God bless her, Mo’Nique accepted her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for “Precious” with: “First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”

If that were true! Mo’Nique was referring to the comments that came with her refusal to do publicity – like a Boston Herald interview – in conjunction with her film’s release because she was simultaneously launching her own TV talk show.  The word was that she was destroying her chance of being nominated, much less winning, by not “campaigning.”  Yet she’s won virtually every award in this category.

What’s apparent after last night is that shiny, glistening, much desired Oscar has to carry a lot of weight on his little gold shoulders. “Avatar” may be the kind of movie that causes people to part with cash and go see it in a movie theater, “Avatar” may involve an incredibly complex filmmaking apparatus that employs hundreds of people and years of effort and technological breakthroughs and it may be the most “auteur” film of this or any year since Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut went to that Great Cinema in the Sky (the one where Jeff Bridges was looking when he talked about his mom and dad onstage). But it lost to a movie a lot of people have never heard of, much less seen: “The Hurt Locker,” which in the grand Hollywood tradition is a “dark” movie – its subject is a bomb removal squad in Iraq – with a “happy” ending – the hero is still alive at the closing credits. “Precious,” another “dark” movie involving poverty, incest, AIDS and societal oppression, might have gone straight to DVD it was announced at the Spirit Awards Friday night (where it won best picture, director and actress and supporting actress) had it not been for the intervention of two moguls: Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey who “presented” it to the public and gave it a berth to be seen. “Precious” you might remember ends in 1987 with its teenaged heroine infected with AIDS. This is a couple of years before the antiviral medicines arrived and gave HIV/AIDS patients a chance at living regular lives. Precious could very well be dead before then but “Precious” the movie, like “Hurt Locker,” ends on an upbeat, happy note. This is all, sorry Mo’Nique, politics and in the best Hollywood tradition.

Dark subjects with positive messages, little movies that matter.

Even Kathryn Bigelow’s win as the first woman to receive a Best Director Academy Award is tinged with gender politics, a fact acknowledged by the Academy’s decision to have Barbra Streisand, twice denied a Best Director nomination (for “Yentl” and “Prince of Tides”), present the Oscar. We can now look at Streisand’s non-nominations as sexist – wasn’t she criticized for the very things that James Cameron is hailed for today as a “genius”? – the perfectionism, the inability to do just one thing, direct, when instead they control every other aspect of production. So we can say, “It’s about time” for a Bigelow to win.  For a “Hurt Locker” to beat the mighty box-office behemoth “Avatar” and for Hollywood to try to do the right thing.

As for the show itself, it was too long (as usual), the direction was often awful but the hosts, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, were fun in the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby tradition of trading insults and quips. Who decided to shoot “from Indiana” (as a friend complained) every celebrity who introduced one of the ten Best Picture nominated clips?  Did you know that was Samuel L. Jackson because you recognized his voice?  Or Kathy Bates?  You certainly couldn’t see any of them.

Similarly, the tribute presentation to those who have died in the past year, including Patrick Swayze, Brittany Murphy and Kathryn Grayson, was marred by bad direction – the camera was too far away “in Indiana” at both the beginning and the end. It’s sad when the Motion Picture Academy doesn’t honor its own as well as Turner Classic Movies does with its year-end salute to the departed.

While the Oscar show dropped the Best Song presentations – and this year there were at least three that would have been fun to hear out of the five including “The Weary Kind” which won – what possessed Oscar producers to mount a dance presentation of the nominated Best Scores! And again film it “from Indiana”?

Having five associates praise the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees was a bit like watching the Cecil B. DeMille Award tribute at the Golden Globes.  Sweet but squirmy.

It was a night curiously minus much emotion. The only time I really got choked up was when a dignified and eloquent Sandra Bullock talked about Helga, her late mother, and held back the tears.  And what was the story on George Clooney throwing her into a pool?  A prankster, a notorious prankster we are led to believe, it seems there is a gag order on anyone on a Clooney set every saying anything about his shenanigans.  Backstage, asked to explain it, Bullock demurred, saying “Ask George.”

Speaking of mysteries, WHAT was Sean Penn talking about when he came out?

It was beautiful to see a teenager like Miley Cyrus excuse herself onstage in her grown-up gown and admit she was nervous. It was beautiful to see the unabashed excitement and genuine glee Gabourey Sidibe had for this “Hollywood prom” as she called it.

The John Hughes tribute worked exactly as it should and it was amazing to see so many of those faces in his movies.  I couldn’t help but wonder if the “Twilight” pair in the audience, 19 year old Kristen Stewart (lovely minus any jewelry) and 17 year old Taylor Lautner, gazed at the Hughes veterans onstage – among them Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, Judd Reinhold – and asked themselves, In 20 years will I be a has-been or still working?

The horror tribute was just odd – and seemingly pointless. As for having Doogie Howser sing and dance for the opening, I guess the Oscars felt if he could help the Tonys and the Emmys, he could help them as well. It wasn’t much of a number but they were right – it kickstarted the show and it’s a shame those dancing girls weren’t brought on at the end to bring down the curtain, so to speak.

Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast – bouncy or boring?
If you figure that we know all the major winners, with no suspense or surprises, it’s going to be slog.  I do expect that there will be a dancing production number, probably for the opening.  As for the rumor of a month ago that a mysterious third host would join Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, that’s been forgotten.  But for the “It’s Complicated” costars and hosts, if there really is a surprise third at some point, could it be Meryl Streep? 

The consensus is that these are the sure fire winners:
Actor – Jeff Bridges
Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz
Actress – Sandra Bullock
Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique
Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino
Adapted Screenplay – Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Animated Feature -  “Up”
Director – Katherine Bigelow
Foreign Language Film – “The White Ribbon”
Documentary Feature – “The Cove”
Song – “The Weary Kind”
Score – “Up”

The only real race then, if the above do fall into place, is the final Oscar to be given for Best Picture.  Will it be for “Avatar,” which has shown that studios can still gamble, back an auteur and win?  Or will it be “The Hurt Locker,” a powerful, low-budget, no-stars independent production about a subject that even with critics’ unstinting praise few (relatively speaking) want to see?

Film critic Elvis Mitchell was interviewed Friday night on CNN (I believe it was CNN) and he remarked how much fun it was when Chris Rock went to Magic Johnson’s Theater and asked regular moviegoers if they knew any of the people or movies that had been nominated that night.  It was hilarious for us the viewers to see that no one did.  It was downright uncomfortable for the Academy members sitting in the Kodak Theater’s seats to see how the best of the year was so removed from mainstream moviegoing.  This year’s change with 10 Best Picture nominees was supposed to herald a way for the Academy to connect the Oscars with moviegoers.  Will it?  That’s just one of the reasons I’m hoping “Avatar” takes home the gold.

As readers of this blog know, my favorite film and favorite female performance of the year remain “An Education” and Carey Mulligan.  I don’t expect either to go home winners Sunday night.  But wait, isn’t “just being nominated” winning enough!

First, “The Hurt Locker” producer is banned from the Oscar ceremony for his rotten email asking voters to ignore the “$500 million” movie.  Now more “Avatar” dustup with Sacha Baron Cohen and Ben Stiller’s skit dropped from the show by producer Bill Mechanic so as allegedly not to offend James Cameron.  What next? 

Why is no one protesting the fact that an actor like Christophe Waltz CANNOT be nominated as Best Supporting Actor for “Inglorious Basterds” AND as Best Actor for the same movie when the Disney/Pixar “Up” CAN be nominated as Best Picture AND Best Animated Picture.  Not only does it not make sense, it’s inconsistent!

“Party Animals”
Since it’s Oscar time and having just been to a marvellous party – Michael Musto’s 25th anniversary Tuesday night bash for his work as the Village Voice’s leading columnist – it seems appropriate to talk about Robert Hofler’s latest biography, the just published “Party Animals.”

Today’s Boston Herald quotes Hofler on Oscar disasters but that is only part of the fun and horror found in this Life & Times of Allan Carr, a chubby gay guy from Illinois who was bright, ambitious, manipulative, self destructive, generous and creepy.  Carr managed Ann-Margret in the late ‘60s and turned her career around.  He took a cheapo Mexican movie that was just godawful about the Andes plane crash with the rugby team who had to resort to eating their dead comrades to stay alive and dubbed it, gave it a new title Survive! and had a smash summer hit.  From there he went on to take the long running but no respect Broadway musical “Grease” and refashioned it to fit his own high school experiences, got a BeeGee to write a new title song and produced the highest grossing movie musical since “The Sound of Music.”

Then came the downfall(s).  Carr did a sequel to “Grease” that bombed.  He took the Village People who had already peaked and bombed big time with “Can’t Stop the Music.”  He produced the 1989 Oscar telecast and found himself, the town’s premiere party giver, suddenly persona non grata for a broadcast that became synonymous with “live television disaster.” (See today’s paper).

Oh yes, Carr did manage to get Jerry Herman (music, lyrics) and Harvey Fierstein (book) to take the French stage hit “La Cage aux Folles” and transform it into a smash Broadway musical that is being revived this season with Kelsey Grammar.  But as Hofler vividly recounts with backstage gossip, intricate details of financial deals and first-hand accounts of Carr’s numerous sexcapades and coke-driven parties, Allan Carr was his own worst enemy.  Rotund, one of the first to have his stomach stapled – and later his jaw wired shut – Carr was a man of excess.  There is pathos in his lusting for the straight guys he often cast in his movies like Maxwell Caulfield in “Grease 2” or Russell Todd in “Where the Boys Are 84.”  Ultimately it’s a cautionary Hollywood story:  Beware what you wish for; you may get it and it will kill you.

Berlin supports filmmaker vs. Iran
God bless the Berlin Film Festival for their unstinting support of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi who has been under house arrest since last month when he was to attend the 60th anniversary of the festival and appear on a panel.  Here is the official statement:

The Berlin International Film Festival protests against the arrest of Iranian director Jafar Panahi. With his film The Circle, Panahi won the Golden Lion in 2000; and with Offside, the Silver Bear in 2006. Prior to his arrest, Panahi had been denied permission to leave his home country for Berlin, where he was to be an honorary guest of the 60th Berlinale and, within the scope of the World Cinema Fund, participate in a panel discussion on the topic “Iranian Cinema: Present and Future. Expectations Inside and Outside of Iran”.

“We are concerned and dismayed that a director who has won many international prizes has been arrested due to his work as an artist,” commented Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick.
 Press Office
  March 3, 2010

Pierce Brosnan’s certainly on a roll.  “The Ghost Writer,” easily destined for year end 10 Best lists and a new peak for writer-director Roman Polanski, has given him the best reviews of a remarkable career.  He’s charming, magnetic and a bit scary as Adam Lang, the former British Prime Minister implicated in a rendition and torture scandal while in office who is being picketed by angry protesters and who lives in a not quite cozy bubble in America, far he’d hoped from his English woes, with his security staff, high strung wife and perhaps mistress/secretary. 

Then there’s his memoir that needs to be quickly finished as an image polishing job.  That’s where the titular ghost writer enters.  Lang’s long time associate who had the job has died under what may be mysterious circumstances – or even possibly a suicide.  A London meeting of Lang’s lawyer ends up with Ewan McGregor’s financially strapped writer getting the job – and for McGregor, another career-best role and performance.

For Brosnan this Hitchcockian sure to be hit is just the start.  I’ve seen “Remember Me” which opens on the 12th and he’s every bit as accomplished and memorable as the rich lawyer/divorced father of Robert Pattinson’s troubled son.  There’s a boardroom encounter between the two that is all snap, crackle and a huge Pop!  You’ll remember it well. 

“Remember Me” is a cross between “Love Story” with Pattinson the rich collegiate in love with the cop’s daughter played by Emilie de Ravin and “East of Eden,” where Pattinson’s son is unabashed in his emotional turmoil and desperate to forge a link with his father.  Boldly melodramatic, “Remember Me,” directed by Allen Coulter from a debut screenplay by U. of Delaware grad Will Fetters, is impeccably played by a cast that includes Oscar winner Chris Cooper as de Ravin’s widower dad, Lena Olin as Pattinson’s remarried mother, Kate Burton as Brosnan’s devoted assistant and an amazing child named Ruby Jerins as Pattinson’s baby sister.  It’s going to cause many people to reconsider Pattinson.

Ghastly “Alice”
As a longtime fan of Tim Burton’s I was eager to see his new “Alice in Wonderland.”  I left wondering what happened – and who exactly is this for?  Certainly not young girls, despite the PG rating.  Burton has taken the structure of “The Wizard of Oz” and merged it with Narnia’s “Prince Caspian” in the weirdest way possible and made a Goth war movie that is unpleasant as it is spectacular.  I imagine teenaged boys who love violent videogames may find it irresistible. 

There’s nothing wrong with the ample budget creating an amazing array of creatures, including the Cheshire Cat, the opium smoking caterpillar, the Dormouse, March Hare, White Rabbit and an agreeably fat pig used by the Red Queen as a foot rest.  But Anne Hathaway looks a fright as the White Queen. And having Wonderland be a forbidden forest with dragons, dragoons  of red playing card soldiers and the nonstop, frenetic violence?  The wonder is lost, all charm is abandoned and tedium soon sets in.

I’m getting a bad feeling about the Oscars.  Isn’t this America, land of the free?  What, I wonder, is this dictate to all potential Academy Award winners about their acceptance speeches?  A dictate that tells them NOT to thank certain people as well as the usual “Let’s keep it short”?  Are we in Communist China already? 

I sat with Anders Ostergaard last Thursday at a midtown Manhattan lunch to celebrate his Oscar nomination for his first-rate documentary “Burma VJ.”’One of the five Best Feature length Documentaries of 2009, “Burma VJ” has already won over 40 film festival prizes around the world. Ostergaard assembled and recreated certain scenes in the dramatic story of how an underground rebellion is fighting the country’s draconian military dictatorship.  On my right at the lunch was the Honorable U Gawsita, a Burmese monk in exile with his translator, who is allowed only one full meal daily as part of his religious duties.  Burma, next to Thailand and now known as Myanmar, had an uprising in 2007 against the regime’s 40 odd years of repression.  The military had shut down the internet, banned foreign journalists but VJs – video journalists – that were part of the underground collective known as the Democratic Voice of Burma surreptitiously recorded with handycams everything they saw and smuggled those reports out, often at great peril and risk of prison and torture.  Ostergaard took the material and turned it into the stirring “Burma VJ.”

Thrilled, naturally, to be nominated, Ostergaard told me he had attended the nominees lunch where all the  honorees assemble for a photo and where they were given their marching orders come Oscar night, which is less than two weeks away now: March 7.  “There will be a ‘Thank You Camera’ backstage,” he told me, where winners can say their heartfelt thanks to their agents, managers and whomever else they feel got them to the podium to be given Hollywood’s golden guy.  But what’s the point really?  No one tells the A list talent what to say; they will do what they want when they get up there.  Doesn’t it seem downright cruel in order to save ten minutes in a lengthy broadcast with a dictate when for most of these winners, this will be the only Oscar they will ever get in their entire lives?

“Shutter” scores
SPOILERS are coming!
I was so happily surprised to enjoy Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” when I finally caught the film at its world premiere last week at the 60th Berlin Film Festival.  I really really didn’t care for Dennis Lehane’s book and, frankly, I didn’t remember exactly how it ended so the movie was pretty much a fresh experience.  In Berlin Scorsese noted how he was moved to tears when he came to the last three lines in the screenplay adaptation, which differ from Lehane’s book.  I could not agree more; “Shutter Island” packs its punch entirely in its last 10 minutes.  I understand that one of the good things about this last minute reversal is people come out and though strangers talk to each other about WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN?  WHAT HAPPENED?

Here’s my take:  Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) thinks he has come to the island sanitarium for the violent, criminally insane to find a missing woman, a patient.  He goes on the run during a storm, meets various patients and in a cave finally finds the escapee who tells him that here in this hospital patients who don’t get better are given lobotomies, which means a cord in their brain is surgically severed and they are left peaceful but broken.  Teddy finds at the climax that HE is not a Federal Marshal investigating a woman’s disappearance but a patient, a war veteran and federal marshal, who has been in therapy for years and has been in denial about killing his wife.  Teddy’s elaborate mission with his partner (Mark Ruffalo) is really kind of a psyche game with his psychiatrist (Ruffalo) acting out the role of ‘partner’ to jolt Teddy out of his denial and have him face the facts that there is no missing patient, that he killed his wife because he feels guilty that he knew she was disturbed and yet he left her alone and she murdered their three children.  The hospital director (Ben Kingsley) tells Teddy:  This is your last chance to come to your senses.  If we cannot jolt you to accept the reality of what’s happened, then you will be lobotomized.  Teddy sleeps on that ultimatum.  The next day as he sits on the porch steps with his shrink he reverts back to his form, speaking as if he is a fed come to search for the missing patient with his partner.  His shrink gestures to the director that their last minute try didn’t work and the lobotomy will now take place. As he gets ready to walk into the surgery Teddy says, “Isn’t it better to die a good man than to live as a monster?” which is an acknowledgement that he KNOWS what’s going to happen, he KNOWS that everything we’ve seen has been a delusion and yet he cannot live with the guilt of his innocent children’s deaths.

There is another SPOILER coming now.
“Dear John” is nowhere near as convoluted as “Shutter Island” but an interesting thing happened with this Screen Gems hit based on the Nicholas Sparks novel.  When the press attended the L.A. junket four weeks before the film opened two weeks ago, the lovers played by Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum had a meeting at the movie’s end to talk about what happened.  Tatum’s John had taken his inheritance and sent it anonymously to her so that her dying husband (Henry Thomas, long grown up since “E.T.”) could have experimental cancer treatment.  The treatments have given him we are told “a few more months” and so John leaves, knowing that he still loves her and that she is caring for her husband.  It is very bittersweet and I understand it followed Sparks’ outline.

But journalists being not cynics but romantics repeatedly at the director asked director Lasse Halstrom and the two photogenic stars WHY couldn’t they get together?  It did seem a little creepy to hope that the husband would die but hey! Everyone likes a happy wedding.  Surprise! (or not, depending on your view of Hollywood filmmaking) “Dear John” arrived in theaters with a new ending, one where the husband has indeed died and a “One year later” coda set in Paris has John and his true love meet and talk and presumably walk off into the sunset together as God and not Nicholas Sparks meant them to.  I can only imagine the future remake of “Splendor in the Grass” and its hauntingly bittersweet finish with this kind of mentality in force today.