And La La Land Wins 7, No, 6, No, Wait....

By Steve Evans

So I predicted La La Land would take nine out of 14 Oscars and it won seven. Then dropped to six. Do whut now?

It was the most bizarre event I’ve seen in a lifelong love affair with the cinema. If it had happened in a movie, I would have shouted in disbelief. I’m certainly glad that Moonlight was the rightful winner – it’s a beautiful and worthy film – though La La Land is more my style.

Last night’s climactic events were surreal. As it all unraveled, Warren Beatty, who turns 80 next month, had an expression like he’d just farted loudly in church. Faye Dunaway, almost unrecognizable from her indulgence in plastic surgery, refused to discuss the matter with entertainment media during the Governor’s Ball afterparty. The accounting firm Price Waterhouse Cooper, which has been handling the voting results for 83 of Oscar’s 89 years, issued an apology and accepted responsibility, though it remains unclear how this happened. You don’t hand the presenting talent the wrong envelope as they’re headed to the podium. You just don’t. You verify what the hell you’re doing.

There wouldn’t be all this secret envelope stuff in the first place if the LA Times hadn’t violated a 1940 embargo by publishing the winners in an early edition of the paper before the ceremony had begun. Now, this was an Oscars ceremony for films released in 1939, widely considered the greatest year for motion pictures during the Golden Age of Hollywood. The stars (and anyone with a telephone or radio) already knew who won before the first award was announced. Some suspense.

But back to last night. Host Jimmy Kimmel looked like he was ready to die. Half a dozen production and accounting people with headsets scrambling around the stage like cockroaches with the lights coming on. And how awful I feel for everyone involved with La La Land and Moonlight. Imagine going onstage thinking you’ve won the most significant film award in the world only to be told, no, whoopsie, there’s been a mistake. An epic fuckup, as it turns out. Imagine thinking you haven’t won, then you have – and feeling that whipsaw of emotion that cuts into what should fairly be one of the greatest moments of your life.

We live in strange times.

In watching the 11th hour fiasco unfold early this morning, it struck me that Americans have now won a dubious Triple Crown of weirdness. Until last night, not in my lifetime has the presidency, a Super Bowl and the Academy Awards all in the same year been decided by sudden-death overtime with disappointing results.

Expect La La Land to Win 9

By Steve Evans

My inevitable Oscar breakdown...

I’m going with La La Land to win 9 Oscars this evening -- including Best Picture -- out of a record-tying 14 nominations (equaled only by All About Eve and Titanic, both of which won Best Picture -- for 1950 and 1997).

Also tossing off the bold prediction that La La Land will be the first film since Silence of the Lambs (1991) to win the top 5 – picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. It's a charming and ridiculously romantic throwback to the Hollywood musicals of yesteryear, though the unsentimental ending is probably essential for it to be a serious Best Picture contender in this dark and cynical year of 2017.

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and Denzel Washington (Fences) are seen as frontrunners for Best Actor, but Denzel's won twice already and his latest work is essentially a filmed play with non-stop exposition. It's nothing terribly impressive. Affleck is trying to live down sexual harassment allegations, which don't play well with image-conscious Academy voters. That leaves Ryan Gossling for La La Land.

The only other serious Best Picture contender is Moonlight; not your customary Hollywood fare. A beautiful little film, but well outside the experience of most Academy voters, who adore a flick like La La Land because it reflects their obsessive love of the movie business. Moonlight will have to settle for the nomination. Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge was thrilling and inspirational, though probably too old-fashioned to gain any traction for a win. Arrival is science fiction, and you can count on your thumb the number of times a sci-fi flick won Best Picture. Hidden Figures sanitizes the civl rights struggle behind the story of African American women scientists who led NASA to glory. If it had more bite, it might be a real contender. Hell or High Water is fantastic, but it's a cops-n-robbers genre picture that hasn't found a huge audience, even though it should. I didn't see Lion and don't know anyone who wants to.

So if any film could stage a Best Picture upset -- and really startle the hell out of me this year -- it would be Manchester by the Sea. But god a'mighty, that was an overlong, depressing slog through misery and grief with unlikable characters, especially Affleck's. I'm betting voters have enough of that to endure in real life right now. So sorry, Sullen Casey by the Sea, but you're down and out, and so's your film.

That will delight Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel. Expect him to indulge tonight in his entertaining pseudo-feud with Matt Damon, a producer on Manchester.

My own cross to bear will involve toggling back and forth between The Walking Dead and the Oscars. Both are can't-miss shows for me, though TWD will at least be available for streaming on-demand tomorrow.

Due to the interminable length of the awards ceremony, people may not realize that only 24 Oscars are handed out each year. Yep, we’re talking 30 minutes of intrigue stretched over a four-hour period. You know you’re gonna watch, anyway. Below is a complete list of all nominees by category with my picks marked ***** (((For the last 30 years I’ve averaged an 88 percent accuracy rate so bet with confidence, film fans.))) If you want a sure thing, bank on Emma Stone's win for La La Land. It's all but a done deal.

Here's how I predict the 89th Academy Awards will go down:

=============================

BEST PICTURE

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
*****La La Land*****
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

=============================

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
*****Ryan Gosling, La La Land*****
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

=============================

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
*****Emma Stone, La La Land*****
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

=============================

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

*****Mahershala Ali, Moonlight*****
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

=============================

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
*****Viola Davis, Fences*****
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

=============================

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

*****Kubo and the Two Strings*****
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

=============================

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
*****Silence*****

=============================

COSTUME DESIGN
Allied
*****Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them*****
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

=============================

DIRECTING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
*****La La Land*****
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

=============================

DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

Fire at Sea
*****I Am Not Your Negro*****
Life, Animated
O.J.: Made in America
13th

=============================

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
Extremis
4.1 Miles
*****Joe’s Violin*****
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets

=============================

FILM EDITING
Arrival
*****Hacksaw Ridge*****
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight
=============================

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine
A Man Called Ove
*****The Salesman*****
Tanna
Toni Erdmann

=============================

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
*****Suicide Squad*****

=============================

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Jackie
*****La La Land*****
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers

=============================

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
*****"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" from La La Land*****
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

"Can’t Stop The Feeling" from Trolls
Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster

"City Of Stars" from La La Land
Music by Justin Hurwitz; Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

"The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting

"How Far I’ll Go" from Moana
Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda

=============================

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
*****La La Land*****
Passengers

=============================

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

*****Blind Vaysha*****
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper

=============================

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Ennemis Intérieurs
La Femme et le TGV
*****Silent Nights*****
Sing
Timecode

=============================

SOUND EDITING
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
*****La La Land*****
Sully

=============================

SOUND MIXING
Arrival
*****Hacksaw Ridge*****
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

=============================

VISUAL EFFECTS
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
*****The Jungle Book*****
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

=============================

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
*****Moonlight*****

=============================

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Hell or High Water
*****La La Land*****
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
20th Century Women

Those Goofy Golden Globes

By Steve Evans

Let's not Monday morning quarterback last night's Golden Globes, beyond the observation that the awards remain the biggest con job in Hollywood. Most everyone knows the Hollywood Foreign Press Association controls the outcome of this lesser event (Oscar is still the gold standard, naturally). Fewer may realize that the Globes are chosen on the votes of less-than-100 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press. They are hardly arbiters of taste or quality in the cinematic and television arts. Yes, but the Globes deliver something the Oscars do not: a looser atmosphere fueled by an open bar. Through the years I've seen celebs stoned as monkeys during this show. Liz Taylor was trashed at the 2001 awards. Jack Nicholson stuck his ass out at the audience three years later during his acceptance speech for About Schmidt.

This is all a jolly lark, of course, and makes for good television (you can still check out Liz and Jack on YouTube), but the idiosyncratic nature of  the HFPA makes the Globes a lousy bellweather for the Academy Awards.

Although La La Land took a record 7 Globes last night, Moonlight will win the Oscar for Best Picture on Feb. 26. This is a political reality as certain as Meryl Streep dissing some asshole who was elected president by a bunch of -- yep -- gullible assholes.

Trump is an easy, though deserving, target. Whether Moonlight deserves to win Best Picture next month is a separate issue from the fact that it's going to win -- because Hollywood will have to deal with the banshee screaming that will result if it doesn't.

Let me be clear: I absolutely agree that Hollywood can do a better job of inclusion by employing people of all creeds, races and persuasions both in front of and behind the camera. I reject the notion that entertainment awards should have a quota system so that X number of minorities or other underrepresented groups are sure to get an Oscar. If films and talent cannot win on merit, then let's abolish awards.

And yet a boorish buffoon has won the presidency in the absence of merit, talent, appeal or even basic human decency. Is it obscene to compare silly awards to the Democratic process? Perhaps not if we drill down to a common motivation between the HFPA and the president-elect. It is this:

The Hollywood Foreign Press, ever-slick as weasel shit, manages to avoid hot-button issues of racism, sexism and quota-based awards by maintaining a ludicrous number of award categories, though especially the top two. They gave Best Drama to Moonlight and Best Comedy or Musical to La La Land. Equal, safe and predictable. Everybody goes home happy after the Globes. By eschewing controversy while allowing celebrities an open mic to blabber drunkenly about whatever comes to mind, the people behind the Globes last night not only solidified their reputation for irrelevance but managed to underline it at least three times, all for the sake of ratings and their own unquenchable thirst for self-aggrandizement. What irks me today is how they reveal themselves to be similar to the scary clown soon to take the oath of office. Whether you're the purveyor of a hokey awards show or a billionaire con artist, it's all about money and attention. Always has been. Dare I say, always will be.

The Golden Globes have nothing to do with Amy Adams' cleavage -- or anything else, truth be told

By Steve Evans

Three days later and the entertainment media is still babbling about the Golden Globes ceremony. Yawn.

The Golden Globes are a waste of time, unless you’re up for an award and want a complimentary night on the town. Nominees go to the ceremony because there’s an open bar and free dinner involved, and they get their collective asses kissed, which feeds those egos. The steady flow of liquor traditionally translates into much amusement; the Internet is rife with videos of Jack Nicholson and Elizabeth Taylor getting roaring drunk and having themselves a big time during the Golden Globes festivities. The Globes might afford some networking/schmoozing opportunities, as well, for stars looking for their next project.

Through inspired PR and relentless self-aggrandizement, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which chooses Golden Globe winners, has built itself into a perception of worth that simply belies the reality. I doubt if many people watching the awards know the first thing about the organization behind them.

It is this: the HFPA consists of less than 90 members who vote on these awards. They are foreign journalists who live in Southern California and write about the film industry for entertainment media in the far-flung corners of the world. That’s right, 90 people whose combined worldwide readership, by the way, is smaller than the population of the United States. At least 20 percent smaller. This information is readily available on the HFPA website. It doesn't take much digging to realize the Golden Globes are the most over-inflated event of movie awards season.

Yes, fewer than 90 people. That’s hardly a reliable barometer of artistic merit.

For a simple comparison, there are 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which of course awards the Oscars in March.

Aside from the occasional entertainment of watching Hollywood royalty get silly drunk at the Golden Globes ceremony, I cannot imagine any intelligent person giving a damn about this bloated event.

I mention all this solely because it’s boring to see the fuss being made over an organization hardly deserving of the attention.

The fun-loving hipsters at HitFix have compiled a video slide-show of great drunken moments at the Golden Globes through the years, good for a free laff.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2014 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Howling hurrah for Wolf of Wall Street

By Steve Evans

Martin Scorsese's new film The Wolf of Wall Street is getting some serious love on the cusp of awards season. Variety reports audiences howling with approval during early screenings.

Lotsa talk of probable Academy Award nominations for best pic, director and actor (Leo DiCaprio), as well as supporting actor Jonah Hill (!) and possibly adapted screenplay.

Wolf of Wall Street tells the more-or-less true story of disgraced stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who ran a pump and dump scheme in the 1990s to inflate the value of securities and sell them before the market got wise. He was indicted in 1998 on securities fraud, among other charges. After cooperating with the FBI, he served 22 months in a federal prison for his boiler room schemes, which resulted in investor losses of approximately $200 million.

Scorsese reportedly plays the material as comedy, which may be the best way to comment upon and perhaps ridicule the money-obsessed. Here's the second trailer:



Notice the trailer has the same jittery, machine-gun pacing as GoodFellas, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Scorsese's classic gangster film riffed on all the stylistic techniques pioneered by the Nouvelle Vague, then beat the French at their own game. Contemporary cinema could survive another blast of comparable exuberance. In the United States, only Scorsese (and maybe Quentin Tarantino) can convey the wild joy of making movies and telling stories of life lived on the edge through sheer bravado and consummate filmmaking skill.

As per my tradition with Scorsese films, I will be there for Wolf of Wall Street on opening night with a bag of roasted macadamias and a smile. Maybe two bags; the film clocks in a minute shy of three hours, making this Scorsese's longest picture after Casino.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2013 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Oscar Aftermath & a Brief Look at Cinema in 2011

By Steve Evans

Handicapping the Academy Awards can be a fool’s game, as evidenced last night with the Oscars distributed across a slate of wildly different films. The Artist, a French arthouse picture harkening to the silent era and filmed in black and white, came away with five Oscars: for best picture, director Michel Hazanavicius, best actor Jean Dujardin, original musical score and costume design. It was the first silent film since 1929’s Wings to win best picture (in the first year of the Academy Awards) and the first winner shot in the boxlike 4:3 ratio since Marty in 1955. All best picture winners have been filmed in widescreen since Marty.

Francophiles can rejoice. Three of the best picture nominees, The Artist, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, were all period pieces set in France.

The Artist and Hugo are movies about the love of movies. Hugo also won a quintet of Oscars, although in technical categories including cinematography and special effects.

Meryl Streep’s win for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady was expected, although her chances seemed to waver after the film’s producers distributed a reportedly annoying email to the academy’s voting members saying it was “about time” she won again. Streep last received a Best Actress Oscar for Sophie’s Choice in 1982.

I correctly predicted wins for Alexander Payne and Woody Allen in the best adapted and best original screenplay categories, respectively, for The Descendants and Midnight in Paris. George Clooney had been the odds-on favorite to win Best Actor for The Descendants, but left the Hollywood and Highland Center auditorium sporting only a classical tuxedo and dignified smile.

Terence Malick’s Tree of Life, a challenging and beautifully shot film about nothing less than all creation and life itself, was shut out of the Oscars. I saw this mesmerizing film last summer on its original run and about a third of the audience walked out before the credits, scratching their heads. I suspect academy voters did, too. This is depressing since film artists working within the studio system may be less likely to push the boundaries of the medium if they believe their efforts will go unrewarded. While many Indie films continue to challenge audiences, the very nature of independent cinema has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years. Now independent productions are often viewed as a testing ground for aspiring filmmakers who want to win festival prizes that catch the attention of the major leagues in Hollywood. Many independent pictures screen like calling cards from directors who yearn for greater things.

This, of course, misses the point of producing independent cinema, where lower budgets and lesser known actors can take chances with minimal risk.

Here, then, is an apt segue on the state of film: Minimizing risk is what show business is all about. Last year produced a record 28 films that were sequels to earlier hits. Of the top 10 highest-grossing movies in 2011, nine of them were sequels. The final Harry Potter installment topped the list with $1.3 billion in worldwide revenues, followed by Michael Bay’s third Transformers film, and the fourth entries in the Pirates of the Caribbean, Twilight and Mission Impossible franchises. Every single one of them cost more than $175 million to produce and market.

All aesthetic judgements aside, these are the movies most people paid to see in 2011. All are heavy on special effects, with thin, merely serviceable scripts. Story takes a back seat to spectacle and furious, multi-channel sound.

The Artist was shot on a budget of approximately $15 million and produced returns of not-quite $73 million, according to figures from Box Office Mojo. This take represents only 13 percent of the box office produced by Disney/Pixar’s poorly-reviewed Cars 2, which ranked 10th in highest grossing films last year.

Arthouse pictures give Hollywood a thin patina of artistic respectability, but when it comes to bankrolling big movies, studios still place their bets on the sure thing. This is why you can look forward to another Spiderman movie this year, another Batman adventure, a second GI Joe action flick, the final installment of the Twilight series, a remake of Total Recall with Colin Farrell in the Schwarzenegger role, a remake of The Great Gatsby with Leonardo Di Caprio stepping into Robert Redford’s shoes in the title role, a film adaptation of the videogame Halo and, yes, another Godzilla picture.

I could ramble on another six paragraphs, but there are plenty of websites that list the slate of pictures scheduled for release in 2012. If you can find half a dozen original films about something – anything – you’ve never seen before, kindly let me know.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2012 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Academy Announces 2011 Oscar Noms

By Steve Evans

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 2011 Oscar nominations this morning. No big surprises in the noms, but some potentially serious upsets could be in the making on awards night Feb. 27.

Nominees in the main categories:

Best Picture: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

Director: Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, Tom Hooper, David Fincher, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Best actor: Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Firth, James Franco

Best actress: Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, John Hawkes, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Geoffrey Rush

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, Helena Bonham Carter, Melissa Leo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jackie Weaver

Thoughts & predictions:

Whew! That’s a lot of nominations for best picture. Wanna bet the academy expanded the roster to help the box office of more films? Although The King's Speech leads the race with 12 nominations, my Best Picture money is on The Social Network, David Fincher’s insightful commentary on the creation of Facebook by drunken Harvard students, one of whom became a billionaire. Fincher lost his bid for best director with Benjamin Button two years back, so I suspect this is his year for Oscar gold. His only serious competition is Aronofsky, whose output is thin and spotty. If Aronofsky couldn't win for The Wrestler (2008) he won't likely win for Black Swan, which is a lesser film and wildly overrated. The Coen Brothers won with No Country for Old Men only three years ago, so the Academy will give those boys a rest. Russell and Hooper are perennial also-rans who'll have to be content with nominations.

I’ll take Colin Firth to win the Best Actor category. James Franco hacking off his own arm in 127 hours could be the upset of the night.

Best Actress is dicey. Natalie Portman as an unhinged ballerina in Black Swan is the crowd pleaser this year. That must really irritate Annette Bening, who’s staring down her third nomination after losing twice in the last decade to Hilary Swank.

Supporting Actor? Geoffrey Rush as an Aussie elocution expert in The King’s Speech.

And Helena Bonham Carter takes supporting actress for The King’s Speech, which will also cop a screenplay Oscar.

Toy Story 3 takes Best Animated Film.

Christopher Nolan’s tricky mindbender Inception wins for special effects and sound effects.

What?! Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island gets no Oscar love? Christopher Nolan gets snubbed, again, in his quest for a directing Oscar yet his picture, Inception, gets nominated? The Academy Awards are becoming almost as silly as the Golden Globes.

You heard it here first, film fans.

Cinema Uprising copyright c 2011 by Stephen B. Evans. All rights reserved.