Biopics With No Oscar Heat?

Here at the Film Experience we probably complain too often about Oscar's absolute obsession with the biopic genre. One reason we hate this that we don't talk about much is that the films don't tend to age well. If you don't believe me try watching all the Oscar nominees from any particular year in a single lead acting or Picture category. Guarantee that 9 times out of 10 the bio in the mix is the one most likely to cure your insomnia.

Because of annual biographical awards love  it's easy to forget early in each new film year that Oscar history is littered with bios that didn't catch on. I was just thinking about this because today is the Centennial of the Ty Cobb related Detroit strike. Cobb (1994), which you can watch on YouTube, was Tommy Lee Jones' chaser to his Oscar winning turn in The Fugitive. Come to think of it another Detroit related biopic Hoffa with Oscar's beloved Jack Nicholson also sank (mostly) with Oscar. Perhaps Detroit is an Oscar jinx for biopics? I'm calling it now: whoever plays Aretha Franklin when they get around to that biopic will be snubbed.

Which biographical films heading our way do you have the least faith in? Spielberg's Lincoln, Alfred Hitchock and the Making of Psycho with Anthony Hopkins, The Girl (another Hitchcock picture) with Toby Jones, Hyde Park on Hudson, Lovelace, Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin, Barbara Jordan biopic starring Viola Davis, Caught in Flight (Naomi Watts as Princess Diana), All is By My Side (Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix), Untitled Dr Seuss project with Johnny Depp. Etcetera. Which do you care about?

P.S. And how do you feel about Logan Marshall-Green playing a young Tennessee Williams in the Jena Malone headlined Carson McCuller's biopic Lonely Hunter? I don't have strong feelings for LM-G as of yet but Tennessee Williams is my all time favorite playwright. Have you ever read Carson McCuller's classic novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"? So so so good.

Get "Possessed" by Movies

If you keep meaning to join in on the Hit Me With Your Best Shot fun, but haven't yet made the plunge do it with the last episode of the first half of season 3 (we'll take a few weeks off and start again before wrapping season 3). We'll be discussing Possessed (1947) with Joan Crawford. She made another film by the same name in the 30s so extra credit points if you wanna do both (otherwise unrelated) films.

If looks could kill many of Joan Crawford's co-stars would have died of unnatural causes. But just in case she also carries a gun.

P.S. Since I'm late with Edward Scissorhands, I'll still accept submissions so join in the fun! I'll wrap Edward on Monday and Joan on Wednesday and then we'll break until late June.

P.P.S. Any suggestions for the series are welcome. I do read them all and try to cover films from multiple genres and decades.

Last Dance for Donna Summer (RIP)

Goodbye to disco queen Donna Summer who died yesterday at 63 of cancer. She was one of the rare through lines in popular music of the 70s and 80s -- doesn't it seem like disco had its inordinate share of one hit wonders? But not Donna. Hit after hit and her voice defined the era: I Feel Love, Macarthur Park, Love to Love Ya Baby, No More Tears (Enough is Enough) and so on...

Donna was a "special guest star" in the movie, but promoted to top billed for the DVD release despite her small role.

Donna wrote or co-wrote some of her hits but not "Last Dance", the Oscar-winning one. Still, you can bet her indelible vocals helped win songwriter Paul Jabara that naked gold man. As you can see in the image up top Donna became the film's most important selling point retroactively on DVD but in the original poster, she only has a small frame to the bottom left of the poster (also excerpted above). She played a disco diva naturally. It was her first and last appearance in a motion picture.

Here's Donna Summer performing "Last Dance", the Oscar winning song from Thank God It's Friday (1978). I love that opening speech for its sheer retro wtfness... $12 a ticket, Donna? Different era! But if tickets were really only $12 she was working hard for the money. So hard for you honey.

Which song have you been playing in her honor since you heard the sad news?

Related: Barbra Streisand reacts to the news and here's a fine Advocate piece on Donna Summer's complex relationship with the gay community who were the first to embrace her sound.

P.S. Speaking of the gay community. "I Feel Love" with two gay trailblazers after the jump.

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Superheroes & Oscar. 7 Lessons We've Learned

Last week while reading about The Last of the Mohicans (1992), an astonishing 20 years old now, my mind lept back to early 1993. Even in the pre-internet fueled days of Oscar watching, when we obsessives were fewer in number -- or at least disconnected from each other -- you knew that it was bizarre that such a super, handsome, well acted period epic that made a new Oscar winner (Daniel Day-Lewis) into a much bigger mainstream star would receive only one Oscar nomination (Best Sound). The Last of the Mohicans Oscar performance was shameful but then 1992 was something of a hot mess over at AMPAS largely due to their need to honor Scent of a Woman (wtf?) and the scandal that drowned out the brilliance of Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives.

But let's not get distracted from the main point. That happens when we get stuck in retro Oscar loops. 

Past Iron Man films have won Visual Effects and/or Sound Editing nods. Will The Avengers follow suit?

The sound categories generally come up with shortlists that are not unlike every other category's finalists; a mix of  "Most = Best", "Best Picture = Best" and a random genuinely discerning one-off (or two) of the "wow I'm happy they noticed" variety. See, for example,  last season's Drive nomination which was its sole bid.

So while I was thinking about Sound Mixing and Editing and the Oscars I chanced upon this FYC ad*, via Devour and SoundWorks for The Avengers. I haven't embedded it here because it's one of those videos that starts immediately without you pressing play (hate those!) but it's worth a watch if you click over..... Oscar trivia follows!

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Smash: That "Bombshell" Finale

True story. When I pressed play on the DVR to write up this last Smash post of the season, the TV "resumed play" in the middle of the episode somehow though I'd already watched the whole thing through. The mute button was on. Chorus girl Ivy (Megan Hilty) was pulling a ring box from her purse. The ring wasn't hers but fellow chorus girl Karen's (Katharine McPhee) whose fiance had left the ring in Ivy's hotel room after a drunken one night stand. At the exact moment that Ivy opened the ring box, the unmistakably familiar siren song of the ice cream truck sounded outside my apartment. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this so let it suffice to say that this final episode of Smash's first season was nothing at all like a refreshing creamy treat. The only similarity was that I felt sick to my stomach after devouring it. I don't mean to be a drama queen but at episode's end when Ivy reached for a bottle of pills in her last vain attempt to commune with Marilyn Monroe, that dream role long since torn from her, I knew where she was coming from. I too felt robbed. 

This is not to say that I ever expected Ivy to get the Marilyn role in this fictional soap opera about the creation of a Broadway musical. NBC's peacock of choice from the beginning was the creamy lovely generic American Idol alum Katharine McPhee. The "who will get the role?" drama always felt a little forced since all the marketing was built around McPhee and the show took frequent awkard pains to insist that Katharine McPhee/Karen had "it" while Megan Hilty/Ivy was merely a competent seasoned performer but not a star. I've spent a lot of time shaking my head about the show's absolute inability to notice that the show doesn't play like that at all and they should have rethought their game plan. Megan Hilty has IT in so much bold all caps that it's like she's carting around her own spotlight and orchestra. Every time she performs the show lifts off to a higher level and every time the show tells us she doesn't have charisma, the show becomes as far-fetched as "Bombshell's" narrative that you can rejigger an entire show, rehearse a new lead, refit all the costumes and write a new song and everything will go off without a hitch mere hours later! 

It occurred to me afterwards and somewhat perversely that perhaps Katharine McPhee's generic charms are not the problem but it's Megan Hilty who is miscast. If Smash is not secretly a show about an otherwise talented director (Jack Davenport's Derek) who is terrible at casting --McPhee is beautiful and talented but sounds and moves nothing like Marilyn while Ivy is beautiful and talented and makes a very convincing musical Monroe -- than it is failing terribly. 

...sadly I was hoping she would.Set List: Standards - none; Contemporary - none; Originals -"Don't Forget Me" which is the second worst original song in a generally sensational musical score 
<--- B♡bby & Dennis: This one goes to Dennis (Phillip Spaeth) who is, as ever, adorable. And he always looks so happy!
Anjelica Awesomeness: "Wonderful!" Eileen's what now? exasperation that her ex-husband bought a ticket to the show. 
Best Moment: Sadly, the best moment by far was the little flashback inserts of Megan Hilty doing "Wolf" and Megan Hilty doing the epic "Let's Be Bad" the two best numbers ever seen on the show. But I also loved the sudden change in the title card. It was no longer "Smash" with an orchestra tuning up but "Smash" with an overture. Nice touch now that the show is playing (albeit in out of town tryouts).

Curtain Call: Skinny Katharine McPhee belting the anthemic ballad "Don't Forget Me" a weak song that sounds suspiciously like one of those interchangeable anthemic ballads that they always end American Idol with. In short, "Bombshell"'s finale was 100% Marilyn Monroe free; no blonde wig on McPhee could ever bridge that infinitesimal gap.
Grade: C-
Season as a Whole: B/B- though the first half of the season, particularly episodes four through six suggest that this could be an A level show. Here's to next season. Break a leg!

American Idol Katharine McPhee as American Idolesque American Icon Marilyn Monroe

Previously on Smash
1.1 "Pilot" |  1.2-1.3 "The Callback" & "Enter Joe DiMaggio" |  1.4-1.6 "The Cost of Art", "Let's Be Bad" & "Chemistry" |  1.7 "The Workshop" with Bernadette Peters! |  1.8 "The Coup"...the worst episode |  1.9-1.10 "Hell on Earth", "Understudy" |  1.11-1.12 "The Movie Star", "Publicity" with Uma! |  1.13-1.14 "Tech" & "Previews" with Uma!

Season Awards
Best Episode - The Cost of Art | Best Actress - Debra Messing (and yes I'm surprised by this) | Best Actor - Jack Davenport | Best McPhee Number - "Rumor Has It" from The Cost of Art | Best Hilty Number - "Let's Be Bad from Let's Be Bad | Best Production Number - "Let's Be Bad" in Let's Be Bad | Best Number Not Staged -  "Wolf" in The Cost of Art | Best Number That Doesn't Feature Hilty or McPhee - "Say Yes" with Christian Borle from Understudy | Best Anjelica Huston - Anjelica Huston | Amount of Joy I Suspect I Would Feel If They Staged the Entire "Bombshell" on Broadway with Megan Hilty in the Lead Role - ∞