The FU Oscars

We are in the midst of the movie awards season and on the eve of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, things have become rather interesting in the past couple of weeks. We've gone from a wide-open race for Best Picture to one that has turned this uncertain Season into the "Fuck You" Oscars. To wit:

1--Screenwriter William Goldman once said about Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." Applying that logic, nobody can answer why Ben Affleck was robbed of a Best Director nod from the Academy. Was he just a few votes short? It's not because he's an actor, because we have five in the past 30 years who have won Director: Robert Redford (Marty Scorsese was robbed that year), Warren Beatty (deserved), Kevin Costner (um...), Mel Gibson (no comment from this Appalachian Jew), and Clint Eastwood (vastly underrated still). In fact, I've said Affleck is an underrated director and hold to it, even if he made Gigli...

2--Argo is on pace at this point to win Best Picture. It won the Golden Globe (they're flaky but still) and just wont the Producer's Guild Award last night; the past five years the film that won the PGA went on the win the Oscar.

I'm almost ready to call it, but not quite. Remember when everyone thought Brokeback Mountain was a cinch to win Picture? Yeah, thought so.

Now, just a few observations at this point. I am not making my Oscar predix just yet, for The Maven has to ponder some various possibilities. Here goes:

1--If Argo wins tonights SAG for Ensemble Cast, game over. If it does not, say Lincoln or Silver Linings Playbook (my favorite of the year next to Argo) wins, things get downright interesting.

2--The only Oscar category that is a lock at this point is Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables. It will be it's only Oscar. I love her, and by rights she should have won for Rachel Getting Married, but I have to go get a growler of beer before I can watch the film and see which one ends first.

3--The other three acting categories are wide open. For Actress and Supporting Actor, any of the five could win and I would be happy, especially for the former category; I can't remember a year in which every performance made for a great slate of nominees. With Quevenzhane Wallis in the mix, this make this category quite interesting. Can she win? I don't know. For Supporting Actor, my favorites are Allan Arkin and Tommy Lee Jones (if Jones wins, will that be Lincoln's Oscar?), but I'm clueless at this point who has the edge. Coming off the heels of Meryl Streep's win last year of her third Oscar, could this be the time for DeNiro's third? Just asking...

4--Dovetailing off that notion, according to my friend and attorney, Allen N. Swords, Esq., when Reds was up for all four acting categories, only Maureen Stapleton won Supporting Actress. I think if anyone wins, it will be Jennifer Lawrence, deservedly, Hunger Games be damned...

5--Look at what is hot at this moment and when the Oscar ballots are due. At the moment, Wallis, Sally Field (does the Academy still like her?), Jessica Chastain, the Playbook cast, and Affleck are working the media like nobody's business. Les Miz has lost steam fast. Lincoln isn't Spielberg's (nor Day-Lewis's; he's made up to look like Warren Beatty playing Lincoln) best film (seriously, nobody in the next 20 years will remember Lincoln; they will Argo for it's unique). Nobody has seen Life of Pi (thank god).

6--Wither Zero Dark Thirty? At this point I actually think the film won't win any Oscars (unless Chastain wins), in large part due to the political backlash, but it's faded quickly in light of the Argo surge. This, despite the Time cover story this week on Kathryn Bigelow (yes, she was robbed, for I think ZDT is a better film than The Hurt Locker, and I'm a huge fan of it).

Enough at this point. Showtime for the SAGs. Viva Argo and Silver Linings Playbook!

Obama's Song of the Open Road...

The debate that has emerged these past few days following the inauguration of President Barack Obama this week is one of frivolity over substance. About every media outlet from CNN to Entertainment Tonight has pondered whether Beyonce lip synced her performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner." And despite the wall-to-wall coverage, it seems no one has a definite answer nor details regarding this.

While most of America has been catfished on this matter, the media buried the lead--Obama's inaugural speech. Unlike in 2009, his address greatly emulated Walt Whitman because he spoke more specifically to a broader spectrum of America, a protean country of uncharted territory and untested waters.

In most instances America turns its lonely eyes to the President as a figurehead whom it feels will address all of their needs and answer all of its questions. But that is not the role of the President in a changing American landscape. As he writes in his column in today's New York Times entitled "Obama Reboot," Charles Blow says about Obama, "He is the embodiment of their discomfort. He is the manifestation of their fear. He represents a current and future America--more socially liberal, more ethnically diverse, more the offspring of unconventional families--than they can accept." The traditional old-boys style of politics is slowly dying off--literally and figuratively--and is being supplanted by a more diversified citizenship. In the general election, blacks, hispanics, women, and other non-white voters outpaced white male voters. This caught many off-guard, as America is turning a corner into an uncertain future for what it means to be an American.

That said, Obama specifically referenced those who have struggled to fight for their rights. After many have lived for several decades socially complacent, he utilized his speech as a call to arms, if you will, to Americans to become proactive citizens again, saying, Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time.  He is asking Americans to accept one another's imperfections and embrace such differences. Not only does Whitman say, "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself," but Obama is telling us we do this every day of our lives, whether we realize it or not, socially, politically, and personally.

Ultimately, Obama is pushing back against our accepted sense of normalcy and in his progressive words he emulated Whitman when he proclaimed, "For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, we must act knowing that our work will be imperfect." He is pushing back against the pervasive passivity that is all around us and telling us not to solely look to him for answers. As Whitman tells the reader in Section 2 of "Song of Myself,"You shall no longer take things at second and third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectre of books,/You shall not look through my eyes neither, nor take things from me,/You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self." He also says in Section 46, "You are asking me questions, and I hear you,/I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself."

America's comfort zone is being challenged by a compassionate president whose life is the Whitmanesque embodiement of America: Hawaiian-born to a white American mother and a Kenyan father, raised in Kansas, Ivy-educated, adopted Chicago as his hometown, and lived a life serving citizens young and old, rich and poor, black and white as a professor and community organizer before delving into formal politics. If in this media-driven society it takes Beyonce to serve as a pop culture olive branch to motivate Americans out of their complacency, it ain't what Uncle Walt would imagine. But it's a start.

A coda: As he left the inaugural stage to attend the luncheon, he turned around to look out toward the Mall and the thousands of people still milling about, saying, "I want to take a look, one more time. I'm not going to see this again. This is a fitting metaphor for what Obama continues to represent, a wide-open vista of where we have been and where we hope to go in the future. The road goes on forever...

Happy Oscar Nomination Day! aka The 2012 MS Maven Oscar Predix Extravaganza

Folks, it's that time of year when the skies look like Central Ohio and it's cold as shit outside. Why, you ask? Because The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have moved up their Oscar nominations by two weeks! The awards season now resembles a Chinese fire drill. And I thought all the shifting around was bad in college football!

Alas, Happy Oscar Nomination Day! This is The Maven's High Holy Day (next to Selection Sunday for March Madness, the Ohio State/Michigan game and the Clemson/South Carolina game). Not much of a preamble here, except to say I hope Amour, The Beasts of the Southern Wild, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty reap a lot of nominations. And I think the wild cards this year are Emmanuelle Riva in Amour, Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts, Judi Dench in Skyfall, and Michael Haneke for Director for Amour. And who the hell knows how many films will be up for Best Picture. The Academy needs to go back to five films instead of trying to please everyone...

Enough. I didn't predict every catagory because it's almost, well, too much to deal with. Here are the predix. Alternates are below the short line. And complaints are welcome...

Best Picture
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
Life of Pi
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained

Best Director
Steven Spielberg
Kathryn Bigelow
Ben Affleck
Michael Haneke
David O. Russell
---
Quentin Tarantino
Ang Lee
Tom Hooper

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis
Denzel Washington
Bradley Cooper
Hugh Jackman
John Hawkes
---
Joaquin Phoenix
Jean Louis Trintignant
Jack Black

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain
Jennifer Lawrence
Naomi Watts
Emmanuelle Riva
Quvenzhane Wallis
---
Helen Mirren
Marion Cotilliard
Rachel Weisz

Best Supporting Actor
Tommy Lee Jones
Alan Arkin
Leonardo DiCaprio
Christoph Waltz
Javier Bardem
---
Robert DeNiro
Dwight Henry
Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway
Sally Field
Amy Adams
Judi Dench
Helen Hunt
---
Maggie Smith
Nicole Kidman
Jacki Weaver

Best Original Screenplay
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom
The Master
---
Flight
Looper

Best Adapted Screenplay
Lincoln
Argo
Silver Linings Playbook
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
---
The Perks of Being A Wallflower
 Les Miserables

Best Cinematography
Lincoln
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
---
The Master
Argo
Django Unchained

Best Editing
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
Les Miserables
---
Skyfall
The Dark Knight Rises
Cloud Atlas

Best Production Design
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Anna Karenina
Life of Pi
The Hobbit
---
The Master
Django Unchained
Moonrise Kingdom

Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Snow White and the Hunstman
Cloud Atlas
---
Django Unchained
The Hobbit
The Master

------
Nomination Totals
Lincoln                            11
Zero Dark Thirty               9
Les  Miserables                9
Silver Linings Playbook    6
Skyfall                              6
Argo                                 5
Life of Pi                          5
Django Unchained          5

Note: Totals won't necessarily fall in line w/ my predix

The 8:37am announcement comes pretty early when The Maven has been sleeping in for the past month. Seasons Screenings and let the games begin...