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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I have always really appreciated Reese's PR. She has very successfully been made to look like she actually has integrity. No T&A, uplifting talk, etc. But let's not confuse that with actually BEING a person of substance. No one can judge that from underneath the mound of constructed artifice that makes up a 29 million per film actor. The great part about the Oscars is watching the tension between the artifice and the reality - the freeze-frame moment when the actor has to speak for herself, not edited by TV news inerviews, magazines, etc. Come on people, it's not Reese you like, it's the Reese TM brand you like.
Now what was good about the Oscars this year was watching her reponse to winning, which I felt was a very public meltdown on the order of good ol' Gwyneth's sobbing in the flat pink ball gown. She recited the most rigidly practised acceptance speech I have ever seen with a saccarhine, automatic grace of a winner, a American winner, a "real woman", just tryin' to make it like she did back in Tennesee. For those who buy this stuff it may have actually inspired sympathetic tears.
And yet a big crack was visible - "my children, who should be in bed right now".
WHY? Why slam your kids, Reese? Yet another attempt to prove that actors can have family values? I mean this is really weird: your mom's on stage, winning her Oscar, and yet she needs to tell the world how bad you are for staying up to watch?
Hello, flip side of the pressure drop of attaining the totally bizarre, unsustainable pinnacle of a 29 million salary and yet still being a real mom with a small child who refuses to acknowledge you're the most powerful woman in Hollywood.
Fascinating.
Again, not a comment on Reeese Witherspoon the human being. That is not for me to judge.
Cintra's comments were really funny to me - but she missed that one.
Please, please, get a proper editor. Someone who take this disjointed rambling and fashion into a coherent critique that we can actually dissect. The slug of this piece is more interesting and to the point than the entire "article."
Didn't you notice his sly reference to the fact that two of the nominated films featured courageous journalists defying tremendous pressure to bring Americans the truth?
"Obviously these are PERIOD pieces," he concluded.
I don't know about the Oscars, because I didn't watch them, but I do know that I listened to about a minute of the Wilson/Paglia podcast and tore off my headphones in horror. I don't know which of the two was the fast talker who continually interrupted her own delivery in some faux-stuttering mess of breathless commentary, but just to be on the safe side I will make sure to avoid listening to either one of them in the future. Most. Irritating. Commentary. Ever.
Wilson has one schtick -- "everything sucks" -- and she works that puppy with the grim desperation of a burned-out Borscht Belt comedian.
I thought Jon Stewart was fine. Having a non-industry host is tricky but the show was largely cringe-free (in comparison with last year with Chris Rock which I found mostly unfunny, baffling and unwatchable -- I hate watching people bomb.)
This year again the feeling in the room was "off" which I again suspect is due to Disney Hall which is a gaping cold stationary titanic of an auditorium, regardless of its state-of-the-art everything. The room dwarfs everyone and everything that's not on-camera.
And, then there's the youthfulness factor ... the sea change as the remnants of the studio system and the auteur directors' staples age and pass into rare character roles. It's no one's fault, but there is a palpable change in the energy, the clubbishness and social hierarchy of the old Academy -- where Marlon Brando and the rest of the Actor's Studo were the new young-bucks challenging the "establishment." If something unifies today's stars, I think it may be only a network of social and agent ties. [Gosh, I think Jack Nicholson was actually sober! - sea change indeed]
Yes, Cintra, it's tragic when you're all dressed up with no place to go, particularly if it's the Oscars and you'd rather snark at personal foibles than artistic merit or lack there of.
Personally, I suspect that Crash's surprise win resulted more from a last-minute gulp of recognition that the problems of the Brokeback pair pale in comparison to the great big world out there, beyond the kleiglights (and not some last-minute chicken avoidance of endorsing "gay themes.")
Whatever ... there's always next year.
And the typical liberal arts student takes 5 years to complete their undergraduate degree... coincidence?
The last time I saw writing like this was my alma mater's "edgy" A&E columnists in our school paper. See you next alternate Monday...
Just wanted to show support. I'm not sure why Cintra Wilson thinks the host of the Oscars is going to curse a blue streak and insult everyone in the room. He "stayed within himself," as the baseball players say. And the commercial parodies and the bit with Tom Hanks were funny.
Let me make this clear. I love Cintra Wilson with a capital "L". Her writing about celebrity is funny and insightful, and in the past I awaited her Oscars recap with giddy anticipation. But, boy, did she phone this one in and I'm not just referring to her snarky podcast with the regrettable Camille Paglia either. I, like many others seem to have watched a different show altogether. Sure, the Academy Awards suck, but this year some of the writitng was pretty good and Stewart was well, Stewart. I mean if you want Billy Crystal, hire him. It should be pretty obvious that the Oscars are a huge stumbling beast which attempts to appear noble while wallowing in absolute glitz and glamor. Even Chris Rock couldn't straddle that immense contradiction and come off looking spontaneous.I mean, Jon Stewart did about as well as anyone could've expected with what is obviously an outmoded pageant of pseudo-respectability by an industry that is driven by a bigger-is-better-profit-making aesthic. Besides, with the advent of reality TV, Andy Warhol's "15 seconds of fame" dictum is coming truer by the minute and so who really gives a shit what Felicity Huffman wears?!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
