EXTREME BARBITUDE

 But all seriousness aside, at my house, the only thing that really matters at this time of year is the (dreaded) Oscar Barbies!

 

I managed to do four out of the five Best Actress nominees this year — not bad since I've only seen two of the movies.

 

Hopefully, you don't actually need a program to tell who the players are, but just in case:

 

Frances McDormand, Nomadland

 

Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holliday

 

Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

 

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

 

As usual, it's all about the props!

CHAOS(CAR) THEORY

 This used to be the time of year when I would post my fearless Oscar predictions — even as recently as (the dreaded) 2020, when the little gold guys were handed out in mid-February, about a month before the pandemic shut everything down.

Everything has changed since then, of course, including the alarming fact that I have not personally set foot inside a movie theater in almost 14 months. Movies that debut on home screens via Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc., don't seem as real, somehow.  Norma Desmond's classic line in Sunset Boulevard has become literally true (and prophetic): the pictures HAVE gotten small.

Nevertheless, filmmakers, actors and craftspersons have continued to churn out quality work, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has persisted in its nominations for this year's Academy Awards. The drawback for this would-be prognosticator is that, without benefit of a smart TV (mine still has a picture tube; look it up, kids), and after a year in lockdown, I haven't seen most of the nominees.

But do you think that's going to stop me? Hah! Thanks to indulgent (and similarly double-vaxxed) friends who subscribe to streaming platforms, I've managed to see seven movies nominated in some category or other. Not exactly a comprehensive overview of this year's contenders, but just (barely) enough to indulge in some random observations, as if I knew what I was talking about!

Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari.

 

How chaotic has this year been for the movies? Just look at the mashup of colors, graphics and patterns on this year's Oscars logo. Or maybe it's an artistic expression of diversity as the Academy struggles to refute the charge of #oscarsowhite — a diversity that is (for once) reflected in this year's nominees. (Here's the complete list.) Meanwhile, here's what I expect on the big night:

Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari. Full disclosure: I haven't seen Minari, but it looks like the veteran Korean actress' indomitable matriarch is the glue that holds this much-lauded immigration drama together.

Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah. Okay, I haven't seen this one either, but Kaluuya has already racked up the Golden Globe, Screen Actors' Guild, and British Academy of Film and Televison Arts (BAFTA) awards in this category, playing martyred Black Panthers deputy chairman Fred Hampton.

Oscars not quite so white: Boseman and Davis

Actress: Viola Davis,  Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. This category is full of wild cards this year. Frances McDormand and Davis are frequent nominees, but McDormand won three years ago for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Davis won the year before for Fences, but that was in the Supporting Actress category.

Davis is an extraordinary actress who deserves every accolade, and her tough, imperious and curmudgeony blues legend, Ma Rainey is an audacious stretch from anything she has done before. (And, yes, I did see this one!). However, Andra Day walked off with the Golden Globe playing another immortal vocalist in The United States vs. Billie Holliday. And while she hasn't won any of the seasonal awards, here's a shout-out to Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman. Mulligan's psychological complexity is mesmerizing in the role, her seamless gear-shifting from perceived victim to avenger absolutely bone-chilling.

Mulligan: Would-be victim-turned-avenger

Actor: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. This rather stagebound adaptation of the August Wilson play is not his best vehicle, by far, although the late and sorely missed Boseman, as always, delivers every ounce of nuance and bravado required of him. But no power on Earth or the Cosmos can stop his momentum — and why would they? Who doesn't want to see T'Challa claim his final victory?

Director: Chloe Zhao, Nomadland. Chinese-born Zhao, who has lived and worked in the States since high school, caused a stir with her acclaimed modern cowboy drama, The Rider, in 2017. And now that we're all feeling a little rootless and dispossessed, her tale of nomadic wanderers living out of their vans in heartland America has really struck a chord. The first woman of color ever nominated in this category (and one of two women nominated this year — another first — along with Emerald Fennel of Promising Young Woman), Zhao is the right face, with the right movie and the right story at exactly the right time.

Director Zhao: The right story for the right time.

Movie: Nomadland. It has powered through the awards season, collecting Globe and BAFTA recognition. True, Aaron Sorkin's entertaining The Trial Of The Chicago 7, won Best Ensemble at the SAGs, often the most reliable predictor of Academy favor. But Nomadland, with its largely non-professional cast, didn't fit  the nomination criteria for the pro screen actors' organization. It's a perfect fit, however, for this year's Oscar gold.

ADVENTURES IN DOLLYWOOD

Hey folks, it’s all over but the shouting (and the squeals of gobsmacked surprise) at this year’s Oscars.

Who knew that Parasite would sweep four of the six categories it was nominated in, including Best Director (okay, I knew that one!), Best Picture and Best International Film (quite a double-header), as well as Best Original Screenplay. (It only lost in the Production Design and Editing categories.)

Anyway, I’m awarding myself a half point for suggesting Parasite was the likeliest spoiler in the Original Screenplay category, bringing my total to 7 1/2 correct predictions out of 10.

But even though the hoopla has died down a bit, we all know it wouldn’t be the Oscars without  — The Return of the (Dreaded) Oscar Barbies!

The Best Actress nominees in period costumes are always my favorites, so this year I decided not to even fool around with the nominees in boring modern dress.  Renee Zellweger’s mid-60s Judy (as in Garland) is just retro enough to make the cut. Besides, I knew she was going to win, so I positioned her snuggling up to the man in gold himself.

She’s flanked by Saoirse Ronan, as budding writer, Jo, in Little Women, and Cynthia Erivo as intrepid Civil War slave liberator, Harriet.

And, yes, it’s all about the props!

ONCE UPON A TIME

Whose Hollywood fairy tales will come true at this year's Academy Awards?

You want Oscar predictions? How's this: when the Academy Awards are handed out this Sunday, winners in the top categories, excluding Actress nominees, will be white men.

Sure, some random female co-producers might swarm up in the production team accepting the Best Picture award. But (aside from Amy Pascal, solo producer of Little Women) you have to rappel down to the Screenplay categories before you even find another female nominee. And if not for this year's Korean phenom, Parasite, there would be few top nominees at all of any ethnicity other than Caucasian male.

(Just take a look at the posters for this year’s nine Best Picture nominees. Four feature only white men, two contain subordinate women alongside the men, and only two — Little Women (natch) and Marriage Story — feature women prominently. Only the Parasite poster bucks the trend, with three non-Caucasian men and two women — although one of the latter, appears to be, um, dead.)

Movies are being made from more diverse viewpoints — Us, Harriet, The Farewell, Hustlers, Waves — but the Academy has still hasn't gotten the memo. Can #OscarsSoWhiteMale be far off?

Of the movies that are anointed with Oscar nominations this year, the most hotly contested races are in the top two categories, Best Picture and Best Director. By contrast, all four acting winners are pretty much locked-in, after unanimous victories at all the other awards galas, so let's start with those.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS Laura Dern, Marriage Story. Dern has a lifetime of sterling film and TV credits, she plays a tough LA divorce lawyer (a character familiar to most Academy members), and is likely to score her first win with this, her third Oscar nomination.

SUPPORTING ACTOR Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood. Who doesn't want to see Pitt deliver another one of the droll acceptance speeches he's already given for this performance in this awards season?

BEST ACTRESS Renee Zellweger, Judy. Her gutsy performance is so close to the truth of Judy Garland's persona — wry wit, nervous mannerisms, and all — and Garland's effect on her fans, that we can forgive Zellweger doing her own singing. (Not bad, just not Judy.)

BEST ACTOR Joaquin Phoenix, Joker. He's already won everything else. It's chilling that Phoenix has tapped into some kind of grim cultural zeitgeist in this origin story of the pathetic failed comic fueled by psychosis to become the creepiest supervillain in the DC Comics universe. (Talk about art imitating life.) In a just, less traumatized world, the gold would go to Antonio Banderas in Pain And Glory, the performance of the year.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon A Time     . . . In Hollywood. Of the four nominees also contending for Best Picture, Hollywood has the snappiest dialogue, coupled with a typically nervy Tarantino wish-fulfillment plot. But don't rule out Parasite, whose savage satire on wealth and class makes it the likeliest spoiler of the evening.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Greta Gerwig, Little Women. In this notably guy-oriented field (The Irishman, The Two Popes, Joker, Jojo Rabbit), the Academy might offer Gerwig an olive branch after failing to nominate her for Best Director.

BEST DIRECTOR/BEST PICTURE These two categories used to be joined at the hip. But there have been recent upsets, now that there are so many more nominated films (nine, this year, each of which Academy voters are required to rate in order of preference), diffusing the likelihood of a clear front-runner. There are still only five directing nominees, however, encouraging more focused voting. (That's how Alfonso Cuaron won for directing Roma, last year, but the affable Green Book got more likes for Best Picture.)

So. Narrowing down the movies to the five with nominated directors, Todd Phillips' Joker is perceived as more of an actor's showcase, Hollywood will pick up its awards in other categories, and Martin Scorsese's The Irishman has lost its pre-season buzz. That leaves Sam Mendes' visually daring WWI epic, 1917 (constructed to look like it was shot in one, long take), and the upstart Parasite.

All in the family: Parasite

  1917 is sure to win in the Best Cinematography category for veteran lensman Roger Deakins. Just as certainly, Parasite will clinch the prize for Best International (formerly Foreign Language) Feature. But here's my prediction for the main event:

BEST PICTURE 1917. BEST DIRECTOR Bong Joon Ho, Parasite.

(The 92nd Academy Awards will be broadcast live, Sunday, February 9, 5pm, on ABC. Tune in to find out just how wrong I can be!)

AND THE WINNER WAS . . .

Funny how time flies!

The Academy Awards were two weeks ago, already, and I have yet to inflict upon you . . . oops, I mean, share my annual Oscar Barbies post! You know, my crack-brained tradition of dressing up dolls from my misfit Barbie collection as the Best Actress nominees.

Well, you couldn't expect your luck to hold out forever. So, here she is (ta-da): Olivia Colman in The Favourite!

Okay, I only had the time and energy to do one nominee this year. But I picked the right one, as Colman went on to win the gold. (Beating out poor Glenn Close, in like her 49th nomination. Most movie fans are astonished to learn that Close has never actually won the Oscar!)

But if the highly peculiar The Favourite had to win anything (and that's a debatable point), I'm glad it was for Colman's fearless performance. Of course, Barbie is a lot more glam than Colman's sad-sack Queen Anne — but at least I got the bunnies right!

An old hippie earring of mine, planted upside-down in her copious hair, makes the perfect crown!

Maybe next year, I'll have time to do them all.

You've been warned!

DUELING DIVAS: IT'S A WRAP!

My dialogue with Christina Waters over this year's Oscar nominees continues!

CW: Best Original Screenplay - well here again I didn't see one of the nominees, First Reformed, but based on the films I did screen I'd say that Vice was the sassiest, The Favourite was the most eccentric, and Green Book the most appealing.

BUT, I'm thinking that Roma will take it based upon the care with which Alfonso Cuaron's memory revealed the many tiers of the class structure and family realities in Mexico City in the 60s. This may be where Roma was at its best.

LJ: And I'm at a disadvantage for not having seen Vice. I did see First Reformed, which unspooled as a taut, tightly-wound tirade against modern disconnection, as only veteran Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver; Raging Bull) can deliver. The Academy might go for it, in honor of Schrader's sheer, stubborn longevity.

Not CGI: Bale as Cheney in Vice

I don't think Roma's greatest strength is in its scriptwriting, as much as in the scope of its storytelling, but if it wins Best Picture it will likely win this prize too. By the way, of the Adapted Screenplay nominees, I only saw is Can You Ever Forgive Me, so I don't feel qualified to weigh in on that category.

CW:Makeup and Hair: Well it HAS to be Vice for its miraculous transformation of some fine actors—especially Steve Carell, Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell—into some of the highest profile politicos in the 20th century.

LJ: Agreed! Transforming Christian Bale into Dick Cheney seems more like a job for the CGI department, but they pulled it off with cosmetic wizardry alone!

CW:Costume Design: Wish I'd seen Black Panther because I have a strong feeling that Ruth E. Carter's costumes were bravura. But since I didn't, I'll take the foppish decadent crowd of 18th century dandies brilliantly costumed by Sandy Powell for The Favourite.

Black Panther: Tribal Meets Techno

LJ: Black Panther all the way for me. The rich Tribal-Meets-Techno vibe created by Ruth E. Carter was eye-popping, fun, and so smart! Whereas, The Favourite costumes looked slightly fake to me, like costumes you make for the Renaissance Faire with store-bought materials like rick-rack instead of elaborate period embroidery. But, intentionally fake, like everyone in the movie was in on a big joke, and they were all sniggering behind their fans at the absurdity of it all.

CW: Sound, there are actually two sound awards, one for editing—and here I'll take Bohemian Rhapsody, although I was intrigued by the sound in Roma; And there's Sound Mixing. Ditto Bohemian Rhapsody. Seriously, the Freddie Mercury & Queen rockumentary offered up a lavish tsunami of prime ripping, peeling, screaming rock'n'roll. The sound was one of the most potent characters in the film and moved us in, out and upwards through the mercurial (sorry) journey of this tragic rock icon.

LJ: I'm with you on Bohemian Rhapsody for Sound Mixing: getting all that iconic music to blend so perfectly in and out of the narrative was quite a feat. But let me play devil's advocate in the Sound Editing category, where one of the nominees is A Quiet Place — a vaguely futuristic, dystopian thriller in which a family must learn to hide in silence when stalked by deadly creatures with acute hearing. No, I didn't see it (or hear it), but it sounds like the kind of risky stunt movie Academy voters might take note of.

(The Academy Awards will be broadcast live, Sunday, February 24, beginning at 5 pm, on ABC. Tune in and see how we did!)

DUELING DIVAS DISH OSCAR (PART DEUX)

Best shot: Stone, Weisz aim for gold in The Favourite

CW: Best Supporting Actress.Is it just me, or is Amy Adams just not much of anything? I have never been able to figure out why she is even in movies. Anything she can do, Julianne Moore or Nicole Kidman or Julia Roberts can do much better. So she's out. Emma Stone, who was wonderful and Rachel Weisz, who can do no wrong, cancelled each other out in the sense that they were both spot on in The Favourite, in roles that literally supported the fabulous Olivia Coleman's Queen Anne.

My money's on the memorable Marina de Tavira, who helped give depth and emotional shape to Roma.

LJ: I haven't seen If Beale Steet Could Talk, or Vice yet, so I can't comment on Regina King or Amy Adams' chances. I don't necessarily think Stone and Weiss cancel each other out because they're both nominated for the same movie, but they both have recently won Oscars (Stone for La La Land, just two years ago), so probably will not be seen as due for another one so soon. I agree, Maria de Tavira has the inside track here, especially if Roma cleans up in other categories.

Ave Maria (de Tavira) in Roma

CW: Best Supporting Actor Sam Rockwell is a sly fox and he was a great George W. Bush in Vice. But again, I felt it was more impersonation. He gave us an original character in Three Billboards. And since I can't comment on Adam Driver, Sam Elliott, or Richard E Grant, I'll go with the elegant Mahershala Ali, who made the perfect foil for Viggo, and vice versa. Those two had chemistry to burn.

LJ: Sam Rockell is probably out, only because he won in this category last year in Three Billboards. Mahershala Ali won two years ago (and deservedly so) in Moonlight.

It's funny that Adam Driver is nominated in the supporting category when his co-star, John David Washington  (who played the black Klansman of the title) was passed over for a Best Actor nomination.

Richard E. Grant: caustic fun

The Academy has been trying to honor the ever-durable Sam Elliott since 2015, when he popped back into the public consciousness with a showcase role in I'll See You In My Dreams. One of the most reliable character actors in the biz — with perhaps the most distinctive voice — Elliott is overdue for an accolade, and the high-profile A Star Is Born could be his E ticket.

On the other hand, Richard E. Grant was great, caustic, slinky fun in Can You Ever Forgive Me? I don't think his co-star, Melissa McCarthy will win for Best Actress (she's de-glamorized in every movie she's in), but the movie's insider's look at literary shenanigans might have enough partisans to tip the gold to Grant.

Roma: scope

CW: Best Cinematography I admit I was mesmerized by the art direction in The Favourite and while engaged by the camerawork I was too aware of the use of fisheye lenses and other tricks. All of these visual devices worked to move the film's story forward but not without making their presence known.

 Roma's cinematic scope will very likely make it the winner in this category, but having said that I have to question the softness of imagery and lack of contrast.

Instead of crisp blacks and whites, Cuarón gives us fifty shades of grey. The film appeared murky, which might be a metaphor for the occluded skies of Mexico City (pollution). But as my friend and writer Rita Bottoms suggested, it might also be that the Mexico portrayed is seen through the eyes of the eldest son of the family (Cuarón as a child), and hence be murky or dim or somehow visually unclarified, as through a child's eyes. Interesting theory.

Cold War: intoxicating

LJ: I love that two of the nominated films are in black-and-white. The technique doesn't have to be crisp, for my money, only evocative, which Roma definitely is. Think of it as moody and pearlescent, not grey! And besides the chiaroscuro effect of black-and-white, Cuaron's compositions are enthralling, even if it's just water washing over a tile floor. If the Academy wants to give Spike Lee the directing nod, this award could be Cuaron's "consolation prize."

CW: I'll grant you Lisa, that opening of the water on the tiles, and the plane flying overhead reflected in the water—was enthralling. As good as Bergman. But chiaroscuro Roma wasn't. Very mise en scene, keeping the camera in one place and having life move in and out of it—that can work if there's some authentic emotional urgency, rather than bombarding us with a string of embarrassing and/or unpleasant incidents. Just didn't do it for me.

LJ: Well, for my money, the most evocative cinematography of the year — also in gorgeous black-and-white — is in Pawel Pawlikowski's Polish drama, Cold War. Shot by Lukasz Zal, it's dark, intoxicating, and complex — just like the tale it tells.

Bohemian Rhapsody: seamless movement

 CW: Best Film Editing I'd have to go with Bohemian Rhapsody on this. Seamless movement through time, space, and emotional volume as the camera shifted perfectly from Mercury's anxieties to edgy rehearsals and up onto the stage itself, offering us the strutting Highness of Queen, as well as the adoring audiences responding. Fabulous immersion into Mercury's ascent, decline, and legacy.

LJ: Um, I never actually notice film editing, unless it's so clunky, it stops the action cold. As long as the picture keeps moving, I'm happy!

*     *     *

NOTE: It's beyond weird, not to say reprehensible, that the Academy, has decided this year to hand out the awards for Cinematography and Editing during commercial breaks — that is, unseen by the viewing audience watching at home.

Excuse me, but despite my snarky comment above, Editing and Cinematography are what make movies movies: the motion and the pictures. Relegating these key awards to the not-ready-for-prime-time slot, in hopes of shortening the TV broadcast, is a crime against cinema. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ought to know better.

DUELING DIVAS

Thousands cheer Bohemian Rhapsody. Could it win Best Pic?

For, oh, about 1000 years now, my pal and colleague, Christina Waters, and I have been talking movies. Once upon a time, we thought about mounting our own movie review program — Dueling Divas — but inertia always set in. But today's technology enables to finally realize our dream — no TV studio required! So here goes! Feel free to listen in:

CW: Hey there Lisa - well I have to say of this list of 8 nominees for Best Picture this year, I have seen only 5 (five).

Bohemian Rhapsody—kickass music and attitude; Roma—languid, real-time memoir; The Favourite—visceral history lesson with three powerful dames; Green Book—crisp storytelling with appealing characters; and Vice—gritty and ugly underbelly of politics.

Didn't see: Black Panther, A Star is Born, or BlacKkKlansman, all three of which left town before I had a chance to check them out.

So I'm going to be clueless about Spike Lee's long overdue Oscar nomination, as well as the Marvel Comics saga, and whether or not Lady Gaga is the star that was born.

Any comments about this lineup of nominees?

Black Panther and his team: Wakanda Forever!

 LJ: Black Panther was a helluva lot of fun (although my favorite Straight Outta Oakland movie of the year was the exceptional Blindspotting). (Actually, it's my favorite movie of the year, period.) I think the main thing you can see from this list is that Academy voters were trying to support diversity of themes, cultures, and styles in their nominees. Only A Star Is Born is the kind of old-fashioned mainstream melodrama that Hollywood always used to recognize with Oscar nominations —pretty much to the exclusion of any other kind of movie.

(Alhough I have to admit, I skipped this one, having aready seen the previous four versions. We're heading for a new Oscar category: Best Revival of a Stone-Dead Property We've Already Seen a Million Times.)

I too missed BlacKkKlansman, but if it has an iota of the wit and audacity of Lee's best (Do The Right Thing or She's Gotta Have It), it'll be a worthy contender.

Roma: the discovery of slowness

I loved Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen nut that I am, but I'm surprised it's getting so much year-end awards attention. (But not displeased.) It's probably my favorite movie on this list. Despite — or possibly because of — its slow beginning, Roma really touched me as a mood piece about stillness and observation and being present in the journey of life. Green Book was highly entertaining, thanks to well-matched co-stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, and I'll bet Vice is a riot, in its own weird way, although I haven't caught up with it yet.

The Favourite is the only nominee I question on the list. All three lead actresses were terrific, but I don't understand why Yorgos Lanthimos has a career, or what he's trying to do with it.

Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne, The Favourite: imperious vulnerability

CW: As I watched the very stylish, postmodern, and over-the-top The Favourite I realized quickly that I was watching Olivia Coleman win the Best Actress Oscar. Her daring, generous, and courageous performance, throwing herself into the least flattering situations and camera angles, all the while moving with lightening speed from despair to delight, was a tour de force. And while I agree with you that Lanthimos' filmography is beyond weird, the performances definitely held my attention. No holds barred as far as the three female characters/actors went.

LJ: I agree about Olivia Coleman; she was absolutely fearless in staying true to her cranky, sad-sack character, no matter how awful she looked onscreen — and that's the kind of anti-glam riskiness that wins Oscar votes. (Just ask Charlize Theron or Nicole Kidman.) She was also brilliant in creating the only character in this very mannered and peculiar movie viewers could possibly care about, in all her imperious vulnerability.

But let's not count out Glenn Close. After a high-profile career full of nominations, she has yet to be the bride. Whatever might be said about The Wife, it might simply be Close's turn.

CW: Yes, it's high time Close won, and her recent SAG award tends to point her toward an Oscar.

LJ: Also, pay attention to Yalitza Aparicio, who is living the Star-Is-Born dream in real life as an unknown getting the lead in Roma. If the multi-nominated Roma shows signs of sweeping, her chances are excellent.

CW: Can't agree with you about this performance. The director seemed to insist that we be impressed, and often with Roma I felt manipulated.

The Best Actor category seems more closely matched. Viggo Mortensen was fantastic as the loud, crude, decent blue collar driver—he embedded himself in this role and clearly had a great time with it. Showed Viggo's oft-overlooked depth as a resourceful actor. Willem Dafoe was obviously acting, and while I love him (or perhaps I should say I love looking at him, all teeth, and jaw, and wild eyes), he didn't convince me. Christian Bale was spot on as Dick Cheney, but I felt as though I were watching a reenactment rather than a creative interpretation, whereas Rami Malek, as Freddie Mercury seemed to illuminate the man, the insecure boy looking for love, and ultimately the consummate rock star.

Malek as Mercury: the year of the Killer Queens!

So Rami Malek gets my vote as winner. And there seems to be much momentum in his favor.

LJ: Rami Malek was outstanding; he inhabited Freddie Mercury right down to the prosthetic overbite! He will, he will rock me if he wins!

I love Willem Dafoe too, but the despairing angst with which he was encouraged to chew his way through the horribly misbegotten At Eternity's Gate will probably not be mistaken for a great performance by Academy voters. (Although, they gave Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar for two hours of grunting and panting in The Revenant, so who knows?) Besides, only 12 people in the world saw the movie, including you and me, and we're not voting. Meanwhile, Mortensen could cruise to gold as a genial, blue-collar shmo who disovers, and then rises above, his own racism in Green Book. (He also packed on 40 pounds for the role, the male equivalent of an actress deglamorizing herself, by Oscar standards.)

But I can't help but think that Academy voters might go for Christian Bale, a chameleon who physically remakes himself for every role. The politics of Vice allign with a large percentage of Hollywood and its Oscar voters. And who could resist Bale's acceptance speech at the Globes, where he thanked Satan for giving him the inspiration to play Dick Cheney?

Surprise nominee?

CW: Best Director: I realize there will be some serious momentum for Spike Lee for what is incredibly only his first nomination. Unfortunately he's up against auteur Alfonso Cuarón, whose Roma was a poetic memoir of his own childhood. The Academy loves that kind of stuff. He wrote, produced, photographed, and directed this black and white elegy, but I didn't love the film. Something missing, that something that kindles rather than insists upon my empathy. The film did not touch me. But I absolutely appreciate the scope of his ambition here. And I think he will take the Oscar.

LJ: I'm just tickled that two of the five directors are nominated for foreign-language films — unusual in Oscar history (if one is not named Fellini). Cuaron already has an impressive Hollywood track record (from Y Tu Mama Tambien to the third Harry Potter movie, to Children Of Men). So he might have an edge here, even though he already has a directing Oscar for Gravity.

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is a surprise nominee — but maybe not so surprising, if his Cold War (which I am jonesing to see; it just opened in Santa Cruz) is anything like his brilliant Ida of a few years ago.

Lee's chances are excellent in his first-ever directing nomination — far better than Adam McKay's for Vice, making an irreverent comedy out of the Bush/Cheney moment in American politics. And I continue to be mystified by the Svengali-like hold that Yorgos Lanthimos exerts over the moviegoing public, especially critics. I passionately hated his breakout movie, The Lobster, for its mean-spirited cruelty in the name of satire, and the smug, farcical, slapstick tone of The Favourite just eludes me. I don't get it.

(Next time we’ll look at the undercard — including Supporting Actors, Screenplay, and Cinematography. Stay tuned!)

THEY'RE B-A-A-CK AGAIN!

Well, friends, the Academy Awards will be handed out tonight.


And you know what that means:


 Oh no! Oh yes! It's the Return of the Oscar Barbies!


There are no Best Actress nominees from historical films this year — unless you count movies set in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

No Judi Dench flouncing around in crinolines as Queen Victoria; no new Jane Austen adaptations. Those are always the most fun to do.

Still, there's room for creativity in this year's nominees.



First up: Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.

Okay, yes, she's got roller skates, but I grew up in SoCal so I didn't have Barbie's ice-skating outfit! I made this outfit from bits and pieces — just like Tonya had to do — and the doll's exaggerated hair and makeup are (for once) perfect!


Next up, Saorise Ronan in Lady Bird! Nothing too distinctive, costume-wise — except the slightly pink hair.


I really had a hard time coming up with props for this one.

So I finally resorted to a prom dress from Barbie's closet to reference the scene when Lady Bird and her mom go shopping, and quit their petty bickering the instant they both fall in love with the same dress!


Our third nominee is Meryl Streep, playing publisher Katherine Graham in The Post.

 

Fortunately, I have a tweed suit, string of pearls, and a vintage short-haired Barbie for — well, basically, any time Meryl Streep gets nominated. (Which is every year.)

All I needed to do this year was Google The Washington Post and print out a mini version of the front page.


Next up, my favorite challenge of the year, for my favorite movie — Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water!


There's not much to her outfit‚ a blue dress and a blue sweater, like all the cleaning staff wear at the secret government lab in the movie. (Also, those shiny black shoes.)

Of course, I had to make the mop, not an item typically fond in Barbie's wardrobe.


But the main event here is her "prop" — the Amphibian Man himself! Yes, it's The Creature From the Black Lagoon, from the classic 1950s sci-fi movie that director Guillermo del Toro cheerfully admits inspired his own character.


This image is on the lid of the box containing the Creature model kit. (Art Boy never built the model, so I had to use the lid.) I found the perfect industrial-green construction paper to frame it in, and Art Boy cleverly constructed the rest of the "tank" around it.


But, as much fun as they were to make, these nominees are the also-rans this year.

And the winner is: Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri!
 

Definitely the toughest challenge of the year. She spends the entire movie in the same blue-denim jumpsuit, most of which I had to make — the top half, anyway. She has basically no hair, what there is of it wrapped in a bandana. (I had to use a twisty piece of wire ribbon.)


And while I was able to paint out some of her eye makeup, I couldn't do anything about her girly grin.


Still, it all came together when, searching for some kind of prop, we found a Barbie-sized Coke bottle squirreled away somewhere. Art Boy made it into the Molotov cocktail McDormand's character throws in a key scene in the movie — one way for this doll to express McDormand's rage, despite that wimpy grin!


That's it for this year. Click here for a peek at Oscar Barbies Past!

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

Revolting Rhymes: Girl vs Wolf

Dark themes, wit, diversity, in Oscar Nominated Short Films

A few years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences got the bright idea to start packaging each year's Oscar-nominated short films in two programs to play in movie theaters — one featuring all five nominated live-action shorts, and a second featuring all five animated nominees (plus a few extras, to bump it up to feature-length).

The 2018 editions of the Oscar Nominated Shorts are in theaters now. If I was forced to pick a favorite, I'd go with the Animated Shorts —far more stylistically diverse, in a format that encourages  creative imagination.

The Live-Action nominees represent a broader range of racially and culturally diverse experience, evoking some powerful responses.

Who knows what you'll find in the Lost Property Office

Purists planning to see both should start with the more serious-minded Live-Action Shorts, then treat themselves to the Animated Shorts for dessert!

Among my animated favorites is Revolting Rhymes, from Jakob Schuch and Jan Lachauer (UK). Adapted from a collection of fairy tale-inspired poems by Roald Dahl, it's a sly, subversive mash-up of classic tales conveyed in Dahl's waspishly elegant verse.

A dapper wolf (voice by Dominic West) spins a tale for a sweet little old lady in a tea shop in which strands of Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Three Little Pigs are woven into a fiendishly clever narrative where little girls are not as helpless as they seem, and "goodness" does not always prevail.

The Silent Child: Maisie Sly

Daniel Agdag's Lost Property Office (Australia) isn't even one of the nominees, but the retro-steampunk vibe in this dialogue-free sepia-toned tale of a lowly clerk in a lost-property office underneath a metro station is completely beguiling.

The most moving of the Live-Action films is The Silent Child by Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton (UK), in which a compassionate young audiologist bonds with a 6-year-old deaf girl whose well-meaning family is too busy to engage with her.

Kevin Wilson Jr.'s My Nephew Emmett (USA), set in Mississippi in 1955, is a dark elegy exploring events leading to one of our nation's most notorious racial crimes, the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, told with stark, potent grace.

Watu Wote/All Of Us, by Katja Benrath, (Germany) tells a harrowing true story of Muslims and Christians protecting each other on a bus trip between Kenya and Somalia when their bus is invaded by terrorists.
(Read more)

The film was completed by director Benrath as her graduation project at the end of her studies at the Hamburg Media School.

 (Right: Adelyne Wairimu in Watu Wote/All of Us)

TIME'S UP

Not exactly a "woman's picture"

Hands up, everybody who remembers when the Academy Awards declared 1992 the "Year of the Woman." Hah! I thought not.

(No wonder. Clint Eastwood's guy-friendly western Unforgiven won four Oscars that year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Revival Of A Macho Genre Previously Considered Stone Dead.

The most talked-about female role of the year was actually played by a man—Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game.)

It's taken 26 years for Hollywood to catch up — even though it's had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward enlightenment by a sisterhood of industry professionals who have launched the #MeToo and Time's Up movements.

What might this unexpected and organic movement portend for this year's Oscars? Let's take a look at what's been going on in the awards season so far.

Black Power: Hollywood celebs and their social justice activist dates at the Globes

The flow tide of black gowns and black-on-black tuxes on the red carpet at this year's Golden Globes were worn in solidarity with the above mentioned movements.

(Although I wonder if black was  the best color choice to associate with the group announcing the end of the culture of sexual harassment and gender inequality. If Time's Up (at last!) for the old boys club that perpetrated it for generations, why should people dress in mourning?)

McDormand: Year of the Rampaging Woman

(Still, everybody was rocking the look, and many of the black gowns and tuxes will be auctioned off on eBay this month to raise money for the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund.)

Meanwhile, it was a bad night for movies about men. Odds-on favorite, The Post (directed by Steven Spielberg, with Meryl Streep's Katharine Graham playing den mother to a bunch of male reporters) got shut out, along with Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, and the boy-meets-boy coming of age love story, Call Me By Your Name.

Frances McDormand as a rampaging working-class mom demanding justice for her raped and murdered daughter won the Best (Dramatic) Actress award, as expected, but it was a surprise that the movie devoted to her character, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, also won for Best Picture/Drama.

Gerwig (with Ronan) directs herself to a DGA nomination

The other big winner was Lady Bird, about a loving, if volatile, mother-daughter relationship, which scored a Best Actress /Comedy nod for star Saoirse Ronan, and Best Picture in the Musical-or-Comedy category — ensuring a trip to the podium for producer Greta Gerwig, who also wrote and directed.

Not that this is quite yet a juggernaut, but it is interesting that the recently announced Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards include first-timer Gerwig on its hallowed list of nominees. It's rare enough for a woman to get nominated, and a coup in itself — suggesting how many folks in the industry have taken the small, wry, femme-o-centric Lady Bird to their hearts.

But she shouldn't start clearing a place on her mantel just yet. She'll still have to go up against Guillermo del Toro for the DGA prize, who's already won both the Globe and Critic's Choice awards for his masterful The Shape of Water.

(The Oscars nominations will be announced January 23. The ceremony will be later than usual this year, broadcast March 4)

HOORAY for DOLLYWOOD!

Just when you thought it was safe to open your browser . . .

It's all over but the shouting — and the blaming — after this year's Academy Awards kerfuffle over the wrong Best Picture envelope.  If it had been up to me after such a gauche faux pas, I'd have awarded co-Oscars to both Moonlight and La La Land.

Fortunately both movies won big in other categories. Damien Chazelle took the Best Director prize for La La Land, but writer-director Barry Jenkins also took home Oscar gold for the screenplay to Moonlight. And each movie picked up one of the four acting prizes. So all in all, a pretty even match-up (if you don't count all the production  and music awards La La Land racked up).

But even as confusion reigned at the podium on Oscar Night, there's one thing you can always count on at this time of year: I mean, of course, the Return of the Oscar Barbies — 2017 edition!

It was not a very inspiring group this year, but I did have fun making Emma Stone's tap shoes. And of course, vintage Barbie already looks like Jackie Kennedy with no help at all from me! She also comes complete with Jackie's wardrobe, right down to  the pillbox hat.

If only I'd seen Florence Foster Jenkins (I think I was in Sweden when it opened), I'd have known that the character — a would-be opera diva with a notoriously tin ear — dresses up like a Valkyrie and attempts to sing Wagner. Now THAT would have been a fun costume to make!

Meanewhile, visit  the full rogue's gallery of Oscar Barbies through the years!

CINEMA SCOPE

Variety, diversity highlight this year's Oscar race

The Oscars are almost upon us; time for my yearly attempt to pretend I know anything about what Hollywood is thinking.

After last year's #OscarsSoWhite kerfuffle, every acting category this year features at least one person of color, and four out of the nine Best Picture nominees revolve around non-white bread protagonists. Let's hope it's not a temporary reaction, but a genuine trend toward equality and diversity. (Not to mention resistance to the current political climate.)

Meanwhile, let's take a look at who may (or may not) go home with the gold:

BEST PICTURE La La Land. Damien Chazelle's reinvented musical comedy is the one to beat, having already cleaned up at the pre-Oscar awards. Process out the four nominees that didn't win nods for their directors, and it's a five-movie race, including, Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival, Moonlight, and Manchester by the Sea. I'd be just as happy if either of these last two won, but I loved La La Land too.

And the nominees are . . .

BEST DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle, La La Land. He's already been anointed by the DGA, an almost sure-fire precursor to Oscar gold. If it were up to me, I'd split the award between Chazelle — for the sheer audacity of getting a movie musical made at all — and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) for such a smart and precise look at contemporary black lives told in such an original, unexpected way.

Affleck: haunted

BEST ACTOR Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea. He doesn't say much, but he's the center of this haunting drama, and he's definitely got the buzz. Actors in comedies (much less musicals) are not taken as seriously as actors in dramas, so no gold for Ryan Gosling (La La Land) or the mighty Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic).

Perennial contender and SAG  winner Denzel Washington (Fences) already has two Oscars; Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge) is the also-ran.

BEST ACTRESS Isabelle Huppert, Elle. Emma Stone (La La Land) may have some buzz, but she wasn't up against Huppert in any of the pre-season accolades she's won. (They split the Globes for Musical/Comedy and Drama).

Huppert: fearless

You don't find such gutsy roles for women of a certain age in US films, and Huppert's fearlessness onscreen and formidable career should sway Academy voters. (She'd get my vote.)

Natalie Portman (Jackie), Ruth Negga (Loving), and annual nominee Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins) round out the category.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Mahershala Ali, Moonlight. This may be the Academy's one chance to honor this much-nominated film, and Ali (my favorite) grounds the movie with his solid, charismatic presence. Upset candidate might be Dev Patel (so appealing in Lion), or maybe even the much-beloved Jeff Bridges (Hell Or High Water), over Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) and Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals).

Ali: presence

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Viola Davis, Fences. She's already won all other awards in this category, and she'll persist over a very strong field: Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Nicole Kidman (Lion), and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures).

BEST SCRIPT (ORIGINAL) Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea. Lonergan so deserves it for his moving story, sophisticated storytelling, and unexpected humor. I think he'll edge out the scriptwriters for La La Land, 20th Century Women, Hell Or High Water, and The Lobster.

Washington and Davis: now it's HER turn

BEST SCRIPT (ADAPTED) Luke Davies, Lion. Just a hunch, but this is a popular movie based on an irresistible true story. It might just squeak by over the scripts for Moonlight, Arrival, Fences, and Hidden Figures.

MISC: While I don't perceive the popular La La Land as Oscar bait in the acting or script departments, I'd be very surprised if it didn't dance off with the gold in the music categories: Best Song (probably "City of Stars," because, Hollywood), and Best Original Score. (Although I'd give the latter to Nicholas Bitrell, for Moonlight — especially those edgy string interludes, as profound and immediate as a heartbeat.)

Also, look for La La Land to score for Production Design and Cinematography. But it might lose out in the Best Costume race to Madeline Fontaine's retro-chic  60s clothing in Jackie.

    The Academy Awards will be handed out Sunday, February 26. As usal, if my predictions don't pan out, I'll be available the following Monday to blame them on alternative facts.

BOYS TOWN

Theron: just one of the guys.

What were they thinking with this year's Oscar nominations?

It's pretty much business as usual over at Boys Town (aka: the Motion Picture Academy), with most of the kudos going to movies whose casts, filmmakers and subject matter are—how can I put this?—white and male.

Male ensemble casts are the E-ticket rides this year—The Revenant, The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, The Martian. At least Spotlight has a token woman reporter (Rachel McAdams) in the newsroom.

But while Mad Max: Fury Road, prominently features a grundged-out Charlize Theron in its plot and ads, it only reminds us that tough guys are still the gold standard—even for women.

The Big Short: men in suits.

The highest-profile female-oriented movie of the year, Todd Haynes' Carol,  got shut out of the Best Picture competition (although its stars got nominated).

The lovely female coming-of-age drama, Brooklyn, actually is in the running for Best Picture, but without a corresponding nomination for its director, its chances are slim.

The only other nominee with a female protagonist, Room, scored noms for both picture and director Lenny Abrahamson. (But not, curiously, for 9-year-old co-star Jacob Tremblay, the movie's centerpiece.)

The Revenant: men in distress.

And while star Brie Larson is poised to win the Best Actress category, what are the chances of this intimate movie prevailing against the turbo-charged, star-driven big boys?

Speaking of acting, diversity watchdogs are complaining that this is the second year in a row when not one person of color was nominated in any of Oscar's acting categories.

You have to go back to 2013 and 2014, when 12 Years A Slave and The Help garnered multiple nominations (including two winners) for their actors. (And maybe in some Utopian future, actors of color will get nominated for playing something other than slaves and housekeepers.)

No gold for La Mirren this year.

There are some other weird choices among the acting noms. Cate Blanchett is nominated for Best Actress in Carol, and co-star Rooney Mara for Supporting Actress, although, arguably, Mara's character is the protagonist through whose viewpoint most of the story plays out.

Ditto Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, who, amazingly, is nominated in the Supporting Actress category. I thought her character was the heart of the movie, a woman coming to terms with the husband she loves transgendering into a woman—in the 1920s, when nobody had ever heard of such a thing.

How about a nod to Helen Mirren in Woman In Gold? Or a Supporting nom for Mirren as Hedda Hopper in Trumbo? What about Trumbo? And how is it that Aaron Sorkin, fresh from winning a Golden Globe for his smart, literate script for Steve Jobs, didn't even score a nomination?

Surf on over to IMDb to see the full list of nominations. Read 'em and weep...