OVP: Carrie (1976)

Film: Carrie (1976)

Stars: Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, William Katt, John Travolta, PJ Soles, Piper Laurie

Director: Brian De Palma

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Sissy Spacek, Supporting Actress-Piper Laurie)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

One of the things that you're not seeing a lot of this month as we profile horror classics from this era is Oscar nominees.  In the long history of the Academy Awards, only six horror films have been cited for Best Picture: The Exorcist, Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, & Get Out, all of which I have seen (in some cases, many times) so they wouldn't qualify for our "new to me" theme.  Despite making boatloads of cash at the box office & occasionally getting major hosannas from critics, horror films rarely get into Oscar categories, even in tech fields like Makeup or Visual Effects where horror has been on the cutting edge for decades.  Today, though, we're going to get into the rare horror film that did get some major Oscar nominations, though perhaps they got them in part because the film, for much of its run, isn't really a horror film at all.

(Spoiers Ahead) Carrie is definitely a film that eventually becomes a horror picture, but for much of its run it is less a traditional "monster" movie and more a film about a young woman named Carrie (Spacek) who is put in an impossible situation in life.  Her religious zealot mother (Laurie) is vicious to her, basically scolding her for existing, and beating her for getting her period (which she says is a mark of shame, something that she gleans from her own pregnancy).  Carrie is treated viciously by most of the girls at school, including cruel Chris (Allen), who works with her boyfriend Billy (a young John Travolta) to ensure Carrie is elected the Prom Queen at the prom (she's been taken by her crush Tommy Ross, who looks exactly like you'd expect a 1970's heartthrob to look), and then is doused in pig's blood.  The film's ending turns into a proper horror movie, with Carrie's telekinetic powers turning her into a blood-soaked villain, enacting revenge on everyone who has been cruel to her all movie, though in the process a number of the people who were kind to her, like her crush Tommy & gym teacher Miss Collins (Buckley), also die.

The movie is an adaptation of Stephen King's first published novel, and is generally considered to be one of his best adaptations.  I have not read the original book, not because I'm not curious after this movie and more because I struggle with King as a novelist (he's a very good writer who frequently is in desperate need of an editor).  Unlike something like The Shining or Misery, the bulk of the horror here is more psychological & relegated to the final twenty minutes, which works well.  You get to see the world that Carrie inhabits, that she's not so much a villain of intention but one who cannot handle the world around her.  The scene where she has feminine care products hurled at her while she's bleeding in the shower, unaware of what is happening to her, is scarier than anything else.  I don't know if you could make a film like this today with this much sensitivity (particularly considering how much violence has emerged in the past 25 years in public schools), but it does make Carrie one of the rare iconic "villains" of this era to be more in the vein of Frankenstein or the Wolf Man, a misunderstood monster, as opposed to a killing machine like Leatherface or Jason Voorhees.

The performances are very good by the three lead women, two of which won Oscar nominations.  Spacek is extraordinary as the damaged Carrie.  I liked that the film plays with our expectations along with Carrie.  For example, you spend much of the picture wondering whether or not Tommy & Amy Irving's Sue are part of the prank or are actually good to Carrie, which lends some caution to Spacek's performance that I thought was really smart.  Piper Laurie, who hadn't been in a film since 1961's The Hustler (meaning that she got back-to-back Oscar nominations for these two movies despite a 15-year gap), has a part that could've been just a bananas, crazy-to-the-rafters performance (and sometimes, let's face it, it is), but it largely works as a religious zealot who gone mad both with overzealous readings of scripture and with using it as an excuse to abuse her daughter.  Rounding out the trio is Betty Buckley, totally underrated as a kind, if occasionally immature gym teacher (look at the glee she gets tormenting Carrie's bullies-that's some good, layered acting even if Oscar wasn't paying attention).  There are moments in Carrie that don't work (the score is too derivative of Psycho, some of the side plots involving Chris & Billy are so cruel to as be unbelievable), but overall this is a controlled horror film featuring fine work from Spacek, Laurie, & Buckley.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

OVP: The Thin Red Line (1998)

Film: The Thin Red Line (1998)

Stars: Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta

Director: Terrence Malick

Oscar History: 7 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Score, Sound, Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As part of our month-long celebration of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, I am completing all of the remaining gaps in my Terrence Malick filmography (one of my favorite film directors) with what we're calling "Terry Tuesdays" throughout June.

Terrence Malick took 20 years between Days of Heaven and his next picture.  During that time, he wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced, including one called Q that would later serve as the basis for two of his films, The Tree of Life and Voyage of Time.  He finally returned, after two decades of time off to film an adaptation of James Jones' classic novel about World War II, The Thin Red Line.  Malick at this point had not entirely abandoned the concept of a truly linear plot, but it was obvious that was where he was headed.  You could make a legitimate argument that this is the last movie with characters that really seem to run together, with actual spoken dialogue that grounds together a story (though The New World and The Tree of Life have this to some degree, even though they become more-and-more abstract).  The film, though, would become legendary given it would establish Malick's strange reputation as someone who could assemble a gargantuan movie star lineup...and then become distracted by a parrot in the cutting room floor.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with Private Witt (Caviezel) stuck on an island in the South Pacific after going AWOL.  After being captured, he's allowed to return to the military rather than face certain imprisonment, but he must do so as a member of the 25th Infantry Division as a stretcher bearer, as they are invading the island of the Guadalcanal.  The days that follow are a series of attacks on the island against the Japanese, as they come face-to-face with death, intimately seeing the perils & pitfalls of war.  One soldier (played by Woody Harrelson) dies not from enemy fire but from accidentally pulling the pin out of his grenade and blowing himself in half.  Throughout this time, we see personifications of the glory of war in Nick Nolte, the glory of peace through Caviezel's Witt, the glory of humanity in Elias Koteas loving Captain Staros, and the reality of survival through Sgt. Welsh (Penn).

The movie has about a 50/50 split between spoken dialogue and narration, and there are moments when this is confusing.  The movie hires a number of well-known actors, some of whom are easily identifiable as narrators (Sean Penn & Nick Nolte are difficult to mistake), but because there's so little traditional character-buildling outside of Nolte, Penn, Koteas, & Caviezel, when they aren't the narrators (which is often) it's sometimes hard to distinguish who is who.  Similar to The Tree of Life, which was overwhelming the first time I viewed it, I suspect I'll find that it's easier to decipher upon repeat viewings.

Because there will be repeat viewings of this.  We are 3/3 in masterpieces out of Malick, as I see the last "important" film of his career (we have one more late stage Malick next week that I haven't seen that will cap this collection).  The movie is probably the most-lauded of Malick's epics, getting seven Oscar nominations, and while part of that is the subject matter (war films tend to do well with AMPAS), it's also deserved.  The film's alternating perspectives on different characters gives it a sense of balance while sticking to its central thesis that war is tragic, no matter one's views on the merits of the conflict.  We see young men, barely into the prime of life, torn apart.  There's a terrific bit of dialogue late in the picture where a young man says something along the lines of "I've had a long life even if I'm young" and while in another movie that would've read as "proud & brave...imagine what these men have been through" here it reads as pablum.  This man is ready to give up his life, but he hasn't even lived it yet & has no concept of what he's saying, sacrificing his youth for ivory tower figures like those played by John Travolta who has no concept of the early days of war anymore it is such a distant memory they only believe the pablum.

The cinematography, by Oscar winner John Toll, is stupendous.  Malick & Toll underline their script not just with grand looks at the ocean & tall grass providing these men minimal cover for their lives, but also with throwaway shots like a panning look across a rocky cliff, the only sign of these men's sacrifice a littered pile of bullet casings that may sit on this island in the middle of the Pacific for the next 50 years without movement, the entire lifetime of the men who shot them...had they not died.  Combined with an iconic Hans Zimmer score (some of his best work) and realistic movie makeup (the dying-and-blood feels very real, particularly by the standards of 1998 with only traditional visual effects on display), and you have one of Malick's most proficient technical films.

The editing, apparently cut down from a five-hour runtime, is the stuff of Hollywood legend at this point.  George Clooney has laughed about this in interviews, saying how much he was basically trimmed out of the story to only appear onscreen for about 90 seconds.  Adrien Brody found it less funny.  In the book, his character is central to the story, and so for Brody, who was a young actor who  hadn't struck it big yet (unlike Clooney, then in his ER heyday), it was a big deal.  But at the premiere of the film, Brody supposedly found out that he was not only not the lead, but had been trimmed down so much that he was barely in the movie.  Indeed, if there was an actual line spoken by Brody directly onscreen as opposed to just talking in a group shot, I missed it...his wide eyes more a prop to help him standout in a crowd shot than the lead part, which is delegated to Caviezel in particular.  This would become something of a refrain for Malick, who would increasingly see major stars trimmed from his movies, some deeply upset about it even when they're still in a large chunk of the movie like Christopher Plummer (whom, it's worth noting, I would've cited for the Oscar for his work in The New World).  Next week we will conclude our look at the films of Terrence Malick as I watch my final gap in his filmography.

OVP: Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Film: Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Stars: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Barry Miller, Joseph Cali, Paul Pape, Donna Pescow
Director: John Badham
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actor-John Travolta)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Every week on the blog we pick a different theme for the reviews we highlight during the week, typically with an Oscar slant, and as you can see by this picture only receiving one Oscar nomination, this is a week devoted to Best Actor (in a lovely coincidence, we'll also be doing our 2005 Official OVP Best Actor ballot this week).  John Travolta in 1977 became one of the youngest men ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar at the age of only 23.  Travolta's career took a lot of turns, being super hot for a few years, then falling completely apart before the comeback of Pulp Fiction, and then another few years of movie stardom before it would once again subside (he's in another ebb right now but he's a well-liked comeback king, so I suspect he'll eventually make it back).  Today we'll take a look at that first nomination, in a film that changed the movie & music of the 1970's, Saturday Night Fever.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Tony Manero (Travolta), a young man who works a thankless job at a local hardware store and lives with his parents.  Manero, though, is a gifted dancer and escapes from the doldrums of his life by performing nightly at a disco club, picking up women & earning admiration from onlookers.  Tony is set to compete in an upcoming dance competition with Annette (Pescow), but dumps her to dance with Stephanie (Gorney), a dancer who is considerably better than Annette.  Stephanie & Tony initially don't start out romantically involved, but eventually start to elevate their relationship.  Meanwhile, Tony and his friends continue to engage in more reckless behavior, picking fights with local gangs and doing dangerous stunts on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, until at one point one of the friends, despondent over consistently being mocked by his buddies & his pregnant girlfriend, accidentally kills himself while performing one of the stunts.  This results in Tony trying to salvage his (by then fractured) relationship with Stephanie, and perhaps strive for a different life for himself.

If you know anything about Saturday Night Fever, you know the soundtrack and what Travolta looks like doing a disco move in his skin-tight white suit.  It's one of the most iconic images of the 1970's, and over 40 years later, has the kind of pop culture cliche where everyone knows what you're referencing if you stick one arm in the air in a confident strut.  This isn't just a throwaway aspect of the film-Travolta's dancing is mesmerizing, and the songs are terrific.  Instant classics like "Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever," and "How Deep is Your Love" are played throughout the movie with flare, and it's criminal that forgettable music from The Rescuers and The Slipper and the Rose somehow bested such gigantic hits, and ones used brilliantly in the movie (personally, I'd struggle to not fill all five of the Best Song slots with numbers from Saturday Night Fever).

That said, Saturday Night Fever is a solid movie, but way more serious than I expected.  Despite its flashy outfits & rebel youth spirit, this is a serious drama, one with few moments of extended comedy.  Travolta is excellent as Tony Manero-you don't get a nomination that young, especially the only nomination for the film, without being really good, and he brings a sense of youthful entitlement to a troubled, but under-the-surface decent young man.  The scenes where he stays silent, his moments of tortured gallantry (when he wishes his life would be less complicated), are really fine acting, and give you a sense as to why Travolta would be such a versatile presence in the movies in the decades that follow.  One has to wonder how different her career had been if Oscar had also noticed Donna Pescow giving a riveting performance as the forgotten Annette in the film.  She plays the young woman, clearly over-her-head but willing to put herself in increasingly dangerous circumstances (with tragic consequences) because she's hopelessly in love with Tony, and willing to change anything about herself to be with him.  Travolta became a superstar, Pescow became a Disney Channel mom-thus is occasionally the curse of being a near-miss with Oscar.

Oscar Trivia: Presenting the Oscars, Part 1

All right Oscar trivia nerds, it's time to step up to the plate as a project I came up with last month and have been scouring through books and websites since to figure out (okay, one book and one website, but I don't get to do a lot of research projects in my life so indulge me) has come to a close and now we'll have some articles as a result.  I recently was googling, and could not find a list of the most frequent presenters at the Oscars.  I found lots of lists of the most-common host (Bob Hope), but never regarding the presenters and I thought that was just silliness, so I took it upon myself to come up with the list.  As I was compiling, I realized there was a whole host of trivia to come out of such an idea, so I figured why not create a blog post or two on the matter.  Therefore, we'll be having a short three-part series called Presenting an Oscar over the next week.  Today, we'll go with a straight-up list of the Top 10 most frequent presenters, as well as a little trivia about them in regard to Oscars.  Shall we begin?

(Note: People count as Oscar presenters if they introduce an award, performance, clip reel, or nominated film.  I'm not counting hosting unless you also presented a specific award and I'm not counting performers of musical numbers for this list at least.)

8. Michael Douglas (tie)

Times He's Presented: 12
First Presented: 1984 (Best Documentary Short)
Latest Presented: 2012 (Best Director)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Yes, twice in 2000 and 2002 (the latter with his father Kirk, for Chicago, a film starring his wife)
What's His Oscar History?: Douglas is weirdly two-for-two when it comes to Oscar, having won for both Best Picture (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and Best Actor (Wall Street).  Those are his only two nominations.  It feels like the right number of wins, but I'm surprises Douglas, a movie star for over forty years, hasn't been able to score more nominations.

8. Goldie Hawn (tie)

Times She's Presented: 12
First Presented: 1970 (Best Actor, famously stating "oh my god" before announcing George C. Scott...it's vintage flower-child style Goldie if you've never seen the clip)
Latest Presented: 2013 (Best Picture segments for Captain Phillips, Philomena, and 12 Years a Slave)
Has She Presented Best Picture?: No, and considering how frequently it's levied at the Oscars that they are pretty repetitive and sexist when it comes to who gets to hand out the top honor, this seems like a pretty damn good choice.  Get on it AMPAS!
What's Her Oscar History?: Hawn won an Oscar for Cactus Flower in 1969 and was nominated eleven years later for Private Benjamin.  It's worth noting that Goldie, despite being a frequent attender and even a two-time host of the Oscars, wasn't there to pick up her only Oscar, instead having Raquel Welch pick up her trophy.

8. Audrey Hepburn (tie)

Times She's Presented: 12
First Presented: 1954 (Writing Awards)
Last Presented: 1991 (Honorary Award to Satyajit Ray)
Has She Presented Best Picture?: Yes, four times (second only to Jack Nicholson) in 1955, 1960, 1966, and 1975
What's Her Oscar History?: Audrey won Best Actress in 1953 for Roman Holiday, and was nominated in 1954 (Sabrina), 1959 (The Nun's Story), 1961 (Breakfast at Tiffany's), and 1967 (Wait Until Dark).  Her humanitarian work also won her the Jean Hersholt in 1993.

8. Nicole Kidman (tie)

Times She's Presented: 12
First Presented: 1991 (Presented by Best Song nominee "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)")
Latest Presented: 2014 (Best Foreign Language Film)
Has She Presented Best Picture?: Not yet, though there's time considering she's relatively young by such standards.  Her ex-husband Tom Cruise did, though, in 2011.
What's Her Oscar History?: Despite a truly impressive filmography in the past decade (one could argue this number should be double what it is), Kidman has three Oscar nominations from 2001 (Moulin Rouge!), 2002 (The Hours), and 2010 (Rabbit Hole), winning for The Hours.

8. Jack Nicholson (tie)

Times He's Presented: 12 (and yes, I figured this number would be greater too, but Jack took some long breaks in presenting)
First Presented: 1971 (Best Picture)
Latest Presented: 2012 (Best Picture)
Has He Presented Best Picture?  If you are actually asking this question, you need to start watching the Oscars.  Jack always presents Best Picture, having done it eight of his twelve times at presenting.  He did it in 1971, 1976, 1977, 1989, 1992, 2005, 2006, and 2012.  It's worth noting that with A Few Good Men competing in 1992 and The Departed in 2006, he's actually presented in years where he was in the eligible picture, which is rare.
What's His Oscar History?: Jack Nicholson is a twelve-time Oscar-nominated legend.  Cited for Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces (1970), The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Reds (1981), Terms of Endearment (1983), Prizzi's Honor (1985), Ironweed (1987), A Few Good Men (1992), As Good As It Gets (1997), and About Schmidt (2002), Nicholson is second only to Meryl Streep in terms of nominations and second only to Kate Hepburn in terms of wins (he won for Cuckoo, Terms, and As Good As It Gets).  He is also tied with Michael Caine for most consecutive decades with a nomination.

8. Steven Spielberg (tie)

Times He's Presented: 12 (again, I thought it would be more too)
First Presented: 1979 (Best Director, along with Goldie Hawn no less...wonder if Spielberg could convince her to make another movie?)
Latest Presented: 2010 (Best Picture)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Yep, three times (2003, 2008, and 2010)
What's His Oscar History?: Steven Spielberg has a truly weird career with the Oscars.  While everyone today thinks of a Spielberg film as a gimme nomination, prior to his wins for Schindler's List, it was very hit-and-miss.  He wasn't nominated for directing Jaws, The Color Purple, or Empire of the Sun, and films like Close Encounters couldn't seal-the-deal in the Best Picture race with a nomination.  Still, he has 15 nominations with three wins amongst them (Best Picture/Director for Schindler's List and Best Director for Saving Private Ryan), plus he also has the Thalberg Award won in 1986), so it's not like they haven't amply rewarded the man.

7. Dustin Hoffman

Times He's Presented: 13
First Presented: 1967 (Best Cinematography)
Latest Presented: 2012 (the Writing Awards, with Charlize Theron)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Twice, in 1986 and in 2004 (which he co-presented with his Meet the Fockers costar Barbra Streisand)
What's His Oscar History?: Hoffman has been nominated seven times for Best Actor, for The Graduate (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Lenny (1974), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Tootsie (1982), Rain Man (1988), and Wag the Dog (1997); he won for both Kramer and Rain Man.

5. Bob Hope (tie)

Times He's Presented: 14 (he also hosted the show eighteen times, a record that will likely stand forever considering the fickle nature of entertainment)
First Presented: 1938 (Short Subjects)
Last Presented: 1990 (Presented a montage called "My First Movie")
Has He Presented Best Picture?: No, likely because he was always too busy getting ready to close the show.
What's His Oscar History?: As Hope lamented many, many times through the years he was never able to get nominated for an acting award during his illustrious career (likely because he dabbled in comedy more than drama, and also because he was far better at playing Bob Hope than he was a fictional character).  The Academy didn't forget him, however, and gave him five honoraries in 1940, 1944, 1952, 1959 (the Jean Hersholt), and 1965.  One hopes they shell out at least one eventually for his modern-day equivalent Billy Crystal.

5. Jack Lemmon (tie)

Times He's Presented: 14 (he also hosted the Oscars four times)
First Presented: 1955 (Art Direction, which he handed out with singer Peggy Lee)
Last Presented: 1997 (the Writing Awards with his longtime costar Walter Matthau, who with eleven awards presented just missed this list)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Yes, in 1965 to The Sound of Music
What's His Oscar History?: Lemmon was nominated for eight Oscars in 1955 (Mister Roberts), 1959 (Some Like It Hot), 1960 (The Apartment), 1962 (Days of Wine and Roses), 1973 (Save the Tiger), 1979 (The China Syndrome), 1980 (Tribute), and 1982 (Missing); he won for Mister Roberts and Save the Tiger.

4. Gregory Peck

Times He's Presented: 16 (in addition to being a major movie star, Peck also served as president of the Academy which helps in his count here)
First Presented: 1957 (Art Direction, with Eva Marie Saint who has presented ten times at the Oscars so far, nearly making this list)
Last Presented: 1994 (Presented the Quiz Show Best Picture segment)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Once, in 1964 to My Fair Lady
What's His Oscar History?: Peck was nominated five times in 1945 (The Keys of the Kingdom), 1946 (The Yearling), 1947 (Gentleman's Agreement), 1949 (Twelve O'Clock High), and eventually winning in 1962 in To Kill a Mockingbird.

3. Tom Hanks

Times He's Presented: 17
First Presented: 1986 (Best Animated Short Film, with co-presenter Bugs Bunny)
Latest Presented: 2011 (Best Cinematography and Art Direction)
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Twice, in 2001 and 2009.
What's His Oscar History?: Everybody's favorite movie star of the 1990's has been nominated five times in his career, in 1988 (Big), 1993 (Philadelphia), 1994 (Forrest Gump), 1998 (Saving Private Ryan), and 2000 (Cast Away), winning for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.

2. John Travolta

Times He's Presented: 18
First Presented: 1977 (Best Supporting Actress)
Latest Presented: 2014 (Best Original Song, with Idina Menzel, whose name he infamously butchered the year before...considering he'd presented 17 times at that point you'd think he could have better practiced).
Has He Presented Best Picture?: Nope, not yet, though I'm sure it will eventually happen-maybe when he eventually takes over number one?
What's His Oscar History?: Travolta is a two-time nominee, for 1977's Saturday Night Fever and 1994's Pulp Fiction.  While he's never won, I have to imagine that either an Honorary Award or an "old-age" style award is in his future as he seems genuinely popular in Hollywood and consistently makes movies, though lately not very many good ones.

1. Jack Valenti

Times He's Presented: 24
First Presented: 1966 (Honorary Award to Y. Frank Freeman)
Last Presented: 2002 (Best Documentary Short Subject)
Has He Ever Presented Best Picture?: Nope, Valenti's appearances at the Oscars almost always happened in the middle hour of the ceremony and he rarely got a marquee award.
What's His Oscar History?: For those of you saying "who?!?" in regard to Valenti topping movie stars like Travolta and Hanks on this list, Valenti was once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood.  The head of the MPAA, he was imperative to creating the modern ratings system and spent years fighting the idea of home video (saying it would be the death of the movies).  Valenti was also in one of the most iconic photos in American history-he can be seen in the bottom left corner of the picture of President Lyndon Johnson, as he served as a media adviser for him.  Despite his repeated awards from the industry (he won an honorary trophy from both the PGA and DGA), he never won an Honorary Oscar.

And there you have it folks-we'll get into some other fun minutia of the presenters later this week, but in the meantime-who is a surprise on this list?  Who did you expect to top the list?  Do you have a favorite amongst these presenters?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

87th Academy Awards: The Good, the Indifferent, the Bad, and the Ugly

Well, we're officially done with the Oscars for the year.  I will probably pipe in on Tuesday with some of the thoughts on the fashion, once I get to see all of the fashion, and we're six films away from the OVP write-ups where you'll get to know a bit more about what I would pick, but for now I'm going to just go with my reactions to the show itself.  I'll try to limit myself to no thoughts (one way or the other) on the winners as I am saving those for the OVP (it's always Oscar season at The Many Rantings of John) and because I've been discussing those for months.  As we do here, here's my Good, Indifferent, Bad, and Ugly of the 87th Academy Awards.

The Good

-Literally every year, the Oscar producers forget that rather than wanting to see the host or the fashion or even the winners, the audience really want to see movie stars in their natural habitat.  And every year my favorite moments are the off-the-cuff moments with celebrities.  Like Benedict Cumberbatch's brilliant reaction shots or Jessica Chastain cooing "Chivo" when Emmanuel Lubezki won or (my personal favorite, seen above) Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez reacting to the equal pay speech from Patricia Arquette in what has to be the most gif-able moment of the ceremony when they didn't know the camera was on-these are the best moments of the ceremony. Perhaps no one was better at this than Felicity Jones, who had a hot mic incident ("they've won a lot, haven't they?"), a Julie Andrews fan girl moment, and the random realization that she was applauding for herself.  Here's to hoping that Ms. Jones is invited back soon as either a presenter or a nominee, as she was the unsung MVP of last night's ceremony.

-I love when the Oscars get political.  Millions of people are watching, so it's time to have something to say, and boy did Hollywood have something to say.  From advocating for women's rights (Patricia Arquette may have brought a piece of paper with, but that's only because she had something to say, damn it haters!) to the brilliant calls for more mental and physical health awareness to calls for tolerance toward immigrants, it was a night of important messages and I was most pleased.  I also loved the trend of the documentary and short subject contenders who shut up the orchestra by starting to talk about something serious the second the music started, hence lengthening their speeches.  Just in general, 45 seconds isn't long enough-it's a long show, people can get used to it.  If you're desperate about people not being able to stay up late due to work the next day, put it on a Saturday or on HBO so you don't have to worry about commercials.

-Two truly random things I loved: one, the commercials were excellent this year.  For all of the talk about the Super Bowl being the crown jewel of advertising, the Oscars continually get innovative, oftentimes funny, and frequently moving commercials.  And this is officially bumped to this spot because after watching it four times I finally realized it was Robert Redford voicing that Comcast commercial (I could not place that voice for the life of me!).  Secondly, I skipped the red carpet this year, and loved it.  It was refreshing to see the gowns and outfits for the first time onstage and I didn't have to endure talented artists like Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep reduced to a designer label and inane questions about their dieting traditions.

-The interactive set was gorgeous-please keep this next year.

The Indifferent

-I loved the idea of interviewing the seat fillers (I actually think this could have been something that was done throughout the night), but the Steve Carell joke fell flat.  Perhaps Carell isn't a comedian who is funny off-the-cuff, but I feel like the punchline got botched and may have been better-served with a more improvisational personality like Will Ferrell.

-It was a smart decision to go with Travolta and Idina to present-it was a major moment last year, and trying to bottle car-crash lightning in a bottle a second time was worth the risk.  But what was with the face-holding John-seriously?  Couldn't they have just stuck with the easy but funny pablam instead?

-I am not going to get into the quality of the winners, but I will say that while Graham Moore's speech was nice for The Imitation Game and extremely moving and he's ridiculously adorable and I now have a crush on him and what is his Instagram account because there are like 40,000 Graham Moore's, I felt like it was the same one Dustin Lance Black did six years ago.  Why not try to stumble a new barrier for gay people rather than the tired "kid living with a dream one."  Perhaps want more realistic representations of gay people onscreen rather than gay-in-name-only performances like Benedict Cumberbatch in...oh, wait, I see the problem now.

The Bad

-I haven't really been discussing Neil Patrick Harris too much because, well, it was just okay.  There were some lines that were absolutely aces (the best being the JK Simmons/Farmers Insurance jingle and the brilliant Birdman/Whiplash parody), but by-and-large it was slightly underwhelming.  A lot of energy got sucked out of the room when Harris got too schmaltzy in the opening with a poorly-timed musical number that was identical in spirit to one he did at the Tony Awards a few years back (the music was too fast to catch all of the jokes...and there weren't enough jokes to begin with), and in hindsight they should have gone with a monologue, as so much of Hollywood got left on the table this past year (did anyone even bring up Sony/The Interview?!?).

-I ask this every single year, but can we cut the In Memoriam song number?  Jennifer Hudson is a brilliant vocalist and frequently the best reason to watch an awards show, but honestly it was such a yawn and this has never been a particularly stirring addition to the ceremony.  I'm fine with the show being super long, but if there's a portion of it begging to get cut, it's not the Shorts categories-it's the In Memoriam song.

-Speaking of musical performances, as wonderful as Common and John Legend were, it felt a little bit too weighted to them.  Everyone and his mother knew they were winning that Oscar, but couldn't they have made it a little bit more suspenseful.  It felt like they spent all of the budget on that number and "Everything is Awesome" and left the other three songs to sort of rot there.  Even the camera and sound crews felt like they sort of forgot how to do their jobs during Tim McGraw's weird constant wide shots and Adam Levine's vocals getting drowned out by the instruments.  Admittedly Legend and Common may have been the only ones to show up to rehearsals (we're dealing with temperamental stars here), but it felt like the TLC wasn't properly spread.

The Ugly

-Neil Patrick Harris, as I mentioned above, was uneven, but one bit clearly was a dud: the idiotic ballot prediction schtick.  This was wrong for a number of reasons.  For starters, it felt like Octavia Spencer, who is frequently very funny in interviews, was caught off-guard by it and she probably should have been looped in beforehand to maybe nail a joke or two.  Secondly, it was the only moment in the film where Harris's famous gravitation toward narcissism in his humor (my chief worry when he was selected) was indulged (most of the audience probably isn't aware of his penchant for magic, both at the show and at home).  And the jokes were kind of duds (plus, he does this every year at the Tonys, so it's tired for awards show hounds).

-While I can't recall a particularly strong presenter (am I blanking here, or was there someone who was particularly funny-the show seriously needed a Will Ferrell or Kristin Wiig or Bette Midler to show up), the worst was Terence Howard.  My brother postulated that perhaps the teleprompter broke (which I hope someone can confirm as that would bump this up to merely bad), but if it wasn't then Howard needs to keep it together.  Presenters are not supposed to have favorites when they are giving out awards, and he clearly felt less enthused about Whiplash than The Imitation Game and Selma.  It was one of those truly cringe-worthy TV moments.

-Did they really play The Bodyguard theme for Viola Davis?  Really?!?

-I am sure I'm going to be in the minority here as she sounded great, but what was the point of the Lady Gaga tribute?  She has no real connection to the movies and isn't what you'd call a particularly popular singer at the moment (her star has fallen enough that she probably couldn't get a solo performance at the Grammys at this point), so why was she called upon for The Sound of Music tribute?  Get someone like Anna Kendrick or Anne Hathaway or Emily Blunt (or hell, all three) to do it-someone who is actually a vibrant musical force in movies today.  And speaking of The Sound of Music...

-Why bring out Sean Penn to present Best Picture when Julie Andrews is clearly who should have done it?  She's better at presenting, she has the Best Picture history thing, and she doesn't feel the need to make presenting about herself (Penn is a brilliant, talented actor but he's a narcissist and a curmudgeon as a celebrity, whereas Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way).  Is it so wrong to have a woman present Best Picture?!?  Seriously Academy, a 50th Anniversary and a beloved Oscar winner is right there for the taking-what more do you need?!?

And those are my thoughts on last night-what are yours?  Share them below in the comments!

My Thoughts on the Oscar Telecast

Like every Oscar blogger in the country, I will now share my thoughts on last night's lively and (in my opinion) quite excellent Oscar telecast.

The Good

Ellen Degeneres

It could not be easy for Ellen to sell a show where the biggest surprise was in the Animated Short category.  However, I feel like she aced the show, particularly the tough in-between presenters bits.  The pizza joke, which at first seemed like a nervous hypothetical, actually landed with aplomb when she brought out actual pizza (anyone know if the pizza guy was an actual pizza guy or an actor who clearly should have had a stack of head shots to go with every slice?).  Even better was the tweet that broke Twitter (I was one of the more than two million people who did my Oscar civic duty)-a photo that is about as fun as can be (and don't you love the chutzpah of Lupita Nyong'o's brother, not only jumping into the sea of A-listers, but in front of Angelina Jolie no less).  After a few year's of rocky hosts (Alec/Steve, Franco/Hathaway, and MacFarlane), Ellen was a perfect choice to cater both to those in the room and at home.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out my single favorite moment of the night though-a deceptively simple one.  Ellen proved that getting the A-listers in the audience (there's never a shortage of them) in on the action is brilliant (we watch the Oscars to see the movie stars, so let's bring them out), and Pharrell Williams in an otherwise excellent performance rocked my world by getting Lupita Nyong'o, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams dancing in the audience.  I don't even care if all of these bits were rehearsed-they were a rousing good time.

And while I have a few caveats (below), can I say how thankful I am that after last year's "pick and choose" strategy (where only the very famous Adele, Norah Jones, and the cast of Les Miserables got to perform their nominated songs) that all four of the nominated songs (it should have been five...still not feeling right about that revoked nomination, introduction-necessary Cheryl Boone Isaacs) got to be performed?

There are a few other things I could get to, but I also want to commend the producers for not cutting anyone off, not even the tech categories.  I felt like in a couple of instances it felt like a few tech winners were going to be cut off, but overall, I thought that there was great restraint there, and it paid off-emotional moments like Lupita's call for dreamers and Matthew's clearly moving (and meandering) moment-in-the-sun and Cate Blanchett's (very true) call to arms for makers of films about women are what the Oscars are made for, and I think we can all agree were highlights in a night with a lot of them.

The Middling

Bette Midler

I know that ultimately there isn't a lot of control over this one with everyone and their mother creating their own awards show, but the dearth of surprises deprived us of a show capper like Adrien Brody kissing Halle Berry or Anna Paquin hyperventilating or the giant question mark hanging over the 2007 Supporting Actress race.  The Academy needs to figure out a way around that, because when I can get 21 out of 24 right in a year with a pretty spread-out field of winners (and the final three were all my second places), there's a problem that needs to be solved.

I know that everyone is going to be starting their "Give Leo an Oscar!" campaigns right  now, but we have the OVP (I'm eight films short...nine if I decide to include Alone Yet Not Alone for the 2013 OVP) and so we'll get to that probably in the next month or so, and so I'm not going to get into who deserved and didn't deserve their Oscars...with one exception below.  But I do want to say that even when I knew everyone was going to win, all four of the actors at least proved that they could balance surprise with modesty (they are all Oscar-winning actors, after all).

And before we head into the bad (there wasn't a lot of middle ground this year-about 70% good, 25% bad, and 5% in-between), can we talk about the In Memoriam and Best Picture nominee presentations?  The In Memoriam is a necessary part of the night, but is it really necessary to have the song performance instead of just the fade-to-black at the end?  It has never been a strong addition to the show, and when Bette Midler, Celine Dion, and Barbra Streisand singing cannot add to your ceremony, it's time to start blaming the segment and not the players.

The Best Picture nominees are trickier-I know that with nine, there's a lot more of a struggle to get people connected to each picture, but short of moving back to five nominees (...still a good idea, Academy), you need to find a way to work this-perhaps you should start each return-from-the-commercial with a few clips for the audience at home of the nominated Best Pictures?  Something that seems both respectful to all nominees without feeling obligatory (and anyone else still grimacing at the way that Goldie Hawn jumped from excited to somber to excited again during her presentation?).

And speaking of Best Picture and presentations, while Will Smith was a first-timer to the honor and so bravo to the Oscars, he probably wouldn't have crossed a top ten of the list of actors who should get the honor...you had Goldie Hawn right there and she's never done it, is all I am saying.

The Bad

Angela Lansbury

Since we're close enough to continue the In Memoriam segway, I'm just going to get this one off of my chest-a lot of people work in the entertainment industry.  A lot.  And Each year the Oscars forget some very important filmmaker or actor and the entire industry acts with utter outrage.  It happens every year, without fail.  It would probably behoove the Academy to have some sort of rule surrounding this and make it very public that they'll be handling it that way.  Perhaps having only AMPAS members and Oscar nominees/winners/hosts?  That seems to be a pretty fair way to handle such a situation.  Of course, in that case a person like Paul Walker could very well get cut, which doesn't seem right, so this is clearly an imperfect science.  Give me a membership to the body, AMPAS, and I'll shoot out some more ideas.

However, I don't want to quite blame AMPAS on this year's uproar.  With the exception of Alain Resnais, who died on Saturday and the Academy can be forgiven for skipping him (and should and likely will probably put him in next year's telecast), the names coming up do not seem like big misses.  Cory Monteith, Dennis Farina, Jonathan Winters, Jean Stapleton, and Lee Thompson Young were principally television, not film actors.  The Academy can be forgiven for missing these people since they were not large parts of their industry.

I also just in general want to put in a complaint regarding the internet reaction-could you be any more predictable?  I feel like regardless of what happened during the show, websites were going to complain about Ellen not having enough teeth in her monologue, U2 was going to "totally rock," the show would be "too long," and we'd have the same sort of mentality about how "I'm never watching the Oscars again."  People-if you complain regardless of the quality of the show (and there's little argument that this show had a different vibe from Seth MacFarlane, who had a different vibe than Billy Crystal), your complaints become less valid.

And at least make the complaints consistent-when no host will satisfy you (Tina and Amy can't do everything, people), that's a problem on you.  However, the Governors Awards still are a wildly inappropriate way to cut the show down in time-depriving us of our moment with Angela Lansbury or Steve Martin or Angelina Jolie-this is just a bad idea and bad for the emotional thrust of your television program.  I'll say it every single year until they find a better way to handle the situation, but moments like Charlie Chaplin's standing ovation or Kirk Douglas's tear-soaked acceptance speech or even the "who stood, who didn't?" moment for Elia Kazan are iconic moments in the Oscar pantheon, and you're cutting them when you don't give major motion picture figures their moment in the sun.  Cut some of the damn montages and gives us more movie legends!

Finally, though I said above that I wasn't going to complain about the winners, I will say who is the person who thought Helium was a better movie than Just Before Losing Everything?  I have had very few reactions as tense and involved as I did to that thirty-minute French film, and I almost fell asleep during Helium.  Again, just saying.

The Ugly

Idina Menzel

I still cannot get over the fact that John Travolta mispronounced Idina Menzel's name.  You've been acting for over forty years, have largely been a champion of the musical, and yet you mispronounce the name of the very famous Tony winner you're introducing?  You have like six lines-how is this remotely possible?  If you need your glasses, just use them.  This is unacceptable, and clearly shook up Menzel right before she sang.  Travolta should not be allowed back on the telecast until he makes a film as good as Pulp Fiction again.

And those are my thoughts-what were yours?  What did you love/hate about the Oscars last night?  Share in the comments!