A Virtual Horn of Plenty

My place of work has subscriptions to online research sites like JSTOR (short for Journal Storage), ARTstor, Project Muse and other archival databases. If you or anyone who does not work for a university, research center or think-tank tries to read, say, The Journal of the Society of Cinematologists, volume 1 first published in 1961 and later to become Cinema Journal you will not be able to. You will receive plenty of links on Google from JSTOR, Project Muse and several universities (it's published by the University of Texas) but if you click on them they will inform you that your institution must have a subscription if you want to read the entire issue. I inform you of this not to stick my tongue out and go "Nyah nyah" in your face but because I hope to use these resources more frequently here at Cinema Styles.

First, you should understand that visiting these sites is how I spend most of my work day, even though it shouldn't be. You see, I have hundreds of weekly tasks in my job and none of it requires going to these sites but the guys and gals at the top have given me the keys to the kingdom with access to these sites ( I. Am. A. History. Nerd.) and expect me to, what, just ignore it? My God, these archival sites have EVERYTHING! I'm not kidding. They're loaded to the gills with all manner of historical booty. So, yeah, I'll just totally ignore these sites and get right on that report for you Mrs Tessmacher. Fat chance!

Also, it's not just journals, books, magazines and dissertations, it's pictures. PICTURES GALORE! And not just any pictures, thousands upon thousands of PUBLIC DOMAIN PICTURES!And the pictures that are still in copyright usually have a "fair use" notice in the "rights" section allowing their publication for non-commercial use but most are public domain from decades long past. Many were never used because the lighting was wrong, better shots existed or the AP didn't pick it up for some other ephemeral reason lost to the ages. Pictures of stars getting out of a cab, attending a charity ball, attending the Oscars, getting on a plane, or doing some other perfectly random activity. Remember that pic I put up of Bette Davis speaking at the dedication of temporary homes for vets? Where do you think that came from, Doctor Macro? Or the most recent one of Loretta Young handing off a bowl of money or that pic of Marge and Gower Champion. They all came from archival storage sites.

Now these pics may bore some, or possibly many, but I find them interesting simply because they are so, uh... uninteresting. Does that make any sense? In other words, a search of Google images produces glamour pics of Loretta Young or shots from her movies but I prefer the historical minutia of Young at the California Hospital in the forties for some charity function giving some guy a bowlful of money. It has more of a time-capsule quality to it that the glamour shots are missing.

I've already saved hundreds of such photos from these sites and thousands when you count all the historical pics I've downloaded that have nothing to do with the movies and so will never show up here. I slowly filter them out on Cinema Styles... but why? Why not just throw them up each and every opportunity I can between a post? So prepare yourself to start getting lots of photo posts here of stars in perfectly banal situations. Or attending the Oscars, like this one for instance:

That's Walter Plunkett, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Edith Head in March, 1952 at the 24th Annual Oscars for the year 1951. Plunkett won Best Costume Design, Color, for An American in Paris and Head won Best Costume Design, Black and White, for A Place in the Sun. Zsa Zsa presented.

So yes, expect me to bore you with tons of these in the coming months (as long as I don't get laid off). One exception to this will be exploitation photos. There are plenty of photos in these archives of stars in the drunk tank, stars on a slab at the morgue, stars after suicide attempts and so on. Don't expect to see any of those here. It's odd I know. They've been dead for decades so it's not like I would be invading anyone's privacy but still, I don't want to put those kinds of photos up at Cinema Styles. But as for the rest, up they go. And anyone else with access to these institutional archives*, join me. There are tons of public domain photographs with "No known restrictions on publication" - and they're just waiting to be seen and appreciated.

__________________________

*If you have access to these kinds of archives and are curious what is allowed and what isn't go here for information on copyright issues. In a nutshell, anything before 1923 is public domain and anything from 1923 through 1963 is public domain unless the copyright was renewed. If it was renewed it should say so on the site and have a section where it grants the right to use it through fair use doctrine. In other cases it may require permission and will provide the contact info of the rights holder, usually a museum, library or university that can be contacted through e-mail. After 1963 it gets a little more complicated. Just another reason to stick with the old stuff.

A Couple of Couples

The 24th Annual Academy Awards held in March of 1952. The big winner for Best Picture that year (1951) was An American in Paris. A Streetcar Named Desire won three out of the four acting categories, losing only the Best Actor category to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. Attending the ceremony were some of the biggest couples of the day including Mr and Mrs James Stewart shown here:

But who's this? Who could this Mystery Couple be? Marilyn?

"And a Happy New Year to you...

... in jail." So says Old Man Potter (Lionel Barrymore) to a crazed with joy George Bailey (James Stewart) in It's a Wonderful Life. Mr. Potter is the heavy of the movie and we're supposed to dislike him but the thing is, Lionel Barrymore does such an exemplary job at portraying him in all of his nastiness that I kind of like him. The "jail" line, referring to George Bailey's Savings and Loan customers as a "bunch of garlic eaters" and hanging on to the money even when George Bailey comes to him in a desperate panic, knowing it will destroy Bailey and his family if he loses everything and goes to jail. Jesus, what a bastard! And yet, Mr. Potter makes me smile, that old curmudgeon. Probably because I already know everything turns out fine so I can sit back and enjoy Old Man Potter's bitterness. But a part of it also comes from the fact that at this time of the year I'm pretty much an old bitter curmudgeon myself.

Join me in my bitterness. Specifically, Oscar bitterness.

I wrote last year on this blog of the recent Oscar phenomenon of awarding the lead acting Oscars to impersonations of real life characters and the trend continues. Four of the last six Best Actor winners (Adrian Brody, Jamie Foxx, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Forest Whitaker) and a whopping five of the last six (and seven since 1999) Best Actress winners (Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, Helen Mirren, Marion Cotillard) all portrayed real life characters. That's 9 to 3 in favor of impersonation. And if you don't think this is something new you're wrong. Want to know how many Best Actress winners were for portrayals of real people before 1999 (remember, seven of the last nine have been for portrayals of real people)? If you said "seven" you're right. That's right, in the Oscars handed out before 1999, the same amount were given for impersonation performances for the first seventy one Oscars as for the last nine! It could be argued that it's eight if you count Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia, loosely based on real characters and events. That's how, last year on this blog, I was able to correctly predict in December before any nominations were even out that Marion Cotillard would win Best Actress. I hadn't seen her performance or any of the others yet that would end up getting nominated and it didn't matter. She was playing a real person. I knew she'd win. This year's Best Actress hopefuls don't have any big impersonation performances to get in the way so we'll have a brief respite from it this year. But don't worry because the two front runners for Best Actor are...

Sean Penn and Frank Langella! And who do they play again? Oh yeah, real life politicians Harvey Milk and Richard Nixon. Penn already has an Oscar, Langella's been around for ages without one (or even nomination) and someone has to finally win for playing Nixon right? Right. Go with the even money and the recent impersonation trend of the Oscars. Frank Langella gets the Golden Boy.

So why does all this make me bitter (remember, that's how all of this started)? Not because I think it's easy playing a real life character, in fact, one could argue it's more difficult because you're working against audience expectations of how the character should look and sound. On the other hand, if you get the look and sound just right (Jamie Foxx, Philip Seymour Hoffman) you can fool a lot of people into thinking you just gave a performance. Not that those two actors didn't give a performance, but the look and sound of their characters took precedence over any emotional arcs or deeper reflection. Heath Ledger gave a performance in Brokeback Mountain. He inhabited a character, made him real and filled him with loneliness and pain. Hoffman played Capote. Sorry, that probably sounds snide or flippant, but the two performances don't compare and the fact that the Oscars increasingly looks to see who is doing the best impersonation onscreen annoys me. But what really bothers me about is...

I can't stand biopics! Okay, that's too harsh. There are many I like actually, but on the whole, biopics bore me. I'd bet good money there are plenty of good wholly fictional stories out there in the minds of talented screenwriters that will never see the light of day because come Oscar time the studios want to put their "prestige movie money" into a biopic where everyone can "oooh" and "aah" over how much Charlize Theron looks like Aileen Wuornos! Wow! I mean, she's ugly and everything! So if only for the sake of less biopics, I hope Oscar eases away from this trend sooner rather than later.

I'm still catching up on 2008 releases so a post on Best Picture bitterness will have to wait. We've made it seven years since a biopic last won the top award (A Beautiful Mind, 2001) so we're probably due, which means, being the Oscar completest I am, I will have to see Milk and/or Frost/Nixon and even though I know I'm pre-judging here, I'd rather have my teeth drilled. But I'll do my duty and take them in soon. In fact, I'll go online right now to get my tickets. Hmmm... my teeth do feel a little sensitive right now though. No, no, I'll get the tickets. Hmmm... maybe I'm getting a cavity. Yeah, you know what, first things first. I'm making an appointment for the dentist.

Credit Where End Credit's Due

The winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Song went to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for Falling Slowly from the film Once. It's perfectly integrated into the film and marks the first moment in the film where a palpable emotional connection is made between the two characters. As it should be for a Best Song winner it is truly a part of the movie, a part of the story, a part of the characters. The same can be said for the other four nominees of 2007. All integrally part of the film.

But it wasn't always that way.

Sure that's how it started out in the thirties but by the sixties musicals were starting to fail at the box office and thus by the seventies began the advent of the Closing Credit Song winner. That's the song that has nothing to do with the film (except perhaps managing to mention the film's title in its lyrics) that plays over the closing credits. For almost two decades this was the lot of most of the winners of Best Song. These were the dark years for the category and it was Disney, of all studios, not MGM, the former Musical clearinghouse, that brought the category back to reality. But for two short glorious decades Best Song meant absolutely nothing to the filmmakers themselves. The songwriters weren't a part of the process of making the film. They were hired almost as an afterthought to give those folks who stay through the credits something to listen to.

It all started in the mid to late sixties with opening or closing credit winners such as Windmills of Your Mind and Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head* winning for The Thomas Crown Affair and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid respectively. Then came the uber-cool Isaac Hayes (The Duke of New York) singing Shaft for the non-musical Shaft, the movie. As a result, producers started hiring top musical performers to record songs for the credits. After all, now it was possible for a non-musical to win in this area, but more importantly, it meant you could make a low-budget movie with no expensive stars or special effects and still come home a winner.

The seventies and eighties saw many decidedly non-musical movies take home the Oscar for Best Song including The Towering Inferno (We May Never Love Like This Again), Norma Rae (It Goes Like It Goes), An Officer and a Gentleman (Up Where We Belong) and Top Gun (Take My Breath Away). But the nadir of this period for me has always been Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) from Arthur. It was written (in part) and performed by Christopher Cross and if there were some way to UN-hear this song I would. I'd pay good money to have it's musical memory erased from my brain. But, alas, I cannot. I have heard it as did millions of others... and it won an Oscar.

Since The Little Mermaid revived the musical in the animated world and then later films like Moulin Rouge revived the musical in the live action world the Best Song Oscar has usually gone to a song integral to the film with a few closing credit exceptions popping up from time to time (Philadelphia from the movie of the same name, My Heart Will Go On from Titanic). Gone is the short-lived era of the Closing Credit Song winner.

And I say - Bring it BACK!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't want to eliminate the real category. I want a new category created for Best End Credits Song. If they can have two screenplay categories and four acting categories then by God they can have two Best Song categories. I realize major problems could arise from this. For instance, no one but no one wants to see ten songs performed at the Oscars. Thus, I would propose a new rule that states only snippets of each song will be played as the nominees are read (See, it would actually help the broadcast to create this new category).

And of course, there's the real risk that another Arthur's Theme will pop up but that's a chance I'm willing to take because the Closing Credit Song has brought home Oscars to Donna Summer, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Isaac Hayes. And folks, none of them are going to be in a Disney musical anytime soon. We need a category that will help the future Donnas and Bruces and Bobs and Isaacs bring home their Oscar too. We need the Best End Credit Song Oscar and we need it now. Isn't it time we gave credit where end credit is due?

________________

*This would more accurately be dubbed a "montage song", the forerunner to the music video, as it appears in the movie as background music while those crazy kids ride around on that bike.

The OSCARS!

Best Picture - No Country For Old Men

Best Director - Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)

Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

Best Actress - Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)

Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)

Best Supporting Actress - Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Best Original Screenplay - Diablo Cody (Juno)

Best Adapted Screenplay - The Coens (No Country For Old Men)

* I wrote this on December 13th before there were even nominees: "But this early on I'd lay my money on Marion Cotillard. Why? Because lately the Academy loves honoring actors playing real people. Of the last eight Best Actress Oscars, starting with Hillary Swank winning for Boys Don't Cry, six have been for portrayals of real people. Only Swank in Million Dollar Baby and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball were playing fictional characters." Holy Crap! Someone give me a special award.

*I also wrote this just two days ago, "So the fact that I think There Will Be Blood will win Best Picture almost certainly means it will not." So I kinda got that one right too. Sorta. Otherwise, as usual my predictions blew. I was disappointed that No End in Sight did not win Best Documentary and that In the Shadow of the Moon wasn't even nominated.

* Roger Deakens split the vote all by himself. There Will Be Blood has the bigger, epic look that the cinematography branch loves giving Oscars to. I thought it looked magnificent but I would have preferred to see Deakens win for No Country For Old Men.

Musically speaking I'm very glad that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won for Falling Slowly from Once. I thought Once was a terrific simple little movie. As for Musical Score I couldn't help recall Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood which was played briefly when it won its Oscars. It's another controversial aspect of the film with many people feeling it was, like Daniel Day Lewis' performance, too "big" and intrusive but I found its dissonance with the images on the screen to be quite captivating and the other nominees just felt blasé. I wish it hadn't been disqualified.

* There has of course been a lot of back and forth over Daniel Day Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood. Personally, as you all know, I love a big over the top performance by a great actor. Big over the top performances by mediocre actors are insufferable but by great ones they're pretty damn entertaining and I was pretty damn entertained by Lewis. I'm glad he won.

* First double win for Director since Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise for West Side Story, 1961.

*Finally Best Picture. I'll make it short and sweet: They picked the right movie.

No Way Out

There are two annually televised mega-events that my wife never, ever watches and that I never, ever miss. The kids always watch them with me so she's the odd one out. Although only for these two occasions. The rest of the year we both avoid television with a passion, but not for the pretentious reasons most people who avoid tv give. We never watch tv because of two things: The time trap (as I call it) and commercials. I have nothing against tv shows I just don't like my schedule being controlled by them ("I'd love to do that with you on Tuesday night but my show's on at 9:00 and I can't miss it."). That's the time trap. The other is the commercials. I like watching everything uninterrupted which is why I do watch tv, but I watch it after everyone else has already seen it, on DVD. Or I record it and watch it after it's aired so I can blitz the commercials. For instance, I've watched The Simpsons since it began in the late eighties but I don't know if I have ever seen even one episode during it's actual air time. So I see the big shows like everyone else, I just do so at the conclusion of the season when I can watch them without commercials and as quickly or slowly as I choose. That's why TIVO wouldn't really help me because I like to watch the whole season at once, so to speak.

Except for these two events, because they're live and dammit, commercials or not, I have to see the outcome right then and there. The two events are the Super Bowl and the Oscars. Hopefully, I'll enjoy the Oscars a hell of a lot more than I enjoyed the Super Bowl this year. If you know who my team has been since childhood you understand why this year's Super Bowl sucked sausages for me.

So Sunday night it's me and the kids and the Hollywood All-Stars. And don't expect any predictions because I suck at them. I am notoriously bad at calling the Oscars. Almost every Best Picture prediction I have ever made has been wrong. But I'm excellent at predicting them after the first ten awards have been handed out and you can clearly see what everyone has been voting for. So the fact that I think There Will Be Blood will win Best Picture almost certainly means it will not. But who cares? There will be dip, there will be chips, there will be beer and soda and larditudinous amounts of snacks and candy and ice cream and hot fudge. And there will be moaning and groaning at people winning something that could be once in a lifetime and spending their 45 seconds in the limelight listing names instead of telling us all what it means to them. There will be forehead slapping at "comedic" moments so awkward you wonder how anyone ever thought it would play at all. There will be excitement for the big awards and shock at the one or two upsets of the evening. And there will be montages. And yes, I love those damn montages.* And then it will all be over and I'll be back to watching television on DVD or online for another year. Until the next two events happen again and the cycle renews itself.

But for now I watch. I watch it live. There's no escape. No surrender. No way out.

*****

*I promise, no more cliched There Will Be... references ever again. Just had to do it one more time.

My Goodness, My Guinness

With the Oscars arriving soon I thought I would let Alec Guinness provide some perspective, or at least his opinion. Excerpted from My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor by Alec Guinness.

*****

Tuesday, March 28, 1995:

"A touch of sleet and occasional light snow. Depressing. As was, I suppose, the Oscar news on the radio. I have seen none of the films or performances which were nominated, but I did see Nigel Hawthorne in the stage version of The Madness of King George III and thought him magnificent; I can't believe he would be less so on the screen. I hope he doesn't greatly care. It is the hype which has become so exasperating - and its inevitable let-down. Not much hype in 1957 when The Bridge on the River Kwai brought me an Oscar but the let-down was there sure enough. It was the Daily Express, I think, which carried a banner headline which read, 'Deborah Kerr fails for the third time.' A very English assessment. She hadn't failed in any real sense (she had several beautiful performances to her credit) - she just hadn't been handed a trophy. A race or a fight or a game can be won but to call something 'the best' in the arts is absurd. I wouldn't mind betting Dickens would fail to win the Booker Prize (too readable and too funny) and Turner the Turner Prize and poor Keats wouldn't even be considered for any poetry prize. And so on. I suggest that the givers of awards to actors, writers and artists should choose half a dozen, almost at random, and say, 'These are the people we wish to honour - equally.'"

*****

Hmmm... sounds okay at first but then you're still honoring ("almost at random") a select few, subjectively, over the great multitude. So you're back to the same problem. And it's probably much easier for Guinness to muse on this having won a Best Actor Oscar already. Still, interesting thoughts to read.*

_________________________

*Though not the whole book. While some, notably Sheila who knows a lot more about books than I do, like it I found it too ordinary and I suppose I wanted more discussion of the arts. I brought too much of my own expectations to it.

Oscar Turns 80, Cinema Styles Does Not

Starting today on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is their annual 31 Days of Oscar.

In celebration of this yearly event here are some picks from the schedule (no not 31 picks - that's too many and this isn't a poll). I've avoided any and all Best Picture winners as they have their own aura of fame about them that renders a personal recommendation list, well, non-personal. Also I've avoided picks like Casablanca (also a Best Picture winner) and Citizen Kane, not because I don't love them, I do, but because if you're reading this you've seen them, probably multiple times. Of course since TCM is doing a month of nothing but movies nominated for or recipients of Oscars there's nothing in the schedule that would be unfamiliar to many readers either. Okay, enough. Here are my ten picks for the month from the TCM schedule.

*The Trip to Bountiful (1985) - Feb 2. It's been a long time since I've seen this so I look forward to watching it again. Geraldine Page gives a remarkable performance that deservedly won an Oscar.

*Atlantic City (1981) - Feb 2. Excellent study of desperate people connecting with each other then moving on with their lives. As directed by Louis Malle it is a beautiful piece of work.

*A Nous la Liberte (1931) - Feb 4. Released in 1931 and directed by the great Rene Clair this film is famous for two reasons (aside from it being excellent that is): One, it was the first non-English sound film to receive an Oscar nomination (for Best Art Direction) and Two, its production company, Tobis, sued United Artists and Charlie Chaplin after the release of Modern Times over plagiarism saying certain story elements (factory workers reduced to cogs in the machine, hitting the road at the end) had been lifted. The case dragged on past World War II and Chaplin finally settled but refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. And right he was. If you're going to sue people for using "elements" of your story, every fourth film released would be sued by somebody somewhere.

*Libeled Lady (1936) - Feb 6. This is one of the best screwball comedies of the thirties and it's barely known to modern audiences. Even many cinephiles who love My Man Godfrey, The Thin Man and other William Powell comedy classics are unfamiliar with this one. It boasts Powell with regular co-star Myrna Loy as well as Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. It's just great!

*The Best Man (1964) - Feb 11. Politicians vying for the Party's nomination battle each other at the convention. Cliff Robertson's men have a never publicized nervous breakdown on Henry Fonda to sling but then Fonda's man, played by Kevin McCarthy comes up with something big on Robertson. Really big. As in political D-Y-N-A-M-I-T-E! Who will blink first?

*Rasputin and the Empress (1932) - Feb 18. Why see this? Because it's got all three Barrymores together that's why: Ethel, Lionel and John.

*The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - Feb 21. It's not the greatest film in the world and yes, it has some relatively vast breaks with reality (Faye Dunaway figures out Thomas Crown's masterly planned robbery in the beginning in about 17 seconds) but it has a great sixties look to it and a great sixties, streamlined feel. Steve McQueen and Dunaway look great together and there's that song, before Sting recorded it.

*Portrait of Jennie (1948) - Feb 26. Yes, it's a little sappy and schmaltzy but you know what else it is? Addictive! He's (Joseph Cotten) obsessed with a girl (Jennifer Jones)- or is it a ghost - and won't stop until he understands what happened to her leading to one of the most amazing dream sequences ever put on film (especially considering the time it was made - the storm special effects are incredible). Directed by William Dieterle (criminally underrated director of the 1941 masterpiece The Devil and Daniel Webster, which sadly is not on the schedule).

*Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) - Feb 28. Career performance by Kim Stanley in a great little film. Easily the best performance of 1964. The next best being Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, . By the way, neither won. It was Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins and Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady. I'm just saying.

*The Day of the Jackal (1973) - Feb 29. Love this movie! Love it! Edward Fox is excellent as The Jackal and Michael Lonsdale as his pursuer Lebel excels as well.

*********

P.S. A special mention for The Naked Prey, which I will not have a chance to see and which airs today. It has just recently been digitally restored and released on DVD. Since I've never seen it in it's proper form (only on commercial television sad to say) I'd love to see it today but my schedule does not allow and I have no means of recording it (also sad to say). But if you'd like a recommendation from someone who has seen it recently go here now.

The Last of Its Kind

Winner of the Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects of 1976 (shared with King Kong) Logan's Run marked the last of its kind in many ways. The very next year was the year of Star Wars. But up until then sci-fi had been many things for many people, from cerebral to campy to sexy. For a long time after Star Wars it became action adventure only. And of course the special effects changed forever. Here are the five winners just prior to Logan's Run:

1970 Tora! Tora! Tora!
1971 Bedknobs and Broomsticks
1972 The Poseidon Adventure
1973 No award given
1974 Earthquake
1975 The Hindenburg

And here are the five after:

1977 Star Wars
1978 Superman: The Movie
1979 Alien
1980 Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark

As some nauseating animated character in some forgettable Disney crapfest might sing, it's a whole new world. I miss the old one. As much as I love many of those post-Logan classics I also love pop-sociology, pointless nudity, cheesy effects, cool looking miniatures and Dallas Shopping Mall locations in my sci-fi. Fortunately I have Logan's Run on DVD. Whew. Now that's what I call Sanctuary.

*******

Click on Poster for large printable size. Is it not overwhelming? You know you want to print it out.

Oscar Noms are Out...

... but will there be a show? Due to the writer's strike there may not and despite supporting the strike by not crossing the lines, people in the biz still want to collect their Oscars, so if they miss the opportunity to do so because of a strike... well let's just say, there will be bad blood.

The Major Noms (for a complete listing go here):

Best motion picture of the year
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Director:
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Julian Schnabel
Juno - Jason Reitman
Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy
No Country for Old Men -Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”

Oscar Watch Update

I've seen more films now that will be vying for the Oscar and it still comes down to two I think. Those two are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Granted, there are still many to see from 2007 that I have not seen yet but for now, these two seem like the top Oscar hopefuls.

In my first Oscar conjecture I figured Sweeney Todd would make a bigger splash and while I didn't particularly dislike it or particularly like it, none of it has stayed with me and I can't imagine it has any legs going into the nomination process.

I believe NCFOM and TWBB have the best shot at Best Picture. I've just seen TWBB and the objections of some over the music left me shrugging my shoulders. I see no problem with the music being used in an operatic way to propel the story towards its inevitable conclusion. Every note implies that doom is just over the horizon. The title implies it as well. And so there is. And over-acting? No. Bad actors over-act, great actors skillfully play it big. Daniel Day-Lewis plays it big and his Daniel Plainview character is big - and it is mesmerizing to watch.

Others have tried to look at it as an allegory but I don't see it. If so it is the most unfocused allegory I have ever seen and I'm not even sure what it would be (Capitalism destroys Religion? Competing dogmas destroy each other? You got me.) But to understand further I have to talk about the ending and so if you haven't seen it I will begin spoiling NOW.

Eli Sunday (played terrifically by Paul Dano) comes to see Daniel Plainview (the aforementioned scenery engulfing Daniel Day-Lewis). Eli needs help, financial help, and Daniel has the money and power to clear everything up. Daniel makes Eli reveal himself as a fraud and renounce his belief. Earlier in the film, Daniel has to go through a baptism in order to get what he needs from one of Eli's followers. When Daniel is admitting to abandoning his son there are moments of real emotion in his voice as he says before others what he doesn't want to say to himself. Despite his cruel behavior later with his son, I believe that he loved him at one time and losing him later in life drove the final nail in Daniel's coffin of sanity. If not, why bother having the scene of complete and final abandonment of his son in his home take place at all, much less right before the final scene with Eli.

Back to Eli and his humiliation at the hands of Daniel. This is where there is argument amongst viewers as to whether Eli ever believed to begin with. If not, the renouncing of his beliefs is just as empty as Daniel's renouncing of sin at the baptism (with the single exception of the statements relating to his son). So was Eli a fraud all along? I think that depends on the viewer. I think Eli believed and does believe at the moment Daniel begins humiliating him but is desperate enough to renounce anything to get what he needs. Just as Daniel did not want to say he had abandoned his son but said it anyway - he needed that pipeline and nothing was going to stand in his way, certainly not his heart or soul. Both characters are willing to sacrifice integrity and honesty with themselves to get what they need. Beliefs are tossed aside to make way for necessity. If he never believed, there is no point to this humiliation. And if he did believe then we can see just how far he is willing to go to get what he needs.

After the humiliation is successful Daniel tells Eli he won't give him any money for what Eli offers because he, Daniel, has already taken it. In fact, he drank it up. At this point Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano go into hyper-acting overdrive and I must admit (and I hope I don't offend any viewers who found the ending deadly serious) I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I couldn't stop laughing. Not guffawing, just uncontrolled giddy chuckling as I watched these two actors perform a final scene so insane that a viewer probably would have had as much luck guessing this ending as they would have had guessing a movie about lonely people in Los Angeles would end with a frog shower. But my laughter had a joyous quality to it. I was happy that there's someone making movies who doesn't take themselves so goddamned seriously that they can't occasionally say, "Hey, why not end it with Plainview, Sunday, bowling pins, blood and a butler?" Why not indeed? Plainview's crazy, bitter and broken. That's clear in the final scene with his son. So where to take his character from there? To the end of course. The logical end. And then? He's finished. Finished with his tasks, finished with "wrapping up personal business," finished with his son, finished with revenge and finished - as in 'ruined' - because there's a corpse with a bowling pin imprint on the back of his skull laying in the middle of his home bowling alley. He's finished. I wonder what his last line should be?

Spoilers Ended

So there's a quick reaction. I think No Country for Old Men carries more weight to it but There Will Be Blood has the "bigness" that Oscar notices. For now, I'll stick with No Country for my own personal pick and put my money on There Will Be Blood as the Oscar pick.

Oscar's Odd Behavior

Let's face it, half the time Oscar doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Great films go un-nominated (Modern Times, Rear Window, Touch of Evil), films of questionable quality win big (Cimarron, The Greatest Show on Earth) and performers with a lifetime of great achievement go unnoticed (Toshiro Mifune, Myrna Loy, Joseph Cotten). But this has come to be expected of Oscar. He's a little flaky and his judgment leaves much to be desired. Sometimes, however, Oscar really goes loopy.

Oscar often seems to make up the rules as he goes. That's because he does. Usually it takes a bizarre event to bring a problem in the process to Oscar's notice. One of the oddest acting situations that forced Oscar to do some rule changing occurred for the year 1944. The great actor Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for a Supporting and a Lead Oscar. No problem there. We've seen it happen many times since, most recently in 2002 with Julianne Moore, nominated for Best Actress for Far From Heaven and Best Supporting Actress for The Hours. But here's the thing with Barry: Both of his nominations came for the same performance. That's right. For his role of Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way Fitzgerald was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor. He won the supporting award.

The problem was this: Before introducing the Best Supporting award, it was understood that Best Actor or Actress meant whoever gives the best performance no matter the size of the part. By 1936 it was clear that smaller roles were being shut out so the supporting categories were born. But the original intent of the Best Actor or Actress Oscar was still in the minds of many of the voters. So when marking their nomination ballot they felt that Fitzgerald had given the Best Supporting performance of the year and that that supporting performance was also the best performance of the year period. So they marked him twice. Uh oh. Oscar scratched his head and decided from now on whichever category the actor in question gets the most votes for is the category he will be nominated for. If the exact same amount of members vote for him to be nominated in both categories then screen time will be used to break the tie. How much screen time? Well, no one's really sure. That's why Oscar decided a long time ago to make it clear to the studios that they have to decide in advance and push said actor to be nominated in one category or the other.

Oh that Oscar, always passing the buck.

Which puts me in mind of Harry Truman. You know Harry had a sign on his desk that said the buck stops here. Later he was portrayed on stage by James Whitmore in a one-man show, Give 'Em Hell Harry. In 1975 one of these performances in Seattle, Washington was videotaped by directors Steve Binder and Peter H. Hunt. The videotaped performance was shown on Los Angeles legendary Z cable station. It also showed on cable in New York. The Academy members saw it on Z around the clock. The station was new having just started in 1974 and Give 'Em Hell Harry was played over and over. The result? Academy members nominated James Whitmore for Best Actor. Not for giving a performance in a one-man film, like Philip Baker Hall in Secret Honor. No, no. He was doing his usual stage performance before an audience and it was videotaped. So in a way, you could say that this is the only time an actor was nominated for a performance that didn't really occur in a movie.

But the above two examples are nothing compared to the double rule change whammy that occurred after the 1972 awards.

The Academy has always relied on release date in North America (specifically Los Angeles and New York) for eligibility, essentially stating the movie doesn't exist, no matter how many times it has been seen abroad or in how many places, until it plays here. Thus films like Brief Encounter, Bicycle Thieves and The Third Man all received nominations a year after they had taken in awards abroad because it was full year later when they finally premiered in the States. This nebulous policy, as well as a rule for musical scores, led to a bizarre incident for the 1972 awards

Everyone was sure that Nina Rota would win the Oscar for Best Musical Score for his beautiful score to The Godfather. Then it was discovered that elements of the score had been drawn from previous work he had composed and since it had to be completely original to the film being scored, Rota's nomination was withdrawn. Since the sure bet was now withdrawn the Academy voters were free to be creative, if you will. The Oscar for Best Original Score for 1972 went to ...

Limelight. Scored by Charlie Chaplin. In 1952!

Because of the inability to get distribution deals with the United States distributors since Chaplin was officially Persona non Grata due to suspected communist sympathies, it was not released in the States until 1972. And that's when, according to Oscar, the film now officially existed. People were happy to see Chaplin get an award but there was enough jaw-dropping to embarrass Oscar into swiftly dropping the release date rules and going with a new more vague rule of thumb that any film over two years removed from its original release date (wherever that may be - no longer just America) could not be considered. Oscar also decided that composers could employ previous compositions into a new work and still be considered for the Original Score Oscar. How nice of him. This worked out well for Carmine Coppola two years later when he employed a large chunk of Nina Rota's original Godfather score for Part II and then won the Oscar himself. I have no evidence of this, but I'm guessing Nina Rota despised Carmine Coppola after that. Although Oscar was nice and gave an Oscar to Rota too for that same film. Even though he hadn't worked on it. Because, you know... 1972 had happened.

Oscar sure is funny. One artist is nominated for the same work twice (Fitzgerald) and another is withdrawn from nomination because he use the same work twice (Rota). A third wins based on the second's work (Coppola) and a Hollywood legend walks away with an Oscar for a musical score he'd probably forgotten he ever did. This would all fall under the category - "You Can't Make This Stuff Up."

Will there be more bizarre behavior by Oscar this year? Let's hope so because let's be honest: Oscar's getting old and when he's not screwing up the rules six ways to Sunday, he's pretty boring.

UPDATE

Oscar did it again! Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood was disqualified for nomination due to other music (Brahms) being used for the film. In case you're wondering here are the relevant guidelines:

1. The work must be specifically created for the eligible feature-length motion picture.

4. The work must be recorded for use in the film prior to any other usage including public performance or exploitation through any of the media whatsoever.

5. Only the principal composer(s) or song writer(s) responsible for the conception and execution of the work as a whole shall be eligible for an award. This expressly excludes from eligibility all of the following:

(a) supervisors

(b) partial contributors (e.g., any writer not responsible for the over-all design of the work)

(c) contributors working on speculation

(d) scores diluted by the use of themes tracked or other pre-existing music

(e) scores diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs

(f) scores assembled from the music of more than one composer.

Take a look at the guidelines again. Okay with number 1 I can understand that Brahms' work was not created for the picture. But this has always been given a pass in the past. Let's take 1999 for an example. Two films up for Best Original Score that year were American Beauty and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both used music on their soundtracks from other sources not written for their respective pictures (music from South Pacific in American Beauty and multiple jazz selections, specifically Charlie Parker in The Talented Mr. Ripley)and yet neither was ruled ineligible.

Now look at number 4. The music must be recorded for the film before being used anywhere else in any media. As The Godfather Part II used music from the first it is in clear violation of this rule and yet, again, no one seemed to care. The Godfather Part II also violates rule 5f which states any score compiled from the music of more than one composer is ineligible. So somehow Carmine Coppola and Nina Rota were the same person? Was it like Ray Milland and Rosey Grier? Did they have one body and two heads? No. Oscar was still embarrassed over 1972 and by god they were going to make sure Rota and The Godfather won for that music one way or another. So they ignored the rules they had so foolishly applied just two years earlier.

Now it's 2008 and Oscar has suddenly noticed his rule book again. I may be wrong in this (I probably am) but I have a feeling older, more conservative composers in the Academy were hemming and hawing about this Radiohead boy and his dissonant music everyone is talking about and jumped on the fact that Brahms is used to put him out of the running. Just a hunch.

There used to be a category for Best Adapted Score so that studio composers could be honored for their arrangements of other people's music but this fell by the wayside as adapting a score was simply conducting someone else's music. In another category there still is an adapted version: Screenplay. Now with screenplays, adapting a book to the screen is indeed a true adaptation and the screenwriter deserves credit for making it work. But in some cases it's outright ludicrous. This year Johnny Greenwood was disqualified for using Brahms in his almost completely original score but in 1996 Kenneth Branagh received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamlet, which is notable for being the first time the entire play was actually done word for word up on the screen, instead of in truncated form like Olivier's 1948 version. Greenwood uses some Brahms and he's out but Branagh inks not a single word of a screenplay and he's in. Clearly the Academy has an another guideline that overrides all other guidelines. That would be the one that states, "We must always follow our guidelines except in those cases in which it is deemed by the over/undersigned authorities of the Academy, it's board and all paid servants herein, including pets and bit players, that when we don't want to we don't have to - HA!"

And so the Academy plays fast and loose with the rules again. I'd write more about it but I'm working on this screenplay adaptation of King Lear and it's pretty time consuming. I have to add the word "screen" in front of the word "play" before we begin shooting. Hold on... okay done. I think I smell a nomination coming my way. Keep your fingers crossed.

Oscar Snubs: Joseph Cotten

Okay, think of these three films: Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt, The Third Man. Now try to imagine them without Joseph Cotten.

Even in Citizen Kane where his is a supporting role the two cannot be separated. Think of him in the audience during the opera. Think of him tearing away at that program and then getting drunk afterwards because he can't bear to do what he knows he has to do if he wants to live with himself: Be honest about his reaction to Susan Alexander's "talent." Think of his numb stare when Charles Foster Kane says to him, "Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah: you're fired."

Now think of Shadow of a Doubt. Think of that warm, kind and gentle uncle who seems just a bit on edge. Think of that dinner when he has this exchange with his niece:

Uncle Charlie: Women keep busy in towns like this. In the cities it's different. The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women.

Niece Charlie: But they're alive! They're human beings!

Uncle Charlie: Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?

Now think of The Third Man. Think of Holly Martins journeying across the landscapes of the confused, naive and bewildered to the bitter, knowing and finally resigned. Resigned to indifference. Try to imagine another actor able to navigate that terrain as well as Joseph Cotten does in that remarkable film. Think of that conversation he has with Harry Lime on the Ferris Wheel. Think of how he seems at once angry, disappointed and confused with what has become of this man who was once his friend.

Now think of this: Joseph Cotten was not nominated for one of these performances. Now take it a step further: Joseph Cotten was not nominated once for anything, ever, over his entire career. He has not a single nomination. Joseph Cotten was an actor of formidable skill and talent. He elevated the mundane and enriched the great. He was at once rural (The Third Man) and urbane (Gaslight). He was selflessly calculating (Under Capricorn) and selfishly political (The Farmer's Daughter). He was rational (The Magnificent Ambersons) and obsessive (Portrait of Jennie). He was all these things and more but he wasn't an Oscar winner.

Now think about the Oscars and how they award an honorary Oscar to those artists that they ignored during the course of their active careers. Think to yourself that surely they gave one of those to Cotten to make up for the oversights of the past.

Think again.

Oscar Snubs: Myrna Loy

I make no bones about it: I love Myrna Loy. I think she was beautiful, charming and witty. And she had a sweetness and honesty about her that I admired. But when I say I love her it's not what you think. What I mean is, I love her like you love your mom. And if she had been my mother I would've nominated her for at least half the movies she made. Which of course puts me in direct opposition to the Academy, because you see, they didn't nominate her even once. Not once. For anything. She got an honorary Oscar in 1991 for all those performances the Academy didn't seem to care for at the time. That's something I suppose but honorary Oscars are like those doctorates they hand out to Roger Staubach after he's made a commencement address at his daughter's college where he compares life to playing in the Super Bowl against the Steelers. It doesn't really mean anything (the address or the doctorate). *1*

Early in her career she played the femme fatale until Hollywood realized she could play loving patience to a pain in the ass husband better than anybody (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Best Years of Our Lives, The Thin Man series). One moment of hers has always stuck out for me. It comes in The Best Years of Our Lives. She is in the kitchen doing dishes and hears the door open. Her husband, played by Fredric March, has just returned home from the war. She asks her children who it is. They don't reply. And then, beautifully, her face tells us that she realizes who it is. What a wonderful moment played by such a wonderful actress.

Often times we project what we want to believe about an actor onto them. It reassures us perhaps or helps confirms biases we have for or against them in our own minds. I admit I do this with Myrna. I imagine that her friends and family would console her after the yearly nominations were announced and her name was always absent. And then I like to imagine that within minutes she would be comforting them, telling them the awards meant nothing and she was happy with all that she had and stop worrying about such pointless things. She was a great actress and a great lady. It would've been nice if at least once the Academy had let her know they thought so too.

_________________________

*1*

Roger Staubach's daughter did indeed graduate from the University I attended and he gave the commencement address. It was insufferable. If given the choice between sitting through it again and being forced to smell the unwashed underwear of a hobo, I'm telling you, I'd have to think about it.

Oscar Snubs: Sam Peckinpah

*Kevin Costner, Robert Redford, Richard Attenborough, Warren Beatty, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard.

*All started as actors before moving to the director's chair.

*All have Oscars for Best Director.

*None are considered among the all-time directing greats, though some have done some very good work (Reds, Quiz Show).

Sam Peckinpah started as an actor as well, in bit parts and small roles (Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956, Chain of Evidence 1957) and is considered among the all-time greats. He has no Oscar for Directing. He has not even one nomination. He was nominated for screenplay, once, for The Wild Bunch. That's it. Say what you will about the above mentioned directors, good or bad, but none of them is Peckinpah. In fact, nobody else was Peckinpah, ever.

In a previous Oscar post I wrote about The Wild Bunch,

"If Bonnie and Clyde brought violence to the forefront of American cinema,Peckinpah made it the centerpiece. With the final barrage of gunfire and bodies upon bodies piling up as William Holden goes through belt after belt of machine gun ammo before being hit multiple times himself (and all done in slow motion), Peckinpah devised violence as an artistic set-piece, not merely action to move the plot along but in many ways becoming the plot itself. Hollywood being Hollywood, within two years every innovation in The Wild Bunch (The beginning walk, the intermittent freeze frames of the opening credits, the slow motion,the massive gun battle) was cliche and Peckinpah the innovator never got as much credit as he deserved."

The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid - It's not just an impressive list, it's a formidable one. Peckinpah died too young at the age of 59 before the Academy could even think to give him a lifetime achievement award. Not that that would have mattered one lick to him. It was the movies, and changing them and challenging their limits that he cared about. Pauline Kael once wrote, "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle." Then everyone picked up the broken shards and started making them the same way themselves.

He was also known as an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He lived a hard life (Ida Lupino hired him after she discovered him sleeping in a shack behind her property) and didn't mince words. After Pauline Kael wrote that he was condoning rape in the film Straw Dogs, he remarked, "she's cracking walnuts with her ass." I don't know what that means exactly, but it sounds good.

Sam Peckinpah died twenty-three years ago on December 28, 1984. He never got his richly deserved Oscar. He probably never wanted it. He's in damn good company.

Oscar Snubs: Toshiro Mifune

Toshiro Mifune: Actor.

Selected movies: The Hidden Fortress, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, The Life of Oharu, Downtown, Theater of Life, Red Sun, Winter Kills.

Oscars: Zero.

Oscar Nominations: Zero.

Toshiro Mifune died ten years ago this December 24th. His career was long and varied but his greatest performance for me came in Yojimbo. Made in 1961 by acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa it both gives and takes from the Western genre: It's landscapes, crime lords and desolation clearly borrow from the genre while its virtual creation of the future Clint Eastwood "Man with No Name" persona invents something new. Mifune is terrific as the ronin, or bodyguard, who turns the crime lords against one another until peace is restored. It's a great role greatly played but Mifune made movies in Japanese and the Academy isn't known for its graciousness when selecting performances across the language lines. It's happened (Sophia Loren, Two Women; Robert DeNiro, The Godfather, Part II and Roberto Benigni, Life is Beautiful) but it's rare. When he finally got around to making movies in English they were, more often than not, war bores like Midway or Inchon in which Mifune could play the one dimensional Japanese nemesis.

Mifune was a great actor and received acolades throughout his career including two Best Actors from the Venice Film Festival, one for Yojimbo and the other in 1965 for Akahige. But he never got an Oscar. Hell, he never even got a nomination. He did win one American trophy, the Emmy for his work in Shogun. But with a career as long and impressive as his, that just wasn't enough. His is one of the great snubs of all time. And yet when you look at the body of work that emcompassed his career there are no regrets, no tinges of pity. Long after the Oscars given to so many lesser performers are forgotten the world will still remember Yojimbo. And Rashomon. And Throne of Blood. And Toshiro Mifune. It's easy really. He's unforgettable.

Oscar Snubs: Modern Times

Before the Age of Consumerism took hold in the fifties and corporations gained power selling goods directly to the public, the real money was made with the monopolistic giants in steel, textiles and rubber by names like Rockefeller, Morgan and Dupont. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times takes place in that era, during the depression when labor could be fully exploited because people were desperate to work. It marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. In film that is. It was Chaplin's last attempt at a silent film and even then only partially silent. The score was pre-recorded and voices, dialogue and singing could be heard. Even the Tramp is heard for the first time, though in gibberish, in a song.

The film opened to great reviews and surprisingly good box office despite the fact that it was years into the sound era. The New York Post reviewer Thornton Delehanty said, "The picture is a brilliant succession of gags and stunts, strung together on the priceless tradition of Chaplin himself. There is no doubt that Modern Times is the season's motion picture event." But my favorite is New York Times reviewer Frank S. Nugent, who despite his last name was not known for his bow-hunting prowess. He said, "... a rousing, rib-tickling, gag-bestrewn jest for all that and in the best Chaplin manner." There are few things in life better than the gag-bestrewn. Truly. How many times have you left a comedy shaking your head thinking, "It was okay, but it would have been better had it been gag-bestrewn."

And yet despite the box-office success, the great reviews and its official gag-bestrewn status there was no nomination for Best Picture. There's a word for that: Snub. For the next two months leading up to the Oscars (with which I have an embarrassing obsession) I will be highlighting films, directors and actors who got the snub. To get things rolling I present you with the closing scene of Modern Times, which provided one of the most iconic images in movie history, as the Tramp and the girl walk down that lonesome road, headed for the hills. As an added bonus I've included a nice shot of what movie marketing was like back in the day. Enjoy.

Oscar Notes: Part One

With Oscar season upon us I shall from time to time give a few Oscar notes to keep myself, and you dear reader, up to date. From the L.A. Film Critics to the Boston Film Critics to the National Board of Review there already seems to be an either/or at work. That is, each category seems to have two front-runners going into the final stretch (although of this could be moot once the Oscars - usually fairly clueless to what the critics and cinephiles generally like - nominate in February). For now though Best Picture is a two way battle between No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Best Actor seems to be Daniel Day Lewis' for There Will Be Blood to lose. Best Actress between Julie Christie for Away From Her and Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose (aka La Môme).

If Julie Christie wins for Away From Her she will receive her second Oscar 42 years after her first (Darling, 1965), a record from first to second. The record from first to last is 48 years for Katherine Hepburn who won her first for Morning Glory (1933) and her fourth and last for On Golden Pond (1981). But this early on I'd lay my money on Marion Cotillard. Why? Because lately the Academy loves honoring actors playing real people. Of the last eight Best Actress Oscars, starting with Hillary Swank winning for Boys Don't Cry, six have been for portrayals of real people. Only Swank in Million Dollar Baby and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball were playing fictional characters.

Same goes for the men. Of the last five Best Actor Oscars, starting with Adrien Brody in The Pianist, only one, Sean Penn in Mystic River, has been fictional. Due to a lack of big biographical portrayals for the men this year, this one will probably be for a fictional character. But I'm sure the Academy is just itching for Martin Scorsese to finish his biopic of Teddy Roosevelt with Leonardo Dicaprio (yes you read that correctly) so they can get back to handing out Oscars for biographical performances.

There have been no noticable trends for Best Picture lately (aside from the fact that I generally disagree with almost all of their choices - that's why I had to stop writing about them). They've done crime (The Departed), social commentary (Crash), drama (Million Dollar Baby), fantasy epic (Return of the King) and musical (Chicago) for their last five. So clearly, no trends. None. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are the clear front runners in the nomination stakes and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd may actually gain a few nods itself, being the only notable musical in the lineup this year. Still, at this point it seems to be a two movie year: NCFOM and There Will Be Blood.

So those are my notes for now. As I actually see more of these films I'll update with more current and historical notes.