OSCAR
SYMPOSIUM
with
your host Nathaniel
and six very special guests
February 2008
Our Seven Participants
day one / day two / day three
previous page
KIM: Marion Cotillard gets points for informing Academy voters just who that French singer was on that mixed CD they bought at Starbucks last year. Many have even placed the David Bret biography on their coffee table (but won’t actually read it) and will prattle on all expert-like about the painful ennui and raw vibrato of the “Sparrow” but will nevertheless, fail to vote for the actress playing their new favorite chansonnier.
But then, the movie was totally fucking confusing and since they don’t really know enough about Piaf’s life and they (secretly) don’t get and (secretly) resent the French (that waiter last year…), they couldn’t attach themselves to her as they did with Jamie Foxx in Ray or Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line and it wasn’t an experimental biopic like I’m Not There and…and…how do you pronounce her name again?
So unless that crazy train called Juno proves unstoppable and Ellen Page sneaks in there, Julie Christie wins. Which I’m all for -- if that matters. And apologies for being cranky, but this happens after hearing that tortured Gallic voice blaring out of an Escalade on Robertson Blvd. But hey, that could have been Bob Dylan driving…you’ve seen the ads.
NATHANIEL: I sense not just crankiness but fatigue setting in all around. So here's something fun to wrap around any random thoughts you've all left unexpressed. Let's go both sweet and the sour by chanelling the two oldest nominees for the finale.
First, make like Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild. He didn't want to be away from Emile Hirsch's Christopher McCandless. Which nominated film, person or filmthing did you want to adopt?
Second, Ruby Dee in American Gangster. The slap is the scene everyone remembers in American Gangster (or at least it's the scene I remember since I wanted to slap Denzel myself. "Wake up, man!") and surely, Oscars have been won for less. So, make like Ruby Dee or enlist her in your pet wake up call. Which one nominated film, person or scene needs a good smacking?
NICK: The filmthing that, by far, I have most wanted to adopt in the last 12 months is Pencil, Molly Shannon's adorable dog in Year of the Dog. Well, at the beginning of Year of the Dog. That dog was so cute I actually cried just looking at it. And I've never even had a dog. I guess this isn't an Oscarish answer, but it felt wrong not to give credit where it's due. How about this? I hear that Jason Bourne hasn't had anywhere to live for the longest, and he's lacked for steady company since he left India, so I will happily adopt him first. And back off, the rest of you punks, because I said it first.
For smackery? How about Rick Baker. It's bad enough that movies like Norbit make $100 million and get to be called Oscar-nominated, when Day Night Day Night and We Own the Night and Grizzly Man and whatever don't get to say that. It's worse that Norbit, specifically, and many of its nearest kin wouldn't get made if Rick Baker weren't around to slather some fake fat onto Eddie Murphy. Plus, I never his speeches. And he has that HAIR. Rick: STOP IT. All of it. (Well, most of it: I did love The Nutty Professor, and I forgot when I mentioned DDL in The Crucible earlier in this conversation that my imaginary Best Actor Oscar from 1996 was already claimed.)
I've never made a dime betting on myself to stop talking, but just in case I'm over and out after this one, this has been a great party! Lovely to see all of you. Delicious food, Nathaniel. And Sasha: great dress. But no, I'm not turning down the music or flipping on the lightswitch. This party is on till we say it isn't. I'm that guest who says goodbye and then drinks three more gin & tonics.
SASHA: Whom I wanted to adopt: Marjane in Persepolis. Persepolis is a powerfully written work by an incredibly strange, moody woman. Talk about your well rounded female character. I wanted to rescue her and bring her parents back here so that none of them would have to live as women do in extremist radical muslim societies. While there has been a lot of attention heaped upon the other women writers (and hallelujah for that), I thought this one was horribly overlooked, as its writing was the best thing about it. In the end, I think it's too radical for Oscar but I admired it and that girl/woman is someone I did not want to see suffer through this horrible/miserable/wonderful life.
Whom I wanted to slap hard: Briony. Poor girl needed either a cold shower or a good slap. I wanted to also slap Daniel Plainview when he left his son on the train.
OK. End of conversation with myself.
So anyway…whom to adopt? I want to adopt the brilliant, misunderstood Bug’s Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon and escort them by train (there’s no way you could get them on an airplane) to Samuel Jackson’s house in Black Snake Moan. As much as I revel in their psychotic meltdown, even swoon over its bizarre romanticism, I think Lazarus might have the power to stop those crazy, mixed up kids from lighting themselves on fire. And if not, at least write an inspired blues song from Ashley’s genius declaration: “I AM the Super Mother BUG!” (Personally, I’ve already adopted that line to help me through moments of sadness and stress. It works.)
As for the slaps? There are too many people I want to double smack Jimmy Cagney style. So I’ll just go to Julia Roberts, an actress who confuses me with such wildly shifting emotions that I really ought to read that book I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me! Understanding the Borderline Personality. I want to slap her, then kiss her. Slap her, kiss her. I can’t figure out why, exactly. Hmmm…maybe I want Ashley Judd to slap her: “Why are you trying to take away the one thing I have!” Actually, the one thing Ashley *doesn't* have is an Oscar nomination. For that omission I'm not going to slap the Academy but rather, write letters to them in the style of THE MOST SHAMEFULLY snubbed movie of the year, Zodiac. I'll send Sid Ganis a bloodied package of orange Tic-Tacs just to let them know I'm not messing around.
NATHANIEL: Hilarious. And how about that Julia Roberts anyway... What the hell was she doing in Charlie Wilson's War? I didn't understand one note in that performance. And she seemed so stiff in the evening gowns. Anyway, sorry to interrupt. I'm having another gin and tonic with Nick. NEXT!
DENNIS: Nathaniel, I haven't gotten around to Charlie Wilson's War yet, but Roberts seemed so mannered and affected in that trailer that all I could think of was my daughters when they play dress up and start trotting out their Southern Belle characterizations...
NICK: Tin and gonic delishiss. <Sip> I was all ready to leave until Nathaniel came out in that green dress and said, "Come back! Come back to me!"So I'm going to get my Dee on and Deeliver one more slap, and it's a collective slap to the music
branch people who pick the Original Songs. I can't even write Aug**t R**h, but more than that: I
heard a rumor that "Falling Slowly" might still be disqualified because of Originality Issues. Is
this rumor still alive? Has this been settled? I'm already fixed to slap the musicians, but if Glen and Marketa out, and we're left with the other four nominees only, I'm'a hafta go get my cannon. <Sip>
DENNIS: Okay, Nick, I'll match you tin and gonic with two-- no, three fingers of my favorite tequila (1921 Anejo, if anyone is taking notes for my birthday)-- and I'm even going to take my shoes off for this one. By the way, I had heard of the threats to "Falling Slowly," but since the initial reports have heard nothing else. As far as I know, the lone nomination for Once stands. All right, my first adoption would be Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg so they could keep me entertained and distracted 24/7. Their documentary on the Hot Fuzz press tour, "The Fuzzball Rally," convinced me that one of my life's ambitions should be to magically become as funny as they were together in that piece so they would allow me to hang out with them and try to keep up.
The way Gone Baby Gone floundered in the marketplace, despite a passel of great reviews, makes it a great candidate for adoption too. I wish someone would have taken up the cause of this movie earlier and convinced reluctant ticket buyers (like me) to get their asses out to see it in theaters. I finally saw it last night, and I have to say I was fairly blown away not only by the ever-tightening noose of the narrative, which is designed to haunt you if you're a parent or just someone who has the capacity for bottomless empathy, but by the thick, authentic social strata Ben Affleck conjures of the South Boston locals and locales that are the background subject of his film. Gone Baby Gone is better acted, and much more leanly and flexibly constructed (by Affleck and his co-scenarist Aaron Stockard, from Dennis Lehane's novel) than was Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, another Lehane adaptation that, though powerful, tended toward the mannered and got bogged down in stylistic sidetracks, like those phone non-conversations between Kevin Bacon and his mysterious, unseen wife. Affleck makes no such missteps-- his focus is unsparing, hyperaware, yet down to earth, and the movie breathes with acting writ large and perfectly, especially from Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver and, of course, Amy Ryan. It fits too that the movie, about making terrible choices in the name of justice for innocents, features two young children who are, in ways of misguided nobility and horrible appetite, adopted by the predatory circumstances in which they are forced to grow up. I am still trying to get my head around how well Ben Affleck has navigated this superb first directorial effort. He may never be a stylist on the order of a Paul Thomas Anderson or David Fincher or Joel and Ethan Coen, but if he continues to work with actors as well as he did in Gone Baby Gone, he's going to be a director to watch, again and again. I'm going to have to have another tumbler of tequila before I can get up the nerve to do some serious slappin'. I'm off to pour, but I shall return![short pause]
Okay, I'm liquored up enough to do the dirty work now. On to the slaps. I have reserved some heavy leather gloves for this duty and would be willing to go pistols at dawn with any of these folks if necessary.
SLAP #1 To DreamWorks and Sony Pictures Animation. Okay, Surf's Up got the token third slot for Best Animated Film that should have gone to The Simpsons Movie, but neither one of them deserves consideration over Persepolis or especially the deserving winner, Ratatouille. And really, despite its oh-so-1999 mockumentary framework (which had my movie-mad daughters puzzled for nearly half the running time-- "When's the movie gonna start, Daddy?"), the whole thing is limp and tired. Yet that's a fair shot of energy more than DreamWorks mainlined in its two CGI megahits, Bee Movie and Shrek the Third, creaky joke machines that pitch half their shoddy material too high for their preteen demographics and substitute stunt voice casting for Pixar-level storytelling inspiration. Stop-- slap!-- the-- slap!-- wisecracks!
One Last Slap-Happy Page
Some love for Casey Affleck and Will Smith (!) and the closing of the bar. Funny how everyone scatters when that happens...
