The 50 Best Film Ensembles with Adam Spector: Part I

What makes a great ensemble? A small slice of awards season is focused on a best ensemble award (which is gravely misunderstood) but there’s not a lot of actual discussion on ensembles which is why after mulling over a few ideas to explore this topic (there’s a poll I’ve been running as well), and settling on a cross-blogging project with my friend Adam Spector of Adam’s Rib. We each independently listed our fifty favorite film ensembles and will have four rounds of discussion as we reveal our lists from bottom to top. Over the course of the series, the hope is to point out surreptitious strokes in casting; explore the way films are enhanced by actors on the bench; appreciate how certain groups of actors bounce off each other in a way to be more than the sum of their parts; and remember how certain actors in the background enhance our favorite films. In other words, we'll discover what a great ensemble is as we go along:

UPDATE: Part II here, Part III is here and here
Adam's list 31-50
31.   Juno (2007) 32.   Day for Night (1973) 33.   Citizen Kane (1941) 34.   Grand Hotel (1932) 35.   Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) 36.   Murder on the Orient Express (1974) 37.   Bonnie and Clyde (1969) 38.   Love Actually (2003) 39.   Prairie Home Companion (2006) 40.   Slacker (1991)  41.   Breaking Away (1978) 42.   Stand by Me (1986) 43.   The Princess Bride (1987) 44.   City of God  (2002) 45.   LA Confidential (1997) 46.   Big Lebowski (1998) 47.   Office Space  (1999) 48.   Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) 49.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 50. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Orrin's Reaction:

Citizen Kane is obviously a masterpiece, but I feel like Magneficient Ambersons is the better ensemble. While Citizen Kane pretty much highlights a  single great performance, Magnificent Ambersons is a much more even-keeled piece and brings stars such as Anne Baxter and Tim Holt on board. It also allows Agnes Moorehead and Joseph Cotten more screen time and those guys are both kind of wasted in Citizen Kane. For me, Cotten (a native Virginian! 804 represent!) is the man who symbolized his era more than Welles as an actor. 

If I had to choose a Coen Brothers film, Fargo would take the cake over Big Lebowski. It was the more respected film before sun-dried West Coast pot aficionados (and wannabes alike) made this film not just a cult classic but a cult in its own right. In terms of the ensemble, the oddball criminal roles of Jerry Lundegaard and Carl Showalter feel like roles that Steve Buscemi and William H. Macy (neither conventionally good looking guys) are born to play and Frances McDormand is simply enormous in this Oscar-winning role (deservedly so). 

On the other hand, it's nice to see Philip Seymour Hoffman pop up during that period in his filmography where he could do no wrong with his script choices and if you like seeing John Goodman go over the top, it will never get better than this. I concede that these performances all work and if the comedy is as sweet for you as it is for the Lebowski heads, then this film works based on the performances, but I wonder if you're not being too caught up in the cult status of the film when comparing this to other Coen brothers films.

It's been too long since I've seen The Princess Bride (around 5th grade) but I agree it's a good comic choice when you consider physicality: There are a lot of different textures of comic actors with different stylings and the way they cast for size (If I'm not mistaken, there's a giant character in there as well as some very scrawny characters) is pretty effective in contrast. That Cary Elwes didn't have much of a career after this, makes his performances here more iconic as he's so well cast as an Errol Flynn type. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one that I have on my list as well. How can you not? The leads both won well-deserved Oscars so it's hard to argue against them, and the supporting class includes Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd in roles that really seem very un-DeVito and un-Christopher-Lloyd which takes on more meaning because I don't think audiences in 1975 had a way of knowing that DeVito and Lloyd would both establish strong screen personas: the former as a seedy (sometimes curmudgeonly) lowlife, and the latter as a wide-eyed crazy guy. And then Brad Dourif is really something else here.

Juno might be there if I expanded the list although I have trouble praising Michael Cera in anything. In particular, the way people bounce off each other is interesting. The uber-hip Ellen Page character contrasts extremely well against the famously gruff J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (and by the way, thank you for spelling out that name so I don't have to look it up) fits perfectly as a pragmatic middle ground in an understated role. Similarly, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner are roughly the same age and have generally played hippish yuppie types but there's a tension between them and their ultimate mismatch grows evident. They are a parallel to the Janney-Simmons pairing on the surface but a theme her is that relationships aren't just about surface-level matches (hence, the failed marriage).

Vanity Fair

LA Confidential is one I blanked out on but it's certainly worthy of inclusion. Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey play the three leads which is a pretty solid get (on two of those three fronts). Russell Crowe was on the verge of becoming the next big thing and Kevin Spacey was already at that stage. Character actor James Cromwell really is an extremely unlikely villain. And DeVito again! Ironically, I can barely remember what Oscar winner Kim Basinger did in this movie.

I never really thought abut Office Space until you bought it up but it certainly does have a multi-faceted and diverse  (if you count actor Ajay Naidu who seems to be pigeon-holed pretty badly into Indian roles) ensemble and David Hermann, who was a pretty solid sketch actor on the oft-maligned sketch series MadTV has one of his few visible roles as "Michael Bolton" there.  I was also not particularly impressed with Jen Aniston. Sure she's capable in the same way that successful sitcom actresses are when plopped on a marquee, but considering she showed even more depth and really could act in The Good Girl three years later. Retroactively, it makes her performance here look like Jen Aniston in her period of untapped potential. 

 

City of God is a good choice because casting child actors and unknowns is always impressive (although I can't speak to how well-known these actors were to the Brazilian film industry when director Fernando Meirelles cast them). It's similar to Mel Gibson's commendable way of assembling the cast of Apocalypto.

Orrin's List 31-50:

31. American Graffiti (1973) 32. Almost Famous (2000) 33. The Wild Bunch (1969) 34. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947) 35. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 36. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 37. Django Unchained (2012) 38. The Player (1992) 39. Five Easy Pieces (1970) 40. Road to Perdition (2002) 41. Ball of Fire (1941) 42. Manchurian Candidate (1962) 43. 12 Years a Slave (2013) 44. Anchorman (2004) 45. The Station Agent (2003) 46. 12 Angry Men (1957) 47. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) 48. The Birdcage (1996) 49. Salt of the Earth (1953) 50. Dreamgirls (2006)

Adam's Response:

First I had to define what a great ensemble was.  For me it’s a group of actors where many of them make an impression, from the leads, to the supporting players to the ones that you might only have for one scene. 

Comparing our lists, it’s clear that Robert Altman immediately jumps to mind.  I had Prairie Home Companion and you had The Player.  I have a couple of his other films higher on my list, and could have had more if we expanded. That’s fitting for a man known for his ensemble casting.  In the 70s, that’s because he cultivated a cast stock company of actors he discovered.   In the 90s it was also because stars would take well below their usual salary to work with him.   I highly recommend Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff.  The book quotes actors describing why they were drawn to Altman and his projects.  It also describes how Altman created a collaborative environment on the set where everyone felt valued.  It’s fitting that the Independent Spirit Awards named their cast award (that includes the cast, director, and casting director) after Altman. 

If you blanked on LA Confidential I did the same with 12 Angry Men.  It was Sidney Lumet’s first film and the only one Henry Fonda produced.  Going in Lee J. Cobb was the only other known star in the film besides Fonda.  But Lumet had worked in live television, and surrounded Fonda with talent.  Some of them were veteran character actors like Martin Balsam and Ed Begley, who later won an Oscar for Sweet Bird of Youth [editorial note: Martin Balsam also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for A Thousand Clowns].  Others were up-and-coming younger actors, who went on to have impressive careers, such as Jack Warden and Jack Klugman.   The actors gelled together, and with Lumet’s increasingly claustrophobic shooting, made the film just as riveting now as it was 60 years ago.  The Wild Bunch is another I should have included.  Holden and Borgnine were the stars, but it also helped propel supporting players Warren Oates and Ben Johnson to starring roles in the 70s. 

Ball of Fire is too often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be with Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, a young Dana Andrews and a fine supporting cast.  Road to Perdition is a bit uneven as a film, but it does have Paul Newman in his last great film role along with Tom Hanks, Jude Law, the always dependable Stanley Tucci, and of course Daniel Craig, showing his range four years before he became Bond.   

We both included comedies in our picks, and you’ll continue to see them in my selections.  As we have discussed in the Cinema Lounge, comedy skill often isn’t considered “serious acting” but actors themselves will tell you how hard it is.  Anchorman is an excellent choice.  Will Ferrell is always good at picking projects he doesn’t have to get all of the laughs.  The fight scene alone makes this one deserving, with Tim Robbins as the PBS anchor (“No commercials,no mercy.”) Luke Wilson, and Ben Stiller.   

Fargo, No Country for Old Men, O Brother Where Art Thou? or countless other Coen Brothers films are also terrific choices, but that does not take away from the stellar ensemble work in Lebowski.  Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are the standouts, but the film gives so many other fun performances for them to play off of, from Peter Stomare and his nihilists, Julianne Moore in her Viking outfit, David Huddleston as the other Lebowski, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the slimy yes man, and of course John Turturro as “The Jesus.”  The more you go back to rewatch the films the more these other actors stand out.  Speaking of the late, great Hoffman kudos for including Almost Famous.  You’ll see that on my list later, 

Regarding Juno, I view Cera as a plus for this particular type of role, just as he was for Superbad.  Plus Juno, besides Page in the lead role, had Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner and the two of my favorites, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons. 

Citizen Kane is much more than Orson Welles, cast-wise.  See it again, and watch how many of the other players stand out, even those that have limited screen time.   Everett Sloane, playing Bernstein, has a poignant scene as he describes a woman he never saw again but whose image is burned in his memory.  Cotten did not have as large a part as he did in Ambersons but he effectively serves as an audience surrogate as his character gradually grows disillusioned with Kane.  Dorothy Comingore is heartbreaking as the tragically untalented opera singer, while George Coulouris is hilarious as the textbook definition of an uptight banker. 

I never saw Salt of the Earth, but will look for it now. The only one on your list that I question is Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson had one of his iconic turns, but no one else really stood out.

Getty Images

Aside from its groundbreaking role in film history, Bonnie and Clyde boasts an abundance of talent.  Beatty and Dunaway (now also linked due to the Oscars mishap 50 year later) both give you the charisma and depth you expect from your stars.  Estelle Parsons deservedly won an Oscar for her turn as Clyde’s sister-in-law.  The film put Gene Hackman on the map and brought notice to a then little-known stage actor named Gene Wilder.   Michael J. Pollard also garnered an Oscar nomination as CW Moss, another member of the Barrow gang, and Dub Taylor is equally good as Moss’s father.   This brings me back to how I define an ensemble in the first place, where many actors play their part in making a great movie.  It’s the big names we notice at first, but one of the joys in going back and seeing these films again is experiencing the smaller, but no less crucial performances. 

Orrin: How to define a great ensemble is coming to me as I mill through this exercise.

There's a film with a deep bench supporting its stars like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or films by the Coen Brothers or Frank Capra which tend to surround stars with great talent. Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, Alfre Woodward and Benedict Cumberbatch are all so memorable in 12 Years a Slave you forget Brad Pitt is there. The flipside of that is a film like Road to Perdition where Daniel Craig, Stanley Tucci and Jude Law blend so seamlessly with such great performances that you hardly notice they're there. I only discovered the cast had such great actors in it retroactively, and of course this is (with the exception of Captain Phillips) the only time in the past 15 years or so that Tom Hanks has done something exciting.  

There are films which tend to deflect star power into something where a lot of people have a chance to shine like a Robert Altman film (The Player wouldn't fall into this as Tim Robbins gives such an enormous performances, but the rest of his films do), Grand Hotel  or Little Miss Sunshine. 12 Angry Men technically has Fonda as a lead but it's really everyone's film in a way. It's also a film in which one could argue that Ed Begley gives the most commanding performance.  

There's also great chemistry and the way certain stars bounce off each other. 

It's in this spirit that I selected Five Easy Pieces: To me the most striking contrast is between Susan Anspach and Karen Black. These two beautiful women of different classes represent entirely different things to Bobby and his struggle over which class he belongs in. I also like that many of the characters outside the two female leads seem to effortlessly fall into lower class or upper crust.

I also tried to highlight casting choices that are innovative or bold.  My pick Dreamgirls featured three big gambles among its five main principles: Beyoncee, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy and they were all extraordinarily successful. I agree that the three leads of Ball of Fire are great but I particularly like how they managed to cast seven actors of the older generation that meshed so well as the seven professors (which Hawks intended to be an allegory of the Seven Dwarves).

As for Salt of the Earth, the film was directed by blacklisted director Herbert Beiberman and a blacklisted screenwriter in 1953 which naturally meant it had no chance of getting distributed or funded by the studios it only played in 13 theaters despite great reviews. The film, about a mining strike, was co-produced with the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers and had only two union actors, Will Geer and Mexican Rusaura Revueltas who was deported mid-production. The rest of the cast was miners and locals (all of whom are surprisingly competent) and some of them were invited to review the dailies for accuracy and help out with production in other ways.

To close out this round, let me ask you one last question about a film I've never even heard of before: Slackers. I see muiltiple titles on it for IMDB and have never heard of such a film, so please fill me in.

Adam: I will need to find Salt of the Earth.  That had to have taken courage to make that film during the height of McCarthyism.   Since you enjoyed that, please see Matewan which I could have easily included on my list.  Directed by indie stalwart John Sayles, it’s also about a mining strike, this one in 1920s West Virginia.  

You asked about Slacker.  It’s the film that put writer-director Richard Linklater (whose work you will see again on my list) on the map.  He follows a series of strange people in Austin, going from one person to another.  It’s different from an Altman type of piece because there’s no larger story, and the film, for the most part, does not go back to characters it leaves.   These include an anarchist, a conspiracy theorist and a young woman trying to sell what she claims is Madonna’s pap smear.  The actors were unknown then and remain so 26 years later.  But each one of them present a vivid, fleshed out person who you enjoy spending a few minutes with.  You get a brief glimpse into their world and then move on to the next one.

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BEST WEBSITES OF 2008

An article recently surfaced which caught my friend's attention and he asked me to comment on it. The article is http://www.nypress.com/21/17/news&columns/feature3.cfm

Here's my response:
I think this guy has 8 or 9 articles that he merged into one and makes a lot of generalizations which don't generally hold true. You have to read it, however, like a big textbook and agree with some and disagree with some. If the guy wanted to make sense, he should have stated that his article was targeting a specific type of blogger rather than everyone except for himself. For example, I loved Bobby and Darjeerling Limited and promoted the hell out of them, which are two movies he likes.
I also think Premiere was a great magazine (which is ironic because the author hates it) and I mourn its death as much as the next guy. I actually don’t particularly want to be a “blogger” and really want to be in the print media anyway. This started out as a way to promote my stuff so that I might get hired in the print media, and I would gladly seize doing this at once, if it meant that someone in the print media who I am a fan of, could keep their job.
I think it's very sloppy to imply that Ebert has never contributed much. Yes, Ebert the TV critic just does thumbs up or thumbs down, but in writing he has great insights and he is constantly stressing to his readers in his Q and A not to pay too much attention to stars. I agree that a lot of criticism boils down to "Is the film good or bad" but that's mostly in the world of print media, anyway, because print media caters to what the everyday Joe wants to know which is "should I see this movie?” But the internet sites have the advantage along with more in-depth journals and academic literature of analysis.
He might be right that historical context is missing from the great majority of film criticism. I think that's one of the most important things you gain from studying movies is understanding history (and not film history but actual history) better. There are courses in most film curriculums that focus on movies and society, however.

Here is his list of ten things which film bloggers and other critics make the mistake of doing:
1)“The Three Amigos” Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro are Mexico’s greatest filmmakers while Julian Hernandez is ignored.

Yeah, sorry never heard of Hernandez. Just like every member of the public I can’t know of every person who’s ever picked up a movie camera and made a film. I’m not making a conscious decision to denounce him. If you want to promote Hernandez, fine, great. Point taken. You might also have a point that as amateurs we don’t have access to someone like Hernandez, but that’s hardly a new discovery.


2) Gus Van Sant is the new Visconti when he’s really the new Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger

Gus Van Sant isn’t that much of an auteur, I personally don’t care for him, but more to the point, he’s not the central point of a lot of discussions. In terms of a couple of his films I know of, Finding Forrester was primarily a Sean Connery vehicle and Good Will Hunting’s autuers, at least in the eyes of the public, were writer-actors Damon and Affleck who initiated the project. So to me, you might call me in agreement with you. I don’t really know who Visconti and Fagin are, sorry.

3) Documentaries ought to be partisan rather than reportorial or observational.

I think that people tend to place partisan labels on a documentary that the documentarians don’t see themselves. I also feel that Armond White shows his blog himself, person is biased against the “liberal elite” or whatever. When he writes. “but it is the shame of middle-class and middlebrow conformity that critics follow each other when praising movies that disrespect religion, rail about the current administration or feed into a sense of nihilism that only people privileged with condos and professional tenure can afford,” he clearly can’t avoid his own partisan biases either, which I think is worse when he’s trying to suppress other people’s right to voice their own opinions.

Nevertheless, I think the view of most critics is that documentaries come in all shapes in sizes: A documentary can be partisan or non-partisan, so long as it doesn’t try to pass itself as the wrong category. The current beating the HBO film “Recount” is taking, is an illustration of that point, since it’s far less observational than it claims. I think Michael Moore, which I imagine White is referring to since a discussion about documentaries can’t possibly exclude the most influential and commercially successful one of the decade, is fairly handled by critics. Most critics advise their audiences to take Moore with a grain of salt, knowing he has a clear partisan bent.

4) Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Dreamgirls equal the great MGM musicals.

Well, I am somewhat of an expert on musicals so I can answer this. First off, there’s hardly any agreement on whether Chicago or Moulan Rouge is the true second coming of the musical. There’s plenty of people who hate Chicago and like Moulan Rouge and plenty who feel the opposite. Dreamgirls is generally considered as a respectable follow-up by Condon to Chicago, treated adequately by the awards season: A proverbial “6th nominee” that feel just short of making the final five. I don’t think much of the literature on Chicago and Moulan Rouge as the revival of the musical is saying that Chicago and Moulan Rouge equal the high point of MGM but they revived the musical and made it marketable again as evidenced by the fact that after 2002, the genre was able to be marketable and Broadway adaptations (Rent, Producers, Dreamgirls), remakes (Hairspray) and all sorts of experimental films (Across the Universe and Sweeny Todd) were able to make it to theaters. If you look at the AFI list of top 25 musicals recently released, Chicago and Moulan Rouge were on their but towards the bottom, behind the great MGM musicals.


5) Paul Verhoeven’s social satire Showgirls was camp while Cronenberg’s campy melodramas are profound.

I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t think Cronenberg’s melodramas are profound. He does a good job at creating tension and makes a good thriller (are you referring to History of Violence and Eastern Promises?) but I don’t know by what criteria you call them campy. Showgirls was rated X and I was like 11 when it came out, so I didn’t see it unfortunately. Should I catch it on DVD or so, so I can enter into the conversation?

6) Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough while all other gay-themed movies were ignored.
No, anyone who follows the Oscars is aware that Transamerica and Capote were honored well-enough. This might have been a complaint perhaps a decade ago when Ian McKellan from Gods and Monsters lost to Hillary Swank.

7) Todd Haynes’ academic dullness is anything but.
Again, I don’t think people are analyzing Todd Haynes in an auteur sense. I think people saw merit in Far From Heaven and I’m Not There (although I’m Not There had fairly mixed reactions).

8) Dogma was a legitimate film movement.
I think you mean “Dogme 95” but nonetheless, I think there’s a great deal of filmmakers who find Von Trier’s films insulting and nonsensical, and surely the general public feels antagonized by him even more. Whether it’s a legitimate film movement is not really for us to judge. That’s like judging whether you have a legitimate article. It’s an article you wrote, but does it say good or bad things, well that’s the debate. I think Dogme 95 creates more constraints on the filmmaking than its worth (he had to break some of his own rules to make Dogville), but at the same time, I think some of his ideas have some merit and some don’t. I also think it’s clearly worth studying the movement’s context in history just as you say.

9) Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected. 10) Mumblecore matters.
Don’t know much about Asian cinema, so I won’t respond. Don’t know what mumblecore is.

Can't get into Into the Wild

You know what? If this will keep me out of being in the upper echelons of film critics so be it, but I have a nasty habit: I usually won't watch a film just because it's important, or because i should see it or because I'll only be in a position to comment on the Oscar race if i watch it, and it's tempting to watch that film just so i can participate in Oscar discussions and have respectable opinions, if a film doesn't appeal to me, it jsut doesn't appeal to me, and that's 2 hours and 11 dollars wasted in an otherwise busy life. That's why i haven't seen Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain, History of Violence, The Hours, Into the Bedroom, The Pianist, The Quiet American, Cinderella Man, or Frida.

Currently, there are a lot of films that I have yet to see and the other night at my hotel I had an opportunity to watch something at the hotel through pay-per-view. I sized up the choices: Into the Wild, Ocean's 13, Mr. Brooks, Waitress, Ratatouille, and 3:10 to Yuma again (because it's so great).

I really felt an obligation to watch Into the Wild: a film about a guy about my age who comes to a revelation that he shouldn't be living a materialistic life so he donates all his money to charity, hitchhikes to Canada, and dies shortly thereafter. I really felt like watching Mr. Brooks or Ocean's 13, but the film critic conscience inside me told me it was wrong to watch these films that had no chance of being nominated and therefore couldn't have possibly entered the national pop culture discussion in the upcoming weeks and therefore I should watch Into the Wild, but i just couldn't bring myself to watch Into the Wild even though it was my duty as someone commenting on the best films of the year to know what I'm talking about.

So for a while, I didn't watch anything because i couldn't bring myself to select either. Ultimately, Dreamgirls came on HBO, one of the few big films from last year I hadn't seen, and I decided I'd watch that instead. It was a great film, and I've now revised my top 10 list of 2006 to:
1. Little Miss Sunshine, Dayton & Harris
2. Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood
3. Departed, Martin Scorsesee
4. Babel, Alejandro Inarritu Gonzalu
5. Blood Diamond, Ed Zwick
6. Prairie Home Companion, Rob Altman
7. Hollywoodland, Allan Coulter
8. Dreamgirls, Bill Condon
9. Bobby, Emilio Estevez
10. Cars, John Lasseter


I did have one other thought, however:
I think the problem with Into the Wild is that it's marketed as a movie about a guy who goes off and dies. Why don't they just market it as a movie about a guy who goes off and does incredible things and donates his money to charity.
The advantages:
1. It would sound less depressing
2. It wouldn't give away any spoilers
3. The film is made by Sean Penn which makes reason #1 even more relevant when you consider that Penn (despite playing fun-loving surferboy Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") is known for his extreme seriousness at all times and lack of humor, so it's not far-fetched to think that his artistic sensibilities have nothing to do with entertainment, and they might draw him to a depressing film about a guy who goes off and dies instead.

Fued of the Sound Mixers & The annoying focus on oscar losers

I found myself quite interested with the sound mixing controvoursey that took place between Michael Minkler, one of the three sound mixers for Dreamgirls who won an Oscar, and sound mixer Kevin O'Connell, the 18-time Oscar loser, who turned up a record-breaking #19 at this year's ceremony, thanks to Dreamgirls.

I did see the video today, but before that had heard reports about what happened, and the best thing to do is see the video yourself to see exactly how Minkler worded what he had to say, but here's a summary by the Hollywood Reporter:

Could a little rivalry have been revealed in the sound mixing world? Things turned weird when the winners in that category -- Willie Burton, Bob Beemer and Michael Minkler for "Dreamgirls" -- were onstage in the press room. A question was thrown to the trio about what advice they had for Kevin O'Connell, a nominee for "Apocalypto" who now has been nominated 19 times without a win. While Burton and Beemer had conciliatory things to say -- "Hang in there, Kevin, you'll get your chance," Burton said -- Minkler's words were the opposite. "I think Kevin should go away with 19 nominations," he said without cracking a smile. "We work really hard, and if we stumble upon an award, we are so grateful. I have to wonder ... Kevin is an OK mixer, but he should take up another line of work." He exited the stage leaving people wondering whether he was serious.

Minkler just revealed an apology:
"Gentlemen, Friends, and Colleagues,


A very unfortunate situation has developed because of my stupid answers to some inappropriate questions. I did not seek this spotlight­ -- the press did, as they have in the past. It was wrong of them to ask the questions, and wrong, wrong, wrong of me to answer them the way that I did.


I apologize to all of you for creating a messy situation, and exposing the appearance of any dissention among our ranks.


The press has been asking me questions about Kevin since 2002. They continue to hound me with the same questions again and again, and this time I lost control, using bad choices of words and bitter sarcasm. The award should be about the work---period.


It is always my concern to preserve the Oscars' significance to the filmmaking community and its international audience. My thoughts got away from me at an emotional time, and that I regret.


My response to the last question was off-the-cuff sarcasm meant as humor. However it seems that it has caused even greater reaction...shock. I wanted to end the questioning and those words came out. Not funny. I am very sorry. The time and place was wrong for any of it.


Adding sentiment to this unfortunate situation has of course been the sorrowful passing of Skippy O'Connell. My sincere condolences go out to the entire O'Connell family.


I have been in communication with Kevin directly, and I wish the best for him in the future. I am sure that he will receive his due recognition on that same stage very soon, and I will be the first to congratulate him.


In my career, I'm sure that I have accidentally hurt people, but I've never intentionally sought to do harm. I ask forgiveness from them. I have given shots and taken some, but I don't believe that at any time, true malice was the objective.


I appreciate you sharing your personal thoughts with me, as I always have. I now thank you for allowing me to share mine with you.


Respect to all, Michael Minkler [src]"

A lot of people were harsh, saying Michael Minkler was a humongous jerk, but I perfer to look a little beneath the surface. I'm not saying I forgive Michael Minkler, obviously some of it is a PR stunt, but there must be more to it than him just being a jerk and I'm glad to see more to the story.

I always thought there was a little more to it than Michael Minkler being a jerk when I saw those comments. I reasoned that it probably had something to do about the press not caring anything about sound mixing at the oscars and how people like Richard Roeper are saying that the smaller awards should be given a seperate ceremony. The Oscarcall pundits who do a weekly podcast from theenvelope.com and write for various LA Publications are also saying something about how the Oscars should follow the format of the Grammys, where the more technical awards that appeal less to the general public are relegated to a seperate ceremony in the Grammys.

I think that there is just tension beneath the surface of the Oscars for the equal treatment in terms of facetime on tv for the smaller categories. Similarly, the press room full of film critics has to come up with similar questions to field to a group of artists that they probbaly know nothing about.

If you look at how many posts I've written, you'll see that I know quite a bit about the movie industry, yet I have no freaking clue what sound mixing is, what it takes to be a good sound mixer, and of course which movie had the best sound mixing.

So maybe the only question I might be able to come up with to a sound mixing winner is "so what do you think about that other guy, who hadn't won 18 times, he should've won. That would've been a more interesting story for us to have written about." But the truth is that that's an insensitive question and will get on the guy's nerves who is taking the award on stage and these guys probably could just crack under the pressure of having to be politically correct all the time. They should ask him questions about his sound mixing craft like they do with the acting winners or the directing winners, but who really has any f*ing clue? that's the problem.

Also, i'm tired of the focus on losers. If you get nominated you're a winner, and if you win, you're even more of a winner. I'm incredibly impressed with someone who has racked up 5 nominations like Kate Winslet, let alone to have done so at a younger age than anyone else. And who knows, if she won for Sense and Sensibility or Titanic, the academy might be less inclined to honor her subsequent work because they felt she'd already been given her dues. Tom Hanks is one of our generation's greatest actors and has continued to turn in excellent performances, for example, in The Green Mile, Catch Me if You Can, The Terminal, and The Ladykillers but has gotten no oscar buzz for any of those performances (and i'm not saying he should've been nominated but at least he could've made the top 10 or top 15 on sites like the oscar igloo or the film experience who monitor oscar buzz).

And don't get me started on Peter O'Toole. First of all, why has everyone freaking forgotten his honorary oscar. Kirk Douglas got an honorary oscar and got to join the 75th anniversary oscar photo for it. Not to mention, Peter O'Toole's Lawrence of Arabia performance ranked him #1 all-time on Premiere Magazine's 100 best performances list. I also personally judge an actor by
how many memorable roles they have. I look at someone like Dustin Hoffman and think: Midnight Cowboy, Rain Man, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Papillon and The Graduate, what a career! He only won Oscars in 2 of those but by looking at his list of nominations you easily get a sense of what a great actor he was. If you look at Hillary Swank's # of Oscar nominations and # of wins, you see the same # of wins but outside those 2 winning-films, it's not nearly as impressive of a career yet. Same goes for Russell Crowe, a more modern day example, his nomination in A Beautiful Mind and The Insider along with his win for Gladiator gives me a better idea of how great an actor he is vs. Helen Hunt, for example with 1 nom and 1 win. Another example of a guy with a lot of worthy nominations but only 1 win would be Paul Newman.





ate Winslet had

Oscar Blog II: From the 4th worst film critic in the nation

OK, Oscarcentral did actually post my picks and apparently, I am an idiot and a terrible oscar predictor. Out of 80 oscar pundits nationwide I was 4th worst, but I virtually got 3 more right than were listed down. As I said before, I was thinking Alan Arkin/Forest Whitaker but my main goal was to mix up the 5 locks (the 4 acting spots and the 1 directing nod) and I guess I must have picked a Peter O'Toole/Eddie Murphy combination instead. A red-headed girl named Allison, who I watched the Oscars with, can confirm that I did pick Alan Arkin, Dreamgirls for Sound (according to Oscarcentral, I picked Letters from Iwo Jima, which wasn't even nominated, I don't know who I could've done that) and Forest Whitaker. After submitting my picks, I went over to watch the Oscars at a local movie theater and her and I created our own little oscar pool between us where we wagered on each nomination as they came up, and I did pick Alan Arkin, but oh well. I did push for Oscarcentral to accept my picks at the 11th hour and I am happy to be considered one of 80 "Oscar Pundits" nationwide that they consulted and the credibility to me as a film critic is good, so whatever. I'll write more about that as i told Oscarcentral i would, in another post.

Anyway, I think. I did beat David Spade, which is great because I am a big fan of the showbiz show and think David Spade is one of SNL's most underrated alumni (possibly the most) and that it was cool that he was blogging although it says "The Showbiz Show Crew." I am curious, though: According to Tom Shale's "Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live," Eddie Murphy refused to speak to David Spade after he lambasted him on Hollywood Minute. I wonder if Spade will be writing anything on Murphy tonight, or if he'll stay clear. I plan to go over to his site, but I wanted to transcribe my handwritten notes first without inhibitions of what he might've wrote and seen how my notes compared to his, so here are my thoughts about the oscars:

Here are some notes I have:
-I think Ellen DeGeneres did a reasonably good job. I'm kind of a fan of her but not an 100% Ellen fan and I did think she'd be way over her head. She's a good sketch comedian-type and can be funny in certain situations but someone of that nature like SNL's Maya Rudolph I wouldn't tag to host the Oscars either. I think bigger comic acts like Steve Martin and Billy Crystal suffice and I don't see exactly why they've been avoiding them for the last few ceremonies. I think the Oscars will always be watched by the kinds of people who appreciate good movies and it's crowd is already set. If you're a Chris Rock fan or an Ellen DeGeneres fan and you're not that much into watching ambitious high-concept movies, you probably still won't watch the Oscars, or you'll turn it off after the opening monologue when the comic does their comic bits. After that, they don't completely dissapear but they don't appear often enough for someone to want to sit through the other parts. But, still a few will so, maybe the effect on people who were borderline about watching the Oscars is better.

-Ellen was actually pretty good albeit pretty invisible. Her bits with Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsesee were good and I'm not entirely sure why she didn't do more of those. I got a kick out of her trying to set up Peter O'Toole with her mom, so I thought Ellen would chat with him more. I think her oscarbib wasn't really that funny.

-Best score is a funny category, check this article out:
[url]http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117959350.html[/url]

-In reality, though, it was just a really well-done ceremony that I felt had a complete overhall or something. Like they did with the honorary oscar for Robert Altman last year, they had voiceover for the cinematography awards and the little videos for the five best pictures* explaining a little bit about what creatively went into it. They also read excerpts from the ten nominated scripts which was immensely interesting. Also, they found a way to make the costume design interesting with models appearing on stage. They also mixed up the montages by having America as seen through the eyes of the movies, and a salute to foreign films.


-Best presenters: Jaden Smith and Abigail Breslin, I'm not really into child actors or anything, but those two were sooo cute. Some child actors like Haley Joel Osmont and the Olsen Twins and even Leo DiCaprio when he was young try to act so much like adults. Dakota Fanning also falls into this category. Let kids be kids. Also on good presenters, I think considering how little Jerry Sienfeld is on TV these days, it was definitely a highlight of the evening that they could integrate a Jerry Sienfeld monologue into an oscar acceptance speech

-Best people onstage who had absolutely nothing to do with the ceremony: With Borat refusing to show up to the Oscars this year, Jack Black, Will Ferrell and John C Riley were awesome and provided much needed comic relief. I love those guys and Will Ferrell and Jack Black brought down the house with their made-up acceptance speech song "You're Boring." When they did that song, however, they were actually presenting an award and here they were kind of just using up time in a ceremony that went on really, really long. I imagine as a result many reviews of the Oscars will be picking on those guys. What they said, though, rang true. One humongous flaw of the Academy Awards is that they rarely honor comedic performances, when as many directors will tell you, a comedic performance is harder to pull off than a dramatic one. It is ironic though, because Will Ferrell did sell his comedic soul this year to play a serious part this year in Stranger than Fiction and with that role, he had just as much Oscar Buzz pre-release as anyone else, so he did actually have his shot this year at winning an Oscar, but he was just out of his element. While the script was humorous, there wasn't a single bit of humor in his performance (I saw him as more the straight man to Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhall and Dustin Hoffman) and what's the point of casting Will Ferrell if he hasn't got some laughs in his role?

-I thought it was funny that Sherry Lansing wasn't an actor yet she could either remember her entire speech or read it off a teleprompter whereas the actors who won had to bring up a piece of a paper or else they just fell apart when they got onstage.

-One fact that a lot of people in the media have got wrong about Jennifer Hudson was that while she finished 7th, she wasn't exactly the 7th most popular contestant that season nor did Simon or anyone else suggest that she would be a failure. She was considered a dark horse contender to win and wasn't kicked off the show by Simon or anyone else. She was the victim of a phone voting system in which you vote who you want to move on rather who you want to go, that had already elicited controvoursey. She did a good enough job that many people thought the week she was kicked off, that she'd be safe and placed their votes on candidates they thought were on the bubble instead. When she was voted off, Fox was sent a lot of hate mail and accusations that the system was rigged, as mentioned by Ryan Seacrest in the next episde. The point is, she did have quite an impact on the show contrary to what the media is saying.

-So thrilled that Alan Arkin won: I wrote about that in Oscar Blog I.

-I notice that some of the acting clips aren't that long, particularly for the supporting nominees. Abigail Breslin's acting clip just shows her screaming. It's really very unflattering and to anyone who didn't see Little Miss Sunshine, she did more than scream.


-Forest Whitaker won an oscar and he was so nervous up there even though he's had a chance to practice the art of giving a speech at least 3 other times this award season. After Helen Mirren thanked the Queen, I was moderately worried that he might thank Idi Amin or something

-The academy sent a message loud and clear tonight: They don't like Mexicans! When it comes to immigration, they're as conservative as Rush Limbaugh. Of the 7 most critically acclaimed movies of the year, one was made by a Brit, 3 by Americans and 3 by Mexicans, and those Americans who were afraid of having their jobs outsourced made it perfectly clear where they stood by voting down Pan's Labrynth, Children of Men and Babel. I say we start a movement of internet backlash! When will the academy stop being so conservative and accept Mexicans and Gays?!
(by the way, this is a humorous post in response to the partial rediculousness of the backlash of people who felt the academy was anti-Gay for not giving the Oscar to Brokeback Mountain. They did after all nominate the film, give it a best screenplay oscar and the best actor winner was for a gay character, not to mention playing a gay character or a transsexual gives you an automatic edge for an oscar nod)

-Best songs: Thank god, Randy Newman didn't sing. For that alone, I would've given Our Town an award. I actually think, in retrospect, though, Our Town would have been a good choice. People are just not thinking along the lines of what song would make a great radio hit when it comes to this category, which is an excellent opportunity for the Oscars to cross over into the territory of people who like the Grammys. Exceptions to this are generally the rap songs, as with "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" and "Lose Yourself." Beyond that, I don't think Melissa Ethridge's Inconvinient Truth song would be as popular of a hit as "Our Town" which I could see killing on country music stations. I think Counting Crows "Accidentally in Love" might have had a longer shelf life than the Motorcycle Diaries song, and the same to one of the Cold Mountain songs over "Into the West" from Lord of the Rings. I did a whole rant on this under my post "10 biggest Mistakes of the Decade"

-When William Moynahan got up on stage, I said "wow, William Moynahan is ugly" to which Allison pointed out "that's why he's a screenwriter." I don't know, I think there are plenty of handsome screenwriters out there, but then again Cameron Crowe isn't exactly easy on the eyes.

-"It's too bad Peter O'Toole didn't win" said Ellen, but doesn't the honorary oscar count? Kirk Douglas got to join the 75th Anniversary Oscar Commemoration in 2002 when, in reality, he only won an honorary oscar.

-The academy awards had some softer gentler music this year to let the people know when there speeches were done, did anyone notice that?

-Syd Gannis in under a minute: I absolutely loved that.

-When Martin Scorsesee won, there was a great moment of elation within myself and with everyone in the theater. It felt like when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series: Like we were witnessing something previously thought of as impossible. The truth though, is that it was entirely quite possible for Martin Scorsesee to win an Oscar, and it's not like the Academy was refusing to vote for him out of some dislike for him. You might say that Ordinary People beating Raging Bull was a travesty, but other than that, I think the winners were perfectly reasonable. There was no way in hell that Scorsesee was going to win an oscar for Last Temptation of Christ, and Roman Polanski in 2002 and Clint Eastwood for a second oscar in 2004 were both reasonably good choices. Kevin Costner made the brilliant Dances with Wolves in 1990 that beat Scorsesee's Goodfellas, but quickly dispelled the notion that he had any other brilliant movie ideas by making Waterworld. As for Goodfellas, which is ranked by the AFI's top 100 list as his 3rd best film (behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), its loss to Kevin Costner has helped turn it into a cult classic.
But, it was good of the Academy to wait until Scorsesee was really the best in his field this year.

-One of the few things that I officially got right was "Departed" for best editing. I thought it was obvious that Thelma Schoolmaker (hopefully i spelled her name right) would win best editor, on the basis of the fact that she's the most recognizable name of any editor in Hollywood, for her collaborations with Martin Scorsesee, and editing was one of The Departed's strong suits.

*Those videos they made for the pictures were really good. Why don't they use THOSE as trailers. Also, those videos would look good on youtube and would help promote the picture more.

Lose an oscar, win a cult following

Tonight in one of the most wide-open races in years, Oscar fans with hopes of what film will join the historic pantheon of Best Picture winners that includes "All About Eve", "Casablanca", "The Godfather", "Gone with the Wind", and "On the Waterfront". But there’s no reason to get nervous about it, because who wins Best Picture is irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the Oscars are irrelevant. Every acting and directing award has been paramount to helping that person’s career flourish and the same goes for the other categories.

The nominations for Best Picture are also of the utmost importance. Three years ago, for example, six pictures were considered locks for an Oscar nomination and "Cold Mountain" found itself the odd film out. While "Cold Mountain" isn’t necessarily forgotten in history, its status as a future classic is less assured than "Master and Commander" or "Seabiscuit." The same thing happened the year before with "Far From Heaven". Ask your average person on the street if they have ever heard of "Far From Heaven" and think about how different that answer would be if it was "Best Picture Nominee Far From Heaven." The point is recent history suggests that being the perennial sixth film doesn’t bode well for your legacy. While "Dreamgirls" fans were massively disappointed at the film’s snub this year, I doubt they’ll still be making much noise three or four years from now.

But losing an Oscar in a close race, on the other hand, does wonders for your legacy. Aside from "Schindler’s List", the most loved films of the 1990’s have arguably become "Pulp Fiction", "Shawshank Redemption", "Saving Private Ryan", "Fargo", and "Goodfellas", all losers in close races. The winning pictures of "Forrest Gump", "Dances with Wolves", "The English Patient", and "Shakespeare in Love" get the actual award and a place in the history books, but the losers get a contingent of loyal supporters who will protest the merits of those films and who they thought was the rightful winner for years to come. How many message board threads or articles have you read on the topic? “Greatest injustices the academy has made” and counted the victories of "Forrest Gump" and "Dances with Wolves." Little by little, each of those threads, posts, and articles helps that picture get more action on the DVD shelves at local video stores.


The overkill on this subject comes from everyone from Richard Roeper to the guys posting on the IMDB and OscarWatch message boards. My theory is that it comes from a sense of pride you might have as a self-proclaimed film buff. That losing picture, whether Goodfellas or Shawshank, represents you and your tastes and not only can you take pride in promoting a film as one of your favorites that’s a good film, but you can also take pride in personally promoting a film that the high-and-mighty Academy got wrong. You can go around saying, “Schindler’s List is such a great movie, you’ve gotta see it!” but everyone knows that. Identifying yourself as a fan of these also-rans becomes a calling card of sorts for film snobs who wish to proclaim their tastes superior to that of the mainstream.

With the increase of the prominence of the blogosphere and Oscar sites, it seems only likely that this backlash against a best picture win will grow stronger as evidenced by last year’s win. How many hits are there on a simple Google search for “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crash” proclaiming the Oscar injustice there.

Perhaps, people are forgetting that the films that won aren’t necessarily unworthy films in their own right. For example, back in 1994, "Forrest Gump" had both critics entranced and moviegoers all over America buzzing. It didn’t even finish #1 on its opening weekend at the box office (True Lies did) but through good word-of-mouth it became the highest grossing film of the year and the 4th highest to date. It also won at the WGAs, the DGAs, was nominated at the BAFTAs (where it lost to Four Weddings and a Funeral) and won the National Board of Review’s prize.

Roger Ebert gave it four stars and wrote, “I've never seen a movie quite like ‘Forrest Gump.’ Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is.” Rolling Stone called it, “A movie heartbreaker of startling wit and grace,” and gave it 3 ½ stars which was the same rating he gave to Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption. A look back to reviews originally written in 1994 on rottentomatoes.com, shows that with the exception of the New York Times’ Stephen Holden, most of the reviews were highly favorable. Many of the ones that gave poor reviews were only written years later in retrospect. Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com wrote, “Run, Forrest, run! It sure seemed great at the time, but Gump is aging, and it's starting to show a wrinkle or too….. what a crazy chain of events Forrest Gump has spawned: a poorly-received book sequel, a restaurant chain, and hordes of imitators -- not to mention a critical backlash.”

My theory for the backlash would be that Forrest Gump was a bittersweet emotional ride that resonated with a certain generation at a certain point in time. It’s not something that holds up well to repeat viewings. Pulp Fiction, in contrast, is a revisionist genre film that can be watched over and over again by film students interested in dissecting its film conventions. The same can also be said for neo-noir films Fargo and LA Confidential, which were also best picture losers. "Dances with Wolves", similarly is an emotional epic that swept many viewers away on first viewing and was the first Western with a fighting chance of being honored since "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (the only previous Western to actually win the award was the 1931 film "Cimarron").

As for Shawshank, Tim Dirks at Filmsite.org summarizes its predicament best: “Only through positive word-of-mouth (following cable TV and broadcast airings, and then video releases) did the film do well - although its original reception at the box-office was lukewarm.” Shawshank didn’t even get voted into AFI’s Top 100 Films, but when the Institute rereleases their Top 100 list later this year, rest assured that revisionist history will give Shawshank a place (both the winner Forrest Gump and other runner-up from that year Pulp Fiction are on that list). But as with "Dances with Wolves" and "The English Patient" (I won't say "Shakespeare in Love" was exactly deserving), people fail to acknowledge that at the time those were the most popular films of their year and only through a revisionist tide do those facts get lost. That tide is a powerful one, so let that be a consolation to you if your picture loses tonight.

If you had to bet money on the 6th nominee....

If you had to bet money on what the 6th nominee was of each Oscar race over the last few years, who would you chose. My picks below:

6th Nominees:

2006:

Picture: Dreamgirls

Director: Bill Condon, Dreamgirls

Actor: Sasha Baron Cohen, Borat

Actress: Maggie Gyllenhall, Sherrybaby

S. Actor: Brad Pitt, Babel

S. Actress: Emily Blunt, Devil Wears Prada

O. Screenplay: Zach Helm, Stranger than Fiction

A. Screenplay: Paul Haggis & William Broyles Jr, Flags of Our Fathers

2005:

Picture: Walk the Line

Director: Fernando Meirelles, Constant Gardener

Actor: Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man

Actress: Zhang Zhiyi, Memoirs of a Giesha

S. Actor: Don Cheadle, Crash

S. Actress: Scarlett Johannson, Match Point

O. Screenplay: Thomas Bezucha, The Family Stone

A. Screenplay: Deborah Moggach, Pride and Prejudice

2004:

Picture: Hotel Rwanda

Director: Marc Forrester, Finding Neverland

Actor: Liam Niesson, Kinsey

Actress: Uma Thurman, Kill Bill Vol. 2

S. Actor: Peter Sargasaard, Kinsey

S. Actress: Meryl Streep, Manchurian Candidate

O. Screenplay: Taylor Hackford & James L. White, Ray

A. Screenplay: Patrick Marber, Closer

2003:

Picture: Cold Mountain

Director: Anthony Minghellia, Cold Mountain

Actor: Russell Crowe, Master and Commander

Actress: Jennifer Connelly, House of Sand and Fog

S. Actor: Albert Finney, Big Fish

S. Actress: Scarlett Johannson, Lost in Translation

O. Screenplay: John Logan, The Last Samurai

A. Screenplay: Patrick O’Brien & Peter Weir, Master and Commander

2002:

Picture: Far From Heaven

Director: Alexander Payne, About Schmidt

Actor: Richard Gere, Chicago

Actress: Maggie Gyllenhall, The Seceretary

Supp. Actor: Dennis Quaid, Far From Heaven

Supp. Actress: Edie Falco, Sunshine State

O. Screenplay: David Benioff, 25^th Hour

A. Screenplay: Chris Hampton and Robert Schenkman, The Quiet American

2001:

Picture: Black Hawk Down

Director: Todd Fields, In the Bedroom

Actor: Gene Hackman, Royal Tannenbaums

Actress: Naiomi Watts, Mullholland Drive

Supp. Actor: Jude Law, A.I.

Supp. Actress: Gwenyth Paltrow, Royal Tannenbaums

O. Screenplay: David Lynch, Mullholland Drive

A. Screenplay. Ken Nolan, Black Hawk Down

2000:

Picture: Almost Famous

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, Oh Brother Where Art Thou

Actor: Michael Douglas, Wonderboys

Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Supp. Actor: Gary Oldman, The Contender

Supp. Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Traffic

O. Screenplay: Rod Lurie, The Contender

A. Screenplay: David Self, 13 Days

1999:

Picture: Talented Mr. Ripley

Director: Anthony Minghellia, Talented Mr. Ripley

Actor: Matt Damon, Talented Mr. Ripley

Actress: Reese Whitherspoon, Election

Supp. Actor: Al Pacino, The Insider

Supp. Actress: Cameron Diaz, Being John Malkovitch

O. Screenplay: Woody Allen, Sweet and Lowdown

A. Screenplay: John Roach and Mark Sweeney, The Straight Story

And the worst career BEFORE winning an oscar goes to....

It seems like there's a parlor game among oscar buffs to talk about who has the worst career post-Oscar.

Richard Roeper has sections in two of his books "10 Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed" and "Hollywood Schlock" dedicated to the worst careers post-Oscar. His list (not all of it): F. Murray Abraham for following up his Amadeus win in 1984 with Bonfire of the Vanities, By the Sword, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Last Action Hero, Muppets from Space, Mimic, 13 Ghosts, and Star Trek: Insurrection; Louis Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975) for Lady in Red, Mamma Dracula, Two-Moon Junction, Return to Two Moon Junction, High School High; Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite 1995) for Tales of Erotica, Mimic, Wisegirls, Gods and Generals; Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry MaGuire 1996) for What Dreams May Come, Pearl Harbor, Rat Race, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, The Fighting Temptations, and Radio; and George Chakaris (West Side Story 1961) for Two and Two Make Six and Why Not Stay for Breakfast.

Personally, I really don't care if Adrien Brody follows up an oscar with "The Village" or Ben Kingsley doing "Bloodrayne" or "What Planet Are You From?" (which did feature the oscar-winning and emmy-winning Mike Nicholls as a director) because I applaud actors who experiment and they should be aloud to have a few misses every now and then. In the case of Cuba Gooding Junior, I think he never deserved the oscar to begin with. Looking to someone like F. Murray Abraham who hasn't done much with his oscar clout, it's more a case of feeling sorry for him and not being able to capitalize on the opportunities that an oscar should've brought him than anything else.

One person, that I can't see having a great post-oscar career is Eddie Murphy should he hypothetically win the oscar because I feel like for as long as I've known him, he's clinging to commercialized mediocrity.

It's hillarious, because while swanky Hollywood insider magazines are filled with FYC ads for Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls with high critical praise, the metro (what we call the subway here in D.C., so substitute your hometown's transit system in place if you feel comfortable) is lined with poster-size ads for what looks like the crudest piece of low-brow humor since White Girls in "Norbit" and it stars Eddie Murphy too. Also on the horizon for Eddie Murphy is Shrek the Third. I think both the first two Shreks were good movies but I feel like Shrek the 2nd was conclusive enough to the point where a trilogy wasn't warranted and a sequel would be artistic overkill, and since Norbit looks like a Nutty Professor knock-off, it seems like Murphy is planning on sailing in familiar territory for the time being.

If you're thinking "no, once he wins the oscars, offers will come in and in a couple years, he'll be in a decent movie," I wouldn't count on it. When Ryan Seacrest asked him if there will ever be a Police Academy IV, possibly jokingly, Murphy said he already has a sequel in development. That's not really much of a risk, is it?

So what we have is the next 2 or 3 years going the same way of the last 12 years for Eddie: a career of pretty uninspired mediocrity. Whenever he has a hit like Dr. Doolittle, Nutty Professor, or Beverly Hills Cop, he milks it out for a sequel and in between he makes completely uninspired films like Showtime and I Spy.

That's at least the Eddie Murphy that I know. The Eddie Murphy that I know isn't the same Eddie Murphy who inspired a generation of talented comedians today ranging from Chris Rock to D.L. Hughley. I'm not talking about the Eddie Murphy who singlehandedly revived in SNL in the early 1980's, bcause I'm not familiar with that Eddie Murphy. I've read about this Eddie Murphy in Tom Shales' book "Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live" and I've watch my fair share of SNL, but the episodes from the early 1980s never seem to appear in the syndicated runs of the E! channel or its SNL-broadcasting predecessor Comedy Central. To me, I don't mind if the voters think that Eddie Murphy is the most talented performer for Dreamgirls, but fromo my point of view, I say let's not treat this like a lifetime achievement award. Apparently, there's at least one other person in the blogosphere who feels the same way I do, Jeffery Wells of www.hollywood-elsewhere.com is offering $100 to anyone who assists him in launching a campaing to ensure that Eddie Murphy doesn't just casually sleepwalk his way to a best supporting nomination. Wells' quotation (lifted from the Toronto Star Blog, actually): “I’ve seen that bored-indifferent, man-am-I-rich, leave-me-alone look on Murphy’s face too many times, and I’d be tickled if the Oscar camera could catch him scowling when Mark Wahlberg or Alan Arkin win instead. He may have the Oscar in the bag, but I keep hearing he’s not very well-liked in the industry and that he’s regarded as a bit of an a--hole. Plus he was too cool to show up for any one of those three swanky Dreamgirls press events that Terry Press threw last year. It’ll just take a little blogosphere surge to make it happen ... maybe. Or maybe not.”

So my big question, Mr. Wells, is can I have $100 now?
I could really use it.
Seriously, I had some thoughts on Eddie Murphy I wanted to express anyway, and I don't think I hold that much sway with the academy (my 2nd cousin once removed is Richard Dreyffus, though), but i can use 100 dollars.