-and-mother, the pretty girl who never assumed that she'd be in a situation where her husband wouldn't worship her.  Her big showdown later with Ennis is building off of that anger, that he took away a "simple" life from her, and how he did so in a way that she can't discuss with another soul.  Alma is an introverted character, someone that has to hide everything, and those are difficult to play while still landing a punch with the audience.  That Williams is able to do that is a testament to how this is also her best work in the past 15 years.  About the only complaint I have here is that Alma's performance occasionally feels unfinished-we don't get to have that last understanding of what she thinks of Ennis' life or Jack's death, and thus she feels ancillary even with Williams' work demanding attention.

Weisz's work is oftentimes maligned or dismissed in part due to the passionate fanbases for Williams & Adams, and in part because unlike those two actresses, this isn't her best work (that would be either The Deep Blue Sea or The Favourite depending on whom you ask).  But that doesn't mean that she isn't on-par and exceeding them in what she brings to Tessa Quayle.  Tessa is so complicated in this film, having to use her sexuality to get to what she needs, and thus because Weisz has her playing a part, she's difficult to understand.  If it weren't for the groundwork that Weisz gives us in the first half, when so many other actresses would have dropped easier hints as to Tessa's true feelings but Weisz doesn't, the back-half of the film wouldn't be a proper mystery.  We aren't just trying to figure out why Tessa died, but who she was.  That's a really tremendous task for an actor, and she nails it.  The only knock I have on Weisz is that this does border on a lead performance, and so it's questionable whether she should lose a star for that (in which case she'd lose as these are three 5-star portrayals).

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes threw in an expected curveball (Scarlett Johansson was a huge favorite of HFPA at the time, and thus was an easy option for Match Point) and an unexpected one (Shirley MacLaine in In Her Shoes, the 2005 movie I'm most bummed I didn't catch before commencing this OVP run), to go along with McDormand, Williams, and the victorious Weisz.  SAG also favored Weisz, here against a carbon copy of the eventual Oscars lineup, while BAFTA did their own thing giving the trophy to Thandie Newton (Crash), bumping Weisz to lead, and tossing out Adams in favor of Brenda Blethyn in Pride & Prejudice.  In terms of sixth place, I can't quite tell who it was.  I think there's an argument to be made that it was none of these women, and instead Maria Bello (A History of Violence), particularly after she'd been left out in 2003 despite an expected citation, but upon reflection I have to assume it was Newton, as Crash ended up doing very well with Oscar and she was probably close to beating out Keener or Adams had she slightly more momentum from HFPA or SAG.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: As you can imagine, three of these nominees would definitely stay in my book.  I'd add in Bello, who gives her career-best work in History of Violence and is so good as the woman who has carried many of her suspicions about her husband for so many years.  I'd also give an early nod to Anne Hathaway, who while not in the same league as Williams, brings a different, more knowing perspective on what her husband's sexuality is to her performance, and is intriguing as a less sympathetic counterweight to Alma.

Oscar’s Choice: Weisz clobbered throughout the awards season, and won in what really wouldn't have been that competitive a race despite us rewriting it to be so in hindsight thanks to the trajectories of Williams & Adams' careers.

My Choice: We'll go backwards-McDormand is in fifth, Keener in fourth.  I'll give the bronze to Amy Adams, if only because of the problems I have with Junebug not always gelling as a film.  For the win, I'm changing my mind from what I said in 2005.  I think Williams does more with less, and Weisz, while not lead enough for me to totally dock a star, at the very least is central enough to the plot that it's hard for me to pick her over Williams considering the size of their roles & the similar impact that they have onscreen.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  On a different day, I might pick a different performance, but today I'm on Team Williams-are you with me, or are you smarting from me snubbing Weisz?  Would this race be on the all-timer's list if you could snub McDormand for Bello?  And do you think Thandie Newton will be able to parlay her Westworld credentials into a long-delayed Oscar nomination at some point?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2005: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

OVP: Vice (2018)

Film: Vice (2018)
Stars: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe, Tyler Perry, Jesse Plemons, Naomi Watts
Director: Adam McKay
Oscar History: 8 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Christian Bale, Supporting Actor-Sam Rockwell, Supporting Actress-Amy Adams, Film Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling*, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I had to double-check, but contrary to popular opinion (and by that I mean, the 3-4 people I actually would discuss such a film with), I didn't hate The Big Short when it came out.  McKay's filmmaking had its bumps, and I didn't love all of his decisions in the film, but the movie progressed nicely and had enough to recommend it that I gave it 3-stars when I first viewed it.  McKay, given the newfound respect of an Oscar & a license to make any film he wanted, could have focused on the sharper aspects of his big "critical" break, cleaning up some of his indulgences and giving us a specific, interesting follow-up.  Instead, he decided that he wanted to ratchet up his spastic storytelling contrivances, give us a heavy-handed, directionless look at a ruthless viper of a human being, and pretend that he can tie a giant bow on the top of it, guilt-free, as a result of being the guy who made the movie.  This results in one of the worst films I've seen all year, and (should it be nominated, as many including myself are predicting), will make it one of the worst films to ever contend for Best Picture.

(We all lived through it-we don't need spoilers, though perhaps they would have been handy at the time) The film follows the long political career of Dick Cheney (Bale), from his beginnings as a drunk driver who avoided the draft to his quick trip to Congress, staying under the tutelage of Don Rumsfeld (Carell), which led him to important roles in the Nixon, Ford, and Bush-41 administrations, as well as a ten year stint in Congress before he became Vice President.  The film mostly focuses on Cheney & his wife Lynne (Adams), giving little credence to any story arcs focusing on those around them, only adding in a few moments about their daughters Liz (Rabe) and Mary (Pill) toward the end to underline how callous and nasty they were in their drive to power.

Vice is going to be hard for any conservative to stomach, even if a lot of the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration line up with historical fact, even if it's not always obvious which actions the real-life Cheney actually perpetrated and which ones are McKay's imagination running-wild.  I'm not going to be here to defend Cheney, as some have, saying the film is a hatchet job.  Cheney is arguably the politician I like the least, and considering his views on torture, the poor, energy reform, and the way that his administration fleeced the American tax coffers for his own profit are inexcusable, and probably should have landed most of the administration in jail at some point.  It's a testament to how truly awful Cheney was that I listed eight things off the top of my head that he did while in office the film didn't have room for that any other biopic would've been the main headline-it takes a lot of time to name check every evil thing that Dick Cheney ever did.

No, my problem here is the way the film doesn't seem to have a goal, other than to make attempts at being clever and consistently condescending.  McKay's directorial choices are wacky (frequently having Seth MacFarlane-esque cutaways where Adams & Bale quote bad Shakespearean dialogue or a mid-film credits sequence where they make the Cheneys look like the Waltons).  These serve as distractions from the simple fact that McKay doesn't have much of interest to say of Cheney.  He does make an unusually poor idea for a protagonist, since he never changes (he's an oppressive thug for the entirety of the film, and the only thing that he ever alters his mind on is eventually cutting his daughter Mary loose to further his political ambitions).  He clearly wants there to be heroes in the Bush administration, and makes the likes of Bush (played by Sam Rockwell), Condoleezza Rice (LisaGay Hamilton), and Colin Powell (Perry) seem more sympathetic by making them just dumb.  This is lazy history, and tries to exonerate George W. Bush in a way so many critics do by making him seem less intelligent and less aware of what was going on in the administration than he obviously would have been (and even if you're going to say that Bush is dumb, you can't say the same for someone like Condi Rice, who is clearly Cheney's equal intellectually & knew exactly what was happening during this administration).  Thankfully he doesn't do the same for Adams' portrayal of Lynne, by all-accounts the more natural politician of the two, who seems just as power-hungry as he is, albeit thanks to sexism without the same avenues to achieve it.  About the only figure who should garner any sympathy is Pill's Mary, but McKay has given Dick Cheney (too much) credit for backing civil unions and glosses over how the vice president sold his daughter out to give his other daughter a leg-up in her failed bid for the Senate, making what should be a big betrayal of a scene feel too muted.

This would all be bad, all be just a gigantic mess of a movie, if McKay wasn't so damn smug about Cheney in his screenwriting.  Based on the politics of McKay's recent filmography, I think it's safe to assume he did not vote for Bush/Cheney, but neither did tens of millions of other people who protested against, campaigned against, and denounced this administration.  And yet he has the gaul to have Bale's Cheney pull a Frank Underwood and say "you wanted this, you wanted me to do this," as if to stave off the most virulent of conservative critics of the movie (did anyone else feel like he was ripping off that famous Sideshow Bob speech?..."but deep down you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican").  He also frequently states that voters were too stupid or too obsessed with mindless pop culture to notice that Cheney, Rumseld, and their ilk were committing war crimes without any repercussions, but that's simply not true (millions of Americans stood tall against Bush & Cheney, protesting and voting against their administration, and to say otherwise is an insult to all those whose work eventually led to the Obama administration).  Also, it feels pretty hypocritical for the man who spent the Bush administration making Anchorman and Step Brothers to suddenly be high-and-mighty about idiotic pop culture during a time of great trouble.

As a result, I can't get behind any of this movie, and I think it's an insult it's about to be hailed by organizations like the Golden Globes and (inevitably) the Oscars as a great movie when it's not only a terrible one, but one that maintains no sense of context.  Even the performances are questionably done-are you going to tell me that Dick Cheney, of all people, has no idea why he commited these monstrosities?  That Lynne Cheney has no real idea why she wanted more power? And yet this is the way that Bale & Adams play them, and no amount of convincing makeup and prosthetics can make up for a lack of center in these cinematic creations.  These are the sorts of people who would sell out their own daughter to gain some more respectable poll numbers, and yet I left Vice having no understanding why they even wanted to be in DC in the first place other than pure evil.  McKay's film lacks perspective and is a meandering dumpster fire.  Dick Cheney didn't deserve better than that, but the ticket buyers for this movie sure as hell did.

Oscar's Long-Suffering Bridesmaids

Glenn Close-will she go 0/7?

We are in the heat of precursor season, and while these awards are relatively pointless if all they're doing is trying to predict the Academy Awards, let's be honest-that seems to be what most of them are doing.  If that's the case, we could be looking at yet another year where Glenn Close & Amy Adams are trying to secure their long-awaited Oscars, and I thought "wait, Oscar trivia...there must be some way that I can turn that into a list!" and lo-and-behold, I was right.

A couple of things can be true about the Oscars at once-it's very hard to be nominated for an Oscar and if you're nominated once, it's likely going to be your only nomination.  However, if you can get in a couple of times, it's probable that you're also going to get a trophy.  There's almost certainly a mathematical explanation here (you can only have so many years where you've got a "20% shot of winning" and not actually win), but it's rarer, especially for living actors, for you to be nominated 3+ times and not have an actual trophy.  For women, there are currently only fifteen actresses to hold this distinction, two of them being Close & Adams.  Were they to die without having ever won, they would join a small group of actresses ranging from Irene Dunne to Thelma Ritter to Deborah Kerr, but it's a short list.  Only 11 women have ever been nominated for at least three competitive Oscars and died without winning one, so it's very probable that most of the women on this list eventually take home a trophy.  Let's take a look and guess how many will actually win, and see who has come the closest to Oscar, shall we?

Note: These are ranked first by how many nominations an actress made, and then by who most-recently got her latest nomination.

15. Saoirse Ronan (1994-Present)

Nominations: Atonement (Supporting Actress in 2007), Brooklyn (Actress in 2015), & Lady Bird (Actress in 2017)
She Lost To: Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, & Frances McDormand
Closest to the Win: Maybe Atonement?  Brooklyn is more likely that she got second place, but Larson was so far-out-in-front that year that 2007, which was a genuine question mark headed into Oscar night, might have actually been her closest.
Well, She Still Won...: Ronan lost the Oscar for Lady Bird, but she still won the Golden Globe that year (and let's be honest, should have won the Oscar).
Is This Happening Someday?: She's 24 and already a three-time nominee who appears almost constantly in Oscar BAIT-y projects (just this year she's playing a queen who spends most of the film giving passionate speeches).  This is the easiest call of the bunch-she's probably going to win, likely in the next 4-5 years.

14. Laura Linney (1964-Present)

Nominations: You Can Count on Me (Actress in 2000), Kinsey (Supporting Actress in 2004), & The Savages (Actress in 2007)
She Lost to: Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett & Marion Cotillard
Closest to the Win: None of these were particularly close.  The Savages was a shock nomination, and no one could beat Julia in 2000, so it's probably 2004, though she would have had to get through Natalie Portman & Virginia Madsen to even have a shot at Blanchett.
Well, She Still Won...: Linney wins Emmys, not Oscars.  Linney has been nominated for five Emmys, and taken home four of them (her only loss came to Melissa McCarthy in 2011, where she famously stood on the stage in a mock-beauty-pageant), and she's also picked up two Golden Globes, though again for her TV work, not film.
Is This Happening Someday?: Probably not.  Linney isn't as famous as Adams or Julianne Moore, where she could launch a campaign out-of-nowhere and suddenly she'd be on a stampede to Oscar, and she doesn't really make the sorts of movies that get this kind of attention, particularly with TV being considerably kinder in terms of fame than movies ever have been (she's currently starring on the acclaimed Ozark for Netflix).  Never say never for a 3+ nominee, but I don't see this happening.

13. Joan Allen (1956-Present)

Nominations: Nixon (Supporting Actress in 1995), The Crucible (Supporting Actress in 1996), & The Contender (Actress in 2000)
She Lost to: Mira Sorvino, Juliette Binoche & Julia Roberts
Closest to the Win: Surely it was Nixon, where a win was actually very much in the cards (that year was a threeway heat between Sorvino, Allen, and Kate Winslet for Sense & Sensibility).
Well, She Still Won...: While her long list of screen credits have gotten her a lot of nominations, the only major award that Allen has ever won was for her years on Broadway, taking the Tony for Best Actress in 1988's Burn This.
Is This Happening Someday?: Amy Adams, take note, as Joan Allen could very easily be your future.  From 1995-2005, Allen regularly appeared in major contenders (in addition to her three nominations, she plausibly could have been cited for The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, and The Upside of Anger), but the roles dried up as did the Academy's love of her, and she couldn't even get a surprise nomination in 2015 for playing a struggling mother in a Best Picture nominee (which would have been a gimme back in her heyday).  I don't think she is a priority for Oscar anymore.

12. Debra Winger (1955-Present)

Nominations: An Officer and a Gentleman (Actress in 1982), Terms of Endearment (Actress in 1983), and Shadowlands (Actress in 1993)
She Lost to: Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, & Holly Hunter
Closest to the Win: Probably none of these.  In a different world where Sophie's Choice didn't exist I could make an argument that she could take it for Officer and a Gentleman (her career was sort of inching to an Oscar at that point, and Lange didn't need two), but she had three really impossible-to-beat actresses she had to go toe-to-toe with during her three AMPAS competitions.
Well, She Still Won...: Winger is perhaps the only actress on this list to never win a major award of any kind.  She's picked up a couple of critics prizes, but despite Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Emmy nominations, she's never won any of them.
Is This Happening Someday?: No.  Winger famously quit acting in the 1990's, inspiring the film Searching for Debra Winger, and she still has the goods to deliver a role (she was superb in 2008's Rachel Getting Married), but there's no momentum for her to win again, and she was famous for too brief of a period in the 1980's to have a "she needs an Oscar!" movement from the public.

11. Michelle Pfeiffer (1958-Present)

Nominations: Dangerous Liaisons (Supporting Actress in 1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (Actress in 1989), & Love Field (Actress in 1992)
She Lost to: Geena Davis, Jessica Tandy & Emma Thompson
Closest to the Win: I'd assume it would be Fabulous Baker Boys, where she was the only real competition for Tandy, and had won a host of precursors that year, likely meriting the win over Tandy, who was the sentimental favorite.
Well, She Still Won...: Pfeiffer took the Golden Globe for Baker Boys as well as a BAFTA Awards for Dangerous Liaisons, so she's hardly lacking in hardware.
Is This Happening Someday?: Unlike some of our previous actresses, Pfeiffer still has a great deal of pop culture cache, and is the sort of person who is famous enough to launch a Still Alice-style campaign and actually pull it off.  One has to assume that if mother! hadn't divided critics so last year that she could have snuck in for a fourth nomination (and with Russia House, The Age of Innocence, and White Oleander as near misses, a fourth nomination has been in the cards for a while).  She's notoriously press shy & doesn't make a lot of movies, but the fame is still there if she wanted to make a run for this, and quite honestly she's the level-of-famous that she could someday take an Honorary Oscar.

10. Diane Ladd (1935-Present)

Nominations: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Supporting Actress in 1974), Wild at Heart (Supporting Actress in 1990), and Rambling Rose (Supporting Actress in 1991)
She Lost to: Ingrid Bergman, Whoopi Goldberg, & Mercedes Ruehl
Closest to the Win: Bergman's win in 1974 seems to have been something of a surprise, with the precursors all-over-the-map, but they do somewhat hint that Ladd was a probable favorite here along with Valentina Cortese, so I think her first outing was her best option.
Well, She Still Won...: Ladd won the BAFTA Award for Alice..., and then took a Golden Globe Award for the TV series based on Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, called Alice.
Is This Happening Someday?: I'd say no considering her age and her stature as a character actress, but if her daughter Laura Dern can get a revival for her father, why couldn't she get one last hurrah for mom?  Ladd clearly has wanted this for a while (her campaign to get a nomination for Wild at Heart is the stuff of Oscar legend).

9. Sigourney Weaver (1949-Present)

Nominations: Aliens (Actress in 1986), Gorillas in the Mist (Actress in 1988), & Working Girl (Supporting Actress in 1988)
She Lost to: Marlee Matlin, Jodie Foster, & Geena Davis
Closest to the Win: Weaver became the first actor ever to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year and lose both of them (since then it's happened three times, though only once, 2002 with Julianne Moore, did the Oscars doubly-snub someone who hadn't won before).  I would assume considering that 1988 had two winners that were somewhat surprising at the time that her best shot was that year, and perhaps she split her own vote too much to take it.
Well, She Still Won...: Weaver won both of the Golden Globes in 1988, a flip of her eventual Oscar night, and also took home the BAFTA for 1997's The Ice Storm (starring #13 on our list, Joan Allen).
Is This Happening Someday?: While she's not really famous enough to ever win an Honorary Oscar, she still is famous enough from her work in the Alien franchise to demand attention, and could get a fourth nomination if she had the right kind of movie.  Considering she's one of the few actors patient enough to work with Jim Cameron more-than-once, he owes her another juicy role in a movie at some point, if he ever stops making the nonexistent Avatar sequels.

8. Piper Laurie (1932-Present)

Nominations: The Hustler (Actress in 1961), Carrie (Supporting Actress in 1976), & Children of a Lesser God (Supporting Actress in 1986)
She Lost to: Sophia Loren, Beatrice Straight & Dianne Wiest
Closest to the Win: I'm genuinely not sure.  All of these nominations predate my involvement with the Oscars, and I haven't read any of these races as being particularly close.  Were it 2018 when The Hustler came out, she surely would have won Best Supporting Actress for the movie, denying Rita Moreno her iconic win, and proving why category fraud is so dangerous as one of Oscar's best choices would be ruled out as a result.
Well, She Still Won...: Laurie took an Emmy for 1987's Promise and won a Golden Globe in 1990 for Twin Peaks.
Is This Happening Someday?: Laurie still acts (she's seen in the Matthew McConaughey film White Boy Rick this year), but has never been a consistent presence in film, frequently taking long detours on the stage (she didn't appear in a Hollywood movie from The Hustler to Carrie), so I doubt it.  She's not well-known enough to win an Honorary Award, so I'm guessing her next mention with AMPAS will be at the In Memoriam (morbid, but accurate).

7. Angela Lansbury (1925-Present)

Nominations: Gaslight (Supporting Actress in 1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Supporting Actress in 1945), & The Manchurian Candidate (Supporting Actress in 1962)
She Lost to: Ethel Barrymore, Anne Revere, & Patty Duke (don't you love that there's still someone living who once competed against Ethel Barrymore?)
Closest to the Win: Lansbury was the heavy favorite for her dragon-lady mother in 1962's The Manchurian Candidate, but she had to go against Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, which is pretty much a lead role and a sympathetic one at that, so she ended up losing as a result (Duke's very good in the movie, but nowhere near as marvelous as Lansbury).
Well, She Still Won...: Lansbury won an Honorary Oscar in 2013 for her body-of-work, a well-deserved honor that the Emmys should duplicate considering her 18 nods without a win there.  She also has five Tony Awards & six Golden Globes...Lansbury has a complicated history with awards ceremonies, with some adoring her while others consistently keep her in her seat.
Is This Happening Someday?: The Honorary Award was a great nod from Hollywood to one of its most enduring stars, but it was also an indication that Lansbury's time in the competitive categories is over.

6. Michelle Williams (1980-Present)

Nominations: Brokeback Mountain (Supporting Actress in 2005), Blue Valentine (Actress in 2010), My Week with Marilyn (Actress in 2011), & Manchester by the Sea (Supporting Actress in 2016)
She Lost to: Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, & Viola Davis
Closest to the Win: Probably her first at-bat?  The other films had pretty strong frontrunners, but 2005 could have gone a few different ways, including toward Williams as the "long-suffering wife."
Well, She Still Won...: Williams picked up the Globe for her work in My Week with Marilyn (I remember Seth Rogen making fun of the "hilarious" movie while presenting and then having to sheepishly hand the statue over to his Take This Waltz costar).
Is This Happening Someday?: Only 13 women have been nominated four or more times for acting without actually winning a trophy, so we're entering very good odds territory, especially for someone who works as often as Williams who has made the move from leading lady to supporting parts relatively seamlessly.  She's admittedly turning forty in a couple of years so it'd be smart to score soon, but this is still achievable.

5. Annette Bening (1958-Present)

Nominations: The Grifters (Supporting Actress in 1990), American Beauty (Actress in 1999), Being Julia (Actress in 2004), & The Kids Are All Right (Actress in 2010)
She Lost to: Whoopi Goldberg, Hilary Swank, Hilary Swank (again), & Natalie Portman
Closest to the Win: I distinctly remember there being a lot of conversation in 1999, when Bening was just north of 40, that "it's time" for her to win for American Beauty, which she didn't do but had to be close.  While in hindsight that was ridiculous considering the body-of-work she's put out since, it has to be noted that women around the age of 40 frequently have their flourishing acting careers disappear if they can't transition into playing the grittier, indy films that Hollywood's sexism relegates them toward.
Well, She Still Won...: Bening took home the BAFTA for American Beauty (Boys Don't Cry feels a more "American" story than American Beauty, so this makes sense though it's weird they didn't go with Julianne Moore for the "more British" End of the Affair), and nabbed Golden Globes for both Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right.
Is This Happening Someday?: Yeah, I think it is, though it's probably going to have to be supporting.  While Bening has missed in the past two years, she scored major precursor nominations (Globes & BAFTA) proving the love is still there, and she's the rare actress in her sixties that still headlines movies.  I think she's quite likely to get this, and it doesn't hurt that she's married to Hollywood Royalty, as Warren will clearly push for his wife to win this if she's close.

4. Jane Alexander (1939-Present)

Nominations: The Great White Hope (Actress in 1970), All the President's Men (Supporting Actress in 1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (Supporting Actress in 1979), and Testament (Actress in 1983)
She Lost to: Glenda Jackson, Beatrice Straight, Meryl Streep, & Shirley MacLaine
Closest to the Win: Straight was a big upset in 1976, with most people assuming the trophy would go to Alexander or Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.  Her other three options she wasn't one of the main contenders, so I think this was her best option even though it's not the most memorable of parts in All the President's Men.
Well, She Still Won...: Alexander took home the Tony for the stage version of The Great White Hope and won Emmys for her work in Playing for Time and Warm Springs.
Is This Happening Someday?: No, I don't think so.  Alexander still works regularly, but mostly in TV (I'd totally buy that she has another Emmy win in her), and was never a household name in the way that Bening is, so there's less pressure to give her an Honorary trophy.

3. Marsha Mason (1942-Present)

Nominations: Cinderella Liberty (Actress in 1973), The Goodbye Girl (Actress in 1977), Chapter Two (Actress in 1979), & Only When I Laugh (Actress in 1981)
She Lost to: Glenda Jackson, Diane Keaton, Sally Field, & Katharine Hepburn
Closest to the Win: It's hard to tell, but it'd be one of her first two nominations.  Jackson's win in 1973 was considered a big surprise (if you've never seen the looks of shock and not-so-veiled disgust on Mason's, Joanne Woodward's, and Ellen Burstyn's faces when Jackson won at the 1973 Oscars, do yourself a favor).  Mason seemed happier being beaten by Diane Keaton, though considering the Annie Hall wins weren't a foregone conclusion that night (Mason & Jane Fonda were both in the running), she might have just been acting.
Well, She Still Won...: Mason picked up Golden Globes for both Cinderella Liberty & The Goodbye Girl, but is one Tony nomination away from having been nominated for every leg of the EGOT but not winning any of them (only Lynn Redgrave has ever pulled off this feat).  Considering how often she treads the boards, this is not out of the question (weirdly Redgrave also won two Golden Globes in her career).
Is This Happening Someday?: Doubtful.  Mason is very active, one could argue more active than even Alexander, but her days as a leading woman are largely forgotten by modern audiences, and so there's no way for her to easily get in on pop culture cache.  She'd need to land a really good film role, which is tough for a woman nearing eighty.

2. Amy Adams (1974-Present)

Nominations: Junebug (Supporting Actress in 2005), Doubt (Supporting Actress in 2008), The Fighter (Supporting Actress in 2010), The Master (Supporting Actress in 2012), & American Hustle (Supporting Actress in 2013)
She Lost to: Rachel Weisz, Penelope Cruz, Melissa Leo, Anne Hathaway, & Cate Blanchett
Closest to the Win: I don't think Adams has ever actually been close to a win.  Her best shot would have been in 2013, where she was competing against four former winners so a movement to "make her one of the club" was definitely possible, but it never panned out.  She's more consistently in 4th place when she's nominated.
Well, She Still Won...: Adams took an expected Golden Globe for American Hustle and then a shock win for Big Eyes (she clearly hadn't prepared even a "I can't believe I won" speech that year).
Is This Happening Someday?: Only five women have gotten to the 5+ club without taking home a competitive trophy, so Adams is in rare company if she never wins, but I kind of think she will.  Her fame and age indicate it should happen soon, and Oscar's love of her may be waning (she missed for Big Eyes & Arrival despite ample precursor attention), but Vice this year has a solid recipe for a trophy (supporting part, biopic, showy work) if its reviews don't bury her chances alive.

1. Glenn Close (1947-Present)

Nominations: The World According to Garp (Supporting Actress in 1982), The Big Chill (Supporting Actress in 1983), The Natural (Supporting Actress in 1984), Fatal Attraction (Actress in 1987), Dangerous Liaisons (Actress in 1988), & Albert Nobbs (Actress in 2011)
She Lost to: Jessica Lange, Linda Hunt, Peggy Ashcroft, Cher, Jodie Foster, & Meryl Streep
Closest to the Win: In 1988, Close was the frontrunner for this win.  Most people assumed she'd take it after a decade of headlining major films, perhaps joining Sigourney Weaver on the stage (getting two women off of this list), but Jodie Foster pulled off the upset, and Close would have to wait another 23 years before she finally was invited back to the Oscars.
Well, She Still Won...: Close has won two Golden Globes, three Emmys, and a trio of Tony Awards-the only thing left to cap off an incredible career would be an Oscar...
Is This Happening Someday?: Close joins Thelma Ritter & Deborah Kerr as the only actresses to ever hit six nominations and never win the Oscar.  As a result, it's hard not to see a movement happening for her if she gets a citation this year since she'd be in uncharted territory for a woman if she got seven nods & never won.  In a normal year, I'd argue that Olivia Colman or Lady Gaga or even Emily Blunt would have more steam than Close's quiet, introverted turn in The Wife, but that's the sort of performance that eventually won Geraldine Page her Oscar too after losing seven times previously (though Close is better than Page was in The Trip to Bountiful), and honestly at this point the movie behind her name might not matter-they are likely just voting for Glenn Close, Oscar Winner, at that point.  I think if she gets in there's a very strong possibility the Oscars decide to avoid another Richard Burton situation and just gives her the trophy.  If not, expect an Honorary Oscar soon, though Close famously wants this so I doubt she settles for an Honorary if she can help it.

OVP: Arrival (2016)

Film: Arrival (2016)
Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Oscar History: 8 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing*, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The films of Denis Villeneuve have been a hodgepodge for me, and not necessarily in a bad way.  The first of his films that I saw I was enamored with, enough to give Incendies my OVP from that year.  The next two of his pictures I caught, however, I left less-than-impressed, but mostly frustrated because I found elements of them so good.  Villeneuve starts a conversation in his films-he isn't afraid of tackling tough subjects and of giving us heroes that are deeply flawed, but my problem with him always lies in the way he can't quite go there with the ending for his characters, always giving them some moral ways out of hairy, tough situations (he has yet to approach the nasty genius of Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler, even if that feels like a movie he might have made).  With Arrival, he takes his style and directorial work into a different direction, and so my question was-can the genius he clearly has be grounded enough by looking in a different direction to finally have me unequivocally proclaim one of his English-language films a masterpiece?

(Spoilers Ahead) Arrival has that same level of frustration, but unlike Prisoners or Sicario, he actually sticks the landing, making this his best movie-to-date.  The film reads, on-paper, as somewhat traditional.  You have Louise Banks (Adams), a linguist with past experience with the CIA, telling two separate stories, one of her daughter, lost to a rare disease as a child, and one of an encounter with an alien species, and humans trying to find a way to peacefully communicate with the species, with different parts of the world coming together with differing viewpoints (war, peace, something in-between) on how to handle the aliens.

This is a pretty conventional story, and in a lesser director's hands, perhaps it would have stayed solely on that question of "are they good or are they bad?", but Villeneuve is too interesting in his approach to film to stay entirely on that question.  We see, relatively quickly in the film (for me, at least) that time is a bit loose; I was able to tell fairly early in the picture that the "flashbacks" to her daughter were actually her in the future, and that would mean that she would live past this encounter, and humanity would continue.  This may be the most frustrating aspect of the movie, in my opinion-waiting for a twist you know is going to come is agonizing in a lot of pictures (just ask anyone who's seen most of M. Night Shymalan's later work).

But Villeneuve actually finds a way to make this work for him, particularly aided by a mesmerizing performance from Adams in the central role.  He uses her passive voice and demeanor to instill in us a sense of calm, but also defeatedness.  Villeneuve's problem is penetrating an audience that is fearful of worldwide catastrophe at any moment, and finding a way to connect with them without getting an eyeroll from an increasingly jaded public.  He does that by making this hard-it's not an easy film, and very few answers are spelled out in front of us.  He trusts Adams in the central role as our ambassador to these creatures, and to trying to find a strength to be beyond ourselves, a struggle that is as difficult for an audience member as it is for Adams on the screen.  Adams smartly doesn't give you a lot of heart in her performance-she is someone who has based much of her life on a few core beliefs, and her job-but she still finds wonder through an introverted, closed-off human being.  It's a marvelous look at joy and pain, but more the former which is truly a unique way to approach a film that essentially boils down to, "would you be willing to have the worst moment of your life wiped away if it also took with you some of the best?"  The answer is of course what you'd expect from a movie (have the daughter you know will someday die), but the way that Villeneuve gets there, placidly, calmly, but with great thoughtfulness is beautiful.  Arrival is his Birdman-where all of his ticks as a director find exactly the right spot to come together, and as a result we get something illuminating.

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

Anyone else having a good weekend?  I know I sure am, and even though it's Sunday afternoon and there's a presentation I should admittedly be working on on my dining room table, I figured I'd get the link roundup out for you fine people instead.

In Entertainment...

-Bradley Cooper joined the conversation started by his costar Jennifer Lawrence regarding pay and income inequality, and where women are getting paid less than men.  Cooper stated that he will start teaming up with his female costars to ensure that they are getting paid an equal amount, which is a cool and interesting concept, though it also begs a few questions.  For starters, while I have argued in the past that movie stars complaining about this issue makes the issue easier to explain (it's easier to use examples of someone everyone has heard of like Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams, rather than a random teacher or office employee), there are limitations here.  For starters, Cooper's argument that Adams made "nothing" on American Hustle is kind of ridiculous and risks being the story here rather than the pay gap.  Adams made $1.25 million plus 7-points off the back-end (assuming that's international gross, it would amount to roughly $10 million, if it's points off of profit, probably closer to $7-8 million).  Either way this is more money that most people could ever dream of, and so while she clearly deserved equal footing to at least Jeremy Renner, and perhaps Cooper, she made more money than any normal human could ever hope to have and calling that nothing makes this look like an ivory tower argument.  Secondly, movie stars are about bankability as much as work, and Bradley Cooper is one of the biggest stars on the planet right now-his costars aren't really guaranteeing the box office insurance that he carries.  Sure, Jennifer Lawrence is also box office dynamite, but Amy Adams isn't.  Neither are Sienna Miller, Emma Stone, or Abbie Cornish.  They're all stars, yes, and this is a noble idea of Cooper's, but one wonders if he's the best person to be making this argument.

-Is anyone else interested in tonight's premiere of Oprah Winfrey's Belief, a 7-part documentary miniseries on her channel that seems very similar to the critically-lauded Planet Earth?  I have become, I must admit, extremely disenchanted lately with television-it's too repetitive, there's nothing new that's interesting to me anymore, and I find that the same plots and ideas are constantly celebrated without anything new (I go through this with film, music, and books from time-to-time as well, but I have to admit that there it's usually a much shorter term and I've felt this way about TV for months now).  I've been trying to research more non-fiction television that I think is worthwhile, and this seems like a possibility-anyone know of anything else?  I don't want Amazing Race or Kardashian style stuff, but documentary-style series that are of worth-share your recommendations in the comments!

- Who else has played the leaked Adele commercial at least a dozen times today?  The Oscar-and-Grammy winner, whose elusive third album is rumored constantly, apparently leaked a snippet of a song during a commercial during The X-Factor yesterday, causing Twitter to erupt not only because the song seems amazing, but perhaps she's finally going to drop the album?!?  I am such a fan, and cannot wait.  And am going to listen once more...

In Politics...

-In a story that just broke this morning, CNN news anchor Jake Tapper grilled former Gov. Jeb Bush about his attacks on Hillary Clinton about Benghazi, particularly going after him because he doesn't give Clinton the same sort of leeway that he gives his brother in terms of 9/11.  While Bush made a few attacks on Trump, the analogy to his brother was a blistering one, particularly considering it's an apt argument and one I haven't really heard a journalist make, and could be a very sore subject during the next GOP debates as I suspect Rubio, Cruz, and Carson will also be weighing in shortly.  While Bush does state that Ambassador Stevens was asking for more security, there were numerous pieces of evidence uncovered by the 9/11 commission that could have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and while Jeb admits that it was the terrorists that perpetrated both acts, to cite Clinton exclusively and not his brother is cherry-picking in a way that I don't think will fly.  It will also be an interesting thing to see if this becomes a major talking point, period, in the election, as attacking President Bush over 9/11 has been something that most politicians have steered clear of in the wake of the tragedies, instead focusing on the Iraq War for fear of appearing insensitive and not taking the political risk that results from such a move (as President Bush's initial reactions to the 9/11 tragedies were the high-point of his popularity as POTUS).

-Stuart Rothenberg wrote a provocative piece about whom the Republicans should nominate for the presidency.  This is a-characteristic of Rothenberg, who is usually slightly more conservative than this (or at least more blatantly non-partisan), but seems to reflect an exhaustion with the Tea Party elements of the GOP that others have also shared (see also the current debacle in the Speaker's race).  Rothenberg claims that Cruz is the only person who could prove to conservatives whether running a "true conservative" would actually help them win, or as logic would dictate, likely lead to their defeat.  Part of me wonders if some Chamber of Commerce types, realizing that the Democrats can't win the House so they'd still have a seat at the table and that the Senate is up in 2018 with a lot of opportunities (even if the Democrats sweep the competitive seats in 2016 they'll still have a rough go two years later with Heitkamp, McCaskill, Donnelly, and Manchin all headed to the polls) and finally with a Democrat that's relatively moderate like Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office (and the strong likelihood that she'd be a one-termer as it's difficult to see the Democrats winning the White House 16 years in a row), might be willing for the trade of a loss in 2016 if it meant that the Freedom Caucus would get back inline and they could reclaim the party.  They'd never say so out loud, but I think it'd be something they'd discuss behind closed doors.

-In one of the coolest things I've seen in the world of politics in a long time, President Obama met with award-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson (whose book, Housekeeping is currently on my nightstand right now as I have been longing to read it for years and this is my excuse) to discuss his passion for her books.  What I love about this is not just that it's the President asking the questions here, not the other way around, but also that Obama has placed such a value on the written word and on the arts.  For a president that I didn't think would do such a thing eight years ago (I never really saw Obama as an arts guy based on conversations surrounding the subject when he was a candidate), he's definitely found a way to have a strong connection both with pop culture and with culture in general during his terms in office, and this is just one of many ways that he's shared his passions for the arts.  Bravo!

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-Gov. David Ige makes a laudable push to fight homelessness in his state of Hawaii, the state with the highest homelessness rate in the country.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-The other video I watched on loop this week, I'm still impressed by the Sanders/Clinton moment coming out of the first debate.  Great to see the political opponents on the same side of a contentious issue:

Just One More...

-In your "climate change is still a thing we should be all worrying about" news byte of the week, Climate Central stated this past week that cities like Miami, New Orleans, and potentially even New York are all likely to be submerged by water in the near-term regardless of whether or not we solve the climate crisis.  The study stresses that New York is still salvageable, but action needs to be taken soon.  Keep that in mind when you are looking at the upcoming presidential elections.