Random Jennifer Coolidge Fantasy

Just the other day -- honestly I was just minding my own business, looking at Guild award photos -- the thought suddenly popped into me weary brain: wouldn't it be awesome if Jennifer Coolidge played Paula Wagner in a biopic?

Jennifer Coolidge IS Paula Wagner in "Wagner: The True Story"

With that casting dilemma solved I guess someone now needs to write a Paula Wagner biopic and then you have to figure out who to cast as Tom Cruise since her huge producing career was so closely tied to pushing his movies out into the world.

But who could ever play Tom Cruise?  I'm sure he'd demand the role for himself.

[related reading: Take Three Jennifer Coolidge]

The King's Profanity Free Speech?

Was Harvey Weinstein just missing his old Harvey Scissorhands moniker (culled from his love of demanding cuts from the movies he'd bought from his days at Miramax)? A couple of days ago the story was making the rounds that The King's Speech would be reedited to get a family-friendlier MPAA rating. I ignored it because it seemed like a publicity stunt but like all good publicity stunts (if that's what it was) it stuck in my head. It's such a strange idea, to reedit a movie while it's playing. But perhaps it's no stranger than the R rating the film won in the first place. The last time I heard the naughty F word used so innocuously in a movie was Four Weddings and a Funeral when there was a string of them for comic effect when people were running late to one of those multiple weddings -- I don't remember which.  Or is just yet another publicity stunt to keep people talking about The King's Speech about which maybe there's not that much to talk about as it's entertaining but not exactly deep or as editorial ready as its main rivals to Oscar glory?

Between this and Blue Valentine I'm really beginning to wonder if the MPAA wasn't actually dissolved a year ago and is now just a front organization for the Weinstein Company's publicity department.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Beginners"

We've been so caught up in Oscar nominations, we've been letting other things slide. So herewith the return of "Yes, No, Maybe So" in which we pre-judge movies we haven't even seen by their trailers. Today's topic is the new drama (dramedy?) Beginners about a man whose elderly father comes out to him. It opens in June, marking two consecutive cutesy gay-themed films for (We Love Him) 'Phillip Morris' (Ewan McGregor).  

Yes. Beginners has a fine cast: enduring screen star Christopher Plummer is the gay dad; Melanie Laurent, hot off of Inglourious Basterds, is Ewan's girl; And then there's Ewan himself who, as I've shared before, has the face that makes me happiest at the movies. It's a personal thing that I can't define but to look at him is to experience joy. This is not to say "he's hot" or anything sullied by baser instincts. It's just joy. It's not unlike how I respond to Gene Kelly or Greer Garson in old movies. Wasn't Ewan just sweetness personified in ILYPM? This trailer also gives off a bit of a mid 80s Woody Allen vibe. You know, back when Woody made bittersweet and even warm films that weren't plagued with overt misanthropy. Plus it opens with a long conversation between Ewan and his dog and people who talk lovingly to animals are the kind of people that make us happy even when they don't have magic serotonin faces like Ewan's.

No. Eeek, this reaction is super personal too. (Damn you Hannah! for asking for this particular episode of Yes No Maybe So). Depictions of older gay men in film and television make me t-o-t-a-l-l-y nervous because I hate ageism (always have, even when I was much younger) and most depictions of elderly gay characters take on some form of tragedy or patheticness. Like, I had to stop watching Brothers & Sisters when the uncle came out because the stories just got so immediately I'm Pathetic With a Capital P and don't even get me started on Queer as Folk's completely vile ageism. Truth: Everyone gets older every minute including people who think they never will so let's all stop pretending like aging is a sin. It's not good. It's not evil. It's not triumphant (survival) or tragic (yikes, you're approaching death!). It just is. So anyway. I get nervous. I hope the situations and the relationships are handled sensitively in the movie and I hope they don't reinforce all those boring ol' stereotypes that nobody needs since one day we will all be Christopher Plummer's age (if we're lucky to live that long). Yes, even Hailee Steinfeld. ;)

Maybe So.
Here is where we discuss the many ways in which this movie could go right or wrong. First you've got that a-dor-a-ble dog whose thoughts are subtitled. But the laugh line music is missing and the scene is lit and cut so pleasantly that it's not screaming BIG LAUGH. NYUCK NYUCK WINK WINK which is... comforting. Then you've got the hand drawings and the  'rollerskating where you're not supposed to bits' which is... is the latter a lift from Steve Martin's LA Story? There are worse films to steal from. So is Beginners filled with gaggy cuteness or is it just beautifully humanistic and completely adorable?

What's your best hunch?

Are you a Yes, No or  Maybe So?

Now Playing: Demonic Tony, Cancerous Javi, Brave Sibel

A brief snapshot of new releases (links go to trailers) because even though I always pretend the cinematic year doesn't begin until after the Oscars, the studios don't agree. 

 WIDE

The Rite ~ is there any legendary name actor more in need of a career makeover than Sir Anthony Hopkins these days?  Another character who the marketing department can pretend is Hannibal Lecter for the ads. That was 20 YEARS AGO! Move on. This one is about demonic possession because that horror trope never gets old. True story: during the trailer I was like "cat alert!" as I love my cats in the movie but then the trailer implies that cats are of the devil so I can't be having this movie.

poll by twiigs.com

The Mechanic - In which Jason Statham is too cool to look at explosions (twice in the trailer alone!) and Ben Foster tags along for the assassin-laced ride. Ben actually does look at an explosion in the trailer; Jason has much to teach him.

LIMITED 

Biutiful - You can now see what all the fuss is about. This film is nominated for Best Actor and Best Foreign Film and Bardem plays a Job... I mean Uxbal. He has cancer but what else can go wrong in his life? Alejandro González Iñárritu, Master of Miserabilism™, needs more than disease to bring a man down! He is a merciless god.

From Prada to Nada - a Latina spin on Sense & Sensibility.

Ip Man 2 - in case you saw Ip Man 1. I didn't. I'm saving myself for the Tony Leung Chiu Wai version of this same story which is still filming I believe. This version about the martial arts guru stars Donnie Yen.

Kaboom -Indie auteur Gregg Araki returns with another pansexual trippy oddity. Will Thomas Dekker be Araki's new James Duval or Jonathan Schaech? Araki hasn't settled on new muses in quite some time. He's been muse-hopping for the past few efforts (Mysterious Skin, Smiley Face and now this.)

When We Leave - Germany's Oscar submission from this past fall is also getting a micro release. The fine actress Sibel Kekilli (Head On) returns to US theaters in this story of a Turkish Muslim woman who breaks from tradition, leaving her abusive husband, to raise their child alone. Quite horrifically, her own family sides with the husband. Much heartbreak ensues. Sibel is predictably strong and won the German Oscar but my god this movie is sad.

Sibel Kekilli loves her family in When We Leave. They don't love her back.

OSCAR-SEEKING EXPANSIONS
127 Hours rehydrated by those six Oscar nominations adds over 800 theaters, in its last ditch attempt to be the breakout hit people initially thought it might be. The King's Speech, gaining confidence from a very impressive gross and a very impressive nomination tally, adds over 800 screens too. Blue Valentine, which is better than either of those films but only managed a Best Actress nod, adds 400 screens. A warning to those who are eager to see it: you will be very angry that Ryan Gosling wasn't nominated for Best Actor.

LAST CHANCE!
The Season of the Witch and Another Narnia Movie lost about half their screens this week so... if you've been dying to see the latest scraggly Cage weave or the latest in leonine CGI, have at it.

What will you be seeing this weekend?
Besides the SAG Awards on Sunday. Yes, we'll live blog it. 

12+ Nominations. An Elite Club Gets a New Member.

How many films have been nominated for 12 or more Oscars in their calendar year? Only 25 across the eighty-three years of Oscar history. The King's Speech is the latest initiate of this very exclusive bunch. The films, along with their number of noms/wins, in chronological order are...

• Gone With the Wind (1939) -13/8
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) -12/6  
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) -12/4
• Johnny Belinda (1948) -12/1
• All About Eve (1950) -14/6
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) -12/4
• From Here To Eternity (1953) -13/8
• On the Waterfront (1954) - 12/8 
• Ben Hur (1959) -12/11  
• My Fair Lady (1964) -12/8 
• Becket (1964) - 12/1 
• Mary Poppins (1964) -13/5
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) -13/5
• Reds (1981) -12/3
• Dances With Wolves (1990) -12/7 
• Schindler's List (1993) -12/7 
• Forrest Gump (1994) -13/6 
• The English Patient (1996) -12/9 
• Titanic (1997) -14/11 
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) -13/7
• Gladiator (2000) -12/5 
• The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -13/4
• Chicago (2003) -13/6
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -13/3
• The King's Speech (2010) -12/???

 

Biggest Winner Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Ben-Hur nearly made a clean sweep, winning all its categories but Adapted Screenplay which went to the romantic drama Room at the Top instead. Ben-Hur is tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with most wins of all time... but curiously enough of the three-top Oscar earners only the fantasy epic made a clean sweep of it winning in every single one of its categories.

Biggest Loser Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Johnny Belinda which took home only one Oscar for best actress (Jane Wyman). Beckett also took home only one prize but it had a huge disadvantage in that 1964 was the most monotonous year ever nomination-wise with three (!) films clearing the obscene 12 nom hurdle. Most years don't even get one film that dominant. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins in an infamous singing duel to the death devoured 13 Oscars between them. Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!

CHARTS
But what you really want to know his how many of them won Best Picture, don'tcha? Well, I bolded them above so that's 15 of the 25... with 1 undetermined.

So let's do a pie chart...

God I love pie charts. And pies.
[Tangent: omg. I gotta start thinking about the Oscar party menu]

What does all this mean for The King's Speech?
Well, you'll be the judge of that in the comments, won't you? If you're just eyeballing those pie charts, and not really think about the particulars of this race , the likeliest scenario is that The King's Speech wins Best Picture and four to five other Oscars. But that seems like a lot, doesn't it? With a film as strong as The Social Network hanging around.

Before this rather shocking tally (seriously sound mixing, and cinematography???) most armchair and professional pundits assumed it was heading to only two sure wins: Actor & Screenplay with a lot of competition coming for its expected nominations in Costuming and Art Direction. But given the charts above -- not too mention the 12 nominations -- I'd say we underestimated its pull. Can it steal Best Picture from The Social Network? That would be Grand Theft Oscars.

Related Reading: Best Pictures From the Outside In
and current Oscar Race articles