Everything Matters-2/19/09-Oscars Edition - part 6 (the last)

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 6

SUPPORTING ACTOR – the nominees are Josh Brolin/Milk,
Robert Downey Jr./Tropic Thunder, Philip Seymour Hoffman/Doubt,
Heath Ledger/The Dark Knight, and Michael Shannon/Revolutionary Road.
Has there ever been as great a lock to win anything as Heath Ledger to win
Best Male Supporting Actor? Maybe Secretariat to win the Belmont after
winning the Kentucky Derby by something like 37 lengths. And I’m not so sure Secretariat’s performance was any better than that by Heath ledger as The
Joker. He will be missed. And nice of the Academy to announce today that when he wins his Oscar will go to his daughter Matilda… when she turns 18!
Hmmm, somebody go to Shirley Temple’s house. She got one when she was like 6.
Oh, but she was already sleeping with Harry Warner… Never mind.
So Josh, Robert, Philip and Michael, thank you playing. We’ve got some wonderful parting gifts for you including the home version of the Academy Awards and
some Z-Brick wall tile and we hope to see you again sometime.
Just not here on this stage tonight.

BEST ACTRESS – Anne Hathaway/Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie/Changeling,
Melissa Leo/Frozen River, Meryl Streep/Doubt, and Kate Winslet/The Reader.
Okay, Melissa Leo, great that you’re here for a small, indie film. You represent all the talented indie actresses out there who aren’t murdered by Phil Spector and just continue
to do quality work year in an year out. But there’s no way in hell you’re getting an Oscar tonight.
And Angelina, with your pipe-cleaner arms and legs you’re almost believable as an actual human rather than an action heroine who packs a punch. If you made a fist I’m afraid the bones in your hands would poke through the skin so please don’t. You do look good in a cloche. But Oscar hasn’t given an award to anyone in a cloche since 1935. Next.
Meryl, you’ve got about 9 Oscars but please, not for this overblown, hyper-melodramatic
soap opera about priestly and sisterly (nunly?) shenanigans in the Bronx years ago.
Priests molesting children and the twist is SHE NEVER MADE THE CALL TO HIS OLD PARISH BUT HE LEFT ANY WAY??? Like O. Henry. Unpublished O. Henry.
Anne Hathaway gave the best performance of the year as the sister interrupted in Rachel Getting Married. She was tough, she was crazy, she was victimized, she was cold-blooded. In other words she totally inhabited this character. Terrific.
But she won’t win cause the Academy likes Holocaust stories and special needs stories.
And Kate Winslet plays an unrepentant Nazi, BUT SHE CAN’T READ. A special-needs Nazi. Her final solution is learning to read. I hated this film but she will win because the Academy does not ask me to be the final arbiter on taste. Yes, Germany needs to constantly reevaluate their national soul. A good place to be would be with their Hitler Youth Pope and his friend, the Holocaust denying Bishop.
Kate Winslet, Oscar winner.


BEST ACTOR – and the nominees are Richard Jenkins/The Visitor, Frank Langella/Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn/Milk, Brad Pitt/The CC of BB, and Mickey Rourke/
The Wrestler.
Again, Richard Jenkins, the male Melissa Leo, thank you for playing our game.
Make sure to get Brad’s autograph on the way out.
Frank Langella, nice caricature, nice cartoon, but I’m tired of hearing how great he was as Nixon. I always felt that I was watching Frank Langella ACT. A great actor, a great performance, would’ve made me forget that. Sorry, Frank. (The great Mr. By-the-by from The 12 Chairs)
Brad Pitt, a true triumph of something, lets call it PEP, performance enhanced performance (technology akin to steroids in baseball) but certainly not acting.
No way.
It’s a contest between two heavyweights – Sean Penn, brilliant as dead gay martyr Harvey Milk, and Mickey Rourke, brilliant as soon to be dead WWE martyr
Randy”the Ram” Robinson. Penn was great except for the guns. Harvey Milk had arms like Angelina Jolie. Sean has guns like Suge Knight. Just weird when they were on screen.
And Rourke looked like he really did have staples shot into his back. I think he really had a bypass. He’s got to win. If only to hear his speech. And he might just bring his surviving dogs on stage with him to accept. With a shout-out to Loki. Yes!

BEST PICTURE – and the nominees are The CC of BB, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Basically a two-horse race between Milk and Slumdog.
The CC of BB will go down in history as the most nominations and the fewest wins.
But hey, it’s history.
Frost/Nixon, about as historically accurate as The 13th Warrior and that at least had Vikings and Neanderthals. On horseback!
The Reader, the reveal that she couldn’t read was about as subtle as the Woman is really a Man reveal, clear to anyone who ever lived in a big city, or had ever seen men and women before, in The Crying Game from a few years back. And do we really have to hear Kate Winslet prattle on about how she’s proud of her real woman’s body and how she likes her ass these days? Good for you, Kate. I’m glad you’ve beaten that whole negative self-image thing. But I go to the movies to see people I might not see in my bedroom. Oh wait. That’s what the internet is for. Never mind.
Milk would’ve won in any year without Slumdog so sorry, Harvey, and all the sons of Harvey. Your story will continue to inspire people. And maybe in your next life you’ll be allowed to get married. Just not to that moron Jack. What a maroon!
So the winner, Best Picture, as if there was any doubt, the single best picture of the year, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Because, as well all know, it is written.
And because freida Pinto is the single most gorgeous woman in the movies today.
Jai Ho everybody! Please drive home safely.