OVP: Free Guy (2021)

Film: Free Guy (2021)

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Taika Waititi (and a few cameos we'll get into below)

Director: Shawn Levy

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

All right, we are going to be playing a little bit of catchup on the blog this week, as I will be doing four movies from 2021 that I have seen recently.  2021's film output, I'll be honest, has been middling for me.  I've seen a couple of movies I just adored (The Green Knight being chief among them), but by-and-large the year has been more "ehh" than "wow."  This is personified by Free Guy, one of several films that feels like it came out years ago because it was supposed to before the pandemic.  Though it's hard to tell in 2021 what constitutes a hit, this movie feels like it was one.  It's grossed $276 million on an estimated budget of about $125 million (and is currently dominating the Chinese box office, so that number should get closer to $300 million before we're done), and even if you assume another $50-60 million for marketing, that comes down to a relatively profitable sum for 20th Century Studios (I loathe that we can't still call it Fox, and I know that this is petty but I don't care).  But after watching it, I'll be real-it might be a hit, in a time I'm cheering on any hit that comes across the plate, but it's a pretty formulaic one.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Guy (Reynolds), a non-player character who is in a game called Free City, where he doesn't realize that he's, well, a character in a video game.  He spends every day oblivious to the crime-riddled world around him, thinking it's just a normal day, until Millie (Comer), a real-world player, teams up with him & he starts to see the world for what it is.  Millie is trying to prove that Guy and the entire game was based on a prototype that she and Keys (Keery) made & sold to Antwan (Waititi), a ruthless gaming tycoon in the hipster vein Mark Cuban.  Teaming up with Guy, who comes to want more from his life than the preordained world he's always lived in, they are able to uncover Antwan's plagiarism, and create a new world where Guy can roam freely, not having to constantly live in fear.

The movie is impressive in terms of its effects, and I will say right out-the-gate that it's awesome to be in a situation where we are celebrating an original character that isn't part of a franchise.  I loved the commitment of the film to the specific video game-aesthetics employed by the picture, and Reynolds is affable & fun as this dopey lead character.  Reynolds is not a great actor (I've struggled with a lot of his past movies), but he's right in certain types of roles that trade on his genial handsomeness & awe-shucks likability, and that's the whole point of Free Guy.  Combine in clever cameos from Chris Evans, Channing Tatum, and a host of real-world gamers like Jacksepticeye & Ninja, and you have a movie that knows its audience.

That being said, the movie doesn't take off & can't just rely on Reynolds to keep it afloat.  The sound team is too much (it's immersive, but overtly loud & not just cause I saw this in iMax), distracting from what's going on on-screen (the visuals are already enough-you don't need to repeatedly underline "it's a video game!" with off-putting audios).  More of an issue is the plot, which has been done forever-this is a movie you see coming every second of the movie-there's no beat in this film, which does show some plot points as "twists" that you can't see coming a mile away.  We've done this with The Truman Show, we know the drill.

Worst of all, though, is Taika Waititi as the egomaniacal Antwan.  I'm a Waititi defender-I thought his "imaginary friend Hitler" in Jojo Rabbit was superb, a weird & risky addition to a film that could have flailed under its weight, but he made it work.  That said, this is a step too far.  Antwan doesn't read as an actual human being, and his character falls under the weight of being a total ass-does anyone believe this man is remotely sane enough to have built an empire of this size, much less held down a steady job for longer than a week?  It's a genuinely bad performance, and by-far the biggest thing holding Free Guy back from being a truly fun summer blockbuster.

4 Mini Reviews

As I mentioned yesterday, we will be doing three days of mini reviews as I catch up on the movies I saw in 2018 (and today one FilmStruck movie I never got around to reviewing) in an effort to wrap up 2018 before we will start doing OVP's from that year in the next few months.  As a result, here are four additional films I saw in 2018, that, while interesting, I will be giving an abbreviated review to rather than a full one as I'm a bit behind & am tired of being behind on my film reviews.

(Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen Smallfoot, Red Sparrow, Paddington 2, or 1961's Victim, please skip over those sections & come back later when you have!)

Smallfoot (dir. Karey Kirkpatrick)

Yes, yes, we're all aware that Zendaya is Meechee, but the better question is-is this movie any good?  The question is hard to answer, as there are moments of charm in this kind of dismissible animated feature that, like seemingly all animated features, still grossed over $200 million.  Centering on the unlikely friendship between a Yeti (Channing Tatum) and a documentarian (James Corden) trying at first to exploit his new friend & then protect him, it's cute that they focus on this from the Yeti's perspective, having the humans be the "imaginary creature," but the joke gets old after a while, and no one in the voice talent is particularly good in their role, with Tatum's earnestness being the best fit for the role.  The songs are lackluster, and there's too much plot for a 96-minute movie, making the entire Percy-redemption storyline feel a bit combed over.  (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

Red Sparrow (dir. Francis Lawrence)

Jennifer Lawrence had been taking an interesting tact post-Oscar win, using her massive celebrity to greenlight movies like Joy and Mother!, which got a wider audience than they ever could have hoped to get without her face across the posters.  There's unfortunately nothing noble about her Red Sparrow, though, as this is a completely commercial play, and not an enjoyable one (or that successful of one).  The spy thriller moves along at a glacial pace (it's 140 minutes long, and could have dropped a half hour without any speed bumps), and is easy to see coming.  All of the twists are apparent to anyone who has seen a movie like this before, and the film relies heavily on extreme violence and sex to titillate the audience, but it just feels gross after a while.  Even with actors as pedigreed as Jeremy Irons & Charlotte Rampling filling out the supporting class, there's little to redeem here and Lawrence's considerable movie star charisma can't save such a dud.  Here's to hoping that she either works with better blockbuster directors going forward or returns to the arthouse soon. (Ranking: 1/5 stars)

Paddington 2 (dir. Paul King)

The best movie on this list by a country mile, Paddington 2 takes the lovely, calm tone of the first film and perfects it, with a better villain.  Hugh Grant made my personal ballot for Best Supporting Actor in 2018, and with good reason-he's marvelous as a vain, conniving washed-up actor who is desperate to find a hidden treasure by way of a pop-up book (a beautifully constructed sequence).  The film fills out the cast with a cavalry of Royal Shakespeare Company actors, but it's Grant and Ben Whishaw's Paddington, so calm, so of a different era, yet totally at home in such a film that makes this movie special.  I'd say "they don't make them like this anymore," but clearly they do, and it's refreshing & a bit shocking to find out that a movie like Paddington 2 has an audience.  Bravo to Paul King, who manages to avoid what could have been pablum and pulls together a sweet tale without ever making it sugary. (Ranking: 4/5 stars)

Victim (dir. Basil Dearden)

Considering the landmark position Victim has in LGBT cinema, it's kind of crap that I am not writing a full review on this one, but let's be real here-this is a basic suspense film that's only proper calling card is featuring a gay main protagonist.  The film, centering around the blackmail scheme of a barrister who has had a romantic (but non-sexual, cause heaven forbid he get laid) relationship with a man twenty years his junior.  The barrister is played by Dirk Bogarde, who famously was well-loved in Britain but never became proper star in the United States (probably because he was gay in real-life & didn't downplay this to the degree that would have been acceptable in 1960's Hollywood, making this film all-the-more-shocking), but I wasn't blown away at all by his work here-he plays his repressed homosexual as a constant reassurance to the straight audience that he "isn't like" the deviants that are immediately coming to mind.  This is my way of pointing out that while this was aggressively progressive at the time (it's the first English-language film to use the word "homosexual"), it has aged poorly, to the point where you really have to focus on the non-gay elements to see if it works...and it doesn't, as the suspense is marred down by antiquated politics & a thin plot.  I try to grade based on the era, rather than our current one's, but even by that metric this is just 2/5 stars.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

Film: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Stars: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Jason Sand, Brooklynn Prince, Maya Rudolph, Will Farrell, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Cobie Smulders, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Willis...it's a lot of cast
Director: Mike Mitchell
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

When the first Lego Movie came out five years ago, it felt like an unexpected phenomenon.  Buoyed by a not-yet-ubiquitous Chris Pratt, the John Everyman of Emmet as the main character in a film with a metric ton of site gags and inside jokes toward the Lego Culture was a genuinely good movie, as much an awesome commercial as it was a relentless pop culture orgy.  Since then, we've actually had two more installments in the series, with the equally as good The Lego Batman Movie, and then the first misfire in the series The Lego Ninjago Movie (full disclosure: I haven't seen this picture yet, so the "misfire" label is based on box office/critical consensus and not my own personal estimation).  As a result, The Lego Movie 2 arrives really as the fourth film in the series, and with weightier expectations about what it can accomplish compared to the first film in the series.  The movie falls in the middle of those expectations, still clever in its moments, but weighted down by knowing it could be better and with gags that fall flat as often as they soar.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie picks up a few seconds after the events of the previous movie, with a war of sorts breaking out between the Duplos in the last moments of the first film, and then over the next few years we see the destruction of the Legos' world at the hands of the Duplos, repeatedly destroying their cities.  This results in a sort of Mad Max-style dystopia where Lucy (Banks) takes on the role of Max, and is perplexed why Emmet (Pratt) seems to act as if nothing has changed.  One day a mysterious masked stranger (Beatriz) comes to their city, and steals away a number of the characters, including Batman (Arnett), Benny (Day), Unikitty (Brie), and Lucy.  Emmet tries to track them down, and eventually finds a mysterious city with a potentially duplicitous shape-shifting Queen (Haddish) presiding.

The film, before I get to the bad, is super cute at parts.  The overall song score is considerably better than the first film, in my opinion, though I doubt they get the cultural cache of "Everything is Awesome."  You will almost certainly be adding "Catchy Song" to your iPhone, and Tiffany Haddish nails her evil villain number (even though, it turns out, she's not an evil villain), and in my opinion steals the movie out-from-under everyone around her.  There are a few site gags that are really strong, mostly surrounding Haddish's shape-shifting Queen, and some of the previous film's characters, like Arnett's Batman, remain hilarious.

So why am I just "meh" about the film?  Honestly, it's because the story itself is a bit of a drag. Unlike the first movie, there's no surprise about the real-world here.  We know the real-world exists, and it's pretty obvious to anyone over the age of seven that our main character has a baby sister who is trying to befriend him by copying his favorite hobby of legos.  This sentimentality is so omnipresent that it makes The Lego Movie 2 feel less like a film and more like a proper commercial: "see, the whole family can unite with Legos!"  This might be naive, but if I'm going to be forced to watch product placement, I want it to feel fresh.  It doesn't help that Banks & Pratt have become near-constant presences at the movies in the past few years, and since neither seem to change up their schtick, this is something we've already seen even when its new.  Tiffany Haddish is at risk for this in the future, but at least she hasn't done a G-Rated version of her screen persona yet so the Queen is a new element to this universe, something sorely lacking in the rest of the movie.  It's possible from the box office that this may be the final installment of the Lego franchise, or at least the last one that features Emmet & Lucy-if this is the best they can come up with, perhaps that's a good thing.

Logan Lucky (2017)

Film: Logan Lucky (2017)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: Soderbergh had a really big 2000, but otherwise really was never Oscar's cup-of-tea...doubtful this changes things.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I always find it amusing, if a bit reassuring, that actors or directors who claim they are "retiring" almost always renege on their intentions to retire within a couple of years.  Yes, there are a couple of cases like Gene Hackman or Sean Connery where it seems to have stuck, but by-and-large, particularly when they're under seventy, famous figures in cinema almost always turn their back on that retirement within a few years, clearly meaning they wanted a break more so than anything else.  Steven Soderbergh is the most recent example of this, after claiming that he was retiring from the movies but then quickly returning.  Logan Lucky is his first feature-film in four years, and the director who is perhaps most well-known for loving ensemble casts at the expense of star vehicles, has lost little of his visual skill even if Logan Lucky is a bit of a trifle, albeit a tasty one.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around the Logan Brothers, Jimmy (Tatum) and Clyde (Driver), two men who are down-on-their-luck, a theory that Clyde connects to their genetics.  Clyde lost his arm in Iraq, and Jimmy is recently unemployed and worried that his daughter will be leaving him as his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Holmes) wants to move due to her successful husband getting a new job.  Jimmy decides that he wants to end his life of mediocrity and better provide for his daughter, and in the process get back at the company that fired him by robbing from the stadium he worked construction.  His plan goes array when what was initially intended to be a small-time gig turns into him being forced to rob the Coca-Cola 600, one of the biggest in the NASCAR series.  He recruits an explosives expert appropriately-named Joe Bang (Craig...and do all Soderbergh films have characters that sound like they've been plucked out of a Tarantino picture & I've just never noticed or is this unique to Logan Lucky?), and along with the Logans' sister Mellie (Keough), they orchestrate a robbery, with of course unintended consequences.

Heist movies are one of my favorite cinematic genres, as I love seeing the mechanics of how a con is put into action, and this is hardly Soderbergh's first time at the rodeo (his highest-grossing films being the Ocean's franchise), so this works well.  The film is surprisingly brisk for a picture that at first feels very slow, to the point where I thought my audience (who were not getting the deeply dry humor coming from Driver at all) might start walking out, but once the film gets into more consistent molds, it entered the territory of crowd-pleaser while maintaining an abstractness that makes the picture unique.  Soderbergh is so good at assembling strong ensembles, and while occasionally his choices don't work (Seth MacFarlane is a bit too cartoonish as a rude British businessman seems like the weakest link of the picture), the chemistry between the three siblings in particular is excellent.  Keough is an actress that I wasn't really familiar with, but I liked her breeziness with Mellie, and the way she's positioned as a "screw-up" to someone like her former sister-in-law and yet clearly the most responsible and level-headed of the Logan siblings.  She's had bit parts now in Magic Mike and Mad Max: Fury Road, as well as winning a handful of plaudits for American Honey, but I'm hoping she soon gets a star vehicle as she's clearly capable of carrying one.

The movie's ending might be a bit hard to get-your-head-around, and honestly it was a little hard for me to figure out what was happening even as it was being spelled out (the plotting feels like it missed one crucial scene toward the end, perhaps something a bit more expository for the audience), but by-and-large this is a genuinely funny and amusing movie, and well worth Soderbergh's return to the screen.  No, it doesn't rank amongst his very best pictures (which I'd wager is Magic Mike, but would buy Traffic if you argued hard-enough), but it's a lot of fun in a filmic summer that was lacking in that attribute.

Those are my thoughts on the picture-how about yours?  If you've seen it, share some of your theories, particularly over whether Sebastian Stan or Hilary Swank was your favorite cameo (my thought was it was the latter, who totally sold her by-the-book FBI agent), and if not-who do you hope Soderbergh reunites with next from his close-knit cavalcade of frequent actors?

OVP: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Film: Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Stars: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Production Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I never quite know whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing when I spend an entire movie just thinking about another movie, but for some reason throughout the entirety of Hail, Caesar! I couldn't help but recall select scenes of Roger Altman's excellent The Player while watching the newer film.  Both pictures skewer the idea of celebrity by using actual celebrities onscreen, though in the case of Altman the celebrities are frequently playing themselves while here they are playing versions of classic celebrities.  Still, it's a fun bit of tongue-in-cheek, and while the film lacks the wicked observation of Fargo and the overall brilliance of No Country for Old Men holding any director to the standards of such a high bar is probably unfair.  Hail, Caesar! is a fun movie, one that occasionally even tries to veer into greatness, that is anchored by being more a lovely string of vignettes than an overall cohesive picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) What I mean there is that the film itself is more focused and at its best when it is skewering Old Hollywood and our romance with it.  It's not new to present select old movie stars as being real-we've been seeing that since A Star is Born, but it's not common to see the actual movies themselves come across as rather, well, awful, but that's true here.  The films that onscreen stars like Clooney, ScarJo, Tatum, Fiennes, and Ehrenreich are all making are clearly spoofing on the classic films of people like Charlton Heston, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, George Cukor, and Roy Rogers, respectively, but not the better parts of their filmographies as all of those movies look, well, awful.  The film is supremely capable in its knowledge of old Hollywood, particularly since main character Eddie Mannix (Brolin) was actually based on a real-life "fixer" named Eddie Mannix who would cover-up stories of major Hollywood stars back in the 1940's and 50's.

These moments are great, and comedically fun set-pieces.  I think my favorite was Channing Tatum's Burt Gurney, who sings a tune about wanting dames to come into his bar and how he'll be stuck at sea without any women, but then proceeds to go into a deeply homosexual song-and-dance number that actually ends up turning the bar into a gay bar and has him being thrusted against by two backup dancers.  In a tongue-in-cheek wink to the many gay men who were paraded as straight during the period, Gurney is himself gay in real-life, but also in a twist defecting to the Russians and being aided by a team of screenwriters who are all Communist-sympathizers.  Coming in second to this hilarious comedic subplot for me was Scarlett Johansson, angelic in one of those ridiculously over-the-top water ballets that they always put in Esther Williams movies, playing a fast-talking broad offscreen, and they create an elaborate hoax to cover her pregnancy (in many ways mirroring the scandal involving Loretta Young and Clark Gable)-Johansson, who is so good so often these days as to be taken for granted, is fun in an underwritten part.

It's fun just to name-check all of these old and new movie star names, but the larger question is if the film is actually any good, and it is, but never really rising above that adjective.  Most of the film gains from its homages to old Hollywood, and really only the scenes with Ehrenreich, who clearly stands out as the only non-famous star of that cast list up-top, pop for me, perhaps because he's an unknown and I wasn't expecting him to be so wonderfully eager and charming.  He's a delight as a young, popular cowboy star who is hoping to prove that he has slightly more acting chops than the B-movie pictures that he has become famous for; Ehrenreich is terrific in this role, and I'm hoping gets more exposure after this film.  Otherwise the film probably juggles one too many plots (the entire George Clooney sequence feels largely unnecessary and like a side gag that's just there to prove that this is the quirky Coen Brothers behind the camera), and though it works in terms of watchability, it's nothing more than a passing fancy from two directors who have made films that will stay with you always.  Still, all-in-all it's a lot of fun.

Those are my thoughts on Hail, Caesar!, one of several films I've caught in the last week (we're also getting back in the swing of daily reviews on TMROJ) that we'll be discussing.  For those of you who saw this (and it was a pretty big hit all things considered, so I'm guessing that's quite a few of you)-what were your thoughts?  Did you enjoy the Old Hollywood homages, or were you leaving disappointed that it didn't have the cerebral ticks of something like A Serious Man?  Share your thoughts below!

OVP: The Hateful Eight (2015)

Film: The Hateful Eight (2015)
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walter Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Supporting Actress-Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cinematography, Score*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I don't really care that Quentin Tarantino is more-than-likely insane.  Honestly, I kind of love it.  Actors and entertainers are so hyper-sweet and polished these days that having an admittedly very talented individual like Tarantino out there in the world, completely rocking the internet with views that even I'm not always behind is exhilarating.  He sits there alongside the likes of Lars von Trier and Spike Lee as a provocateur whose filmography can back him up.  After all, this is a man who has made brilliant movies like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglourious Basterds.  There is no question when you are sitting in a Quentin Tarantino film, and since I was old enough to see them, I've never missed a single one of his pictures.  That was true, of course, for The Hateful Eight, but about an hour into the film I began to regret my excellent track record, and wondered perhaps if Tarantino may need to start backing up his art more before he continues at riling up the collective Twittersphere.  The Hateful Eight is a long, pointless endeavor focused entirely on Tarantino's signature, violent motifs, but it is lacking his sharp wit and panting homage to the likes of Kurosawa and Leone.  Instead what we have is easily the worst film he's ever made, and considering his relatively infrequent pit stops at the movies, the year's biggest disappointment.

(Spoilers Ahead) Where to begin on a review I never thought I'd write (giving a Tarantino film 1-star is a stab in the heart)?  I think I will commence with the first two hours, which could be summed up in about five sentences, which is appalling in a time-wasting way.  We see Jennifer Jason Leigh violently beaten, casual epithets and a long and pointless story about rape played for shock value, and while none of this is particularly out-of-place in Tarantino's world, usually it's met with a sparkling amount of "what will happen next" and incredibly funny and odd dialogue.  That's all missing from this film, which frequently mines the same joke over-and-over again, such as a running bit where the door needs to be nailed shut to not let in the cold air, which could be funny in a Marx Brothers style, but it isn't (even the first time), and not once in the entire run of this gag did the packed audience in my theater laugh.  In fact, that was true for almost the entire movie-despite consistently having moments that are clearly meant for laughter, there were only a few sparing moments of humor that caught on with the audience (usually involving Daisy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, getting a random aside in at the expense of her captor Kurt Russell) and not once did the entire audience laugh or even react together, unheard of for me in a theater that crammed.

The film doesn't really know anything about pace, and the first two hours move along with literally nothing happening except random characters getting introduced over and over to each other in random circles.  The names are purposefully ridiculous, but unlike other Tarantino films that doesn't really seem to matter-the names just sort of sit there, with the actors who play them not really matching up to the sharpness of the characters.  No one in this film is giving a strong performance, even though Samuel L. Jackson and Walter Goggins have been cited by other critics as good examples of strong Tarantino performances.  You compare this to Jules Winnfeld or Elle Driver or Mr. Pink and suddenly you're realizing how desperately we're relying on the memory of other great Tarantino films to try and justify sitting for yet another forty minutes as we watch a bloodbath endure in front of our eyes.  Quite frankly by the end of the film the main characters, played by Jackson and Goggins, have become such horrid human beings, frequently disparaging the only female character in a way we didn't see them do to any other male characters (sexism is alive and well here), that the fact that we have to watch them be celebrated in the "Lincoln Letter" finale makes me grimace with disgust.  About the only thing that recommends itself is Ennio Morricone's score, but Ennio Morricone could make your broken radiator sound good so that's pretty much the free space in bingo.

The violence itself seems repetitive and uninventive.  Tarantino once again watches a man be castrated onscreen, trying again to play it for comedic effect (but no one is laughing), and the explosive blood that made something like Kill Bill so staggering is now old-hat in his world.  I actually looked away when surprise guest star of sorts Channing Tatum has his movie star mug exploded before our eyes because what's the point of that image without some level of artistry to back it up?  The intensity of the scenes are lessened both because we have done this before, but also because the movie is insanely predictable.  For a director that could once surprise us intensely with his clever scripting (look at something like the "Kiddo" aspect of Kill Bill) there's no surprise you don't see coming.  The fact that Jackson and Goggins win after a pretty lame showdown with the rest of Daisy's gang or that Tatum, the movie star slumming in a supporting role, quickly watches his part disappear before we learn anything about him is something you see coming, and reeks of lazy writing.  Tarantino might have had Last Year at Marienbad or something in a long-and-languid inspiration during the early scenes, but The Hateful Eight is never that profound or captivating.  It's just a bloody, gory bore.

Magic Mike XXL (2015)

Film: Magic Mike XXL (2015)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez, Gabriel Iglesias, Andie MacDowell, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Elizabeth Banks, Danny Glover
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Three years ago Steven Soderbergh pulled off something of a mini-miracle.  For years now I have been talking about what a truly superb movie Magic Mike is, usually to dismissive people who can't possibly fathom that a movie about a male stripper could be a high-quality picture.  These people see naked men and assume at best it's a camp fest, something that is for bachelorette parties and nothing more.  The reality is that Magic Mike is one of those great films of the 2010's (I am certain it will show up when I do a "Best of the Decade" style Top 50 list), a strange little experiment about a world that few of us know about: the world of adult entertainment.  In the way that it showed the weird struggles of breaking free of patterns, particularly of a life that is better than anything else you could hope for socioeconomically, and watching the inside of that world (along with a charismatic and wonderfully-felt performance from Channing Tatum and a career-best psychotic-ringleader gift from Matthew McConaughey), it is a true gem, and a film where we see the tables turned on both gender roles and slut-shaming.  I will tell you this-if this film had reversed gender roles, it would have likely won Oscars (and admittedly a lot of articles over at Jezebel).  The film, despite some small-minded people being dismissive of such a film being a quality picture, has developed a bit of a cult following and as a result we got a sequel to the movie, which I entered with both anticipation (sequel to one of my favorite recent movies) and dread (sequel to one of my favorite recent movies).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, which follows a world after Dallas (McConaughey) and the Kid (Alex Pettyfer, who will also likely never be as good as he was in the original), shows the Cock-Rocking Kings of Tampa as they set off on a road adventure to a major stripper convention in Myrtle Beach.  Along the way they get Magic Mike to return to his stripping roots, mostly because his new life is in desperate need of energy and cash flow (his girlfriend Brooke, played quite well by Cody Horn in the original and missing from this film, has broken up with him and he is struggling to get his furniture business off the ground), and the group find themselves all realizing what life will be like after the stripping game has ended, particularly without their machiavellian leader Dallas no longer there to call the shots.

The movie makes a few key decisions right away, principally promoting Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello to much more prominent roles in the cast (due likely to their increased star power in the past few years thanks to Bomer's Normal Heart turn and Manganiello's work on True Blood, which gets a lovely inside joke when he encounters a vampire-themed stripper show), and by not taking away the weird in all of the scenes.  Indeed, the actual road trip itself is the best part of the movie, which is rare considering what a tired genre this is.  The film doesn't have the sexual energy that the first film does, which is odd because of the way that Magic Mike's reverse objectification really did a number on Hollywood (stars such as Chris Pratt and Aaron Johnson are basically required to get half-naked in cover shoots now in the same way that their female peers are as well...not sure if this is a good thing exactly, but it's definitely a closer-to-equal thing).  With the exception of the strip show, the only off-hand sort of nudity we have in the film (similar to the now famous opening scene of Channing Tatum completely nude walking to the bathroom in the original film) is at a pool with Joe Manganiello.  Instead, we have these men seeing the strangeness of people's reactions to them, as well as getting inside equally cloistered and fascinating worlds.  I loved the hilarious scene of Manganiello stripping for a dour gas station attendant, as well as the bizarre women's club scene with Jada Pinkett Smith (with all of her queen's in a weirdly erotic scene, but mostly because you can't quite tell which direction Smith's sexual energy is going toward-the women or the men or both), and the great sequence where Andie MacDowell leads a group of undersexed rich housewives in conversation with these men.  All of these scenes have that same great weirdness that occasionally permeated in the original film in McConaughey's work.  If they couldn't get the man himself (I maintain to this day that McConaughey's Oscar, if he should have one, belonged to him for this movie and not Dallas Buyers Club) they at least kept a bit of Dallas' eccentricity in these scenes.

The actual stripping scene, quite frankly, feels a bit hammy as a result.  I hated the fact that Pinkett Smith comes back to rescue the show or that Donald Glover is taken out of his weird little cameo in the story (as a rapping stripper)-I liked the idea of all of these little worlds existing along the way, rather than them coming back in a generic "all of the stars" style scene at the end of the film.  The actual stripping numbers are hardly what one could call unstimulating (ahem), but they also feel too much like a product of the original film, and not of this character-based study.  They've missed too many opportunities for thongs and, well, dongs, at this point to make us feel like a bunch of pecs is the right solution.  The film's timidity about nudity, particularly with the title XXL is an odd juxtaposition that I feel might have taken us a step back in terms of progressive sexual politics (quite frankly up until that last scene we've seen nearly as much skin from women as we have men), and not one that feels great and groundbreaking.  The movie also gets a little too cliched in those final scenes, with forced scenes between Channing Tatum and Kevin Nash and a bit too much expositional dialogue to really work against the more organic scenes we've witness earlier.  The movie never quite gets as good as the original, but the ending is probably the worst scene even if it's the most titillating.

It's worth noting that while it's never as refreshing as what he did three years ago, Tatum is still able to brilliantly effervesce and flirt with anything that moves.  Amber Heard is hardly a great actor, but neither quite frankly was Cody Horn and he still gets great scenes out of her (Horn was better in her role as "girlfriend," though, as she brought a cool rhythm to the film that Heard seems to just be copying here).  The rest of the cast aren't as natural in front of the camera as Tatum (and quite frankly none of them are the actor that he is), so it feels a little bit forced.  I liked what Donald Glover and Jada Pinkett Smith did in their initial club scenes, but they lose some of the special later on in the film when they reappear and become more standardized in the light of day, and while Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer know that this is their time to ham it up, they occasionally feel two-dimensional in the way that Tatum (and Pettyfer and McConaughey) never did.

All-in-all, as a result, we get a film I highly-recommend (if only because it is, like the original, different than what you would expect and never less than very watchable), though nowhere near the masterpiece the original was.  Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  The original brought out people's opinions in huge numbers, so I suspect the sequel will as well.  What'd you think of Magic Mike XXL?

OVP: Foxcatcher (2014)

Film: Foxcatcher (2014)
Stars: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller
Director: Bennett Miller
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Actor-Steve Carell, Supporting Actor-Mark Ruffalo, Director, Makeup & Hairstyling, and Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Film reviews are occasionally tricky things.  Occasionally you end up both liking and hating a movie at the same time.  It's not an easy feat to do, but once you start to consider the film a bit (and you should-thinking is good for the soul), your initial reaction to the movie changes a bit, and you end up with a more nuanced look into the motion picture.  That's what happened to me with Foxcatcher, a complicated, but frustrating movie about the relationships between men, money, and lost ambition.

(Spoilers Ahead) I actually was not familiar with this particular story, and so while I usually put some sort of snarky aside when I give a spoiler alert to a true story, the argument for this film is a bit different and I genuinely mean it, since this is not only a true-life story, but one that is a bit of a thriller.  The film follows Olympic gold medalists Mark (Tatum) and David (Ruffalo) Schultz as they enter the bizarre world of John Du Pont (Carell), a ridiculously wealthy man with absolutely no sense of how the real world operates, being part of one of America's wealthiest (and most inbred) families.  John goes about creating a wrestling program at his expansive Foxcatcher Farm, all the while slowly finding ways to manipulate the malleable Mark and finds himself trying to share in the glory of their athletic endeavors.

The film is very atmospheric, and the cinematography by Grieg Fraser is one of the better aspects of the movie.  He does a terrific job of making Foxcatcher seem both wildly large, giving us a sense of the distance that John has from the rest of the world and nearly a prison, which is essentially what it becomes for Mark, who slowly finds himself going mad in the shadow of John, who seems to consistently insist on what he say, how he act, and even who he is.  The film is probably at its best when we are seeing the weird juxtaposition between seemingly endless wealth and how ordinary people push themselves beyond their means in order to continue to gain from a series of enormous checks.

The movie fails, however, when it strays too far from this by trying to cover or skirt around certain issues when they clearly shouldn't.  I feel like there's a giant pink elephant hanging over the movie that felt very distracting when no one dared to even mention it.  It's very clear that Bennett Miller, while not abjectly saying that John Du Pont is gay, is willing to put that as a menacing threat over the film.  There's a film, darkly lit, likely on purpose, where Mark and John are "wrestling" in the dark.  The camera lingers on Channing Tatum's admittedly toned torso whenever it is mirroring John's gaze, and the scene following this late night wrestling match has Tatum with highlighted hair and short shorts, looking very much the part of a cabana boy.  It isn't until others (particularly his brother) come into the picture that Mark starts to realize the lengths he has gone to please his boss, and quite frankly this would have been an interesting movie, but Miller spends WAY too much time trying to hint toward homosexuality without actually saying it.

The movie's central three performances are where it should gain its strength (the script, like with the homosexuality angle, is way too concerned with atmosphere and not enough with credible twists of the plot, and is really only focused on the three main men-Vanessa Redgrave's disapproving mother and Sienna Miller's blank wife have absolutely nothing to do with the movie).  In some ways this works.  Channing Tatum, for starters, is aces as a bulky Adonis with little knowledge about the world and how much people succumb to the power of money.  Unlike Steve Carell, his character actually makes sense to be quiet, introverted, and consistently reliant on others to establish himself.  Ruffalo as his brother acts a bit as an audience surrogate, which makes his death late in the film all-the-more shocking, since he's served as our rational eyes into this bleak and cold world of John Du Pont (though the "KIDS" written on his hand was massive overkill in the department of trying to get the audience to feel for his death).

Steve Carell, though, in my opinion, almost destroys the movie.  I genuinely like Steve Carell, and actually think that he has the grounded nature to be a strong dramatic actor, but he reminded me so much of Felicity Huffman in Transamerica here-letting tics and makeup do what his performance seems incapable of doing.  It's partially the screenplay's fault, but he doesn't help us by making staggered speech and an upturned nose proxy for an actual personality.  This may well have been the way that John Du Pont acted, but Carell's work here should be better, more insightful into the scenes where he is alone.  The fact that Carell is hunting for an Oscar nomination that might otherwise go to someone who is excellent like Jake Gyllenhaal-this is a crime.

And that's probably where I'm going to leave this, though I suspect that there will be more to come in the ensuing weeks about this picture.  What were your thoughts on Foxcatcher, yet another cold chapter in Bennett Miller's "Murderers" collection?  Do you think Carell or Ruffalo will score with Oscar?  Do you think they deserve to?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Oscar Trivia: Stars Without an Oscar-Nominated Film

There are a lot of perks with being a movie star.  Global fame, money, free clothes, international platforms, legions of fans, people fawning over you, and you’re probably already gorgeous so you had that going for you to begin with.  However, one of the less-noted pieces of fame is that you generally have an Oscar-nominated film or two in your repertoire.  In fact, it’s extremely difficult to come up with a list of genuinely famous actors who have not been in an Oscar-nominated film (which is what I did below) and more importantly, it’s going to be a lot harder next year as many of the below actors are in major motion pictures that could be part of the Oscar conversation.

You may be thinking that this is a super easy game to play, but it’s not, as it isn’t just Meryl Streep and George Clooney movies that get nominated for the Oscars.  Adam Sandler, for example, starred in Click which was nominated for Best Makeup.  Miley Cyrus was the voice of a little girl in the Oscar-nominated Bolt.  Mike Myers had a bit part in Inglourious Basterds.  Kevin James had a role in Monster House.  By-and-large, if you’re famous enough to open a movie, you’re probably famous enough to have been in an Oscar-nominated film.  However, the ten below actors have never been (through my checking on IMDB) in an Oscar-nominated film and regularly star in motion pictures.  Let’s jump in and see when they got the closest/and if they have a shot this year!

Jessica Alba

Lifetime Gross: $931 million

Biggest Hit: Fantastic Four ($154 million)

Highest-Rated (all highest-rated according to Rotten Tomatoes Freshness Rating): Stretch

Best Shot She Had: I would assume it would be Sin City, which got nominated by the Sound Editors branch for a Golden Reel Award and received a number of critical awards from the St. Louis, Washington DC, and San Diego critics groups.

Does She Have a Shot This Year?: Doubtful-if the first Sin City film couldn’t make it, I have little confidence that its sequel will.

Jennifer Aniston

Lifetime Gross: $1.41 billion

Biggest Hit: Bruce Almighty ($242 million)

Highest-Rated: The Iron Giant

Best Shot She Had: Considering that it was in the years before the Animated Feature category, the reality is that the critically-celebrated The Iron Giant was never going to be a genuine player.  However, none of Aniston’s other films came close to being nominated, so I’m going to go with Iron Giant in perhaps a writing category (had the Animated Feature category existed at the time, Aniston wouldn't be on this list).

Does She Have a Shot This Year?: As we discussed earlier this month, absolutely; Aniston is, in my opinion, one of the current frontrunners for Best Actress and could score not only a nomination, but a nomination for herself with Cake.

Zac Efron

Lifetime Gross: $813 million

Biggest Hit: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax ($214 million)

Highest-Rated: Hairspray

Best Shot He Had: If there’s a genuinely surprising person on this list, it would be Efron, who has been in some films with major shots at the Oscars.  Hairspray and The Paperboy both got Golden Globe nominations for acting, and Me and Orson Welles scored an acting nod at the BAFTA’s.  All-in-all, I think that he’s probably been the closest of any of these ten actors.

Does He Have a Shot This Year?: Not really-Neighbors was a big hit, but it’s not Oscar BAIT in the slightest.

Tina Fey

Lifetime Gross: $530 million

Biggest Hit: Megamind ($148 million)

Highest-Rated: Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

Best Shot She Had: Megamind was a contender in a particularly competitive year for Animated Feature, but that Box Office might have helped it had the year gone five-wide.  I would assume, though, that Mean Girls could have been a contender in Best Screenplay if it had been the phenomenon upon release that it is now, so I’ll go with that.

Does She Have a Shot This Year?: Yes, kind of.  While I don’t 100% know if the Elaine Stritch documentary should count, she definitely was a key player in Muppets Most Wanted, which could end up in the Best Original Song category, as that franchise frequently scores music nods.  A little more Box Office would certainly have helped her odds, though.

Katherine Heigl

Lifetime Gross: $745 million

Biggest Hit: Knocked Up ($148 million)

Highest-Rated: King of the Hill (not the hit FOX animated series, but instead an early 1990’s Steven Soderbergh drama)

Best Shot She Had: I would assume that at some point Judd Apatow was in contention for a writing award considering the critical acclaim and box office he typically gets.  Knocked Up is the most likely contender of his films to have gotten some votes in that column.

Does She Have a Shot This Year?: No-Heigl is far more concerned about the ratings of State of Affairs, her highly-anticipated return to television than she is getting an Oscar-nominated film on her résumé this year.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

Lifetime Gross: $1.639 billion

Biggest Hit: Fast and Furious 6 ($239 million)

Highest-Rated: Racing Dreams

Best Shot He Had: He's been in a couple of major visual effects feasts, principally The Mummy Returns, which would have been his best shot at a nominated film.

Does He Have a Shot This Year?: No-neither of the two Hercules movies is a film many people will remember a week after they saw it, much less months later for a high honor.

Lindsay Lohan

Lifetime Gross: $492 million

Biggest Hit: Freaky Friday ($110 million)

Highest-Rated: Teenage Paparazzo

Best Shot She Had: Bobby at one point was supposed to be an awards contender, but only got cited by the SAG Awards, and working with Robert Altman usually results in a citation for acting or directing, but A Prairie Home Companion couldn't quite cut it in that regard.

Does She Have a Shot This Year?: No-Lohan doesn't even have a film out this year, I believe, and is far more focused on-well, being a tabloid fixture?  Everything she touches lately turns to lead (not even Oprah could save her), so I am assuming this isn't going to happen, and she won't be considered a movie star in the same way the other nine are in a few years.

Kellan Lutz

Lifetime Gross: $1.48 billion

Biggest Hit: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($300 million)

Highest-Rated: Love is All You Need

Best Shot He Had: You may question Kellan Lutz as a movie star, but he's headlining films now and has made more box office than most people on this list, so I'm going to stick with him for now.  Probably the only chance he had was during the Twilight series when it came to Best Original Song, as there were a number of hits from those films that could have been contenders if Oscar had been willing to look past the glittering vampires.

Does He Have a Shot This Year?: The Legend of Hercules doesn’t really seem Oscar-worthy even by the low standards of Best Makeup, so no.

Paul Rudd

Lifetime Gross: $1.143 billion

Biggest Hit: Monsters vs. Aliens ($198 million)

Highest-Rated: Casting By

Best Shot He Had: Probably either Clueless or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, both critically-acclaimed, particularly for their screenplays, but probably left off of the list due to the youth-oriented aspects of the films.

Does He Have a Shot This Year?: No-his movie with Amy Poehler They Came Together barely made a blip on the radar screen (did you know it was released)?

 Channing Tatum

Lifetime Gross: $1.721 billion

Biggest Hit: The Lego Movie ($257 million)

Highest-Rated: Foxcatcher

Best Shot He Had: Honestly, maybe Magic Mike?  Matthew McConaughey easily could have scored a nomination for the film, though if we don’t count that, than perhaps Public Enemies (Art Direction) or GI Joe (Visual Effects).

Does He Have a Shot This Year?: He’ll be off of this list this year.  Tatum not only has the critically-acclaimed Foxcatcher making plays for writing, acting, and Best Picture, but he has two animated films that could factor into the Animated Feature race: The Lego Movie and The Book of Life.

There are the eight-what are your thoughts?  Who gets off this list first?  What major actors am I missing?  And which actor that I name-checked that does have a nominated film are you most surprised to see included?  Share in the comments!

October Oscar Predictions: Best Actor

While the Best Actress race remains somewhat devoid of serious challengers, the race to win a Best Actor nomination is almost comically large.  If ever there was a year that clearly illustrated the problems facing women in Hollywood, it would be this year, where I could theoretically make the case for some twenty men being included in the nominations for Best Actor, whereas I would have trouble listing twenty lead performances period from women this year.

That said, I’ll get off my soapbox (for now) and will instead discuss the bizarrely competitive field of actors that could well be a duplicate of last year depending on how the Globes shake out in terms of surprises on Oscar nomination morning.  Like Best Actress, there are three men who seem destined to receive a nomination this cycle.

The first of these men is Eddie Redmayne, who has started to move into a slight frontrunner status for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.  While he’s still very young (at 32, he’d be one of the youngest Best Actor winners ever), he’s got everything else going for him in terms of BAIT (he’s playing a real-life disabled person-I mean, throw in an accent and you’ve got yourself an Oscar).  Plus, he’s charming (though he might be a bit too handsome to win an Oscar-we’ll wait on that one).

Joining him will be his pal Benedict Cumberbatch, who is playing Alan Turing in The Imitation Game.  Cumberbatch is playing the Oscar game well (sorry-I’ve been writing so long about the Midterms that I cannot quite turn off that switch when discussing the awards season, though let’s be honest-they’re occasionally uncomfortably similar).  Cumberbatch has Harvey Weinstein behind him, but he’s also got a teensy bit of a hit on the film already (the “straight-washing” of the main character being the knock so far).  Plus, he’s so damn ubiquitous that the backlash may start sooner than Oscar night.  Still, he’s never been nominated and is a near certain contender-he’ll be cited.

While Oscar loves a real-life hook, they’re nearly as fond of a comeback, which should bode well for Michael Keaton.  I was initially reluctant about him being able to score (the meta aspect didn’t seem like it would sell well with Oscar), but the reviews are universal, the Box Office is strong, and most importantly Keaton is an aging former movie star, male, and has never been nominated.  This has worked for every actor from Mickey Rourke to Burt Reynolds, and I suspect that it will be enough for him to score a first nod (and perhaps even a trophy).

As for the remainder your guess is as good as mine.  Steve Carell has been at the top of most people’s lists for the bulk of the year, but Foxcatcher seems like it’s a bit on a slide lately, and I cannot quite tell why.  It doesn’t seem to be peaking at the exact right moment that it is supposed to be.  This may be because they seem to be completely screwing up the campaign for Carell’s competitor Channing Tatum.  Tatum got really strong reviews too, and could split votes with Carell, which in a year with this many competitors could be critical.

Timothy Spall is clearly on the upswing for his work in Mr. Turner, though I think that Mike Leigh’s reputation for helping actors get Oscar nominations may be a bit overrated (just ask Lesley Manville and Jim Broadbent), and the film has a much better shot for writing.  Still, biopic!  David Oyelowo for Selma has remained one of my frontrunners-he’s clearly emerging as a big star and “having a moment.”  The trailer didn’t give us a lot of hints though-this looks relatively standard, and in the wake of something like The Butler getting shut out-could that be a sign that AMPAS doesn’t want to embrace traditional Civil Rights biopics?

Bradley Cooper is a fast-emerging dark horse candidate.  Clint is always in the conversation even if he hasn’t been able to land too many punches since his big scores in 2004 and 2006, but American Sniper has the feel of a Clint film that could stage yet another AMPAS comeback for the director.  Cooper has been on a roll the past few years, and clearly the Academy is a major fan.  Could this be the Christian Bale nomination of the year?

Other names that clearly should be mentioned but don’t have the same cache (yet) include Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year and Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler (both sensational reviews, but both may be in too dark of films and may be too young/beautiful to score).  Christian Bale shocked last year with a nomination, but I’m having a hard time getting a read on Exodus: Gods and Kings.  Is it a laughable sort of film that we’re all going to mock mercilessly, or does Ridley Scott have a stealth Gladiator on his hands?  Ben Affleck has never been cited for his acting, but he’s in a likely Best Picture nominee, which should at least keep him on ballots (ditto Matthew McConaughey, Ellar Coltrane, and Jack O’Connell).  Finally there’s Ralph Fiennes, who will surely score a Globe nod for his bravura work in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but may be too early in the year and too slight in such a heavy field of competitors.

September Oscar Predictions: Cumberbatch, Oyelowo, Carell, Keaton, and Redmayne

October Oscar Predictions: Honestly, that list still feels about right to me.  Oyelowo and Carell lose some points in my book due to relative silence regarding their films in the past month, but I don’t quite feel anyone has gotten high enough to mean that one of them is dumped.  I’m definitely feeling Bradley Cooper (figuratively…unfortunately) and Timothy Spall, who are in sixth and seventh place, respectively, in my book, but neither have quite hit that point in their campaigns where I think they will unseat one of the frontrunners.

How about you?  Who do you think is currently in the Top 5?  Who is the frontrunner for the win?  And how good was that American Sniper trailer?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Top Ten: Who Should Host the Oscars?

This is a risky post to write this time of year-I was actually almost done with a Kennedy Center Honors predictions list, and then they actually shared who the winners were, making my article a bit moot (I did tackle the Life Achievement Award honors in a slightly different way here).  This may well be the case with the Oscars' host, as the producers have already been announced so it may be only a matter of time before we get to the actual main event.

Still, though, this is about that time of year where everyone starts throwing the names of every comedian, actor, and talk show host under the sun, and I figured I'd pipe in with my two cents in this regard.  Below you will find my top ten theoretical hosts (and co-hosts) that should host this year's Academy Awards.

Note Before We Begin: Tina and Amy are doing the Golden Globes.  We all want them to host the Oscars.  It's not happening until their contract is done with the Globes.  Let it go people.

Another Note Before We Begin: There are four obvious names that could go below that I'm not going to put.  Justin Timberlake is a terrible actor, and hasn't earned the right to host the Oscars yet (and really, who would want that smugness for three hours?).  Neil Patrick Harris can act, but he tends to make the ceremony too much about himself, and that doesn't work on Hollywood's biggest night (see the disaster of Seth MacFarlane)-better for a smaller venue like the Tony Awards.  I have never really liked Conan O'Brien, and I think that would be a Letterman redux if we had him host.  And Jon Stewart isn't listed not because I don't think he'd be great for a third go-around (I think he would), but he's probably more interested in being a nominee this year for Rosewater.

10. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

If you want to attract the straight male audience, this may be the best way to do so without alienating your core group of women and gay men.  Both of these guys are extremely funny, and while I do wonder what they'd be like in straight stand-up, their SNL episodes are hilarious and that's frequently a great testing water for how someone will do at the Oscars.  Plus, they both are genuine movie stars now and starred in a big hit over the summer-this is a lot better option than Hathaway and Franco a few years ago.

9. Oprah Winfrey

I have genuinely wondered for years what an Oprah telecast would be like for the Oscars.  I know frequently people bring up Meryl as a host, and while I'm sure she'd be flawless (Meryl always is), no one can work a room like Oprah Winfrey.  Frequently people say the host doesn't matter, but I think this would be an interesting twist-Winfrey isn't a comedian, but she can be funny, and is able to instill a gravitas into the ceremony that few others would be able to do (focusing on the movies and the nominees rather than the dresses and the comedic bits).  Plus, she's a Hersholt winner and is wading pretty strongly back into acting-this would be a solid acknowledgement of that.  And if she doesn't host, can we bring back the Barbara Walters interview show and have Oprah host it?

8. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper

I would list Lawrence solo, but she tends to go into some pretty saucy directions, and would need a straight man (pun not intended, oh you Towleroad-like readers), who clearly would be her frequent costar Cooper.  Cooper is extremely good at impressions, great in late night interviews, and is frequently funny (and of course has sensational chemistry with Lawrence).  Plus, both actors couldn't be hotter right now and this is one of those rare years where neither are actually going to be nominated and they need to promote Serena which finally got a distributor and will be released in the Spring-time to strike?

7. James Corden

I know this is unlikely to happen with the Academy Awards hosted on ABC and Corden now under contract to CBS, but this seems just about right.  He can sing, work a crowd, is comfortable on a stage, and is about ready to be a superstar.  Plus, it's been a while since we had a British host (the last one was Dudley Moore at the 55th Academy Awards over thirty years ago), and considering the country's dominance over the nominees over the Oscars' history, this seems like a bit of a contradiction.

6. Jimmy Kimmel

A far more likely contender to host would be ABC's own late-night host, and I honestly cannot figure out why he hasn't actually been called on to do this yet.  He can play to a room extremely well (see his Emmys, which I thoroughly enjoyed) and unlike Jimmy Fallon he can moderate without bursting into fits of laughter over his own jokes (plus Fallon would have too many skits-I hate too many skits at the Oscars, it makes it feel like we're watching SNL, or worse yet-the Emmys (shudder)).  Kimmel's after-Oscar special is already a staple-why not try it for the full night one year and see what happens?

5. Ellen Degeneres

I mean, if it ain't broke?  Last year's Oscars were extremely well-received and well-rated (the highest-watched in over a decade)-part of that is due to everyone's love of Ellen.  She knows how to be funny without being mean (aside from that cutting Liza Minnelli joke last year), and she knows how to bring both the audience at home and the audience in the theater together (I love that she makes a point of "introducing" certain actors and films to the audience that may not know them during her monologues).  Plus, I've long been a fan of AMPAS having hosts come back multiple times-it gives the ceremony itself some history rather than being a flash-in-the-pan every year.

4. Kevin Hart

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more in-demand or hotter actor right now.  Everything that Kevin Hart seems to do lately is a hit, and he's got legitimate stand-up chops.  I know that his films aren't what you'd consider "Academy-friendly," but let's be honest: for the most part, neither were Billy Crystal's and he's been a huge hit through the years.  Hart would also be a clever way for AMPAS to find a comedian that would cater well to the audience in the theater and to the audience at home (this is what made Billy so successful, as well as Johnny and Bob Hope-you have to have both audiences laughing) and would get those younger viewers that AMPAS is always clamoring to recruit.

3. Melissa McCarthy

I mean, isn't this obvious?  McCarthy is the biggest comedic star on the planet right now, and like Kevin Hart, seems to be able to make money for studios in her sleep.  She's persistently hilarious on SNL and whenever she's at an awards show, managing to make even unfunny material work with her show-business moxie.  Plus, she seems to be someone that everyone in Hollywood is rooting for, and therefore would be able to get some of the biggest stars in the audience in on a couple of her jokes and monologue bits (who doesn't want to see her explain the Scorsese drinking game to Marty himself?).  I would be stunned if her name isn't on the Oscar producers' shortlist already.

2. Louis CK

Numbers 2-4 are on here really because they’re the best mix of edgy and Academy-friendly.  One of the big misses with Seth MacFarlane was that people really don’t want a Comedy Central style roast of all of the people in the Dolby-they don’t want a cringe-worthy set of jokes that seems funny to frat boys and no one else.  They want someone who can gently poke fun at the people in the audience and still not appear toothless.  This is why CK would be near perfect-completely aware of his rising star in the Hollywood food chain, he’d be smart but still able to rib all of the A-listers without biting off the hand that feeds him.

1. Whoopi Goldberg

My brother and I may be the only two people in the world who would put Whoopi at the top of this list, but honestly-Whoopi hosted all of my favorite Oscars.  She knows how to do her homework (she frequently finds herself hitting all of the major movies in a way I’ve never seen a host do except for maybe Hugh Jackman), she’s hilarious and can read a room (she can tell when the monologue needs a softball and isn’t afraid to pitch it), and she’s a great actress.  Honestly-how long are we going to have to wait for her to hit her fifth show out of the park?

Those are my thoughts, but there are infinite possibilities-who are you hoping signs up to host the next Oscars?  Share in the comments!!!

2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actor

We have tackled Actress, Actor, and Supporting Actress, so to finish off the quartet we will now head into Best Supporting Actor predictions.  Best Supporting Actor may be the hardest of the categories to predict this far in advance because frequently these nominations happen for films that aren't necessarily in the Best Picture race, (though historically these were most frequently Best Picture nominees, if a cursory look at former nominees are any indication), and so this is probably the prediction list most likely to change in the coming months.

The best way to start off in the Supporting Actor race is to think like a Republican, and find all of the older white men with major films out this year.  This category tends to be the most homogenous of the four in terms of its demographics, and so the best place to start is probably Robert Duvall in The Judge.  As we recently wrote about, Duvall is one of the most enduring stars with Oscar, but hasn't been nominated in sixteen years despite extremely strong reviews four years ago for Get Low (which I'm told is good but I didn't see because it missed the OVP-is this something I should be renting?).  I suspect that a father/son drama with Oscar nominee Robert Downey, Jr. would get him some attention.  Adding to the old white man cache would be Tom Wilkinson in Selma, where he'll do that greatest of Oscar tricks (play a famous real-life figure, in this case former President Lyndon Johnson), and I suspect he will probably be back (doesn't it feel weird that he is a recent two-time nominee that no one ever seems to talk about?).  Finally, J.K. Simmons could fill the frequent slot of character-actor-we-are-finally-acknowledging, as his performance in Whiplash seems to be both co-lead and scene-stealing, and I suspect Oscar will want to give him a citation in the same way they have other major famous faces (but not necessarily famous names).  Other older white dudes that could be in the conversation (though aren't as prevalent as these three) include Albert Brooks in A Most Violent Year (though if he couldn't score for Drive...), John Goodman in The Gambler (what is the deal with this movie?-for a film in December starring Mark Wahlberg and Jessica Lange it sure is under-performing, buzz-wise), and Tim Roth as Gov. George Wallace in Selma (though this category doesn't double-up as often in a film as Supporting Actress does).

Moving a bit out of the senior citizen bracket, probably your safest bet for a nomination would be Edward Norton in Birdman, where he appears to have a significant part and is the sort of actor Oscar has been itching to welcome back after his quick one-two punch in the 90's followed by a whole lack of loving from the Academy (AMPAS is a fickle mistress).  Josh Brolin got a nomination for Milk in 2008 but has been working consistently since without any other nominations-if he's a particular stand-out in Inherent Vice I suspect we may see him in this race again.  I'm not sure what it says about Ethan Hawke and the quality of this race versus Supporting Actress, but despite his equally good performance he doesn't seem to have the same sort of momentum as Patricia Arquette does for Boyhood.  Still, if the film does well with precursors expect to see his name at least thrown around a bit after a trio of past nominations.  Dominic West in Pride and Paul Jesson in Mr. Turner are both names that could factor into a race like this if the films strike, but the former has almost no buzz (is it it even going wide by art house standards?) and the latter is a Mike Leigh film, and Leigh is considerably better at getting women attention than men.  And there's always the possibility that someone like Johnny Depp makes it for Into the Woods, though that show usually seems to be about the ladies in terms of awards (and I suspect that recently on-a-roll James Corden would be the standout if there was going to be one).

There are of course "younger" potential nominees in this category as well, the most important being Logan Lerman in Fury.  Lerman was sensational (and Oscar-worthy) two years ago in Perks of Being a Wallflower, but way too young and cute to be nominated in lead.  He's probably younger and sexier than you'd expect for a male category either way, but supporting is a better bet, particularly when working opposite Brad Pitt (Pitt is really good at bringing out his costars, just ask Oscar-nominated Geena Davis, Casey Affleck, and Jonah Hill).  Domhnall Gleeson has a significant role in Unbroken and has been on the edges of stardom in a way his father frequently finds himself (anyone think it's odd that Brendan cannot seem to get any buzz for the well-received Calvary?).  And then there's the truly excellent question regarding Foxcatcher-how do they market Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo in this film (I've heard marvelous things in particular about the former)?  If they put them both as supporting, does Tatum overshadow Ruffalo?  Or do they market Tatum in lead, giving Ruffalo a strong chance at a nomination but hurting Tatum?  That's perhaps the biggest question of this Oscar season, campaign-wise, in my opinion.

My Predictions: I am guessing Simmons, Norton, Lerman, Duvall, and Wilkinson are at the top of the list at this point.  Norton seems the most likely to be nominated, Lerman seems the least just because of his age.  I'm intrigued by a couple of options on this list, though, and could see a few names popping up later in the year, particularly Goodman and the Foxcatcher lads.

Is There a Winner?: Like I said, Lerman is way too young to win here, I doubt that Wilkinson wins for playing a president so soon after Daniel Day-Lewis did, and I don't think that Norton will take it for what looks like a sidekick role.  Simmons or Duvall, on the other hand, have the vibe of a winner.  Simmons has been working in Hollywood for eons and is well-respected; plus, this is a role where he's set to dominate in a BIG way (have you seen the trailer?).  Duvall, on the other hand, has entered the last phase of his career (may it hopefully be extremely long), and has only won one Oscar while many of his peers (de Niro, Hoffman, and Nicholson) all have more than one.  I think that there may be a push to let him join that list (and hopefully get Al Pacino back into some good movies, damn it, to seal the quintet).

And there we have finished up the actors-we'll do the final September predictions (Best Picture!) this weekend, but before we close out our too-early guesses, what are your thoughts on this race?  Do you think I have the five guys pegged, or should I have picked another name?  Who am I missing on this list that may strike?  And most importantly, which of these performances are you most looking forward to? Share in the comments!