And good-bye to the working week.
First off, Overthinking It bids farewell to two older icons of the entertainment industry: Jennifer Jones, star of The Song of Bernadette and Duel in the Sun (in the 40s and 50s) and Roy Disney, part owner of the empire of that name. Disney breathed new life into the company’s animation division, helping create gems like Beauty and the Beast and disappointments like Fantasia 2000. Actors who won Oscars for playing saints and pioneers of 2-D animation: they probably weren’t going to like the 21st century much anyway.
Not to take sides on religions, but name the last Oscar-nominated nun.
Second, the Golden Globe nominations were announced earlier this week. Up in the Air sits atop the pile with six nominations. Avatar, The Blind Side, Inglourious Basterds and a dozen movies you’ve never seen nor heard of are also up for awards. House is going up against Season 3 of Mad Men for Best Drama. That guy punching that girl on Jersey Shore? Apparently not dramatic enough.
Question: The Golden Globes have no problem giving comedies their own category (this year’s nominees: (500) Days of Summer, The Hangover, It’s Complicated and Julie and Julia). Why won’t the Oscars?
Nominated for both It's Complicated and Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep is competing against herself this year.
Finally, holy #$%# there’s a new Iron Man 2 trailer and it looks awesome.
Remember when this guy was a believable love interest for Kim Basinger?
Question: are you excited, really excited, or really really excited for Iron Man 2?
And of course, anything else you want to discuss in the comments. This is YOUR … Open Thread.
Really really excited.
Some pro-level Overthinking for everybody’s enjoyment this weekend: “The Office” as management theory.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/
1.1) I hope Roy got to see The Princess and the Frog. I haven’t read Belinkie’s piece (yet- I’ll get there!), but I saw it last weekend (along with Invictus- SO GOOD, TOO!) and personally thought Disney redeemed itself with it. So did the people I saw it with- a bunch of adults. So I hope he was able to see the company do right by Walt and his original vision again. Or at least improved versions of that vision- no more “What Made the Red Man Red”s any longer.
1.2) Was Fantasia 2000 really that bad? It wasn’t the best thing evar, no, but I’ve never really come across a review that said it was bad and why in a convincing way. Everything I’ve seen always comes down to “it wasn’t as good as the original.” So what? Does that make it BAD? IMO, no, just NOT AS GOOD, but there’s a difference I think gets lost in the automatic comparisons with Fantasia.
1.2) Notice how because comedy has its own category, Sandra Bullock was nominated for two leading roles. I think that’s kind of cool. I still haven’t seen The Blindside, but she really was good in The Proposal, and with all of the hype and buzz about the former, I am not surprised she was nominated for it. I hope she gets an Oscar nod, too, if not the actual trophy- what a slap in the face that would be to the Academy.
1.3) And they don’t have a separate category because they’re a bunch of fuddy duddies that still try to pass themselves and the event as patrons of Art and HIGH Art, at that, and also becaue they aren’t willing to admit it’s all about politics, money, and advertising. Look at how last year they totally messed with the number of songs so that they could FIT PERFORMANCES INTO THE SHOW instead of making sure enough worthy songs were nominated. Fah on them. I only care about the Oscars to the extent that I like seeing how they do their “we’re sorry you lost last year” stuff and when something comes out of nowhere and sweeps or at least “steals” one or more awards from “shoe-ins.” And I like to get outraged when stuff or actors/actresses I don’t believe deserve an award get one, too (because that’s how I roll).
(I’m not opinionated, noooooooooooooooooo! ;p )
2) I’m really, really, really excited. I like event movies, and this is definitely one.
On a related note, any opinions about the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie? It looks quite steampunk to me, for example. I think it’s probably an attempt at an event movie, too, but I don’t expect it to get nearly as many viewers as Iron Man 2.
I’m gonna hafta go with Really, Really Excited. I watched the trailer a few times, then immediately went downstairs and popped in the first movie again.
Oscar nominated nuns:
Off the top of my head, Audry Hepburn for A Nun’s Story, Whoopi Goldberg played a nun but did not get an oscer nom for it. She got the oscar nom for Ghost, I think. And didn’t Susan Surrandon get nomited for her portrayal of a nun in Dead Man Walking?
Same line as Whoopi Goldberg: Sally Field was The Flying Nun and won an Academy Award for Norma Rae (thank you Wikipedia)
Guys, the last Oscar-nominated nun was Meryl Streep for Doubt—LAST YEAR. Sarandon won for Dead Man Walking in 95.
I am really, really excited. I don’t generally enjoy action movies or superhero movies, but RDJ and all the construction porn get me over that hump for Iron Man.
@Clio: you’re correct. But I should have prefaced “not for EEEEVIL nuns.”
Julie Andrews was nominated for best actress in The Sound of Music in 1965, but I guess she wasn’t really nunning it up for most of the movie…
Hey now! Fantasia 2000 is freaking great. The Space Whales? The Hirschfeld homage? The bit in the Steadfast Tin Soldier one where he falls into the harbor? Did I mention the SPACE WHALES?! Come on.
1) Nooooo. . . Not Oscars for Comedies. . . It would mean telling someone that a movie was not funny. . . and ellipses rarely impart comedic timing to a sentence.
2) Let me put it this way (and this is also for Gab up there): I want to see, at the end of the movie, Sherlock Holmes strap himself into a steampunk Iron Man suit and fly out the roof of Scotland Yard. With the theme blasting in the background.
Tell me that wouldn’t be AWESOME! I dare you.
I think the reason the Academy doesn’t give a seperate award for comedy is because, for every “Annie Hall” (last honest-to-God comedy to win Best Picture) there are a dozen “Freddy Got Fingered”s out there begging for the same honor. Plus, the Oscar crowd are snobs, if your name is hard to pronounce and your performance redefines “melodramatic” they fall all over themselves to reward you. But God help you if your movie has a dick joke or two, or twenty, in it.
To my thinking, drama is much, much easier to pull off than comedy. The best movies find a way to mix the two (which is why I really liked “Funny People”, even if the rest of America didn’t). At the root of comedy there is usually some pain, and so in order to be funny you have to confront that pain and literally laugh in the face of it.
One more notable death this week was screenwriter Dan O’Bannon who penned “Alien”, “Heavy Meal”, “Return of the Living Dead” and “Total Recall.” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0639321/news
Also – really, really excited for Iron Man 2, including Mickey Rourke’s Russian accent!
@Greg: I really enjoy steampunk, so that sounds made of awesome. It’s why I totally dug “greats” like _Wild Wild West_ and _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_, even though every critic and review said I shouldn’t have.
Trevor: “At the root of comedy there is usually some pain, and so in order to be funny you have to confront that pain and literally laugh in the face of it.” Poetry.
@Trevor: I’ve found that the best comedic actors can also handle drama fairly well. Will Smith has been good in his dramatic roles; Bill Murray was perfect in Lost in Translation; even Adam Sandler was good in Punch-Drunk Love. A sense of the absurd really helps in portraying nuanced feeling.
@Lisa: I saw that too late for it to make the post. Also a notable loss.
Jennifer Jones!