1990 Oscar Viewing Project

"It's the nineties, for God's sake," and indeed it is as we encounter our 34th Oscar Viewing Project (see links to the other 33 below).  The Oscar Viewing Project is now in its 2nd third (we'll likely never be below that at this pace, as I try to get through 5-7 of them a year), and we're entering the first year of what my brother & I refer to as our "wilderness period" of movie watching.  I was born in the 1980's, but the movies didn't become my life until the mid-1990's.  This was driven by a series of events, specifically watching my first Oscars at the 1995 ceremony (i.e. the Braveheart Oscars) on repeat after my brother & I taped it, the inclusion of AMC (and eventually TCM) in my parents' cable package, the advent of the AFI 100 Years TV specials, the discovery of Entertainment Weekly at our school library, the opening of a standalone video rental place in my town, my parents letting me watch PG-13 movies, and my mom instituting Tuesday night movies, where she would take my brother & I (regardless of what was showing) to the 7 PM showing (i.e. the G/PG/sometimes PG-13 slot) while my dad had golf night, and so pretty much every week in the summer from roughly 1995 to 1998 we would watch a movie.  This gave me a pretty extensive vernacular with what was going on in the world of movies, and generally meant I had seen 20-30 films from the calendar year by year's end.

From 1990-1994, though, it's a weird spot because these are not "classics" that I had to seek out or have no memory of watching in real-time, but were really when movies were still just a "normal" thing for me, not something I was obsessed with and made my entire personality.  In 1990, I definitely watched at least two movies (The Rescuers Down Under and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in theaters, and so I have at least some context for this year in real-time, even if the bulk of these movies are me watching them later at home.  By 1995, Oscar-related films like Apollo 13 & Babe I'd seen in movie theaters, and had known they were going to be Oscar nominees beforehand, and so the early 1990's feel like a weird time of catchup for me as a teenager, a feeling that has stretched well into adulthood.

I give you this preamble in part because this is a personal journey of Oscar exploration, and in part because I think it's good context.  The early 1990's are a time where I see some of these movies from a child's eyes (I remember my parents' VHS copies of films like Ghost & Pretty Woman, and secretly watching them when I was too young to understand what they were wholly about), and revisiting them as an adult has shifted some of my perspective on them, but in other ways they are immobile.  As always, to ground you in the films of the year, the domestic Top 10 at the box office in 1990 was:

1. Home Alone

2. Ghost

3. Dances with Wolves

4. Pretty Woman

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

6. The Hunt for Red October

7. Total Recall

8. Die Hard 2

9. Dick Tracy

10. Kindergarten Cop

I have actually seen all of these movies, and to underline my point about growing up with them, I had seen 70% (save for #7-9) by the time I turned 16.  Honestly, you have to go Another 48 Hours at #14 on the domestic box office list to find a movie I haven't caught from the top box office that year.  While I have seen all of the Oscar nominees below, there are a couple of precursor contenders that I haven't seen yet, namely The Russia House, White Palace, and Q&A that I haven't caught yet, but plan on doing so before we get to the My Ballot.  

But now, it's time to go back to a time when Nelson Mandela was being freed in front of the world, the Hubble telescope was having us reach for the stars, Roseanne Barr was teaching us new ways to never sing on national television, and the entire nation was mourning the loss of Jim Henson.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Note: For the last time (likely ever) the Visual Effects category was not a competitive category, but instead was given to Total Recall as a special prize.  We'll have a proper category for this when we get to it for the My Ballot with five nominees, and it's worth noting that it's relatively accepted that Dick Tracy, Ghost, and Back to the Future, Part III were shortlisted for this but none of them got nominated (all of which I've seen as well), but I want to note that Total Recall was seen by me for this project, and I generally was impressed with the visual effects, particularly the way that they used makeup effects toward the end of the picture. 

Picture

1. GoodFellas

2. Ghost

3. The Godfather, Part III

4. Dances with Wolves

5. Awakenings

The Lowdown: Let's begin with me saying that 1990 is, collectively, one of the first years I ever saw all five of the Best Picture nominees (I've had this lineup completed since before I graduated high school, which was a while ago), and also a year where (both for Oscar and in general) I don't love the movies themselves as much as others.  The glossy movie star-driven blockbusters that would become the decade's calling card hadn't started yet, and we don't have some of the best prestige work that I enjoyed in the 1980's.  Of these films, it's an easy call for GoodFellas, one of the best films of Martin Scorsese's career.  Ghost ages better with reappraisal, and Godfather 3 is not as bad as its critical reputation allows, but GoodFellas is an easy champion.

Director

1. Martin Scorsese (GoodFellas)

2. Stephen Frears (The Grifters)

3. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Part III)

4. Barbet Schroder (Reversal of Fortune)

5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: It's weird to think about now, but at one point in time Martin Scorsese was basically the Hitchcock or Kubrick of his era-a man who was constantly nominated for Academy Awards but never was able to win any of them.  Meanwhile, I'm giving him his third statue for the OVP (again, links below) for the really incredible way that he upended the gangster flick after decades of hero-worship of it through the Godfather pictures (which of course in this case he competed alongside).  I will also acknowledge I have some respect for Dances with Wolves, but you're going to find out they do not extend to Kevin Costner's involvement in the film (and this ain't its final 5th place finish).

Actor

1. Richard Harris (The Field)

2. Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune)

3. Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac)

4. Robert de Niro (Awakenings)

5. Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)'

The Lowdown: A very odd lineup, and not a strong one (this isn't Oscar's fault...my My Ballot for 1990 is going to be very weird unless I start discovering some stronger stuff in the upcoming viewings...this is much more a year for actresses).  Oscar went with Jeremy Irons, and honestly this wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened for the OVP-Irons is a really good actor, one who somehow only got one Oscar nomination despite being in the AMPAS wheelhouse (British, handsome, classy, constantly in prestige fare), but I'm going to go with Harris over him.  Harris's part is a bit more theatrical, but it also has a stronger build, and he's also batting in a lesser movie while still excelling.  The rest, even Robert de Niro, don't really need mention.

Actress

1. Anjelica Huston (The Grifters)

2. Kathy Bates (Misery)

3. Meryl Streep (Postcards from the Edge)

4. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman)

5. Joanne Woodward (Mr. and Mrs. Bridge)

The Lowdown: While I will own that I'm not inspired by 1990 as a whole, that doesn't mean that I don't have moments, and this is one of the best Best Actress lineups Oscar ever pulled together.  Any of these women would be a winner, and I wouldn't be stunned if my My Ballot looks a lot like this-even Woodward in fifth place is doing a lot of strong work.  I ended up going with Huston over Bates (a controversial choice, I know) not because Bates isn't splendid (one of the best Oscar upsets), but because Huston nails this part so well that I have long been obsessed with it.  The interiority in her work, the way that she nails the animal instinct of that final scene...she's honestly never been better.  I'm aware this means that Bates may never get an OVP statue from me, but...that's why we decide this in a vacuum, and I prefer Huston in a vacuum.

Supporting Actor

1. Joe Pesci (GoodFellas)

2. Andy Garcia (The Godfather, Part III)

3. Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion)

4. Al Pacino (Dick Tracy)

5. Grahame Greene (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: Joe Pesci is one of those truly spectacular actors who rarely works...but when he does, it always felt like an event.  In 1990 you've got him not just nailing the fiery persona behind GoodFellas but also playing the funniest henchmen outside of a DC Comic in Home Alone.  Davison is subtler than I would've expected given the subject matter (his final scene is the best in the movie) and I actually think Andy Garcia brings a hot-headed style to Godfather III (and no, this is not just because I palpitated every time he was onscreen...Andy Garcia in Godfather III was a formative experience for a teenage John watching this on VHS for the first time), but they just aren't in the same hemisphere as what Pesci brings to his doomed mob hitman.

Supporting Actress

1. Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost)

2. Annette Bening (The Grifters)

3. Lorraine Bracco (GoodFellas)

4. Diane Ladd (Wild at Heart)

5. Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves)

The Lowdown: While I didn't go with the consensus choice for Best Actress, that won't be the case here.  Whoopi Goldberg owns Ghost, giving us a lesson in comedy, and totally nailing the frequently cliched role of "best friend to the leading lovers" that has long been the bread-and-butter of the romantic genre.  I do really like Annette Bening, particularly the glossy over-her-head feeling she gets the further The Grifters goes (without ever totally telegraphing it), and Lorraine Bracco has strong moments even if she's pitched a little to the hilt in some scenes of GoodFellas, but like Oscar said-this is Whoopi's year.

Foreign Language Film

1. Cyrano de Bergerac (France)

2. The Nasty Girl (Germany)

3. Ju Dou (China)

4. Journey of Hope (Switzerland)

5. Open Doors (Italy)

The Lowdown: For me, this is a pretty tight contest between France & Germany.  I liked elements of Ju Dou, but honestly Raise the Red Lantern a year later leaves a much longer shadow.  Cyrano is more conventional, a space we've gone to before, but this is also my favorite adaptation of Rostand's story, and it doesn't have the not-always-successful narrator tricks of The Nasty Girl, even if the latter has a more compelling story (and honestly, a better lead performance).

Adapted Screenplay

1. GoodFellas

2. The Grifters

3. Reversal of Fortune

4. Dances with Wolves

5. Awakenings

The Lowdown: Adapted Screenplay goes to the crooks, and the two films I pretty much universally love of this bunch: GoodFellas and The Grifters.  There's something wonderful about The Grifters, a movie I find I champion more than most do, as it strips down some of the best elements of the neo-noir (the sex, the deceit, the ability to have a non-Hays Code ending) and creates something that feels fresh and calculating, but I can't deny GoodFellas in the end, the extremely rare screenplay so well-written it even makes the narration work.

Original Screenplay

1. Ghost

2. Metropolitan

3. Avalon

4. Alice

5. Green Card

The Lowdown: A pretty middling field, even if none are objectively bad.  I'm picking Ghost not just because it's the best, but also because it takes a really challenging genre to make without it turning camp or cloying (the romantic drama-fantasy) and really makes it sell (it's also genuinely funny).  Metropolitan is the most sophisticated (I was stunned to find out it's not based on a play or novel), and part of me wants to go with it but I think its ending doesn't work at all, and neither Avalon nor a weak default nomination for Woody Allen really compare to the Unchained Melody of Ghost.

Sound

1. Dances with Wolves

2. Total Recall

3. Days of Thunder

4. The Hunt for Red October

5. Dick Tracy

The Lowdown: We're shifting into the Oscar era for Best Sound where we are very much valuing the big, action-film even over the prestige fare of the giant epic (Dances with Wolves is the only epic in this bunch, and it's not without its battle scenes).  I actually really like what the team does with Dances with Wolves, between the Civil War beginnings to the way that it adds elements of "the last western" realism to the scenes with Costner off finding himself, all while beautifully bringing in that lush John Barry score.  Total Recall and its futuristic & impressive battles would also have been a good idea, but I think I'm ready to give a statue to Oscar's Best Picture winner here.

Sound Editing

1. The Hunt for Red October

2. Total Recall

3. Flatliners

The Lowdown: It's a running joke with Oscar that he tends to, when it was a separate category, always think first of submarine movies when it comes to Sound Effects Editing (look at the history of the category-it pops up way more than you'd think), and to some degree I agree with him.  The water effects, constant claustrophobia, & many buttons & levers of The Hunt for Red October are really done and a large part of what builds the suspense, even if the space age adventures, and especially some of the final scenes in the dying planet of Mars in Total Recall hold their own.

Score

1. Dances with Wolves

2. Home Alone

3. Avalon

4. Ghost

5. Havana

The Lowdown: I feel like a lot of these OVP Score contests from the 1970's through the 2020's is a battle of "to John Williams or not to John Williams" and this is a particularly tough one as I adore the score to Home Alone (and honestly Avalon or Ghost would be a good winner here too...there's only one true dud in this lineup).  But John Barry's score to Dances with Wolves is just a perfect piece of music, and adds the best parts to a movie I really did not care for overall.  It deserves the W.

Original Song

1. "I'm Checking Out" (Postcards from the Edge)

2. "Somewhere in My Memory" (Home Alone)

3. "Sooner or Later" (Dick Tracy)

4. "Blaze of Glory" (Young Guns II)

5. "Promise Me You'll Remember" (The Godfather, Part III)

The Lowdown: You know that line that I said above about how movies have connections to your childhood you can't really escape.  For me, one of the few true memories of childhood, specifically around Christmas, that I need to bring back every year is hearing "Somewhere in My Memory" playing in the background.  It's also a movie that reminds me, more than maybe any other, of my little brother as I know how much he loves Home Alone, which gives it a nostalgic necessity I really cherish.  I'm judging on a scale (and honestly all of these movies are good), and for me "I'm Checking Out" is better (and better-used in the film) so I'm giving it the trophy, but it's tight and you should expect both to end up in the My Ballot.

Art Direction

1. Dick Tracy

2. Hamlet

3. The Godfather, Part III

4. Cyrano de Bergerac

5. Dances with Wolves

The Lowdown: Honestly, a really solid lineup (there are no losers in this bunch, even if I won't repeat all of them with my My Ballot).  I tend to like the Mel Gibson Hamlet more than most (for the record, people turned on this one well before they turned on Gibson), and I think the castles & work here is really beautiful.  But Dick Tracy is so inventive, it's impossible to deny-the comic book lights, the way that it feels at once like it's springing from a dime novel AND a 1940's Hollywood set, despite relatively modern makeup & visual effects surrounding it-and all that color!  Glorious!

Cinematography

1. Dances with Wolves

2. The Godfather, Part III

3. Avalon

4. Dick Tracy

5. Henry & June

The Lowdown: Leave it to those crazy pervs in the Cinematography branch to totally go for a film as banal as Henry & June just because they tastefully shot most of the sex scenes so well.  That random silliness aside, this is really a battle between the increasingly aged & sepia-hued glories of The Godfather, Part III and the gorgeous expanses of Dances with Wolves (points are due for the way that Avalon feels of another time though).  I would not be opposed to giving it to the third Godfather film (and lord knows Gordon Willis deserved a competitive Oscar at some point), but it's hard to argue with the glories of the West.

Costume Design

1. Hamlet

2. Cyrano de Bergerac

3. Dick Tracy

4. Avalon

5. Dances with Wolves

The Lowdown: Hamlet has been cited three times (to date) for Best Costume Design, and like 1948 (see link below), we are giving it the gold medal here (1996's version with Kenneth Branagh is still unseen, but don't worry...we'll get there eventually-every one of these contests I do I become more & more determined to truly finish this project...also fun fact within a fun fact-I have been to Elsinore in my world travels, and thought it was breathtaking).  For me, the biggest competition is the period costuming in Cyrano.  I think some of the comic book costuming in Dick Tracy is a bit silly, and Avalon doesn't stand out, but the gorgeous 17th Century decorations of France were on-par with 14th Century Denmark, but not quite enough to conquer to the monologuing Dane.

Film Editing

1. GoodFellas

2. The Godfather, Part III

3. Dances with Wolves

4. Ghost

5. The Hunt for Red October

The Lowdown: I feel at this point like a broken record-GoodFellas was the best, and somewhere behind it is Godfather III and Ghost.  I will own, given its really rough reputation as a movie, that Godfather III being in second here is no accident.  I think a lot of the problems with it are casting (Sofia Coppola, apologies, but you are the weakest link...and George Hamilton is not a strong substitute for Robert Duvall), but the editing works-we get a really strongly-structured story, one that feels inline with the originals even if it isn't that level of classic (like, say, GoodFellas, which basically invented a new type of editing with its cocaine-inspired manic nature).

Makeup

1. Dick Tracy

2. Edward Scissorhands

3. Cyrano de Bergerac

The Lowdown: It feels weird to end in Makeup, not Visual Effects (I believe this is the only time we'll do this as we're alphabetical and Makeup has been a category for a much shorter time than Visual Effects), but I'm glad we're doing it with two icons of the category.  There are only winners between the garish brilliance of Dick Tracy and the transformative genius of Edward Scissorhands (honestly, Cyrano ain't bad either), but I'm going with Dick Tracy both because there's more characters to be in awe of and because it feels so in-tune with the glorious silliness of a comic strip, rather than needing to take itself too seriously.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1964, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

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.

High-Rise (2016)

Film: High-Rise (2016)
Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss
Director: Ben Wheatley
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

When I was growing up, the phrase "weird for the sake of being weird" was something I believe I first heard on The Simpsons, but it was also something that my parents occasionally would impart on me.  I remember going into an art exhibit, and my mom, while waiting for my dad who has always been intensely slow in museums, saying "let's go into the modern art exhibit" and we were greeted with fur-covered antlers and sprawling canvasses painted entirely white, and if I remember correctly, a Donald Judd exhibit that had a very touchy alarm system that my mother set off (twice).  Aside from the Judd exhibit, we were both a bit dismissive of the whole thing, essentially falling into the pattern of "weird for the sake of being weird."  Since then we've become a bit more accustomed to the art, at least asking the question "what is special enough about this to have it hanging in a museum?" and are aware it's slightly a condescending argument, but there are times when I see a movie and think "this is kind of what we were talking about."

(Spoilers Ahead) High-Rise is a film that looks great in a trailer but frequently capsizes under its promise.  I, at this point, treat all dystopian pictures as future documentaries (Trump's America and all that), but even I think we'll probably have a chic-er investment than what this movie comes up with if Armageddon hits.  The movie unfolds with Lang (Hiddleston) a wealthy doctor who has moved into a posh, expansive high rise tower in London, learning about his neighbors.  The building is filled with different castes (the higher up, the better), and we find that it's a bit of literal class warfare, as the lower classes, led initially by Richard Wilder (Evans) try to take back the building, which is experiencing electrical outages and issues with the water supply.  He threatens the owner of the building Royal (Irons), and chaos ensues, with Lang going increasingly mad after tricking a young man into suicide.  The film ends with the building left in tatters, and Lang completely out-of-his-mind after most of the people in the film have died.

The film is hard to grasp-it feels like it's paying homage to the 1970's Sci-Fi films that dealt with this sort of hyper-sexualized dystopia.  Indeed, perhaps the best thing to lend itself to this film is that Hiddleston, Evans, and Miller have never looked more alluring, even with their deep character deficits, and that's probably appealing if I can't find much else to go upon, and the set is specific and ornate-I'd recommend it for an Art Direction Oscar nomination if someone wanted to ask me for such advice.

But that's about it, because the plot is easy to see coming, and the editing is purposefully choppy.  I feel the way about High-Rise as I do about films like Oldboy.  There's style there, surely, and it's provocative, but what else is there?  If I just wanted to look at the world's sexiest Annie Leibowitz shoot, I'd ask for that.  This feels like a series of Dior commercials, without much substance to lend to it.  It's higher ideals have been done, better and repeatedly, for years in film and this feels like it's more a reaction to Thatcherite England than anything approaching our modern-day consumer excesses.  A period piece about dystopia is a weird juxtaposition, and it doesn't translate easily enough over to modern-day.  Plus, I have to say it, it's kind of boring-a movie with this much action and this much sex appeal shouldn't be as dull as it is, and yet I just kept kind of hoping it would be over.

I also want to ask, and I mean it in the nicest way possible, but at some point we're going to get a truly seismic performance out of the trio of skinny, attractive British actors that we've spent so much time with in the past four years, right?  I'm talking of course about Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Eddie Redmayne.  All of them have been good in films before (particularly Hiddleston in The Deep Blue Sea and Redmayne in Les Miserables), but since they turned into leading men, doesn't it feel like they're falling flat?  I find them charming when they're on Graham Norton (forgot the italics there until I edited-though I'm sure Graham wouldn't have minded the double entendre), and they all seem lovely, but I'm not wowed by them in the way I'm supposed to be wowed by someone who has achieved this stature.  At what point is one of them going to cash in on the many chances they're given and just wow us completely?  I'm waiting...

Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

It's the weekend, and you know what that means-it's time for another roundup of the links of the week!


In Entertainment...

Billy Magnussen

Boston Globe: Ryan Murphy has confirmed that Glee will end after the next season (making it six in total).  This seems about right, though it'll be interesting to see where they go with the series since clearly the ending was going to focus on the principle couple on the show: Rachel and Finn.

Playbill: Recent Tony nominee Billy Magnussen is rumored to be a frontrunner to replace Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey in the 50 Shades of Grey big-screen adaption.  Billy is certainly attractive enough to be the enigmatic Mr. Grey, though he seems a bit ripped for the role-I think they have waited too long and they should have just cast Matthew Bomer.

In Contention: In Contention takes a look at the Best Visual Effects race.  While everyone has (rightly) assumed that Gravity has this thing locked up, an Oscar nomination is still a major reward for a film, and I think the other four slots are relatively open right now, considering that, aside from The Hobbit (which hasn't been released yet), all of the blockbusters look fine, but none scream slam dunk.  I still feel that Oz: The Great and Powerful could be this year's Snow White and the Huntsman and score a nomination no one is predicting.

The Savannah Tribune: This is the time of year where film festivals start handing out their lifetime achievement awards like Tic-Tacs, and the Savannah fIlm Festival is no exception, honoring Academy Award Winner Jeremy Irons with their Life Achievement Award.  The odd thing about Irons winning is that Irons doesn't really have any major films in theaters right now-usually these awards go out to people campaigning for an Oscar.  Meanwhile, Irons's son Max has been one of the highlights (link is NSFW) of The White Queen and apparently has been trying out for the Christian Grey role with some nude scenes (don't you feel like he looks better for the role than most being considered?).

In politics...

Roll Call: While we've heard throughout the week about the good of fundraising (Alison Lundergan Grimes out-earned Mitch McConnell in Kentucky) and the bad (Reps. Collin Peterson and Mike McIntyre both put in less than stellar fundraising numbers, inevitably setting off retirement rumors), the weirdest and funniest story of the week was Rep. Mel Watt's $10 fundraising number.  Watt, who is President Obama's nominee to be chief regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only earned $10 this past quarter; many assume that Watt will retire if he isn't successful in his Senate appointment process-this likely confirms it.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT)

Politico: Former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer has started to float the balloon for a presidential run, regardless of whether Hillary makes the race, and has made a comment suggesting that we need to have someone who isn't a Clinton or a Bush to run for the presidency.  I have multiple problems with this, not least of which is that we currently have a president who is neither a Clinton or a Bush, proving his point incorrect.  Brian Schweitzer is probably at the bottom of my presidential nominee wish list (give or take Andrew Cuomo).  He loses mad points with me for his treatment of next year's Montana Senate race.  While I have high hopes for John Walsh, who is running for the seat for the Dems, Schweitzer spent months fueling speculation that he would be primarying Max Baucus, and when Baucus announced his retirement, Schweitzer didn't run.  Baucus or Schweitzer would both have made the race far more competitive, and I don't like candidates who only worry about themselves and not about downballot races.  I want to win the White House, but that doesn't mean the Senate and House aren't important too (a fact that Joe Biden, the Clintons, and Kirsten Gillibrand have all made clear is a priority considering their campaigning for downballot races across the country).

Washington Post: This is another generic article about the Democrats potentially getting a lift from the recent shutdown/debt ceiling crisis, but the interesting aspect is the Steve Israel quote about 3-5 candidates that are going to be announcing soon for the House.  Israel seems to impress that these are truly strong candidates who are intent on running in seats we don't have tier one candidates in, so I'm very excited.  My gut tells me that one of them will be Alex Sink, Florida's former CFO (an elected position in the state), who has been itching to run for Bill Young's now open seat.

Sacramento Bee: One of the candidates that Israel won't be touting is former Rep. Gene Taylor.  Despite representing Mississippi as a Democrat for two decades, Taylor will be running for his old seat as a Republican if he makes the jump (he lost the seat in 2010).  My gut tells me this will be an exercise in futility-part of the reason Taylor stayed alive for years was his incumbency and the fact that he didn't have to make it through an ultra-conservative Republican primary (the Democrats were never going to win with anyone else, and so they weren't going to go against him to get a more progressive candidate).  In 2014, he'd have neither, and would be a lost cause.

NPR: Former Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA) died yesterday at the age of 84.  At one time one of the most powerful men in the country, he served as Speaker during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Just One More...

The Independent: Seriously, I'm sad to end on an angry note, but this is just terrible.  Three men are facing felony charges for pushing over large rock boulders in the iconic Goblin Valley in Utah.  The men are claiming they pushed it over because it wasn't safe, but that's just idiotic (who are they to decide to take down a stone structure that has been standing for 200 million years-just tell the kids not to go down there if they're worried about safety and report it to park officials if it's of true concern).  These sorts of things upset me deeply (people who have no respect for nature or history or the environment), and I truly hope the men are convicted of the felony charges.

Those were the stories that caught me this week-what are your thoughts?