Last Minute Predictions

Okay, so it's 6 hours before the Oscar nominations are being announced, and I'm so stoked and high on a rush of adrenaline that I decided to post my predictions for the nominees. I seriously live for this time of year. I love it! I made this list really fast purposefully so that my gut feelings would guide me, and my choices would be pure and free from second-guessing. I want to be clear that these are the films/people that I believe WILL be nominated, not necessarily the ones that I personally think SHOULD be nominated. That being said, here are my predictions for the Oscar nominees in the six major categories:

Best Picture:

The Dark Knight
Milk
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire
The Wrestler

Best Director:

Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin, Milk
James Franco, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Ta-da! Yikes, I'm really putting myself out there. This could be disastrous, but I really hope I made some good and maybe unorthodox or unexpected calls.

Super Special Bonus Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire will receive the most nominations with 12.

Fingers crossed! I'm so excited! And a little nervous! But mostly excited!

Man, I love what I do.

Quaffable, but uh...far from transcendent.

This post exists for no reason other than that I adore Family Guy and think this is one of the funniest and most random parodies I've ever seen. Hopefully it'll bring you a chuckle.

The original:



Family Guy greatness:



That makes me so happy.

Oh, and pop quiz: What's the origin of the title of this post?

Bitch Wars

The end of the year spoils us, movie-wise. Even if you don't put much stock in awards season, you can't deny the quality of the Oscar bait films. It's a sweet time...a better time.

Alas, welcome to January, where cinema goes to die. And with Bride Wars, it looks like we're right on schedule. In this nauseating-looking exercise in female bitchery, Anne Hathaway, determined to erase any cred she earned with Rachel Getting Married (think Halle Berry with Catwoman and Eddie Murphy with Norbit), and Kate Hudson, who hasn't done anything worthwhile since Almost Famous over eight years ago, star as childhood best friends who have always dreamt of having their weddings at the Plaza and, of course, being the other's maid of honor. But oh no, their weddings accidentally get booked on the same day. Whatever will they do?

Since they're women, they'll have an epic catfight, naturally. As you know, we women are totally irrational and WILL shatter a lifelong friendship and turn into shrieking, backstabbing, tantrum-throwing, superficial she-beasts at the drop of a hat, especially if you mess with our weddings. We'll resort to calling each other fat, we'll dye each other's hair blue and ensure the other gets a bad orange tan, and we're willing to throw feminism and our self-respect out the window. What decade IS this? GAG.

I'm not the only one who finds this appalling, right? Worse yet, Bride Wars has a PG rating, so every little girl can aspire to being this petty and bitchy when she grows up.

I hope I speak for all women when I say:

Ladies, please, you're embarrassing us.

Guy Ritchie Killed RocknRoll

I think it's safe to say that Guy Ritchie has a pretty decent following, some ardent defenders, and has received considerable, if cultish, acclaim. Can anyone tell me why? His body of work is so small and the quality in that tiny quantity is so poor that I'm left bewildered and a bit angry.

Ritchie's RocknRolla, a British crime caper, is one of the worst movies of 2008. It's atrocious. Absurdly, almost impossibly bad. Watching it was pure misery. And I paid $10 to see it! My only defense is that I was duped by this awesome-looking trailer:

See? Deceptive! Looks cool, right? It's not. There's nothing interesting, exciting, or comprehensible about RocknRolla (ugh, it's annoying to type that stupid title - I die a little on the inside each time). The plot is just awful. It's rambling, nonsensical, and dull as all bloody hell. RocknRolla is unnecessary, overcomplicated, and self-indulgent. It's a hideous waste of good actors (Gerard Butler, Jeremy Piven, and Ludacris) and an egregious waste of a great one (Tom Wilkinson).

Butler and Wilkinson are the only two things separating RocknRolla from a zero star rating. Wilkinson for his mere presence, really, but Butler is actually charming and quite funny (the only humorous aspect of this glaringly UNfunny alleged comedy, aside from its laughable wretchedness, of course - although, there isn't much laughter as it's honestly too bad to derive even that simple pleasure granted by terrible movies). Gerard Butler is like a way less interesting and talented version of Colin Farrell in In Bruges, but he's the best thing in this assault on cinema and humanity, so I'm grateful to him. He's very entertaining and, to be superficial, he's really hot. Still, there's no compensation, no relief, and no excuse. I loathe this movie.

2008 saw some serious duds in the action/thriller department, but RocknRolla really bites the bullet.

Rating: 1/2* (out of 5)

You Gotta Give 'Em Hope

Milk is a disappointingly conventional biopic about a gloriously unconventional man. Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), based in San Francisco, crusaded tirelessly for gay rights and became the first openly gay public official (City Supervisor) in the late 70s. Harvey Milk is an inspiration, and his story blew me away. The film itself is uninspired. Milk could have been great, and it's a tragedy that it's not.

Milk is basically a series of vignettes highlighting different periods of Harvey's life during the 70s - numerous failed attempts to win public office, romantic relationships with men, his eventual triumph, and the shocking and tragic events that followed it. The film never flows together in any cohesive way. There's an ongoing narration by Penn (Harvey's cryptic tell-all into a microphone at his kitchen table) that appears and disappears at random. The structure of the film is so disjointed that I think it could have been disastrous without the heavyweight acting of the ensemble. Milk jumps around so much that the result, narratively, seems surface. There should have been less quantity and more quality.

Most of this is the fault of Dustin Lance Black's painfully amateurish, formulaic, and repetitious script. He was in way over his head on this project, which was his first screenplay. He will get an Oscar nomination, but he won't deserve it. The script is a mess. The subplot involving one of Harvey's two main lovers, Jack Lira (Diego Luna), is annoying and superfluous. Jack is selfish and terrible for Harvey, but Harvey just can't resist him. This storyline screams, "Look, Harvey has flaws and weaknesses!" It's a pitiful attempt to add more dimensions to the character. We don't need to be TOLD that; Sean Penn makes us feel and believe that Harvey is fully human, someone who makes mistakes and suffers from self-doubt as much as he triumphs and perseveres. He is not meant to be a messiah (although I think the film leans that way at times). There's the random introduction of some random kid in a wheelchair calling Harvey as he's about to commit suicide. Things happen too conveniently (life-summation phone calls before pivotal plot moments, one boyfriend exiting and another entering almost instantaneously, a terrible, cliché oversymbolization of opera), the film lingers too long, and it was even a bit boring here and there. It's frustrating, because Harvey Milk and all the actors who are working their method butts off deserve a better screenplay.

It's interesting to see Gus Van Sant going the mainstream, traditionally narrative route. This is a total departure from mood outings like Paranoid Park (and thankfully light years away from the atrocious Psycho remake - shudder). I'm happy that he's getting such widespread recognition. His directing is quite good, and the story is obviously coming from a very personal place. I believe he did the best job possible with the script he had, but I think he was more concerned with the message than the structure. Pity, because the message would have been stronger if the film had been stronger. Milk is a sprawling epic of sorts, and Van Sant manages to hold it all together. It's a lot to keep under control, and I admire his efforts and his passion for the project. I've certainly come a long way from despising him for desecrating Alfred Hitchcock.

None of the aesthetics of the film are particularly noteworthy. The film has a nice grainy 70s-ish look to it (cinematography by Harris Savides) and is interspersed with some stunning real footage from the past. Only Danny Elfman's brilliant score really stands out. He just keeps on proving that he's one of the best composers we've ever had, and one of the most versatile. There's an operatic, powerfully emotional, and swooningly gorgeous quality about his layered melodies. It's a knockout. And it does precisely what a score should do, which is complement the film and elevate it to another level.

I'm not sure if Milk has THE best ensemble of the year (The Dark Knight, In Bruges, and Slumdog Millionaire come to mind), but it's definitely a top contender. Diego Luna - the poor guy - does what he can to make an annoying caricature charming. Allison Pill is fantastic as tough and cool Anne, Harvey's campaign manager and the lone female in his universe. Josh Brolin is just exploding off the radar lately, and I'm thrilled for him. He's getting a lot of acclaim for his role as Dan White, Harvey's nemesis on the supervisory committee. He's great here, bringing humor, gravity, and emotional nuance to a character who could have been a stereotypical mustache-twirling baddie (if he had a mustache, that is), but his best work this year was in W. as the titular fool. Emile Hirsch impresses me more all the time. He's equal parts hilarious and intense as Cleve Jones, a wayward teen who joins Harvey's crusade.

I don't know what happened to James Franco, but somewhere between Spider-Man 3 and now, he turned into a really amazing actor (yes, I know he apparently did good work on Freaks and Geeks, but his film career has been dismal at best). His performance in Milk is so sensitive and beautiful that it makes my heart skip a beat and a few tears come to my eyes just thinking about it. He has the most heart-melting and sincere smile and such a gentle disposition that it's no wonder Harvey is so in love with him. He plays Scott Smith, who I firmly believe was Harvey's one true love and soul mate. Franco deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination. This is his best performance to date, and I'm excited to watch him in the future. He also sort of reminds me of Heath Ledger in this film. I can't really explain it, maybe it's how he looks or just his spirit, but it's lovely.

Sean Penn is stunning as Harvey Milk. He IS Harvey Milk. It's a staggering, electrifying, profoundly touching performance. He's riveting from start to finish, whether he's giving powerful Barack Obama-style speeches or breathtakingly and exquisitely exposing Harvey's heart and soul to us. He draws us so completely into Harvey's life that script problems seem trivial compared to his awesome talent. It feels like he's speaking to only you and to the whole world at the same time, and always intimately and passionately. Honestly, I think this is the best work of Sean Penn's career. Who knew it was possible for him to get better? Well, here's the proof. He's one of this year's strongest and most deserving Oscar contenders.

With Proposition 8 still looming over us, Milk is more relevant than ever. It's a serious film about a serious issue, gay rights, that has somehow broken into the mainstream, and I think that's amazing. I'm sure his story will inspire revolutionaries of today to continue and hopefully one day finish his work. Milk has more than its share of flaws, and I can't dismiss them (I wish I could), but the acting is so transcendent, the story is so moving and inspirational, and the message of perseverance, tolerance, and hope is so potent and so essential to the advancement of society and humanity that it deserves to be seen and celebrated.

After Harvey Milk was elected City Supervisor in 1977, he asserted, "It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope." And, after all, as Harvey says in the film, "Without hope, life's not worth living."

Rating: **** (out of 5)

Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Lisa

I don't know how to start this, my 200th post on this blog and my big comeback, other than to say that I have no clue how to start it. I haven't written anything on here or at all since that Sarah Palin post on October 13th, and that was nothing more than snarky fluff. So, it's been well over four months since I've written anything substantial with any regularity. And for the majority of that time, I barely saw any movies. I never wanted to take a break from writing or film (especially not film), but it just turned out that way. The universe had me in a choke hold. So much happened during my time away that I don't even recognize myself or my life anymore, and I'm still trying to work out if that's a good thing or not.

I don't want to get all melodramatic; this isn't a pity plea. But I do feel a sense of loyalty to this blog and to my readers, and you deserve to know what's been going on to keep me from being here. So, I'm just going to rip off the band-aid and give you a list. Here goes, in no particular order: moving out of the home that I'd lived in for over twenty years for the first time and dealing with the accompanying trauma and the constant missing, moving a second time after only one month in the new place, leaving behind family, leaving behind my beautiful dog Molly (one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make), finding new homes for my sun conure Buster and my darling rats, getting new pets, life with a puppy, relationships ending and beginning, isolation from friends, futile job hunting (the hours I spent...), getting and losing two potentially awesome, though not related to my career, jobs (SO complicated), health issues, not being able to find a job ever, being jerked around in the job search, severe psychological distress, financial woes (like, being broke all the time), losing faith in myself, losing faith in my ability as a writer, feeling like I'll never make it or fulfill my dreams, reevaluating my dreams, chronic Writer's Block, feeling like a stranger in my own body, and deciding that things needed to change. See? Painless.

In a way, I feel like I've been buried alive (but barely alive), and I'm only now trying to claw my way out of the grave. But it's still a long way up. I got proactive about a month ago by hurling myself full throttle back into cinema. I saw 10 films in the first two weeks of this catch-up project, and then I saw some of those again, bringing the total of individual showings in two weeks to 15. After that, I saw some more, but it dwindled considerably. I was exhausted. I still have a list of about 10 in theaters now that I have to see, and Santa is bringing us like a dozen more films on Christmas Day, most of which look really good. And then there are all the reviews I still need to write, from mid-summer on. It's overwhelming. And I haven't been able to write worth a damn. I didn't know if I would ever be able to write again, and I wasn't sure that I should even try. It's been terrifying.

Then, I wanted to come back to the blog so badly and write anything, just to get the gears moving again, but I felt the need to write an "explanation post" first, and thus I agonized over that process. The self-imposed pressure was suffocating. I wanted it to be perfect, but nothing ever is. As I'm writing now, it feels awkward. I'm rusty, I know it. But I had to do an explanation post of some significance, so here it is. And here it will stay. I don't want to read this ever again. I want to leave all of the negativity behind and start fresh from this very moment. I just needed to get it out - not all of it, but enough to be able to move forward and be meaningful and do meaningful things again. I know emotions and catharses aren't particularly professional, but if I can't do it on the internet, where millions of people could, in theory, read my private thoughts, than where else can I do it, right?

Before I end this, let me say that I'm really, really sorry that you had to see that horrid Sarah Palin picture every time you came here for the past two months. Please forgive me.

Oh, and hey, President Barack Obama - how about them apples? :) It's nice to be proud to be an American for once. And I'm extra proud to live in Illinois! Well, except for that whole "most corrupt state in the nation" thing and the illegal shenanigans of our buffoon's ass of a governor...that's not so good. Not surprising either. But I'm still going hold my head up high as an Illinoisan. It's the Land of Lincoln, and now it's the Land of Obama. Hell to the yeah.

Anyway...I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm eager to start the journey again. Giddy up, boys and girls.

Killer Body Barbie

Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks' BRILLIANT article, "Body Politics: Sarah Palin's Body Language And Why It Should Worry You," from The Huffington Post totally made my day. It tickled me, and I hope it tickles you, too.

**

Since our last post, we've been asked many times to comment on Sarah Palin's mannerisms. Her Body-Talk is not as blatant as her running mate, probably because she has a background as a performer in beauty pageants and television. She has learned to conceal the smirks and clenches that play so openly across the countenance of John McCain.

In our work we call body language the Five Flags, because there are five major ways human beings react when they're not speaking the authentic truth. Twitches and jaw-clenches are examples of Flag #1, Body-Flags. To understand Sarah Palin, though, you need to understand Flags #2 and #3, Voice-Flags and Attitude-Flags. The English word 'personality' comes from two Latin words, per and sona, "through sound." The Romans knew that the personality comes through in the tone of voice and other vocal aspects.

From thirty-five years of clinical experience, we can tell you a lot about Sarah Palin's real personality and why it makes many people even more nervous that John McCain's.

Attitude-Flag #1: The Aggressive Confidence Of The Con-Person

Sarah Palin has mastered one fundamental requirement of a Republican president: she can smile and look you directly in the eye while telling an outrageous lie. At least when John McCain lies, his body screams his discomfort by putting on an eye-catching display of twitches, phony smiles and robot moves. McCain's body language is so strange that it's easily observable; he appears to be operated by a puppeteer who is a couple of triple-espressos over the line. That's a good thing, though. We'd much rather have a presidential candidate who reads like a comic book when he's lying than one who conceals those whoppers under a grin and a wink. Sarah Palin belts out her deceptions and distractions with a radiant confidence we usually only see in sociopaths and infomercial pitch-persons. The last public figure we saw who could grin and lie with that kind of sunny confidence was O.J. Simpson.

Voice-Flag #1: The Exaggerated Folksiness Of The Huckster

Our partisan colors may peek through subtly from time to time, but we do our best to be non-partisan lie-catchers. We cringed when Bill Clinton did his famous "I did not have sex..." line. We immediately looked at each other and said "uh-oh," because his body language let us know loud and clear that he did indeed have sex with "that woman." About ten minutes after Clinton's declaration, our phone started ringing from producers of talk shows wanting us to comment on Clinton's body language. They knew they'd seen something, but they couldn't figure out exactly what.

More recently, we cringed when we heard Sarah Palin start using more of those pseudo-folksy expressions such as "You betcha" and "doggone-it." She was droppin' so many g's on-stage at last week's debate that the janitorial staff may have had to work over-time pickin' 'em up, by gum. The last eight years have taught us all a sobering lesson: you don't have to be smart to be the President of the United States. However, we hope that America is smart enough to see Palin's exaggerated folksiness for what it is, a cheap trick to cozy up to us so they can sell us four more years of Bush Lite. We hope America will hear those "You betchas" and send Mc Cain/Palin a message right back: Just because you pretend to be dumb and folksy, you don't automatically get to live in the White House.

Voice-Flag #2: The Metallic Shriek Of The Fear-Monger

To emphasize certain points, Sarah Palin takes her voice up the tone scale to a metallic shriek. This tone will be familiar to many of us: it's the voice your mother employed as a last resort to get you out of bed when you were a teenager. It's designed to scare you, to rake fingernails across your inner chalkboard. She often uses this voice when she first takes the stage at a rally. It works quite well there, because it cuts like a knife and jolts any of the faithful who might be dozing to sit up in their seats. We hope Americans are not so sleepy as to vote in favor of hearing this tone of voice for four years.

Here's the bottom line: The McCain/Palin campaign strategy is based entirely on stirring up fear. It's a classic way to distract people from thinking about real issues and to cover up the lack of any real solutions. Their thinking goes like this:

• If we can get people scared that Obama might secretly be a Muslim or a terrorist, maybe we can get them not to think about the real issues.

• If we can get people scared that Rev. Wright might turn the inaugural benediction into an anti-American rant, maybe we can get them to believe America's economic problems are just something cooked up by the elite media as a way to play "Gotcha" on poor Sarah and John.

• If we can scare people into thinking Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to put Louis Farrakhan in charge of the annual White House Easter egg hunt, maybe people won't notice that we have absolutely no solutions to the real problems they face.

Barack Obama has so far opted to run a positive campaign based on hope and thoughtful solutions. It's our fervent desire that he continue to do so, because it's about time we turned our national attention to positive possibilities. Over the past eight years we've had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime.

(Stay tuned! In our next post we'll look at two more important bits of body language that we all need to be paying attention to during the campaign. We've noticed these flags at play in both Joe Biden and John McCain, and they spell trouble for all of us.)

**

I'll stay tuned indeed! Watching that vice-presidential debate...ugh. I saw all of this as clear as the Alaska sky before shooting a polar bear or a wolf. How can so many people be so blind?! Oops, gotta go - reckon that doggone polar bear over yonder is looking to rassle. You betcha. Lock and load.

Oy.