Out here in the wilds of North Carolina, I haven’t yet had a chance to see ”The Iron Lady,” but as someone who generally finds Meryl Streep’s acting self-conscious, over-affected, and showy — in other words, not acting at all — I’m rooting for “The Help’s” Viola Davis to win.

THAT was a performance, as opposed to what we’ve seen from Streep for the last two decades.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to acting: If I notice the acting, if I see the strings — you’re doing it wrong. If you break the spell and take me out of the film with all your “technique” — you’re doing it wrong. If I notice your accent — you’re doing it wrong.  Patrick Swayze’s performance in “Road House” was ten-times better than almost anything Streep’s done since 1998. That’s not a joke, either. Swayze was more convincing, and that’s what true acting is really about. The rest is nothing more than bait for foo-foo critics and shallow Academy voters.

Anyway, here’s a wrinkle in Streep’s march to another trophy:

A Weinstein Company email that appears to skirt AMPAS campaign rules by using a third party to reach Oscar voters has stirred up anger among Academy members and rival campaigners.

But the email does not violate Academy regulations, AMPAS COO Ric Robertson told TheWrap on Tuesday. One of the organization’s campaign rules, he said, “allows for media entities to send such things to valid subscribers who’ve opted into being a subscriber.”

The email in question, which went out on Tuesday morning, is not part of Weinstein’s aggressive Best Picture campaign on behalf of “The Artist,” but instead promotes Meryl Streep’s Best Actress candidacy for “The Iron Lady.”

(more…)

The year 2000 was my first living full-time in Los Angeles, having arrived from Atlanta on December 30, 1999, Y2K hysteria be damned. I got a job working as a projectionist at a theatre while also working as a reader for a small production company, and I immediately noticed something about a large number of people in Hollywood: they hate movies.

I have varied tastes, having argued the merits of gross-out comedy vs. Oscar bait type of movies. Everyone I met in the movie business claimed “Election” was their favorite movie of 1999, and the only person I met who had actually seen “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” was Rob Schneider’s agent. And he was lukewarm about it.

Total worldwide box office take for “Election” = $16M ($14.8M Domestic).

Total worldwide box office take for “Deuce Bigalow” = $92M ($65M Domestic).

Not bashing either movie; I love them both. But you can see a discrepancy.

Anyway, the nominees for Best Picture:

“Gladiator” – Saw this at the pre-ArcLight Cinerama Dome and was blown away. Still have to watch it on TNT at least one of the thirty-eight times a month they play it.

“Erin Brockovich” – One of my favorite genres: Movies that suck on paper but are actually really good. I never expected the movie to be as funny as it is. Albert Finney wuz robbed. (more…)

The Oscar nominations are out, almost by surprise.  There was a time when Oscar nominations were news, when people cared.  Did you care?

Maybe, but it’s hard to see why.

There was a time when the Academy Awards were an institution, where the nation devoured the nominations and joined together around their TV sets to watch the show itself.  It was fun – the whole family watched.  But that time is rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror of American culture.

It’s more than the fact that there are, literally, other things to watch while in the past the other two networks bowed to the inevitable and counter-programmed with “Mannix” reruns.  But the ratings are now in freefall.  We don’t care about Oscar because Oscar stopped caring about us.

(more…)

Best Picture

“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“The Help”
“Moneyball”
“War Horse”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Actor

Demian Bichir, “A Better Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

Best Actress

Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Rooney Mara, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Jonah Hill, “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte, “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Max Von Sydow, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

(more…)

For movie geeks, 1998 is still remembered as the year that Harvey Weinstein’s lobbying and schmoozing led to the underdog “Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan.” In writing this series, I’ve realized how much Oscar snubs, wins, and losses affect the consensus perception of certain movies.

In other words, had Weinstein’s movie been snubbed altogether, I think people would remember it more fondly than they do. If I recall correctly, no one was complaining much that the movie was nominated, but the win immediately changed the perception of the movie.

I loved a lot of movies released in 1998, but only one of them was nominated for Best Picture. It’s a very tough year for me to pick a favorite. The nominees:

“Shakespeare in Love” – Only saw it once, and I liked it. Costume dramas really ain’t my thing, but costume comedies? Well, that’s…wait, I don’t like them much either. But I guess this one’s alright.

“Elizabeth” – See above. Never seen it.

“Life is Beautiful” – Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor for this remains one of the great whiffs in Academy history.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The invasion sequence alone remains worth the price of admission.

“The Thin Red Line” – For my money, this is a pretentious mess. I’ve got a buddy who says it’s his favorite movie. I say he’ s trying to seem smart. But what do I know? I’m the guy who would have nominated…

“There’s Something About Mary” - Stalker? Big time.

“The Big Lebowski” - Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No, you’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an assh*le.

“Out of Sight” - You don’t have an extra clip I can use, do you?

“Rushmore” - Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream I would have sons like this.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The Statue of Liberty is kaput. That’s disconcerting.

This is really an absolute squeaker. Why? Partially, it’s because I love all of these movies so much. But mostly, it’s because I’m stupid. (more…)

Daily Caller:

This week, movie producer Brett Ratner was forced out as the producer of the Oscars telecast after using a gay slur on Howard Stern’s radio show. Let me begin by pointing out that Brett Ratner is an idiot. Anyone who uses the slur he used in an interview — even an interview with Howard Stern — is an idiot. However, the real story here isn’t that some idiot in Hollywood said something stupid. The real story is the situational morality and selective outrage of the left — and in particular the gay left.

Where was the left’s outrage when an actor like Orlando Jones joked about killing Sarah Palin? Where is the left’s outrage when Rosie O’Donnell talks about 9/11 being an inside job? Was Jones blacklisted in Hollywood? Was Rosie forced to walk across broken glass and hot coals to beg for forgiveness? No, these and other Hollywood idiots get a free pass because they chose to bash a person or group that the left has decided is worthy of hate and scorn. The hypocrisy is stunning and no group is more stunning in its hypocrisy and its selective outrage than the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Definition (GLAAD).

GLAAD is the leading mouthpiece for the gay Gestapo in this country. While pretending to be the vanguard for tolerance and diversity, the gay Gestapo is actually committed to stomping out anyone who doesn’t buy into their radical left-wing political agenda. For all the talk of “tolerance” and “diversity,” it is clear that there is zero tolerance for ideological diversity with the gay Gestapo.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Brett Ratner resigned Tuesday as producer of next year’s Academy Awards, one day after apologizing for using a gay slur at a screening of his latest film.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed Ratner’s departure. President Tom Sherak said in a statement that the 42-year-old filmmaker “did the right thing for the academy and for himself.”

“Brett is a good person, but his comments were unacceptable,” Sherak said.

Ratner used a pejorative term for gay men during a question-and-answer session at a screening of his film “Tower Heist.” He also discussed his sexual exploits on a recent episode of “The Howard Stern Show.”

Ratner issued a lengthy statement Tuesday apologizing for his behavior and explaining his resignation as producer of the 2012 Oscar telecast. The academy had announced in August that Ratner would produce the show with TV veteran Don Mischer, who helmed the 2011 broadcast.

In a letter beginning, “Dear Colleagues,” Ratner apologized for “the hurtful and stupid things I said in a number of recent media appearances.” (more…)

I don’t approve of, like, or use the word “fag,” but I know a raging double standard when I see one, and I also know a bunch of humorless prudes who make the Church Lady look like Hugh Hefner. We’ve spent years watching leftist Hollywood attack the identity, values, beliefs and everything held dear by over half of this country. For decades they’ve mocked, lied, demeaned, snarked, stereotyped, and flown their flag of bigotry like the Hollywood résumé enhancer it is.

And never ever forget that leftist Hollywood has celebrated, defended, and bestowed honors upon a craven piece of scum who drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13 year-old girl.

But here’s what finally has these same hypocrites in a sanctimonious tizzy:  “Rehearsal is for fags.”

Remember that in leftist Hollywood, you can call the Pope a Nazi, joke about killing a mother of five named Sarah Palin, and relentlessly mock and stereotype Southerners as toothless, inbred sister-humpers eager to make you squeal like a pig. Oh, and feature films can revolve around the mocking of Christians. But, BY GOD, don’t you dare tell a joke that includes a gay slur.

Spare me, you hypocritical bigots.

Spare.

Me.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Eddie Murphy is hosting the Oscars. Academy Awards producers Brett Ratner and Don Mischer say the actor and comedian will host the 84th annual Oscar ceremony.

Ratner called the 50-year-old entertainer “a comedic genius; one of the greatest and most influential live performers ever.” Mischer called Murphy “a truly groundbreaking performer” whose “quick wit and charisma will serve him very well as Oscar host.”

This will be Murphy’s first time hosting the Academy Awards. He was nominated for an Oscar in 2006 for his supporting role in “Dreamgirls.”

Murphy said in a statement Tuesday that he is “enormously honored” to join the ranks of past Academy Awards hosts such as Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg.

Will Billy Crystal return as Oscar’s host? That’s the question today.

You know, it’s kind of amazing that as telecast ratings for the the Academy Awards sail over a cliff, the Academy appears to be in complete denial over what the real problem is. For starters, a large number of their recent hosts — Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart — are polarizing and divisive figures who turn off well over half the country. Those of us who don’t live on the coasts don’t like these people, and why should we? They continually insult us, who we are, and what we hold dear. No Bitter Clinger in their right mind wastes a Sunday night with their guts in a knot waiting for a Leftist sucker shot.

Oscar has the same problem with presenters and winners. Every time some mouthy jerk grabs a trophy we sit there on edge waiting, waiting, waiting for it.

If you believe in traditional marriage, love Jesus, adore America, hate terrorists and have finally figured out Obama’s a failed president — watching the Oscars sucks.

Billy Crystal does, however, transcend that problem. Not 100%, but he is a national figure who isn’t polarizing, puts on a great show, and in the talent and class department comes as close to a Bob Hope and Johnny Carson as anyone today. And sadly, he’s about it.

(more…)

From Reuters:

Oscar organizers on Friday downplayed speculation that former talk show queen and Oscar nominee Oprah Winfrey might be hosting Hollywood’s top film honors next year.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Winfrey, who ended the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in May to run her OWN cable TV network, has emerged as a top candidate to host the Academy Awards in February.

The Sun-Times, citing unnamed sources inside the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said organizers think Winfrey’s presence would expand the show’s audience and, given that her talk show ended only recently, they believe she will lure her legions of fans to the 84th Oscar show in February. (more…)

Though the 83rd Academy Awards was rarely entertaining (okay… it was about as much fun as a chemistry midterm), it was, for the most part, apolitical.  There were a couple of exceptions, however, the most notable was perhaps cinematography winner Wally Pfister who gave special thanks to his union crew on “Inception.”

“Inception” Cinematographer Wally Pfister with Christopher Nolan

From ABC News:

Backstage he went further, expressing shock at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, which would limit union’s collective bargaining powers…

“I think that what is going on in Wisconsin is kind of madness right now,” Pfister says. “I have been a union member for 30 years and what the union has given to me is security for my family. They have given me health care in a country that doesn’t provide health care and I think unions are a very important part of the middle class in America all we are trying to do is get a decent wage and have medical care.”

Yes, nothing like an Academy Award winner who can afford to send his three children to whatever school he wants coming to the aide of the unions that have destroyed the public schools.

Regardless of your perception of unions, comparing Hollywood unions to the Wisconsin teachers union is hardly apples to apples.  Hollywood unions bargain with corporations that have money they have earned by making movies like “Memento,” “Batman Begins,” “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight,” and “Inception” (just to name a few Pfister has worked on personally), and unions collectively bargain to get a greater share of the revenue.  Governments, on the other hand, don’t earn anything; they extract taxes from citizens, many of whom have fallen on tough financial times.  Pfister’s union crew bargains with the capitalists that have a stake in the outcome of the negotiation, a vested interest in reaching a reasonable agreement with the unions – their bottom line depends on it.  Governments, on the other hand, have no such bottom line to worry about (see: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).  In Wisconsin, the unions are trying to strong-arm politicians (many of whom are bankrolled by the unions come campaign time) in order to pad their pension fund with tax dollars, all at the direct expense of the state’s fiscal health.

Hollywood unions bargain with corporations for the corporations’ money; in Wisconsin, they’re bargaining with union-backed politicians for the taxpayers’ money.  It’s one thing to add to the Warner Brothers’ tab; it’s quite another to add to the citizens’.

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There’s been a dearth of Yuletide material here at Big Hollywood this month, so as The Most Wonderful Day of the Year draws nigh, let’s spend some time saluting the five men whose voices echo most strongly through the Christmas chapters of the Great American songbook.

_____________________

5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well. (more…)

We’ve all watched well-known, highly regarded actors for the umpteenth time on screen — perhaps even raucously enjoying both their performance and the movie — and thought about how painfully derivative and self-referential they’ve become. Somewhere along the way, over a period of many years, these talented thespians stopped surprising us. They ceased bringing to life fleshed out individuals and  began using and reusing tired sets of predictable quirks and tics.

Mind you, they’re still charismatic and entertaining to watch, but in an almost clownish way. We now go to see them not to be wowed by their acting, but to be entertained by their chewing the scenery and hamming it up. Whereas in the past they lost themselves in a part, now their well-known, theatrically overblown personalities overwhelm everything else on screen.

Who are the worst offenders? My own Top 5 list was compiled with two ground rules: each candidate had to be alive (so James Dean and Marlon Brando each get a reprieve), and they have to have won at least one Academy Award for acting (which spares modern, less-laurelled hams such as Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Jeff Goldblum and Mel Gibson.) Again, the following actors are not necessarily unpleasant to watch — raw charisma goes a long way — but they have become predictably one-note parodies of themselves. (more…)

For an industry peopled by so-called progressive types who love to bash their ideological opposites as racist bigots who want to oppress anyone who doesn’t check the “Caucasian” box on those obnoxious affirmative action questionnaires on employment applications, it sure seems funny that …

…there’s a real possibility that for the first time since the 73rd Oscars 10 years ago, there will be no black nominees in any of the acting categories at the February ceremony. In fact, there are virtually no minorities in any of the major categories among the early lists of awards hopefuls.

What the liberal media might call a “predominantly white” crowd…

I mean, we have the likes of Cher wondering why anyone who isn’t white, rich and Christian would want to be a Republican. Brilliant political mind John Cusack supports the idea of a “Satanic death cult center” outside of Fox News headquarters. Actor John Hamm agreed the Tea Party is a racist institution – on the show hosted by a guy who is upset that President Obama doesn’t act like a “real black president” with a “gun in his pants.” And white comedienne (?) Joy Behar says that only the majority (read: white people) can be racist. Well, I guess as a white chick, she should know. Plus, she studied sociology in college and everything!

Yes, these are the people who believe they set the social narrative in America. And yet…and yet…they don’t seem to live up to their own hype! I mean, here we have what might be the first Oscar night in 10 years with no ethnic minority actors/actresses nominated for an acting award. My goodness, what will George “Smug” Clooney have to say about it?

Actually, considering the high amount of tripe coming out of Hollywood lately, I should think that those excluded from the nominee list would be thrilled by their narrow escape. (more…)

A Los Angeles Times article I read recently made me chuckle. It began by wearily tossing an exhausted barb at the 3-D phenomenon sweeping Hollywood: “With sighs of relief, critics last week took off their Polaroid glasses and looked at a couple of old-fashioned, two-dimensional films.” The big-screen photography of one of those pictures drew particular attention, with one critic noting that “It gives reality a true third dimension. . . the kind of 3-D you cannot get with mechanical tricks or by any other means except a rich comprehension and ingenious mastery of the visual storyteller’s art.”

Well, let me fess up. I read the article recently, yes — but in a fifty-year-old copy of the Los Angeles Times. The paper was dated May 6, 1953, and the two-dimensional film being praised for bucking Hollywood’s push towards 3-D was Shane.

It was a time when TV was cutting deeply into movie profits, and studios were scrambling to win back the wandering eyeballs of America. Cinerama, an ambitious, three-projector widescreen extravaganza, debuted in New York in the fall of 1952, with its test film This Is Cinerama garnering front-page fanfare and great acclaim. Bosley Crowther, the Roger Ebert of his time, gasped that it gave the audience “the same sensations. . . felt on that night, years ago, when motion pictures were first publicly flashed on a large screen. . . People sat back in spellbound wonder. . . as though most of them were seeing motion pictures for the first time.” In a single evening, the development of all-new expansive formats had become a fait accompli, and studios immediately began looking for ways to capitalize on the buzz. (more…)

It’s been roughly a week since actress Sigourney Weaver blamed his lack of breasts as the reason James Cameron lost out to Kathryn Bigelow in the battle for the Best Director Oscar.  Yet, there’s been no media feeding frenzy as a result, even though Weaver essentially said Bigelow didn’t really deserve her Oscar – it was simply a matter of gender politics at work.

Shouldn’t women’s groups be outraged by such a remark? Or did they see a kernel of truth in what Weaver said?  The National Organization for Women has nothing about the incident on its web site.

So Big Hollywood reached out to several women connected to the film industry to get their thoughts on Weaver’s accusations.

Ally Acker with Reel Women Media says politics play a factor in why certain people win that golden statuette: “When Mo’Nique said at the Oscars, ‘I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics,’ she must have been delusional,” Acker says. “Her performance was good, but her award was all about politics.” (more…)

In 1964, little-known actor Michael Caine was being evicted — again — and needed a place to stay — again. His friend Sean Connery, starting out in similar circumstances, had reached the pinnacle of the acting world as James Bond. But here Caine was, unable to pay the rent.

In desperation, he temporarily moved in with his pal John Barry, the music composer for the Bond series. Barry was a regular patron of London’s tony clubs and discotheques, and so Caine fully expected to have some good times while staying over as a guest. What he got instead was being kept up night after night by a strange tune Barry was tinkering with: two blaring notes in the key of F major, followed by a trailing melody in D flat, repeated over and over like a villainous echo:

YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen

Decades later, music critic Terry Walstrom would marvel at how this famous introduction “arrests the attention and stuns the ear,” with the unorthodox key transition being akin to “opening a carton of fat-free milk and pouring out a glass of vodka. Entirely without precedent.”

Unknowingly just a few months away from his own stardom courtesy of 1964’s Zulu (another film scored by Barry), Michael Caine lay in the dark listening to the haunting melody of “Goldfinger,” little guessing that the song would one day be judged one of the finest of the last fifty years, with its young composer becoming the greatest British purveyor of movie music in the twentieth century.

John Barry Prendergast was the great-grandson of famous bare-knuckled boxing champ Jack Sullivan, but no hint of “the sweet science” filtered down through the family tree to him. Born in 1933, his father owned a chain of cinemas and his mother was a concert pianist. Barry took piano lessons from the age of nine (with one teacher whacking his fingers with a ruler whenever he missed a key), and fell in love with movies while working in the projection booths of his Dad’s theaters. Soon he had every intention of becoming a classically trained film composer. (more…)

As the 82nd annual Academy Awards rolled into their third hour, I started joking on our live blog about how the winners and presenters were so well behaved they were leaving me nothing to write about. In fact, it’s just the opposite. How many Hollywood Behaved Badly pieces can one man write in a lifetime? Well, it’s probably my destiny to find out, but what a pleasant surprise not to have to write one this morning.

Last night, no one said anything insulting or divisive. Not a word. Not a sound. Not a peep. The whole of the Kodak Theatre offered a brief but completely unexpected respite in their ongoing Culture War against traditional America and chose instead to behave like, well, movie stars.

No idiocy directed our way in the form of poorly disguised jokes or irony, no hey-hey goodbye shots at Bush, no gushy shout-outs to Obama. With ObamaCare on the precipice there wasn’t even a lone moralizing salvo fired on its behalf or a cheap shot launched towards the Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, or Fox News. It was like someone gave a magic wand to those of us who want to like Hollywood again, and it worked. Because this is how it’s supposed to be. (more…)

As we move towards tonight’s granddaddy of all awards shows, I am starting to wonder several things: First, after seeing an editorial in the New York Times and a very drab and unhappy looking professor of women’s studies on Fox News call for just one best actor and best supporting actor award to end sex discrimination in Hollywood, I am starting to think lots of people are reading my blogs. Over a year ago I poked a little fun at the politically correct Screen Actors Guild for not using the word “actress” but still give and award for a “female actor.” The left has now jumped on my bandwagon so maybe there is hope for America and Hollywood!

The second thing that has been on my mind is which brand of political correctness will prevail this year’s Oscars. Will the “I’m voting for ‘Avatar’ because it ridicules America and its military” faction be stronger than the “It’s time a woman won best director” faction?

There are other political considerations in this year’s voting but this got me to thinking about past years and whether or not the nominations and awards really are all about the art. It seems that all sorts of considerations, political, social, personalities and career get mixed in and often the storytelling gets left on the cutting room floor. In the interest of brevity I will limit my comments to the years I can actually remember, which, if I am honest, would rule out several years in the early seventies and mid-eighties. (more…)