Entries in the Category "awards"
The Best Actress Fallacy
One of the more controversial Oscar winners from this past weekend was Sandra Bullock. This past summer, her career was seemingly in the toilet thanks to that All About Steve fiasco, and then suddenly The Proposal made a buck or two (although if my sister didn’t like it, I do not see what it could possibly have to recommend itself as a romantic comedy). And then this The Blind Side thing happened, and somehow her career trajectory veered so crazily in the opposite direction that she—as predicted—won a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year.
So the question becomes: does Sandra Bullock, mistress of pratfalls and goofiness, big opening weekends and almost supernatural hotness in her mid-forties (YES, REALLY), fit the profile of the Academy Award-winning actress?
First, we need to establish what the profile is. There’s this tendency to think of Oscar winning actresses as grande dames of cinema.
Bette Davis in All About Eve, for example
Or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard
Would it surprise you to discover that both of those women went up for Best Actress in the same year, 1951? And that both of them lost? Who swiped the award from these two women in the prime of life, tackling two of the meatiest roles in Hollywood history?
Judy Holliday (age 29) in Born Yesterday
Nothing against Judy--that's a great movie, and her performance is more nuanced than 'dim bulb with a heart of gold.' Although that's a lot of it.
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Misleading Hope for Inglourious Basterds!
So, last week I wrote about the Golden Globes, and how Avatar is going to steal everything from Inglourious Basterds.
Well, here's the good news: Inglourious Basterds won the SAG award for Best Ensemble last night! (Because the SAG awards only award performances, the top award is Best Ensemble, the de facto Best Picture.) The movie now has huge momentum heading into the Oscar race.
The news that makes it less impressive: Avatar, which downplayed actors' performances in favor of sci fi and CGI, was not nominated. Tarantino's opus beat out four other films. More than likely, when Oscar noms are announced (Tuesday, February 2), it will be Avatar and four underdogs.
If Inglourious Basterds is one of them, I'll be rooting for its unlikely victory.
Golden Globes Recap
This will be shorter and less detailed than my usual next-day awards show extravaganza. I had family visiting this weekend, and both my mom and aunt joined me for the Globes viewing, so we were able to crack jokes and comment on the clothes in real time, which sort of took away some of the excitement of doing it here. What can I say? SO SORRY INTERNET. We still have the Oscars.
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Emmys Day-After Recap
I’ve got my Emmy food (pizza and mint creme Oreos) and I’m ready to go!
The Host
Neil Patrick Harris is totally cool. He’s singing and dancing, he’s wearing a white dinner jacket, and I think he just insulted Two and a Half Men. (Theme songs are getting so short, next year’s theme to the show will just be "meh." HA!) Later: I love the way he keeps introducing people from their obscure early credits (“from the 1987 Afterschool Special…”).
Click ahead for much much more!
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The Oscars Day-After Recap
I watched the whole show, yes. I had a lesson plan to do for the next day, reading, all of it; I still watched all three hours of the Oscar telecast as well as two hours of red carpet.
Here are my impressions (and I'm putting in a jump, because this is gonna be a long one)...