OVP: Actor (2004)

OVP: Best Actor (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda

Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator

Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby

Jamie Foxx, Ray

My Thoughts: All right, we are in the final four now as we hit the closing stretch of our 2004 write-ups.  This week, we'll be tackling both lead categories with the Oscars, and we'll be starting with the gents.  The 2004 Oscars featured a record number of black actors nominated (at the time), including two in this field.  We also had the return of Leonardo DiCaprio, back a decade after his last nomination and commencing what would be a march to inevitability with an Oscar win.  We'll start there, because Leo's end result (winning an Oscar for one of his least performances in The Revenant) actually began in a much stronger position, and one wonders what might have happened had he just won during his pretty boy phase.

DiCaprio's second outing with Martin Scorsese is perhaps his best (though they've made magic a few times, so I put an asterisk next to this statement).  DiCaprio has such a buoyancy in his acting style (he's so much better at lighter comedy or romance than heavy drama) that lends itself well to Howard Hughes as a young man, when his intense promise & massive privilege afforded him the luxury of pursuing his adolescent fantasies (planes, movies, & beautiful women).  DiCaprio uses that memory of a young Howard as the film progresses, making him fall apart and lose his sense of balance in the film's final third.  This is not the best part of the movie, and it's where most actors would've leant in the hardest (and DiCaprio does, occasionally showing some strain), but he's laid such groundwork in the previous chapters that it has a different aura than an actor who would've solely approached Hughes through his own disabilities.

Jamie Foxx is also playing an iconic 20th Century figure in his film, but he does so with less internal dialogue.  Foxx's work is all about mimicry, playing Ray Charles with the same sort of body language & intonation as the legendary singer.  This is skillful, and it's a talent that Foxx has shown off in countless talk show appearances (he's a very good impressionist), but it's not really acting in the sense of what DiCaprio is doing.  Foxx doesn't give us enough of the character Ray Charles, and of course he's not doing his own singing in the movie, so much of the majesty in some of the film's musical numbers aren't something that you can attribute to him.  This isn't a complete whiff (after all, film history is littered with people lip-syncing & giving us great work), but without some sort of depth in the actual performance he's giving offscreen, there's not much there in his work-this is showy surface-level stuff, not anything of note, and the kind of performance that feels like the makeup team deserved the Oscar more than the actor.

Johnny Depp is playing a famous person as well, but unlike DiCaprio & Foxx, he doesn't need to really look or sound like him-JM Barrie is not well-known to the mass audience for anything other than creating Peter Pan.  Despite some of my misgivings about the film as a whole, Depp is good in this movie.  He plays Barrie as a man lost, someone who cannot quite understand where the magic of his life has gone, and finds the ability to recapture it.  However, this isn't Oscar-worthy work, and feels like the kind of afterglow nomination that happens when the Academy finally sits up and notices your talent.  While Jack Sparrow is so good you'd be forgiven for thinking that it deserves two Oscar nominations, that isn't really how the OVP works and so I'd say this is middling in terms of conversations about Depp's career (we'll get to his splendid work in Pirates eventually, possibly as soon as this fall).  

Don Cheadle has shown a knack in recent years for comedy & genre work, which is not where his career initially began.  Hotel Rwanda is his only nomination (to date), but it's also one of my least favorite of his performances.  Cheadle excels at his best when he's given something naturalistic to play onscreen, bringing an ease to his characters.  That's not the case of Hotel Rwanda, where he's asked to essentially just experience tragedy-after-tragedy, but gives us little insight into the man he's playing.  This isn't really his fault.  Unlike Foxx or Depp, the script doesn't give him a lot to do other than be miserable for two hours & heroic in the face of increasingly long odds, but it's also not a particularly strong performance that elevates its unimpressive source material.

The final nominee is Clint Eastwood, playing the only fictional character in this entire bunch in Million Dollar Baby.  Eastwood's politics and recent spell of movies (which have had increasingly poor results), sometimes negate the fact that he can act, and is actually quite a good actor with the right role.  That's what happens in Million Dollar Baby, where he gives (by my estimate) the best performance in the picture, imbuing his boxing coach with a sense of not only lost opportunity (getting the relationship with Hilary Swank's Maggie that he could never have with his own daughter), but also a sense of the passage of time.  Life is not fair, and Eastwood's Frankie Dunn knows this.  Eastwood isn't stretching his acting muscles too hard here (this is right in his wheelhouse), but a good director & movie star knows to pick scripts that play to their talents, and Eastwood certainly does that here.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went to DiCaprio, over Cheadle, Deep, Liam Neeson (Kinsey), & Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside), while Comedy/Musical gave their trophy to Foxx over Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Kevin Spacey (Beyond the Sea), Kevin Kline (De-Lovely), and Paul Giamatti (Sideways).  The SAG Awards gave their trophy to Foxx as well, with the entire Oscar lineup (save Eastwood) showing up, along with Paul Giamatti.  BAFTA also gave the trophy to Foxx, here skipping both Eastwood & Cheadle in favor of Carrey and Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries).  In terms of sixth place, I have to assume it's Paul Giamatti, though the case could be made that Neeson or Bardem was in the hunt as well (though their films weren't nearly as successful with Oscar as Sideways was)-Eastwood's nomination was an indication that Million Dollar Baby was about to win a lot of Oscars.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: When people talk about how Jim Carrey deserves an Oscar nomination, this is surely where he deserved it the most.  His work in Eternal Sunshine is the rare case of a comedian playing a straight role but losing none of his natural charisma-truly bravura work.  I also would have included Bruno Ganz for Downfall-if they're going to cite it for Foreign Language Film, there's no reason we aren't also getting his seismic work a trophy for this performance.

Oscar’s Choice: Revisionist history might make you think DiCaprio was close, but he wasn't.  Jamie Foxx was a landslide all season long.

My Choice: I'd give it to Leo-his work is the most complete, and uses his natural gifts the best.  Following him (in order) would be Eastwood, Depp, Cheadle, & Foxx.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone still on Team Jamie or are some of you willing to join me over on the Leo side of things?  Do we think Clint Eastwood will ever win an acting prize for the Academy or will he join the likes of Orson Welles & Woody Allen with only behind-the-scenes trophies?  And how exactly did Sideways score so big but not get an acting nomination for Paul Giamatti?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2004: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

Past Best Actor Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Supporting Actor (2004)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Alan Alda, The Aviator

Thomas Haden Church, Sideways

Jamie Foxx, Collateral

Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby

Clive Owen, Closer

My Thoughts: We move into the acting category today, and a weird reminder that the Best Supporting Actor race of 2004 hardly features a slew of unknowns, but it's a strange field.  Four of these men were getting their first nominations in 2004 (only Morgan Freeman had been nominated before this), and while Jamie Foxx double-dipped in 2004 (winning the lead actor Oscar for Ray), the only person in this field who would (to date) be nominated for an Oscar again would be, well, Morgan Freeman.  All of these performers are still living & working (Alda even appeared in a Best Picture nominee in 2019), so I'm not sure why we haven't seen more success here, but other than Freeman, this is only year we'll get to discuss these performers in the context of this series.

Let's begin, then, with Morgan Freeman.  Freeman's career (and his work in Million Dollar Baby) is sometimes hard to track because his time as a star is so atypical.  An actor who didn't come onto people's radar until he was in his fifties (with 1987's Cry Freedom), his signature work in Shawshank Redemption was nominated in 1994 but didn't gain its ardent fanbase until years later after near constant reruns on TNT (if you are too young to remember this, there was a time when you literally couldn't flip through your cable package on the weekend and not see Shawshank playing).  As a result, Freeman getting a career Oscar for Baby feels unusual since he'd only been famous for twenty years, but his age probably necessitated it.  He is not expanding his skill set here-his weathered gym assistant is totally in his wheelhouse, and this isn't stretching what we expect from Freeman.  That isn't a knock, though-Freeman is very good at knowing scripts that will work with him, and under the eye of longtime friend-and-collaborator Clint Eastwood, he brings a sturdiness to this role that other actors might have lacked.  Still, this isn't his best work & it's not particularly challenging.

Jamie Foxx is giving the best performance of his career in Collateral.  We'll get into the Ray discussion next week, but I am ripping the bandaid off now-he is better in Collateral.  Playing a man who is stuck above-his-head, but learns as the movie continues that he is more-than-capable of taking on Tom Cruise's Vincent, he brings an everyman appeal to this role that other actors might have confused with bravado (in fact, it's hard to imagine Foxx himself would've played this in the same way just a few years later, his latter work too focused on Foxx's offscreen persona).  That being said, Foxx is 100% a lead here, one of the more egregious cases of category fraud of the 2000's, and for that I must dock a point (we do that with any supporting performance I deem lead to even the playing field).  But know that I was a fan, and really wish this was his Oscar nomination rather than Ray.

You could maybe claim that Clive Owen's role in Closer is also lead, as Closer is the kind of film where you could sincerely argue that all of the characters are leads, but when there's a grey area I tend to just base on the performance (rather than taking a star away).  What isn't in debate is his how good Owen is here.  He plays this character's cruel, predatory charm with such an ease that this would become the performance that would define much of his later career.  It helps that he's got a great overall cast to play off (no one is slouching in this bunch), but he is the one actor who finds the most malice in Patrick Marber's play.

Thomas Haden Church still stands out to me as one of the oddest actors to score a nomination for the Oscars in the past twenty years.  An actor who struggled in forgettable sitcoms (his most noted work being his decade on Wings), Church shows that great actors are oftentimes just in search of a great script.  His Jack is a tough role-he is meant to not only be likable, but also believable as Miles' longtime friend.  He plays him so well, infusing him with the heat of a man who was once able to win the world based on his implied promise (and is watching as that slips away from him with age), and represents a form of jovial toxic masculinity that is commonplace in real life, but very hard to put into a movie without it totally upending the character.  That he pulls this off is one of Sideways more impressive tricks.

This leaves us with Alan Alda.  Alda, like Church, has most of his fame in television, but unlike Church, that fame was incredibly successful (particularly MASH), and accompanied by frequent film acting including working with Woody Allen & David O. Russell.  It's hard to begrudge the affable Alda a career nomination, but if we take this performance on its merits, it's a throwaway part that's basically just one great soliloquy in an otherwise inconsequential moment in the film.  Cameos (which is basically what this is given the run time) can still be great, but this is one-note & makes virtually no impression beyond "hey, look, it's Alan Alda!"  It's fun that Alda got a nomination, but the OVP focuses on just the work-at-hand and not a performer's full career, and in that context...this is a bit silly.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Clive Owen, with all of this lineup save for Alan Alda getting nominated (instead, the HFPA picked David Carradine for Kill Bill Volume 2).  The BAFTA Awards also went with Owen (home field advantage), and here skipped both Freeman & Church (if I recall correctly Million Dollar Baby wasn't eligible for the BAFTA's due to release date timing) in favor of Phil Davis (Vera Drake) and Rodrigo de la Serna (The Motorcycle Diaries).  The SAG Awards also skipped Alda and (perhaps kneecapping his Oscar chances) Owen, giving their trophy to Freeman and picking Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) and James Garner (The Notebook).  We're still recent enough that I lived through these Oscar seasons (when we hit the early 1990's, my sixth place guesses will get a little bit more stretched or I might only mention them selectively), so I know that Peter Sarsgaard (Kinsey) was actually a much bigger threat than any of the names I listed just now, give or take Highmore, and one of those two was the sixth place finisher.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I know some might scoff, but just because a film is genre doesn't mean that it can't have great acting, and I've long felt that David Thewlis' anguished Professor Lupin in Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the series' more underrated performances.  I'd also find room for David Carradine in Kill Bill, another actor proving that he was far more than the parts that were given to him during his heyday.

Oscar’s Choice: This was a pretty easy win for Freeman, even if Owen dominated the early precursor awards, as Million Dollar Baby's heat came late in the race.

My Choice: I'm going to give it to Owen-it's the best performance overall, and a superb star turn from an actor who never really got his due in later work.  I'll follow him with Church, Foxx, Freeman, & Alda, a lineup I wouldn't have agreed with during 2004 (which goes to show how your tastes change as you age).

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you with the Academy in deciding it was Morgan Freeman's time, or do you want to come over to Team Clive Owen?  Who is an actor like Thomas Haden Church you think should go from sitcom sidekick to Oscar nominee?  And Sarsgaard or Highmore-who was your bet for sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2004: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

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

OVP: Soul (2020)

Film: Soul (2020)

Stars: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Phylicia Rashad, Angela Bassett

Director: Pete Docter

Oscar History: 3 nominations/2 wins (Best Animated Feature Film*, Sound, Score*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Pixar has had an ebb-and-flow when it comes to making films for children versus for their parents.  Even from its feature-film beginnings with Toy Story, that film might have had flashy cowboys & astronauts for children, but the parents in the room understood that this was about getting older, and could look at their little Andy's & understand that they only got to be in this stage for so long.  Occasionally they went totally for kids (the Cars franchise), and in some cases it feels like it leaned more heavily onto the adults with only a few hints for the kids (Up had the dog & the boy scout child, but otherwise was about two old men battling it out as they aged).  Soul, though, takes Pixar to a new direction-while the colors are playful & occasionally the baby souls might feel like a way for children to latch on, this is a film entirely for grownups; this is the first Pixar, and perhaps first Disney animated, film where children are the afterthought.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Joe (Foxx), a middle school music teacher whose passion is not in education but in the gigs he plays at jazz venues & nightclubs, where he is an excellent pianist but never got his big break.  When he finally does get a chance to jam with legendary musician Dorothea Williams (Bassett), he's so excited he doesn't realize there's a manhole in front of him, and he, well, falls through and dies.  This brings him to the "Great Beyond," essentially his afterlife, but Joe isn't ready to die, and attempts to escape from this place, but does so with 22 (Fey), a soul that has refused to leave the Great Beyond and start an actual life on Earth.  When the two go to Earth, they switch bodies, and slowly 22 learns about life (realizing it's worth living), and Joe understands that aspects of his life have been ignored & even run selfishly (he has had more impact than he knew).  This results in 22 getting the same "imprint" of hobbies as Joe, even though she's different, and so Joe (after jamming with Dorothea & realizing it wasn't as grand as he expected it), goes back to save her, and give her a chance at a true, unique life on earth.  In doing so, he is given a reprieve to return to his life from the Great Beyond, and he does, but with a renewed perspective to live life to its fullest.

Soul tries to do a lot, and that doesn't always work even in strong movies.  The third act is convoluted-the mythology of the Great Beyond is a bit too convoluted for a movie that's only 100 minutes long, and it does feel like we could've trimmed a bit of the body-swapping aspects as it wears out its welcome pretty quickly.  The film also borrows too much from previous Pixar messages, specifically Inside Out, and so it doesn't feel as special as it might've ten years ago.

That said, Soul is occasionally really wonderful.  The color scheme (so much purple and white) is a treasure (Pixar continues to just reach for the stars aesthetically), and the score is a dream.  It also has the gaul to not just make a film for adults, but a complicated one.  The conversations about not letting your dreams control your destiny is one that we all have to do.  Most of us don't get to have the job we had when we're ten, and we work in day jobs that pay the bills, but aren't what inspires us.  Soul challenges its viewers to ignore the voice in our head that says that we "failed" as a result, and instead to appreciate the dreams & the gifts that we have made for ourselves, and not let us be defined just by our careers in a world where that's what most of us feel defined by.  It's a good message, and an important one after a year of many of us losing our jobs (or more) or having an undue amount of stress that has us appreciating life more.  The film ends on a note of ambiguity but of realness.  Joe has hopes that he will take this experience and not fall back into the same rut, into the same shell of underwhelmed expectations-it's the hope we all carry as we move forward past trauma & close calls (like our collective 2020).  That Pixar is brave enough to admit that this is harder than it seems, and that it doesn't show the next chapter of his life is smart, and yet another sign that this movie is made for the adult-who-still-dreams.

OVP: Baby Driver (2017)

Film: Baby Driver (2017)
Stars: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx
Director: Edgar Wright
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Seven years ago, I had one of the more surprising moments of my cinematic life when I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Up until that point I had never seen one of the films of Edgar Wright, and only knew him by his trailers, none of which particularly interested me.  Michael Cera had at that point become something of a movie star, so it wasn't surprising to see him headlining a comedy for the summer, but like Jonah Hill & Seth Rogen, names I associated with him, he wasn't a calling card for me.  Still, the reviews were quite strong for the picture, and the movie I was supposed to see was sold out, so I thought "let's give this a shot, shall we, as I'm already here?" and so I went in and saw the movie, and I LOVED IT.  I have seen Scott Pilgrim more times than probably any film from 2010, including The Social Network, and I can quote most of the lines.  I was so hooked that I was surprised when Edgar Wright suddenly became less prolific, and didn't make another movie that seemed to capture that quick-witted, visual-flare style of Scott Pilgrim again (perhaps it was due to the Box Office not loving the picture as much as I did).  So when Baby Driver's trailers invited me back looking like they'd been torn out of the same page book as Scott Pilgrim, it didn't take any coaxing for me to be in the theaters.  I was there opening weekend.

(Spoilers Ahead) Inevitably Baby Driver was not going to be Scott Pilgrim, if in part because it wasn't going to be a discovery, but man did I like it anyway.  The movie centers on a getaway driver named Baby (Elgort, perhaps the only actor working who could pull off that moniker), who is about to undertake a heist with a motley crew made up of Buddy (Hamm), his wife Darling (Gonzalez), Bats (Foxx), and Doc (Spacey), the leader of the group.  Like all good crime movies, we see a successful heist to kickoff the picture, and then it unfolds into a series of deadly mistakes, which lead Baby to rebel against the crew as he wants to get out and start a new life with a young waitress named Debora (James).  The film unfurls with multiple characters dying in the process, and a lovely, happy ending akin to Scott Pilgrim as the picture unfolds.

The fun of Scott Pilgrim was that, even at its most ridiculous (how is it that Ramona Flowers has so many evil exes that have superpowers?), was that the lines were snappy and the characters were heartily felt, and certainly the script here delivers.  While there was nothing quite as remarkable as "Julie Powers Has Issues" (I still do a spit take), these are all actors with clearly fine comic timing, give or take Lily James (who isn't really asked to be funny), and some of the visual bits, like anything surrounding Baby's name or his relationship with the deaf man he lives with, feel plum and full of movie positivity.  Honestly-one of the rare things about the first half of Baby Driver might be it's so joyfully in love with its main character, and I liked that.  After seeing him now in a couple of movies, I'm still not entirely sure about how extensive Ansel Elgort's skills are as an actor, but he's nearly impossible not to enjoy watching, and not just because of that exaggeratedly handsome mug of his.  He has to be one of the most charming figures to come to the movies in a long while, and he is exactly right for this part as Baby.  The film lives or dies based on his work, keeping the movie and intrigue about his character steady, and he does that with aplomb.  I genuinely don't know where his career will take him, but between this and his similarly well-cast work in The Fault in Our Stars, he's at least quite fine at picking out scripts.

The movie derails a bit in terms of its fun in the final third of the film, when it borrows perhaps too liberally from Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, and both Kevin Spacey & Jon Hamm see their characters go in too extreme of directions.  Spacey, while an actor with fine comic timing, doesn't really have a read on a character whose motives are hard to suss out unless you want to start projecting some sort of homosexual love that he has for Baby, and Hamm can't seem to ground his character's dramatics enough toward the end of the movie, making him (in my opinion) the weakest link in the picture, which was not an opinion frequently shared by other critics.  Honestly, for all of the criticism that January Jones gets for being a limited actor, aside from spoofing his handsome-man persona on 30 Rock, has Jon Hamm ever done anything approaching the gift he exhibited in 30 Rock?

That said, for the first half, and occasionally in the second, this is a delight to behold.  Wright combines fun, energy, and wit (both visual and aural) so well onscreen that even when he gets a little bloated or overly confident, it's hard not to dismiss that while you're enjoying your time in the theater.  If you haven't yet, catch this (or Scott Pilgrim), as it's now available on DVD.  And share your thoughts on the picture below!

5 Random Thoughts on the Golden Globes

Like it does every year, the Golden Globes reignited the awards season like only it can.  The awards show that has to be considered the most fun, the bad boy of the awards calendar (compared to the poindexter-y nerd of SAG, the sycophantic copycat of BFCA, and the aloof BAFTA) the Globes were particularly Globe-like last night, with more drunk celebrities than I could have possibly hoped for (everyone from Tom Hanks to Taraji "Don't Step on My Train" Henson) and more controversies than I could have possibly been able to hope for.  Below we'll go through the five things that stuck out to me about last night's ceremony.

1. I Am in Love with the Unpredictability

Honestly-this is like an awards season from the 1960's at this point-no one seems to have a handle on the race.  At any one point Carol, Spotlight, Brooklyn, Room, Mad Max, Bridge of Spies, The Big Short, and now The Martian and The Revenant have all led their categories.  Admittedly we took some predictable steps last night (it's totally plausible to see DiCaprio/Larson/Stallone/Winslet dominating the entire rest of the season, though Stallone can't take the SAG and Winslet hasn't faced off against Mara or Vikander in The Danish Girl).  Still, Best Picture could go any direction, even copying last year which would be a big deal at this point, and that's exciting.  No one wants to sit through an Oscars where it's clear who's going to win the whole time.

2. Female-Led Movies Need a Chance

That being said, there's something a little bit unpleasant about the fact that in a year where female-led films like Brooklyn, Room, and Carol all were at the top of the heap that we may have only male-backed films clawing through on the top of the pile for producing, directing, and writing awards.  Particularly with Carol, it's noteworthy that a film that has won myriad critics awards could be able to make a play for the Oscar, as the last time a female-dominated film won Best Picture was 2002's Chicago, and the last time a film that only had female leads won Best Picture was 1983's Terms of Endearment.  For comparison's sake, it's been ten years since a film with a true female lead (Million Dollar Baby in 2004) won Best Picture-every one since has only had females in supporting roles.  That's too long of a time to go without female-driven pictures at the top of the heap, and considering that the female-led films were the critical story this year, this should be happening in 2015.

3. Ricky Gervais is the Worst

Seriously-that was one of the most obnoxious, horribly bad performances I've ever seen at an awards ceremony, and I sat through James Franco's entire Oscar monologue (admittedly the year that Tom Bergeron and Ryan Seacrest hosted the Emmys was worse, but that's not really a bar I think anyone will ever be able to cross).  Gervais was transphobic on multiple occasions (what the hell was with the entire Jeffrey Tambor portion of the monologue?), frequently went to easy and cheap wells (Charlie Sheen, anyone?), and only on rare, rare occasions was actually funny (I liked the clear dig at Harvey Weinstein, as did Harvey, and while I thought it was a particularly low blow someone had to go after Ben Affleck considering the year he's had and his amount of celebrity).  I get that no one should be defending Mel Gibson, but wow-that may have been the most awkward moment I've ever seen at an awards show.  Thank god the producers hadn't also lined up Sean Penn, or there would have been a fistfight on-stage. Can we please not hire Ricky Gervais again?  Anyone else would be better.  Pretty please?!?

4. Presenters Were a Mixed Bag

Honestly, though, the presenters were a very mixed bag, mostly on the dour.  About the only presenters where I genuinely laughed and actually quite loved what they did were Eva Longoria and America Ferrera poking fun at both the HFPA and Hollywood in general for not knowing the differences between them and other Latina actresses.  Otherwise we had Helen Mirren getting objectified yet again (I'm surprised they didn't go there as well with J. Lo-maybe it was too early in the night?), Jonah Hill in a bear costume in a skit that went flat, and even Amy Schumer/Jennifer Lawrence were far less funny than you would have anticipated.  And the worst was surely Jamie Foxx, who should never be invited back to an awards show again after both suggesting he slept with his co-presenter and then announcing the wrong winner in the Original Score category, ruining Ennio Morricone's big moment, which thankfully he wasn't there for (unfortunately that meant Quentin Tarantino giving the acceptance speech and using the word "ghetto" to the chagrin of pretty much every person watching, including Jamie Foxx).  All-in-all, someone in Hollywood owes Lily James a franchise role or something for having to present through all of that, which she was clearly and understandably uncomfortable with doing.

5. Lady Gaga?  Really?

I'm trying here, people, but I just can't.  I get that Gaga hate on this blog is approaching levels that even I'm not okay with, but let's not pretend that she can act here.  I can't actually get through AHS: Hotel this season, but have watched enough to know that her delivery is worse than Jennifer Hudson's in the Sex and the City movie, and that she doesn't really understand anything other than breathy emoting.  Having her go up there, basically dismissing her singing career as nothing more than a stepping stone to acting (which would read as more genuine if she hadn't been dismissed by fans, rather than the other way around), trying to make the clear allusions to Cher (read: "I want that Oscar!!!!") and then saying she's speechless when she's thanked every single person on the production?  It was all too much, and while it's the Globes and I kind of thought this was coming considering the relative lack of strength of her fellow nominees, I think we can all agree that Kirsten Dunst, Queen Latifah, Sarah Hay, or Felicity Huffman would have been a better choice for an acting excellence award.

And there you have it-my thoughts on a wild-and-tumble night-what are yours?  Are you thrilled about last night, or are you hoping Thursday will bring an end to this insanity?  Anyone out there want to defend Ricky, Jamie, or Gaga?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

OVP: Django Unchained (2012)

Film: Django Unchained (2012)
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Oscar History: 5 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Supporting Actor-Christoph Waltz*, Original Screenplay*, Cinematography, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

A new Quentin Tarantino film is always cause for a celebration, as it happens so rarely (the ridiculous notion that he can retire is just that, as he's hardly made enough movies to warrent quitting now).  This film, though not related through characters or plotline, is certainly a stylistic companion piece to his 2009 work Inglourious Basterds, one of his best films (though with Tarantino, not to gush, but which of his films isn't one of his best films?).  Both films become, essentially, revenge fantasies working in the shadow of Sergio Leone and the films of Charles Bronson, and in the process tackle extraordinarily touchy topics (in the case of Basterds, the Holocaust, in the case of Django, slavery) not with the kid gloves that typically satirists use for the subjects, but with the care of a battering ram.  The result is a provocative, sometimes borderline offensive, but at-its-core, deeply entertaining film that, while not equalling the magic of the 2009 film, more than justifies its shelf space next to it in the Tarantino canon.

(Spoilers throughout) The film tells multiple tales (this is a Tarantino film, after all, it's going to meander), but at its core is the story of Django (Foxx), a slave who has been separated from his beloved Broomhilda (Washington), and crosses paths with Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter mascarading as a dentist, who must team up with Django, as he is the only person who can identify Schultz's next bounty.  Schultz is impressed with Django's moxie, and decides to take him on as a partner, which Django gladly accepts, as he wishes to raise enough money to save Broomhilda.

As the film progresses, the story shifts away from the bounty hunters and focuses more solely upon Django's quest for Broomhilda, and we are treated to Leo DiCaprio's most game performance in years, as a villainous, slightly naive, anger-driven, lethal plantation owner named Calvin Candie.  We also see the return of Samuel L. Jackson to the center of one of Tarantino's films, this time as a former house slave named Stephen.  The movie meanders quite a bit through this part, as the four central actors spend the bulk of the second third of the film in a verbal sparring match with each other, each relishing Tarantino's sharp, campy dialogue, and we see the juxtaposition of deep, horrific treatment of slaves (in a scene I spent most of my time peaking from behind my sleeve, there is a violent-even-for-Tarantino sequence of Calvin with a "washed-up" fighter named Dartegnon that will make you rethink how you view Jack Dawson in every future outing with Titanic) and the multiple comic bits, particularly surrounding the cartoonish Candie and the ornery Stephen.

It's a fine line, and this is probably as good of time as any for me to address the controversy surrounding the film's accuracy, as well as its tact with its subject.  For those who haven't seen Inglourious, I should probably throw a spoiler alert out right now as I'm going to be discussing both films.  The director's 2009 effort proved that he has no problem completely chucking history to the wind (with Hitler dying in a theater fire, rather than in his bunker at the end of the war, for example).  This film also bends history severely to serve the plot, with things like the KKK (led by Jonah Hill, in one of many guest appearances in the film) making an appearance ten years before its formation.

The problem with this is not that Tarantino is willing to tackle his subject from a satirical or controversial perspective (this is never a bad thing-art is nothing if it can't continue to splinter, bend, and break boundaries).  The problem is that sometimes Tarantino's script and his character of Stephen in particular don't frame the situation properly to have a respectful resolution to certain arguments that have been propogated against the film.  What I mean by this is, while some of the incendiary speech that is used (and as has been noted, there's a lot of it), may be historically accurate, there are sequences where it seems to be used more for the shock factor of using taboo or hateful words just to use them, rather than to assist the plot or the argument that Tarantino is making about the atrocities of the era and of racism (and make no doubt, Tarantino is making that argument, in his own, twisted way).  In addition, there is little distinction made between DiCaprio's Calvin Candie, a villain by choice, and Jackson's Stephen, a villain of circumstance.  Smart moviegoers will obviously make the distinction, but the film doesn't help make this case or point this out, and I think in that way Tarantino misses an opportunity not just to keep everything relative, but to add some shades of grey to his story.

I don't think that these valid arguments, however, take away from the artistry of the movie so much that the film should be dismissed in its entirety.  Indeed, there are great things to enjoy about the film, including Tarantinos's lithe script and capable direction, and a handful of really terrific performances.  Though he borrows heavily from his Hans Landa, Waltz is a charming devil and delivers every line with aplomb.  Jamie Foxx, an actor I go back-and-forth on, exhibits great panache as Django; the Oscar winner has had few opportunities to really show off since his signature 2004 roles in Collateral and Ray-he definitely takes advantage.  The technical team is excellent, save one key partner (we'll get there in a second)-Robert Richardson's work is brilliant as ever, Sharen Davis should be cursing the Academy for not being included for her delicious costuming, and the music, from original songs by John Legend to an inspired use of the Rocky Roberts classic, "Django" make this yet another perfectly-crafted Tarantino soundtrack.  And while the cameos occasionally distract (who was the character wearing a mask that was clearly a woman, and why was that not addressed-was it Uma, Diane, or one of Tarantino's other favorite leading ladies, or am I imagining it?!?), they are such fun it's hard to complain.  I particularly adored the Franco Nero bit, even though I was the only person in my theater who laughed at it, and therefore felt like a bit of a pariah.

Not everything works, which is why this is lesser to Basterds.  In particular, I do not understand why Tarantino, a man who can find depths in forgotten actors like Robert Forster and Darryl Hannah, seems intent on having himself make extended cameos throughout his films, as he is an abysmal actor; a polar bear could achieve a better Australian accent.  If he wants to makes appearances, do delightful, wordless ones like Marty did in Hugo.  The late Sally Menke's proficiency with pruning Tarantino's film was greatly lacking, as there were many moments in the center of the film that desperately needed a better editor.  And while violence and Tarantino are like salt and pepper, the extended shoot-outs in the film's final chapter had me looking at my watch, rather than gasping in the gore.

Overall, though, this is a strong, though imperfect entry in the Tarantino canon.  He should be proud, and though I'm terrified about which subject he next picks, I can't wait to see what he has in store for me next.