Today I address two ideas put forth on Slog.
The first is from Christopher Frizzelle, who earlier begged the Academy to not give the Best Actress Oscar to Kate Winslet for The Reader. Christopher, I understand your argument, but you need to begin resigning yourself to the Academy giving the Best Actress Oscar to Kate Winslet for The Reader. Seriously, there doesn’t seem to be any way around it. She’s been so good in so many movies, and if The Reader isn’t necessarily one of them, there is the general feeling that Now is Her Time. The only feasible upset comes from your beloved Feral Creep, but giving it to her would be such a slap in the face to Kate Winslet that the Academy will not allow it to happen. So just go ahead and do whatever you plan on doing when Kate Winslet wins—slashing your wrists, taking a protest shit, assassinating Kate Winslet—right now.
The second is Slog commenter Rhett Oracle:
Burning rhetorical question: will Academy members award Milk the Big One in contrition for Crash [which beat Brokeback Mountain] and belated support for No on 8?
Dear Rhett: According to the crystal ball I occasionally pull out of my ass, the answer to your question is no. For some reason that is mysterious but undeniable, Slumdog Millionaire is going to win Best Picture. (Probably because it’s a good movie that everyone loves.) As for post-Prop 8-and-Brokeback guilt: If it comes into play, it will be in the Best Actor race, which Penn deserves to win as much as frontrunner Mickey Rourke, but if he is awarded his second Best Actor Oscar, it will be to make a point. (See Feral Sheep situation above.)
Having seen the Oscar nominees, quite frankly Kate deserves the win for The Reader.
But not for the other movie.
No, actually Christopher said the award should go to Winslet’s “Nazi breasts,” instead. And he basically said she’d win because Jews run Hollywood. In an artfully convoluted way of course, but that’s what he means.
Well argued, Mr. Schmader. A comparable situation would be Bernadette Peters’ relationship to the Tony Awards. She won the award in two instances for performances that were only so-so (Annie Get Your Gun and Song and Dance) as a way of atoning for NOT awarding her phenomenal ones (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Gypsy). I haven’t seen The Reader, nor do I plan to, but I will be happy if Kate Winslet finally wins. Hell, she should have won back for Heavenly Creatures.
Slumdog Millionaire will win Best Picture because it plays to the same twenty-years-behind progressiveness that also accounted for the Crash debacle. Academy members can vote for it and still feel that they are being good liberals. I did, however, like Slumdog, and I won’t really mind if it wins.
I think Sean Penn may pull the “upset” in Best Actor because: 1) he’s Sean Penn, 2) he won the SAG Award, and 3) the academy loves actors impersonating real life figures. Also, I can’t help but picture some stodgy academy voters thinking out loud to themselves, “We can’t REALLY give an Oscar to Mickey Rourke. His performance may deserve it, but HE doesn’t.”
I liked Slumdog, but I felt Milk was the better movie. It’ll be Slumdog.
I hope Sean Penn still wins his Oscar for Milk.
Kate Winslet was brilliant in The Reader, which was basically a very disappointing mess of a movie.
Rourke put out the performance of a lifetime, went above and beyond what he is normally capable of pulling off, and will never get another role that he can take to heart. He will win it and then fade back into obscurity.
The caption on that pic should be “Talk Trashy to Me”.
I agree with Joh. Rourke may be a bit of an ass sometimes, but it was a stunning performance, and Hollywood loves a comeback kid. Besides, Sean Penn has already won an oscar, so they’ll be in no hurry to give him another one.
Christopher Frizzelle’s slogging rights need to be relegated to previews of other people’s work in the current issue of the Stranger (“This Week in the Stranger”).
He is dangerous and embarrassing with a password, yall
Crash sucked, Brokeback wasn’t much better and Sean Penn is a total douchebag who should visit the same pharmacist as his late brother, maybe he can prescribe that killer cocktail. So it’s a lose lose for all. Unless Penn OD’s and that Pinto chick from Slumdog lets me face fuck her.
Now the only toss-up left is whether it’s Cruz or Davis…
@ 5 and 7–I want so very much to believe that’s true, but I have to agree with Bub@3–I think Sean Penn’s going to win it. I don’t think the fact that he’s won before will hurt him. Tom Hanks won in back to back years, after all.
Well Slumdog will win for best flik, but she’ll still win for her work in The Reader.
Most of the people I’ve read who are down on that movie are actually Jewish, fwiw.
RAM JAM give that dang award to Mickey he SLAYED it. BANG YOUR HEAD… best music for a movie in quite some time as well.
wasn’t one post about the Oscars enough for this week?
Well, there have been three just today, and at least four more to come, so…no.
If Corny-Corndog Millionaire Wins, I give up on ever truly enjoying life and accept that Hell is other people.
Seriously, Corndog Millionaire was made by having the directors, writers, producers, and that fucking stiff-as-Keanua-Reeves Bollywood starlet eat a bunch of corn and shit into a film canister. Only the small children in that cornball shit-fest keep me from slitting my wrists.
My vote would have gone to Frank Langella and Meryl Strep, but they’re among the New York people who don’t campaign and therefore rarely win. Slumdog is a wonderful experience in world cinema. I won’t mind if it or Milk wins. My favourite film of the year didn’t even make the cut: The Dark Knight. It’s my favourite not only because it was a wonderful action-adventure film, but because it was so supremely well done and crafted.
the only real problem with Milk was Diego Luna, but it’s entirely probable that his grating performance was intentional.
But you’re right. As far as Best Pictures go, Slumdog is pretty good. I mean this is an award that has gone to the likes of Crash, Forrest Gump, and Titanic in recent memory.