Thanx, HFP

Embarrassment and/or trainwreck just about sum up the past evening's Golden Globes telecast, which generally unraveled like a slightly more lubricated version of The People's Choice Awards. Every once in a while the Hollywood Foreign Press surprises with a noteworthy, maybe unexpected winner, like Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky or Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but tonight again placed the Globes at the punchline of an easy joke I never mind hearing. While Michael Haneke's win in the Foreign category for The White Ribbon was certainly well-deserved, the description of the rest of the ceremony as a "popularity contest" is pretty dead-on, with the top film honors bestowed upon James Cameron, his Avatar and Todd Phillips' The Hangover (both the highest domestic gross-ers of their respective categories). Toss Sandra Bullock (over Helen Mirren, mind you), Sherlock Holmes, Julie & Julia (though Ms. Streep's speech was expectedly lovely) and Mo'Nique, and you've got yourself one lame-ass awards show. Aside from Christoph Waltz and Jeff Bridges (I haven't seen Crazy Heart), I'd be plenty happy to not have to hear any of the Globe winners' names read when the Oscars nominations are announced on 2 February. At least it won't take much for the Oscars to not grate as hard (as they usually do) this year.

Golden Globe Nominations 2010

The Golden Globe nominations are in and have proven what a strange year it has been for Hollywood. While two nods for Meryl Streep is usually an annual affair, two for Sandra Bullock is just about unheard-of; Matt Damon makes the third actor with two nominations. In the non-acting categories, Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino received two nominations for directing and writing. As usual, the nominations were all over the board, giving recognition to films most people would would argue don't deserve it (Nine, Avatar, Tobey Maguire... at least if early word is accurate). But the two best moves the Hollywood Foreign Press made were ignoring both Lee Daniels and Rob Marshall in the directing category. I've discussed Daniels previously, but Marshall is quite possibly one of the worst directors in Hollywood. Chicago worked (for the most part) as a result of its source material and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but pay attention to any of the non-musical scenes, and you'll see that the guy can't direct for shit.

So who was missing, in terms of expectations? Invictus for picture, even though ol' Clint got a directing nod; Jeremy Renner; A Single Man in any non-acting category; Samantha Morton and Ben Foster; In the Loop, period; the Coens and A Serious Man in the Musical/Comedy category; and of course Tilda Swinton, though Julia came out so early this year, all the award folk have forgotten. Oh, and also, Mariah Carey. Full nominees, including the television categories and film music ones (Karen O. is now a GG nominee), via the press release.

Best Picture - Drama

- Avatar, d. James Cameron
- The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow
- Inglourious Basterds, d. Quentin Tarantino
- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, d. Lee Daniels
- Up in the Air, d. Jason Reitman

Best Picture - Musical/Comedy

- (500) Days of Summer, d. Marc Webb
- The Hangover, d. Todd Phillips
- It's Complicated, d. Nancy Meyers
- Julie & Julia, d. Nora Ephron
- Nine, d. Rob Marshall

Best Director

- Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
- James Cameron, Avatar
- Clint Eastwood, Invictus
- Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
- Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Actor - Drama

- Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
- George Clooney, Up in the Air
- Colin Firth, A Single Man
- Morgan Freeman, Invictus
- Tobey Maguire, Brothers

Best Actress - Drama

- Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
- Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
- Helen Mirren, The Last Station
- Carey Mulligan, An Education
- Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Best Actor - M/C

- Matt Damon, The Informant!
- Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
- Robert Downey, Jr., Sherlock Holmes
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
- Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man

Best Actress - M/C

- Sandra Bullock, The Proposition
- Marion Cotillard, Nine
- Julia Roberts, Duplicity
- Meryl Streep, It's Complicated
- Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Actor

- Matt Damon, Invictus
- Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
- Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
- Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
- Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress

- Penélope Cruz, Nine
- Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
- Anna Kenrick, Up in the Air
- Mo'Nique - Precious
- Julianne Moore, A Single Man

Best Screenplay

- Neill Blomkamp, District 9
- Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
- Nancy Meyers, It's Complicated
- Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
- Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Foreign-Language Film

- Baarìa, d. Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy
- Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos], d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
- The Maid [La nana], d. Sebastián Silva, Chile
- A Prophet [Un prophète], d. Jacques Audiard, France
- The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band], d. Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany/France/Italy

Animated Feature

- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, d. Phil Lord, Chris Miller
- Coraline, d. Henry Selick
- Fantastic Mr. Fox, d. Wes Anderson
- The Princess and the Frog, d. Ron Clements, John Musker
- Up, d. Peter Docter, Bob Peterson

Countdown to the Oscars (bleh), Part 1

Now that I've watched all of the big Oscar nominees, from the main eight categories (I'd like to consider Foreign one of the "big categories," but as I've never been able to see all the nominees before the ceremony, I can't consider it such), I've ranked each of the nominees in descending order for your arguing pleasure. I've placed the titles in bold that actually deserved their nomination.

Best Picture

1. Milk
2. Frost/Nixon
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. The Reader

Best Director

1. Gus Van Sant, Milk
2. Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
4. David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Best Actor

1. Sean Penn, Milk
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
3. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
4. Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
5. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Actress

1. Meryl Streep, Doubt
2. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
3. Melissa Leo, Frozen River
4. Kate Winslet, The Reader
5. Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Best Supporting Actor

1. Josh Brolin, Milk
2. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
3. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
5. Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Best Supporting Actress

1. Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
3. Amy Adams, Doubt
4. Viola Davis, Doubt
5. Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Original Screenplay

1. Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
2. Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
3. Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
4. Dustin Lance Black, Milk
5. Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon, WALL-E

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
2. John Patrick Stanley, Doubt
3. Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
4. Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. David Hare, The Reader

Comments: Why is it that the original screenplay category is the only one in which all five nominees are worth praising? The Reader is easily the worst best picture nominee since Crash. I hate that in a few years, people will look back at the nominees for Best Picture and assume 2008 was a shitty year for film, when it was just the opposite. Let's just hope Hollywood's liberal guilt gives Milk just enough push to take the prize over its extremely less deserving nominees.

Sister Acts

Doubt - dir. John Patrick Shanley - USA - 2008 - Miramax

My interest in Doubt strangely parallels my interest in the Catholic church: I only start paying attention when things start to get nasty. There are two crucial elements to the potential failure of the film itself, both of which are side-stepped in the long run. The first relates to my opening sentence. As a boy who spent thirteen years in Catholic schooling, forced to sit through mass at least twice a week, I don't think I listened to a single homily in its entirety without drifting off into either a nap or the thoughts of how I was planning on spending my free period that day. As Doubt opens in such a manner, with Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) addressing the congregation in the form of a homily, discussing the important themes of the film (doubt, of course), I trailed off early like one of the little boys Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) slaps in their pew. As I said earlier, only when the Doubt begins to get nasty as Sister Aloysius begins to suspect Father Flynn of molesting the school's only black student did I start to listen to the priest's homilies, likely because instead of discussing important themes of the film, he uses the second opportunity to spit venom at Sister Aloysius and young Sister James (Amy Adams).

The other potentially hazardous element of Doubt is the same argument that arises whenever a famous play is adapted to the screen. The play, written by Shanley, has won multiple awards over the years, but as Doubt is only Shanley's second foray into film directing (his other was, yes, Joe Versus the Volcano), he shows his ineptitude with every instance of a Dutch angle he crudely imposes on the film. With certain exceptions (The Third Man, Fay Grim), the choice to use a Dutch angle in a film always feels like a monumental mistake, a lame attempt at creating tension that instead draws attention to its own apparatus and takes the viewer (at least me) away from the film. The fact that Shanley insists on using this technique several times in the film suggests to me that he isn't gifted enough to bring his own (phenomenal) play to the screen.

So then, what exactly is the purpose of bringing a play to the big screen? Is it merely to provide a wider audience, who are more apt to watch a film than go to the theatre (and really, who goes to the theatre any more, even in New York?)? Is it simply to attract the biggest talent you can? I would imagine Streep, Hoffman and Adams are all too busy to spend time on a play. If these are your reasons, Doubt is incredibly successful. It's brilliantly acted by its entire cast (Viola Davis as well, though she's only in one scene), and it's already grossed over $25 million at the domestic box office. However, I still think I'd rather see a play transformed into a cinematic experience than merely translated for the silver screen.

Oh, fashion...

The Devil Wears Prada - dir. David Frankel - 2006 - USA

That The Devil Wears Prada is not a good film may not come as much of a surprise, but that The Devil Wears Prada features Meryl Streep in one of her most complex roles may. The film is rigidly formulaic: small-town girl with ambition arrives to the Big Apple to be swallowed whole. Yet sometimes a film can overcome its pitfalls and stand as something truly remarkable. The Devil Wears Prada could never be called boring, but it falls into the trappings of most conventional Hollywood films. Our protagonist Andy (Anne Hathaway) is so painfully idealistic that her very downfall and rebirth could be seen before even viewing the film. Plucky Andy, a size six, accidentally lands a job at Runway Magazine, the pinnacle of haute culture New York fashion, to gather references in her goal in becoming an important journalist. Stealing the job from the herds of more fashionably inclined young women, Andie becomes the assistant for the magazine’s maven (or Nazi, if you will) of glamour, Miranda Priestly (Streep). Miranda puts her new assistant through rings of fire, causing the naïve Andy to lose sight of what really matters in her life. Blah, blah, blah. You know what’s going to happen going into the film, so why bore you with plot details? The Devil Wears Prada is all about Meryl Streep and Marilyn Priestly, and I’ll spend the rest of this review talking about that.

Streep’s top-billing over Hathaway has little to do with screen time as it does prestige. She’s easily the supporting character here, and this is all the better. Marilyn Priestly doesn’t exist so much as a character as she does a myth. Her actions are inhumane, her disposition cruel. With the combined force of David Frankel’s direction and Aline Brosh McKenna’s screenplay, based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger, Marilyn Priestly always stays firmly in the background, even when she’s mouthing cruel insults at her staff. She’s like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, an ominous, impermeable figure, hidden in the shadows. We, the audience, like Andy, are never given the “in” on what sort of a person she might be when she’s not wearing her fashion like battle armor. With this positioning of Marilyn within the film, she becomes an eternally fascinating figure. While on a date talking with another fashion big wig (Simon Baker), Andy states exactly what should make Marilyn such a complex figure: she’s a woman in a man’s position, therefore being dubbed “ice queen” and “bitch” when words like “skillful” and “professional” would be attached to a man in her shoes. Granted, they wouldn’t look nearly as good. However, if this were simply it, the film would have become preachy and uninteresting. Instead, Marilyn becomes a figure of high intrigue and fascination, whether she be man or woman. The Devil Wears Prada may present itself as a piece of fluff, but you’d be surprised how much it has to say about the face and design of power and how richly fascinating a study that can be.