It's finally time for the Hollywood night of nights. OSCAR NIGHT!

Who else is into the party?

I'm really a bit sad. My whole weekend is basically gonna revolve around Oscar. First, I have to wrap up my prep by seeing some movies. Later tonight I'll finally be seeing Good Night and Good Luck. Tomorrow it's off to Transamerica. Then, I have Junebug from Netflix to watch at home. Lastly, if I'm bored I also have Cinderella Man to watch.

Finally we get to award day. I will spend damn near 12 hours that day at the State Theater in MPLS for

(more info at: http://www.hollywoodevent.org/ )

It's the annual gala fundraiser for my job (MN AIDS Project). All proceeds go to my agency. I'm on the steering comittee for the event, so all morning and afternoon I will be setting-up for the event. Then I have an hour to go home and get pretty. Then back to the theater for a final few hours of volunteering. At 7 I will be free to get a nice stiff drink and nestle in with my crew to watch the awards on the big screen.

Are y'all ready for it?

Who are people rooting for?

Just how good will Jake look on the red carpet?

I want answers people!

I want Clooney to get at least one.....I haven't seen any of the movies he's been nominated for, but when you get nominated three times then you deserve to win at least one!

and I just like Clooney!

abierman said:

Sadly, I haven't seen Syriana yet, but he seems most likely to win for that...

TMPletz said:

alright, I doubt Good Night and Good Luck will change my mind. But in about 2 hours I can officially decide what I want to win best pic...

although it looks like no one else watches the oscars....

I may be posting this to myself, but whatevs...

I just saw Good Night and Good Luck. I thought it was a very well done movie with themes that still resonate very strongly today. The cinematography and editing were EXCELLENT. That being said, it was probably my least favorite of the Best Picture nominees.

This is a rare year for me in that I did like every nominee. Still, my favorite of the batch is Munich. For a friggin long movie, it held my attention at every step. Each actor did a superb job in their role and Steven Spielberg, IMO gave no clear answers. In somewhat sympathetically portraying both sides of this struggle he makes the audience consider some very difficult moral/political questions but does not offer "the answer." I'm bummed that it isn't up for best costumes as the clothes in the movie were out of control. Course, that may just be about me LOVING Eric Bana in a leisure suit, but whatevs

I know that this movie was ignored in the theater, but I hope folks discover it on DVD.

Of course, I have NO HOPE that this movie will actually win. So, besides Munich I'm all for Brokeback Mountain. Capote better watch his step.

endorphin74 said:

I um... obtained a copy of this two weeks ago. I loved it. I really did. It's funny and good-hearted but also has a deep message about identity - not just gender identity - and how it's important for people to lay their cards on the table so that others aren't confused or misled.

I had a smile on my face for about 95% of the movie. Kevin Zegers gets naked quite a lot too, if you like that sort of thing.

endorphin74 said:

exactly my thoughts on Munich, but I was pissed at Spielberg after I saw the movie. He totally left out the Lillehammer-affair, where the Mossad seriously fucked up, in the story.....making the Israeli-side look more rightfull than they actually were..... I am sure Spielberg did that to prevent Israel from coming down on him like a mudslide.....

abierman said:

Interesting. I honestly knew sooo little about the history to this movie before going on that I had no idea. I should read about all that, I found it tragic but fascinating.

endorphin74 said:

look up the Lillehammer-affair. They were after Salameh, thought he was in Lillehammer, shot a guy in front of his pregnant wife, thinking it was Salameh.....turned out he was an innocent Moroccan waiter..... The Norwegian police managed to arrest some of the agents for murder and they have spent several years in a Norwegian jail for that.....

Justin1972UK said:

I just googled Kevin Zegers. I will have no problem with him getting nekkid regularly!

abierman said:

WOW. I will check that out. Thanks!

li'l Oscar rant here.

I know there are only so many nominations. But I was shocked when they were announced and Match Point was so overlooked. If I recall correctly, it's only up for a writing nom, which it better get.

After digesting Good Night over night, I really wish that hadn't gotten a best pic nom and Match Point had. MP is the best movie I have seen this year. Like Munich and Capote it did a good job of making complex and unsavory characters sympathetic. But for some reason, MP did a better job of this for me than those movies. I actually felt queezy while watching MP once I realized I was sooo busy hoping that a certain character who had done a REALLY bad thing would get away with it all. (trying not to give any spoilers here) I thought about that movie for DAYS after I saw it.

Maybe I'm just wishing it got more noms as it may have gotten more people out to see the movie. Or maybe it just speaks to the high number of quality movies that came out in 05.

endorphin74 said:

XxAxX said:

I'm sad to report, I just couldn't stay awake through Good Night and Good Luck. I missed at least half of the movie either dozing or struggling to concentrate and wake myself up.



That said, it was beautifully shot. The aesthetic was amazing. Unfortunately, that's about all my brain could handle after a long day of work and the gym. I think jet lag is finally catching up to me.

In the way you loved everything this year, I kinda do too and that's making it boring for me. I have no excitement over who wins anything except maybe Hoffman for Capote. I really, really, really enjoyed that flick and his protrayal was truly mesmorizing.

I hope to catch Transamerica with you, but I think I'll have to get to it tomorrow. I've got my niece's play this evening which she told me about last minute. It'll be fun, though.

But I AM looking forward to the oscar party. As everyone knows, I love a good party. Though it won't be the same not doing the VIP thing this year, and since I'm not in the commercial this year.

i am all kinds of excited about it.

i LOVE the oscars... they are my superbowl,

brokeback will dominate, and i am glad. easily my best pic fave, and heath ledgers performance is one of the more subtle nuanced and brilliant performances i have ever witnessed, and michelle williams was very very good as well. ang lee is a masterful director, and the cinematogrpahy and screenplay are top notch.

i actually rather liked good night and good luck. i have never really liked clooney as an actor, and pretty much ignored him. but friends talked me into seeing his first film confessions of a dangeous mind, and it really suprised me. while i still think he is at best an average actor, he is a very good director and producer, and good night really confirms that for me. i very much look forward to his future endeavors in that capacity.

crash was good, but very flawed for me. i was talking about this last night with a friend of mine. much like monsters ball, i sat through the movie trying in vain to understand why people respond to it so much, because race is pretty much a non-issue to me. i understnad and know the movie is trying to make a good point about racism, but it's been done in much better films in much stronger ways. good ensemble cast though, even if thandie newton should have been nominated and matt dillon shouldn't have been. nice to see sandra bulock cast against type and doing a very good job with it too. good direction, great editing. script was good, but it lacks something. a little too convenient in the way these people keep running into each other endlessly as if they were the only 15 people in LA.

transamerica... brilliant performance from felicity huffman, she really deserves to win. kevin zegers is also very good, the script, while maybe a wee bit over the top is very funny and poignant. great direction, very well done indeed. my only realy problem with it is felicity huffman pretty much carries the movie on the shoulders of her performance. put a less brilliant actress or actor in the role, and this movie would have been nowhere near as good.

walk the line really suprised me. expected it to be mediocre at best, was pleasantly suprised by reese witherspoon, who i have always thought was a fluff actress. you know the type, has only one character which is basically an extension of the cute girl next door personality they also portray endlessly in magazines and tv interviews to keep their career going, the "celebrity" romantic comedy actress rather than the true actress. i had no idea that she might actually have some true acting ability, and this movie was a pleasant suprise for me in that sense. i would rather the oscar go to felicity huffman, but she was very good. joaquin phoenix was also a delight, although it is much more witherspoons movie than it is his. the script is good but not great, the direction is the same. like transamerica, the movie rests completely on the performances, and would fall apart with less capable actors.

capote awed me when i saw it in the theatres the week it came out. phillip seymour hoffman and catherine keener give the fantastic performance is have come to expect from these two, both of whom are some of the best actors of this generation. the screenplay is a very very good adaptation of in cold blood, and the movie is very well directed. however, watching it a second time last week, i was suprised at how well it's quiet excellence does not stack up against other films this year. phillip seymour hoffman is divine in his abilities as an actor, but heath ledgers performance was INCREDIBLE, and deserves the oscar so much more. the film is very good, but brokeback is so much more interesting and gets better with subsequent viewings, where as capote gets a bit boring after the first time. keener is heaven in the film, but she is on the screen so little it hardly warrants her winning. hoffman will win tomorrow night, but not for this film so much as for all the years they have ignored him. i do very much look forward to future films from this director though, who shows a lot of promise.

pride and prejudice was good, but not great. good performance from her, and the actor who played mr. darcy in it, who deserved a nomination just as much as she did, but how many freking adaptations of this story can we have before it is overdone?? i have seen it already on stage, as a BBC miniseries, twisted in a modern version as bridget jones diary, and i know other versions exist that are not leaping to mind at the moment. make something new, damn it, this well is almost dry.

have not seen syriana or munich yet, watching those today.

cborgman said:

I feel the exact opposite of you between Capote and Brokeback. Maybe it was my state of mind the day I saw it, but I'm just not getting that over the top feeling about Brokeback. Sure, it was a good movie. There was a lot to praise, for sure. But Capote just floored me so much, much more.

ah well.

Chris!

I have a lot to say about your post! But, I'm off to get my hairs cut for the Oscar party tomorrow...I'll be back later.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on Munich. Try not to get TOO distracted by how fantastically, over the top, ridiculously seXXXy Eric Bana looks in all his 70s attire.


...edit...
[Edited 3/4/06 7:05am]

CarrieMpls said:

We sooo saw Brokeback on the wrong day. Although I got into it much more than you or Denny. We'll have to fix that.

endorphin74 said:

oh

my


god.


I was literally drooling through most of the movie. He is so, so, so incredibly sexy.

CarrieMpls said:

that's understandable.

both floored me the first time, and really capote floored me more.

having watched both more than once though, capote's brilliance is all on the surface, and there's not much underneath as the movie really has nothing to say at all. it's really just a movie about a writer writing, and that's about it.

where as brokeback actually got better for me the second and third times, when i discovered all the tiny details and nuances that exist beneath the surface. and started looking deeper into the characters and reading further into their lives than the movie allows in it's time limits, especially the smaller characters who are on the fringe such as the parents of jack and jack's wife (whose name i am ashamed to admit i have forgotten)

movies are very subjective, though. they do and mean different things to different people, and that's great.

just my opinion.

endorphin74 said:

go get your hair did, and i'll go get my munich on.

cborgman said:

sounds good!

a few years ago when i did a stage version of one of capote's novellas called "the grass harp", (i also played a fictional parody version of capote in a different show a year before that one) i did a lot of research on capote and read most of his work, and the two standouts for me were breakfast at tiffanys and in cold blood. very different peices, but those were my two favorites.

in cold blood really grabbed me because it is an incredibly brilliant piece of intimate journalism into the fascinating mind and life of the killer, but then i have always found such books incredible in a psychological sense.

capote as a person is also all over the book, and is part of what makes it so good, as his voice is the narrative voice, and we are watching from behind his eyes as he is fascinated (and arguably in love) with the killer.

but capote, intentionally i assume, is not about the killer in any real sense, it's about capote writing in cold blood, and i am still not sure how to interpret it as either companion piece to the book, or interesting but completely reworked to change the focus adaptation.

and between the two stories (capotes or the killers whose name escapes me), the killers story in the book is a far more intriguing one. capotes story is about him wandering around in various locations trying to figure out how he is going to write this book. while interesting, it's not nearly as compelling as the book.

and the movie really has no point or message to it that wasn't much more fully and better explored in the book, so it seems like a very good and enjoyable but very empty movie to me.

but, i still liked it.

cborgman said:

I agree in some ways. It's been so long since I read the book (I think in high school?) that it's hard for me to remember... I just really liked the complexity of characters. No one was given a glossed over treatment, from the killer(s) to Capote himself. You were pulled in, but no one was entirely likable, even. Or you found yourself liking despite some loathable traits. I don't know. I just really admired it all. It was just done so well.

As for Brokeback, the story of the women involved intrigued me most of all. While it could have been glossed over (to tire myself of that phrase) it really wasn't. It was given the depth it deserved and both actresses did a remarkable job.

eh. I'm still not all that coherent yet this morning. lol.

CarrieMpls said:

i agree that brokeback is really a quartet rather than a duet of performances, which was something i discovered the second time i saw it. the first time, i was too drawn into the newness and daring of it, and only focused on jack and ennis.

the second time, i noticed how much more subtley complex it is, and how much these supporting characters who seemed to be in my way from getting more jack and ennis the first time, really help make this movie what it is.

anne hathaway is good, but the least written of the characters, and she is not quite as good as the other three, which saddens me a little. this actress has potential, but casting her over someone that might have been able to do more with the role and give it a sense of maturity and age that this very young actress can not, especialyl in the latter part of the movie when she looks like a teenager in a high chool prodction playing a grown up, was one of the movies few week spots for me.

jake (not even gonna try and spell his last name) was great, but sme thing as hathaway. looks too young in the end, and that mustache just made it worse. very very good performance, though i was a little suprised to see him nominated for it. he holds up his end of the quartet well enough.

michelle williams however, brings an incredible strength of performance to the film, and is simply marvelous in it. like her real life and screen husband, she plays it such quiet and subtle brilliance that you almost don't even notice. she does more with a silent facial expression in this movie than most actresses can do with a page of dialogue. it's a shame that her character was slightly underwritten, but you have to choose as a writer wether this story is about jack and ennis or her (i forget the char. name) and ennis, and larry mcmurtry chose correctly by keeping it about jack and annis as the short story did. but what she was able to do with the slightly underwrtten character is astounding.

and heath ledger is simply brilliant. as an actor, i can say for myself that his performance is the kind i aspire to. i have never seen a more subtle and quiet performance that is bursting under the surface with pent up emotion, much like the character. most actors if cast, would have played all of ennis' frusteration and fear on the surface, making big loud and cartoony epressions of fear, regret, and anger while chewing the scenery about how tragic the man's life is, because it would be the most natural mistake in the world to make when reading that script. ledger very wisely chooses to underplay it all, repressing it all down and keeping it hidden from view. if you scratched the surface of this man's psyche with a pin, the emotions kept contained underneath the surface would blow you out of the room, like standing in front of a breaking dam.



god, i need a life.

damn you, childhood in the theatre!!

just saw this on imdb.com...

Brokeback Mountain actress Michelle Williams has been disowned by her former school because of her role in the controversial gay cowboy romance. Williams, who attended exclusive Santa Fe Christian School in San Diego, California, has been blasted by the school's headmaster as "offensive" for acting the long-suffering wife of a homosexual ranch hand, played by Heath Ledger. Jim Hopson has branded the Oscar nominee a poor role model, and hopes his education establishment won't be linked to the film's themes. He tells the San Diego Union Tribune, "We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie. Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution. Brokeback Mountain basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote."

cborgman said:

oh that's just ridiculous.