Will Amy Adams Have a Happy (Oscar-Winning) New Year?

Amy Adams familiar cheer seems ideally suited to the holidays. It makes perfect sense that's she's all ornamented and mistletoed for Parade magazine. She's even sharing a pumpkin pie recipe. Or her people are. Whichever. We like the celebrity "they're just like us!" illusion from time to time so we're totally willing to pretend that she bakes this exact pumpkin pie herself.

Mmmmm pumpkin pie.

We fancy baking with Amy Adams at the moment because just this morning, rescreening The Fighter we caught the faint but unmistakable aroma of "Oscar win". Now it could be that our olfactory senses are failing us and the contest really is between Melissa Leo (The Fighter) and Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), two cinematic moms more likely to devour their young than bake them pies, should both be nominated as is the semi-common wisdom. But suddenly we liked Amy's chances a lot more.

Why?

First, you have to consider that the Oscar race is still in its infancy. We have perceived frontrunners at this point but none are so much as official nominees yet. Ballots are sent out in one more week on Monday December 27th and a month later we hear the results. In other words, actors and actresses (and the actual films and performances of course) still have two months left to make their case that their names should be read on the nominee list and then be declared winner on Oscar night.

Helena, Melissa, Amy, Jacki, Hailee, Mila, Dianne & Barbara. Which
combo of 5 will it be? Conventional wisdom says Helena, Melissa, Amy,
Mila & Jacki but Oscar's list can sometimes surprise.

Second, Amy is 36 and quite famous. That's about the "right" age and career level for an Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Plus, the more often you're nominated and the more consecutive those nominations are, the more you start seeming "overdue" to the world and thus probably to the industry itself. (Should she be nominated for a third Oscar for The Fighter it'll be her third nomination in five years.) 'Overdue,' however ambiguous and debatable as a designation, can count for a lot if you're not pushy about it. Amy doesn't seem like the pushy type.

Third, Amy is employing that age old Oscar trick of playing against type. It's not (thankfully) a complete about face so it doesn't feel like a bald plea for prizes. Adams is still an enchanting dream girlfriend of sorts, but after the roles that made her so beloved - a naive pregnant chatterbox (Junebug), a naive musically animated heroine (Enchanted), a naive nun eager to believe the best about people (Doubt) -- that cynical been-around edge she brings to The Fighter's girlfriend Charlene Fleming, feels like enough of a revelation to count.

But mostly this newfound hunch that she could well be our Oscar winner comes from viewing The Fighter a second time. The manic energy and performative electricity of the "Alice & Dicky" (Melissa Leo & Christian Bale) pair is still remarkable and stormy. In a way Wahlberg's Micky Ward is the eye of this hurricane, the film's eerily quiet (some would say blank) center. Adam's Charlene, then, is the audience-surrogate character. She's the most universally relatable character and there to make us feel warmly towards and protective of the passive protagonist... and thus the film. Everyone who pays any attention knows that awards voters cherish a supportive girlfriend/spouse.

"I like my life."

And, most importantly, Adams absolutely delivers in her big "clip" moment, which happens to be The Fighter's emotional climax before it goes on to the easier narrative business of its true story sports triumph. (You can rewatch this scene on quicktime but I don't recommend doing so if you haven't seen the film yet; it's always best to see things in context.) In the scene she and Dicky have what amounts to a truce that still feels like a war as they attempt to force each other into confession... though neither of them actually confess so much as reluctantly acknowledge a vague failure at life. Charlene, a tough girl to the end, holds back tears but you can feel the survivalist hurt, especially when she bats away Dicky's question "What have you ever done with your life?" with a stubborn "I like my life. I like my life now Dicky."

What she likes is not her actual life so much as the life she's beginning to eke out with Micky, the one that she knows Alice & Dicky could take from her should she stumble.

One of the most fascinating things about The Fighter, though detractors might claim it a central flaw, is that the "hero" is not part of this very emotional climax. Much of the drama is what happens around him, and what's projected on to him by all the characters who claim him as their own. It's hard not to fall hard for Charlene when she ends this painful but optimistic truce scene with a foul-mouthed punchline, eager to regain the upper hand.

When people fall in love with a character, the actor embodying them often gets thrown in the ring, suddenly fighting for that heavyweight Oscar title.
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Link You. Link You. And Link You.

GQ Winona Ryder's Black Swan parallels. She's being replaced! "I'm at that age I've been warned my whole life about"
Lisanti Quarterly a mysterious top ten list. Such fun. Try to guess the movies ... or even the film year for that matter.
In Contention Can that late breaking Fighter overtake the Best Pic frontrunners? Interesting question.
Indie Wire Film Comment's top 50 - the tippity top exactly mirrors those Los Angeles Film Critics Awards last week.
Go Fug Yourself a touching Burlesque conversation between Cher & Christina Aguilera
Movie|Line is rooting for Alanis Morrissette in the Original Song race

It's Roger Ebert's World...
Roger Ebert reveals his top ten list... make that top twenty-two lists. He's beloved and he's an enjoyable writer as always but I have to say that his film taste has always bewildered me; The King's Speech greater than Black Swan or I Am Love? Secretariat and Hereafter compared qualitatively to Another Year and Rabbit Hole? Does not compute. Although it does compute as more middlebrow Academy friendly than many film critics so his opinions are always worth watching when speculating about Oscarish enthusiasms. But on the other hand, here's his rulebook for critics. It's kind of awesome.

SAG Injustice: When a Nomination is Still a Snub

In the afterglow of the SAG nominations, when publicists, stars and pundits are all aglow with congratulatory messaging of every sort and critics are bemoaning the fate of talented but snubbed performances, one annual dismaying group of snubs always slips through the cracks. I'm talking about the people who contributed to the movies nominated as Best Ensemble but weren't actually included when the nomination was awarded.  The nominated ensemble casts of The Fighter, The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right do not, in all cases, fully represent the acting achievements within the film.

The following actors were not nominated in "ensemble"

Black Swan ~ This nomination includes all those demented raven-haired beauties: Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and the man fucking with their pretty heads: Vincent Cassell. Noticeably absent: Benjamin Millepied, the principle male dancer should have also been listed. While it's true he doesn't have a lot of "acting" to do, he gets some in, and actors sometimes get nominated for a lot less; he is one of the chief contributors to the film being its choreographer as well.

The Fighter ~ This nomination includes only the principle Oscar seeking cast: Wahlberg, Bale, Adams and Leo and one more for good measure. That's Jack McGee who plays Melissa Leo's husband so beautifully. Noticeably absent: cameo players like Sugar Ray Leonard (remember that Gwen Stefani got nominated for dressing up like Jean Harlow in The Aviator), the entire gaggle of big haired comic relief sisters, Mickey O'Keefe, the cop/trainer who Bale loves to mock (name?) and everyone else who contributed to the film's invaluable local color and weird but hugely enjoyable tragicomic bent.

The Kids Are All Right ~This nomination includes only the immediate family: Moms Bening & Moore and kids Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson and "Interloper" Mark Ruffalo. Noticeably absent: Yaya daCosta, who so deliciously handles her role of Ruffalo's fuckbuddy and employee. Seriously now, she delivers fantastic line readings in this movie and underlines some of the movie's more subtle points about Ruffalo's character as well as contributing to its randy high spirits. I consider it an egregious omission. Also absent are Mia & Josh's friends and the gardener who Julianne fires who each get more than one scene.

The King's Speech ~ This nomination includes the three principles plus Anthony Andrews, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce and Timothy Spall. It's arguably the most inclusive of all the nominated cast lists but it still manages to diss one key player. Noticeably absent: Eve Best (from Nurse Jackie) who plays the controversial and plot-relevant Wallis Simpson.The royals didn't want her around and treated her like shit. So... did the Weinstein Co decide to follow suit and do the same? 

The Social Network ~ The Facebook movie has the most bizarre and confusing case of the internal snubbings. Obviously the triumvirate of Eisenberg, Garfield and Timberlake are accounted for as are the Winklevi (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner (Max Minghella). But what's most curious is that the body actor Josh Pence who helped to play the Winklevi but whose face does not appear in the film was nominated but the following six actors were not. Noticeably absent: Rooney Mara's soulful portrayal of Erica kicks off the entire successful dynamic of the film's rapid-fire dialogue which in turn reveals, comments on and delights in every badly managed personal relationship within the film. The film is smart enough to return to Mara on three key occasions but she was not nominated. All of the lawyers, officials and interns are also absent. You can't include everyone of course but a few people's contributions are very noticeable including Douglas Urbanski's audience-beloved cameo as Larry Summers, John Getz and Rashida Jones as Zuckerberg's council, Denise Grayson as Eduardo's lawyer (great write up of her work at Nick's Flick Picks) and Brenda Song as Eduardo's terrifying girlfriend?

Can someone please explain how these people are not an intrinsic part of the acting network within The Social Network? 

From my understanding, the nominating committee does not pick and choose which members of a cast receive the official title of SAG nominee, they merely vote on the film titles. The studios themselves also sometimes submit For Your Consideration cast lists that already do the omissions (The Fighter's FYC screener, f.e., lists only the five names). Or perhaps the problem is the SAG rules which go like so

"The Cast of a Motion Picture includes all performers whose names appear in the cast credits of the final release print. Motion Picture casts shall be represented by those actors billed on separate cards in the main titles, wherever those titles appear. In cases of special, unusual or non-billing or credit, eligibility shall be at the sole discretion of the Screen Actors Guild Awards Committee. Members of the cast who are not single billed but are credited in the cast crawl of the motion picture announced as the recipient of the Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture shall each receive a certificate."

So by this rule, no matter how great you are in a movie, no matter how large your role, if your agent can't get you single billing, you can't be nominated.
Every year there are glaring examples of actors adding to the texture, tone and overall success of their movie, that are kicked to the curb when it comes time to say "Great Ensemble!"  We think, in a prize meant to honor the whole being greater than the individual parts, that this is a terrible and avoidable injustice. So here's to those snubbed actors inexplicably dropped from the honor bestowed to their co-workers! We salute you one and all.
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Christian Bale, Honorary Powerpuff Girl

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone fame is being roasted again as the all time champ of shameless Blurb Whores but that's not the point of this post.

While interviewing Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter, who seem to be in great moods (why wouldn't they be after the Globe & BFCA announcements?) Travers tries to entice Bale to serenade us with a little Newsies number. And why shouldn't he? Is there anything so wonderful as Bale crooning "Santa Fe" on horseback with that little red kerchief round his neck?

Travers doesn't get what he expects.



Unexpected delight: Wahlberg throwin' a little Boogie Nights encore in there.

Okay, I can't resist posting it... the best moment from Newsies bar none.



He has a lovely voice. Sad that he doesn't want to do another musical.

The King's Weakness

Michael C here from Serious Film.

That low hissing you may have heard coming from the Hollywood area over the last week is the sound of the air leaking out of Tom Hooper's The King’s Speech and its status as Oscar frontrunner. That’s the trouble with leading the pack. Any indication you’re not steamrolling the competition is instantly seized upon as proof that you are nothing but a lot of well-orchestrated studio hype, and before you know it voters are mentally test driving the image of David Fincher holding an Oscar to see how it feels.

So what is tripping up the King? It’s not simply that its current chief rival, The Social Network, has staked out an early dominance in the critical awards circuit. Being the critics darling can be helpful, as it surely was for The Hurt Locker, but just as often it's a sign that a film will end up an Oscar bridesmaid. Films like Sideways or Lost in Translation garnered critics prizes by the bucketful and they couldn’t so much as ding the Oscar favorites for their respective years.

My hunch is that more people are seeing the film and finding that it's not clearing some basic hurdle. To be perceived as a viable Best Picture winner a film has to connect to some grand emotional current, to make it about more than the nuts and bolts of the story. It’s not enough to be an amusing story well told, which is where it appears The King’s Speech is landing, despite all its prestigious trappings.

Sure, Speech has big ideas around the periphery, the ones about Colin Firth finding great recesses of strength at the crossroads of history, and so on. But at heart it really is just the story of poor Bertie overcoming his bizarre childhood to conquer his stutter, and a stammer vanquished does not a Best Picture Oscar make. The fact the Churchill is wheeled on and off a few times for the occasional portentous line doesn’t automatically lend the story significance. It’s an anecdote.

In other years that might be enough, but Hooper's film is up against an assortment of movies that do reach that deeper plane. 127 Hours, quibbles with the film aside, made you ask how much you would be willing to sacrifice for life. That rock was every obstacle, every fear Aaron Ralston ever faced. The Social Network, contrary to scuttlebutt about how cold it is, really lands those themes about loyalty and friendship in a way that stays with the viewer. David O. Russel’s upcoming The Fighter packs an enormous emotional wallop with many of the same ideas King’s Speech was circling: casting off the limitations instilled by your family and taking control of your own destiny. 

Maybe I’m wrong and Speech can coast to victory on being pleasant and well-crafted, but Hooper’s film certainly has its work cut out for it holding off the threat of more resonant films.
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My Favorite Thing About "The Fighter" Is...

I saw The Fighter last week and didn't even deliver a "this is all the time I have" 7 word review. I have more than 7 words on this one though what follows is not a traditional review. The first thing I tweeted was...

It still applies. Yep, Christian Bale is doing his best work ever in the co-lead role of Dicky Eklund (Let's call it The Fighters) or at least his best since American Psycho (2000). Barring Geoffrey Rush's mutant power (awards magnetism) the "supporting" Oscar is most definitely Bale's to lose. And this is an important distinction: It'd be his to lose even without his baity penchant for putting his health at risk to dwindle down to anorexic nothingness for a role. This is his third time doing so. We hope it's the last.

A Tale of Two (Half) Brothers

But what's my favorite thing about The Fighters other than him?

I guess it'd be the way Melissa Leo (playing the mother to both fighters) and Christian Bale are always believably in sync as mother/son. They're practically twins with their darting hollow eyes, perpetually nervous body language and emotionally vampiric yet super vibrant energy. Would that more actors would co-author such compelling familial bonds while playing at "family". What's more, Bale and Leo have mastered the weird arms-length charisma of charming people who are simultaneously completely off-putting. Alice Ward and Dicky Eklund are the type of people you can't help but want to hang out with... but from a very safe distance, with plentiful escape routes.

Melissa Leo's on fire.

No, no. it's not that. That sympatico style is great but it's not my favorite thing about the movie.

Also worth loving is the everyman mundanity of Amy Adams and Mark Wahlberg, a somewhat perverse use of their combined star power. (Though they both have it, they're more recognizably "human" and thus smaller than giant film stars, here and elsewhere). Charlene (and Adams who plays her) and Micky (and Wahlberg who plays him) are constantly drowned out by the cacophony of Much Bigger Personalities surrounding them. It's hilarious how often they both just shut right down in the center of a scene with an 'I give up' pout. And they're the "Stars" for lack of a better word!

No, no.

The best element has to be the idiosyncratic humanity that director David O. Russell keeps breathing into the proceedings. By all rights, The Fighter ought to feel far more generic than it does; make no mistake, this is a "true story" inspirational sports biopic. Russell keeps finding ways to vary the tone, play with the moodswings (even perpetually "on" people like Alice & Dicky have quiet days) and have fun with the framing, which generously allows the orbiting cast members to contribute to the movie as well (the standout being Jack McGee as Alice's impressively sturdy husband George). Sports movie fans won't like the film quite as much, one suspects, since the boxing scenes are arguably the most generically executed part.

And then there's the subplot involving the making of the unflattering HBO documentary on Dicky "High on Crack Street" (1995). Dicky willfully deceives himself about it but the doc scenes gives the film tremendous tragicomic boost.

There's also a choice scene in which Micky & Charlene go to the movies and... well, I don't want to spoil it.

David O. Russell loves a rangey ensemble.

 Oh wait, I know.

My favorite thing is the clown car chorus of Dicky & Micky's trashy big haired sisters (John Waters will be green with envy). There are so many of them. They're the most abrasively comic gaggle of sisters since the perpetual assault of Adam Sandler's siblings in Punchdrunk Love.

Or. Well...

The best thing might be the way The Fighters manages to slide so easily into David O. Russell's undervalued filmography even though it's much less original than his other films. When some auteurs make stabs at mainstream genres or popular appeal they lose themselves. Such is not the case here. Russell is still in love with the juggling act of impossibly noisy mixes of disparate acting styles (Flirting With Disaster, I Heart Huckabees), he's still fond of Oedipal undercurrents (Spanking the Monkey, Flirting...), he can still turn a film on a dime from comedy to 'wait, that's not funny' disturbing (Three Kings, Huckabees)  and he's still just about the only director who Mark Wahlberg should ever work with (though, that said, "Micky Ward" has nothing on Wahlberg's Kings or Huckabees performances... the character's too much of a cypher this time.)

But no, it's not that. It's... NO. 

No. No. No. You have to stop somewhere.

Needless to say, The Fighter is incredibly watchable. It's a solid good time at the movies. More importantly, it's a total K.O. for fans of Bale, Leo and O. Russell. A-/B+

You Will Link a Tall Dark Stranger

Scott Feinberg points out that Sony Pictures Classics is the first studio out of the gate with Academy screeners. This is a good strategy as I've noted previously. I am anxious to watch Please Give again (very funny movie with delightful actressing throughout... in other words: my kind of movie). I haven't yet screened You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger but shall very soon now that it's here. I am feeling the fan guilt as it's one of only two Woody Allen movies I missed in theaters since I saw my very first one back in *gulp* 1984. No, Woody has not always deserved my slavish devotion... but he came very very close twice in the last decade to giving me what I needed from him (Match Point & Vicky Cristina Barcelona, duh!) so there's still a sliver of hope each year.

In related news: Animal Kingdom! I know I've been mentioning that one a lot but I keep hearing from disgruntled moviegoers who missed in when it hit their town. Don't let this happen to you.

Julianne Moore for Allure

LinksPopWrap Julianne Moore "the hundred year old model"
Film Biz Asia It's hard to keep track of all the Asian film awards but the APSA nominations are out. Three Oscar submissions were nominated for their Best Picture prize: Aftershock (China), Monga (Taiwan) and Bal / Honey (Turkey).  Poetry, which should-have-been Korea's Oscar submission (it's so good), was also nominated.
Awards Daily State of the Race and the Winter's Bone boost. People were bitching at me for believing in this movie as a Best Picture contender and the Gotham Awards have gone and illuminated my foresight. That loud smacking you hear is me kissing my own ass. Someone's got to do it!
Journalistic Skepticism compares 70s stars to arguable modern counterparts. Interesting comparison though I had to take issue with the idea that DiCaprio needed Scorsese... DiCaprio was a big deal long before Scorsese adopted him. I've never seen the media fawn over a teenage (male) actor the way they fawned over him in the early to mid 90s. It was like he was the media's only begotten son, they had already set up a trust fund and they had big dreams for him. He could be a doctor, an astronaut or the President!

Leonardo & Hilary in the 1990s.

Antagony & Ecstasy I know I link to this blog a lot but it's because Timothy Brayton is such a damn fine critic. Here in the Conviction review, he provides the most plausible theory yet as to who is responsible for Hilary Swank.
OMG Blog Admit it. You've always wanted to photoshop James Franco to look more like a drag queen.
Empire John C Reilly has replaced Matt Dillon in Roman Polanski's God of Carnage. That's too bad. I thought that was a good get for Dillon. Isn't it weird that he never got that career uptick that usually follows a first Oscar nomination (Crash). Wonder why that was?

Off Topic
Here are a bunch of young'ish Broadway actors, banded together for a benefit song to help the very worthwhile Trevor Project that fight for LGBT youth.



All the suicides and bullying stories on the news lately are so sad. There has definitely been a resurgence in racism and homophobia and all the other uncomfortable isms and phobias and realities of life in the past couple of years -- and depressingly egged on by people in positions of power, too (shame on them) -- but the way I like to look at it is that it's the death rattle of very backwards ways of thinking. When people see their way of life dwindling -- even if its a hateful way of life/thinking that everyone (including themselves) would be happier if they let go of -- they get very scared and get loud. Change is difficult for people as is progress. But I'm drifting off of the off topic (!) The point is: I can take one moment in this post in case anyone reading is having it rough and say this: Hang on. Life has peaks and valleys but you do not wanna miss the peaks. God the peaks are good.

It's like when you see a terrible movie and you think "god, movies have gotten so bad!" and you think you're done with them and them, ta-da, some actress starts shimmering onscreen, some setpiece makes you wanna devour your entire popcorn bucket while cheering, or some director sums up his whole theme with one perfect shot, or you see a masterpiece and it's all magical again. You don't wanna miss the masterpiece movie on account of the crappy soulless ones. See, now we're...

...Back on Topic!
Here's the new trailer for The Fighter which suddenly renewed everyone's Oscar faith in the movie on Sunday night when it aired during Mad Men. I like the trailer and it does look like Melissa Leo & Amy Adams may hog 40% of the supporting actress category together... but what is with the total D-R-A-M-A of that painfully elongated ridiculously familiar phrase "Based on a True Story"? I can't recall ever seeing a trailer trying to make that as gargantuan a SELLING POINT as this one does.



I mean is there anyone out there who is watching going  "yeah, yeah, I like Amy Adams and Mark Wahlberg and boxing movies well enough. but OMG. it's based on a true story?!? Are you serious? Get me my credit card. I'm buying my ticket now!"

Wahlberg, Posterized.

(Left) Then & Now: Wahlberg in the infamous CK campaign in 1991. Wahlberg yesterday in Missouri.

In my weekly column at Towleroad, I barely mentioned what will likely be the big box office draw this weekend, the Mark Wahlberg/ Will Ferrell comedy The Other Guys. I note this because I was moved to discuss National Underwear Day in the same article and what modern star used underwear so successfully to boost their initial fame? Why did I ignore him so? The Other Guys poster implies that you'll be seeing a kind of self-aware satire of a buddy cop comedy. You know... the kind Edgar Wright already delivered memorably with Hot Fuzz (2007). Could these two American hams really top that Brit wit? I'm doubtful... but perhaps they're not trying. I haven't seen it. Maybe the poster is misleading.

Anyway...

Let's look at Wahlberg's career as told to us through movie posters. Is there another star as popular that people still regularly complain can't act?

Renaissance Man (94) | The Basketball Diaries (95) | Fear (96) first lead

Boogie Nights (97) all time classic | The Big Hit (98) | The Corruptor (99)

Three Kings (99) | The Yards (00) | The Perfect Storm (00)

Planet of the Apes (01) | Rock Star (01) | The Truth About Charlie (02)

Italian Job (03) | I ♥ Huckabees (04) | Four Brothers (05)

Invincible (06) | The Departed (06) - Oscar nom | Shooter (07)

We Own the Night (07) | The Happening (08) | Max Payne (08)

The Lovely Bones (09) | Date Night (10) | The Other Guys (10)

I missed one film in that line up, an indie called Traveller (1997) but the posters have to be divisible by 3. How many of his 25 have you seen?

Does your answer make you proud, ashamed or dumbfounded? Regarding the latter, do you even remember the films? Should you glance across the posters a pattern emerges. Wahlberg alternates seemingly interchangeable gun-wielding crime dramas with A list auteur-driven ensemble films. (The latter category seems like a 50/50 mix of "instant classic" and "notorious misfire".) The overlap between his two preferred types seems to be the James Gray movies, which are both crime dramas AND auteurish ensemble films. I'd never seen a James Gray film prior to Two Lovers (09, quite good) and, though some smart critics swear by him, from the outside in both plot synopsis and marketing his movies look EXACTLY like generic crime drama programmers, don't they?

Will the upcoming Fighter jack up the modern classics section of his filmography by one? The star seems to think so. I've had a good feeling about it even prior to his biased 'good vibrations' about it. I've been predicting it for the Oscars since April. That was entirely due to its status as a true story and boxing drama, since Oscar loves both. That was not due to it being a reunion of director David O. Russell and Wahlberg, despite their previous and quite awesome collaborations (see: Three Kings and i ♥ huckabees. No, really, see them if you haven't. They're fantastic).

Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter (December 2010)

But I'm thinking too hard over this. Let's simplify. Can Mr. Wahlberg act or not -- answer that eternal question, would ya?