SAG Injustice: When a Nomination is Still a Snub

In the afterglow of the SAG nominations, when publicists, stars and pundits are all aglow with congratulatory messaging of every sort and critics are bemoaning the fate of talented but snubbed performances, one annual dismaying group of snubs always slips through the cracks. I'm talking about the people who contributed to the movies nominated as Best Ensemble but weren't actually included when the nomination was awarded.  The nominated ensemble casts of The Fighter, The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right do not, in all cases, fully represent the acting achievements within the film.

The following actors were not nominated in "ensemble"

Black Swan ~ This nomination includes all those demented raven-haired beauties: Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and the man fucking with their pretty heads: Vincent Cassell. Noticeably absent: Benjamin Millepied, the principle male dancer should have also been listed. While it's true he doesn't have a lot of "acting" to do, he gets some in, and actors sometimes get nominated for a lot less; he is one of the chief contributors to the film being its choreographer as well.

The Fighter ~ This nomination includes only the principle Oscar seeking cast: Wahlberg, Bale, Adams and Leo and one more for good measure. That's Jack McGee who plays Melissa Leo's husband so beautifully. Noticeably absent: cameo players like Sugar Ray Leonard (remember that Gwen Stefani got nominated for dressing up like Jean Harlow in The Aviator), the entire gaggle of big haired comic relief sisters, Mickey O'Keefe, the cop/trainer who Bale loves to mock (name?) and everyone else who contributed to the film's invaluable local color and weird but hugely enjoyable tragicomic bent.

The Kids Are All Right ~This nomination includes only the immediate family: Moms Bening & Moore and kids Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson and "Interloper" Mark Ruffalo. Noticeably absent: Yaya daCosta, who so deliciously handles her role of Ruffalo's fuckbuddy and employee. Seriously now, she delivers fantastic line readings in this movie and underlines some of the movie's more subtle points about Ruffalo's character as well as contributing to its randy high spirits. I consider it an egregious omission. Also absent are Mia & Josh's friends and the gardener who Julianne fires who each get more than one scene.

The King's Speech ~ This nomination includes the three principles plus Anthony Andrews, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce and Timothy Spall. It's arguably the most inclusive of all the nominated cast lists but it still manages to diss one key player. Noticeably absent: Eve Best (from Nurse Jackie) who plays the controversial and plot-relevant Wallis Simpson.The royals didn't want her around and treated her like shit. So... did the Weinstein Co decide to follow suit and do the same? 

The Social Network ~ The Facebook movie has the most bizarre and confusing case of the internal snubbings. Obviously the triumvirate of Eisenberg, Garfield and Timberlake are accounted for as are the Winklevi (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner (Max Minghella). But what's most curious is that the body actor Josh Pence who helped to play the Winklevi but whose face does not appear in the film was nominated but the following six actors were not. Noticeably absent: Rooney Mara's soulful portrayal of Erica kicks off the entire successful dynamic of the film's rapid-fire dialogue which in turn reveals, comments on and delights in every badly managed personal relationship within the film. The film is smart enough to return to Mara on three key occasions but she was not nominated. All of the lawyers, officials and interns are also absent. You can't include everyone of course but a few people's contributions are very noticeable including Douglas Urbanski's audience-beloved cameo as Larry Summers, John Getz and Rashida Jones as Zuckerberg's council, Denise Grayson as Eduardo's lawyer (great write up of her work at Nick's Flick Picks) and Brenda Song as Eduardo's terrifying girlfriend?

Can someone please explain how these people are not an intrinsic part of the acting network within The Social Network? 

From my understanding, the nominating committee does not pick and choose which members of a cast receive the official title of SAG nominee, they merely vote on the film titles. The studios themselves also sometimes submit For Your Consideration cast lists that already do the omissions (The Fighter's FYC screener, f.e., lists only the five names). Or perhaps the problem is the SAG rules which go like so

"The Cast of a Motion Picture includes all performers whose names appear in the cast credits of the final release print. Motion Picture casts shall be represented by those actors billed on separate cards in the main titles, wherever those titles appear. In cases of special, unusual or non-billing or credit, eligibility shall be at the sole discretion of the Screen Actors Guild Awards Committee. Members of the cast who are not single billed but are credited in the cast crawl of the motion picture announced as the recipient of the Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture shall each receive a certificate."

So by this rule, no matter how great you are in a movie, no matter how large your role, if your agent can't get you single billing, you can't be nominated.
Every year there are glaring examples of actors adding to the texture, tone and overall success of their movie, that are kicked to the curb when it comes time to say "Great Ensemble!"  We think, in a prize meant to honor the whole being greater than the individual parts, that this is a terrible and avoidable injustice. So here's to those snubbed actors inexplicably dropped from the honor bestowed to their co-workers! We salute you one and all.
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Sam Rockwell and Hilary Swank in "Conviction"

Whether or not you believe the old Hollywood maxim “directing is 90% casting,” you do have to admit that it’s a hefty percentage of the sum of any good film. Tony Goldwyn, who directed the true story exoneration drama Conviction, now in theaters, obviously understands this. Sam Rockwell was Goldwyn’s first and only choice to play the convicted murderer Kenny Waters and casting him was a wise move indeed.  Now, signing Rockwell didn’t leave Goldwyn with only 10% of the work to do but it certainly improved the film before the cameras got rolling.

Read the rest of "Best in Show: Sam Rockwell" at Tribeca Film

...Meanwhile here at The Film Experience

I regret to inform that there's no proper review of the movie coming. (If anyone knows a good free Time Management Class in NYC, do let me know, will you?) But Conviction, which expands (maybe to your city) Friday will get some coverage here nontheless. Some words on Tony Goldwyn (writer/director/sometime actor) and the one and only Juliette Lewis are forthcoming. Many of you have already asked what I thought of the Swankster. So I shall divulge.

I would rank this as her third best performance. It's lesser than Million Dollar Baby (able work but the film / character are nowhere near as dynamic) and miles below Boy's Don't Cry. The latter is her peak, her Mount Everest if you will; her other performances can only see it with binoculars. To be fair, many Actresses could only see that particular performance with binoculars. Contrary to popular belief I have never begrudged her that first Oscar.

"It's okay, Sam. You can have one of mine."

It's interesting that Hilary Swank's best work always involves single-minded characters. As you know I've never found her particularly gifted but rather than bag on her (she's good in the film) like the haters always assume I will, I'll just explain my theory about her.

Were Swank to have stayed in television, I think she'd have proven to be a popular and fairly adept lead in procedural dramas or some such with a shelf of Emmys to show for it rather than two Oscars and pockets of haters and minor media backlash. She is undoubtedly capable of hitting her marks, carrying a film (i.e. the ability to hold audiences attention for a good long while -- which is a different talent than "acting" but mandatory for film stardom) and, most importantly, selling the important emotions of a scene. She can sometimes do this with enormous aching feeling and she's been abundantly rewarded for just that. But where I've always found her lacking, and thus the Oscar attention galling, is that she doesn't seem capable of doing that and... Which is to say that she only sells one idea about a character at a time. Were you to define the greatest weapons in the arsenal of any truly gifted big screen actor, I think you'd find that their ability to convey a multiplicity of feelings simultaneously is one of them. The great screen actors can merely look towards the camera and you get not one but two (or several) ideas about the character. They have the gift of three-dimensional sculpting. Some of them, the ones with a penchant for minimalism or an unusual facility with ambiguity especially,  can even cross over into a fourth dimension of...

But I digress. I could go on and on -- I have feelings and theories about screen acting (!) to state the very obvious -- but I do think the filmmakers (and maybe the actress herself?) who have found the best uses for Swank have understood, even if only on an instinctual level, that her limits can be used as strengths to service characters who have only ever allowed themselves one track, one purpose or one guiding emotion. (Amelia, was an interesting failure in light of this. While Earhart was engaged in a singular-minded pursuit, the woman was too complex an individual otherwise for Swank's approach). Swank's key characters,  Brandon, Maggie and now Betty Anne Waters, really have only this single-mindedness to unite them.

Swank x 3: Boy's Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby, Conviction

Well, that and their coincidental (?) white trash childhoods. I have no explanation for the poverty stricken childhoods -- "I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream!" -- and I'll leave that up to your theorizing, should you want to go there.

Do you plan to see Conviction? Do you think Swank can pull off a surprise third nomination (it is a longsuffering bio) or that Sam Rockwell will finally win an Oscar nomination?
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Familiar Faces. The David Fincher Hierarchy

By now you've undoubtedly confirmed for yourself that Brad Pitt is not in David Fincher's The Social Network... Unless you count that "Tyler Durden" Facebook profile on a computer screen in Jesse Eisenberg's room (blink and you'll miss it but I did catch it the second time through).

A Fincher sandwich. Brangelina brung the bread.

If you foolishly expected Brad to pop up for a cameo, you're forgiven on account of your totally understandable great love of David Fincher movies, in which Brad often stars (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). They're friends in real life and only one year apart in age. But for now, no new movie collaborations are on the docket. 

<--- Fincher winning an MTV Award for Se7en (1995). It wasn't the first time MTV honored him but more on that later.

Beyond the obvious and uncurious case of Brad Pitt, does the popular director even favor repeat actors?  He's not visibly a creature of habit like Woody Allen, previously featured in this new series, but he does reuse actors, like favorite daubs of paint on his auteurial palette. Let's investigate!

The David Fincher Acting Hierarchy
(Quantitatively Speaking)

4 Films.
There's a three way tie for the top honor, each beating Brad Pitt by one film, albeit with much smaller roles than Brad's movie star status would allow.

• Richmond Arquette. Yes, that's the least famous member of the Arquette clan (brother to Alexis, David, Rosanna & Patricia). Fincher always gives him tiny roles but some are key: he makes the dread box delivery at the end of Se7en, makes the first two kills in Zodiac and also appears in Fight Club and Benjamin Button.
• Bob Stephenson, who you might reconize as a series regular from TV's Jericho or The Forgotten, is part of the SWAT team in Se7en, a security officer in Fight Club and a killer in both The Game and Zodiac.
• Christopher John Fields stretches the furthest back with the director, all the way to Fincher's debut feature Alien³ (1992) where he played "Rains" one of the first victims of the acid-blooded beastie. Poor guy. He also appears in The Game as Detective Boyle, Fight Club's dry cleaning man and he's a copy editor in Zodiac.

3 Films.
A man that needs no introduction.

• Brad Pitt delivered his two best performances,  Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999), under the director's guidance. Their third union for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), though a substantial hit, didn't deliver in the same way. It's one of Pitt's duller performances, Oscar nomination be damned, and entire scenes are stolen from him by the make up f/x and the supporting actors.

2 Films.
The Fincher filmography is, we hope, just barely starting its second act. He's currently making his 9th feature (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and several people have now appeared in two. It's possible some of the smaller character actors will show up in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but we won't know they're there till the credits confirm their existence. We'll take the two-fers in semi-random order...

• Holt McCallany is the tattooed prisoner who tries to rape Ripley in Alien³ (clearly he had never seen Alien or Aliens) and he's also one of Tyler Durden's disciples/bruisers in Fight Club.
• Jared Leto Remember that Fight Club line "I felt like destroying something beautiful?" used in connection with the destruction of Jared Leto's dreamy face? Leto and Fincher both obviously took that to heart in subsequent projects, too like Panic Room. (What a strange career Leto has had since the teen heartthrob days.) And think of the visual beating Brad Pitt takes in every Fincher film! Fincher definitely wants to destroy his beauty.
  
• Elias Koteas is one of dozens of cops caught up in the Zodiac case and he's also in Button.
• Rooney Mara is onscreen now in The Social Network and so good in it, too. Like "Mark Zuckerberg" we'll be refreshing our screens until she returns in Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

• Paul Schulze, is probably best known as Nurse Jackie's pharmacist / lover. He appears in both Panic Room and Zodiac (with hair!)
• Charles S Dutton is the prison colony's spiritual leader in Alien³ and a cop in Se7en
• Andrew Kevin Walker is the screenwriter of Se7en but he also acts in the film (he plays "Sloth" ... shudder one of the dead bodies). He's also in Panic Room as "Sleepy Neighbor". Hee.
• Michael Massee who'd you recognize as a regular on one season of television's 24 or FlashForward appears in The Game as an EMT and in the massage parlor in Se7en. I think he's also in Madonna's "Bad Girl" video, directed by Fincher but I'm not positive on this. (But that'd make him a 2+)
• John Getz is Zuckerberg's lawyer in The Social Network and Templeton Peck in Zodiac. Poor man is always shot sitting behind a desk. Does he have legs?
• John Casini is one of the cops in Se7en and a "man in airport" in The Game.

1(+) Film

• James Rebhorn appears in The Game but he's also in the Madonna video "Bad Girl". Just think. If his date with Madonna had gone well, maybe she wouldn't have gone home with that serial killer!? Fincher sure loves the serial killer trope. And "Bad Girl" sure is an interesting piece in understanding David Fincher; the "angel of death" is visualized as a film director.
• Trevor Wright appears in The Social Network but when he was a little kid he appeared in the Fincher directed Paula Abdul video "Forever Your Girl".

1 Film. Hundreds of people share this distinction but the two actresses we'd really like to see David Fincher reteam with are Helena Bonham-Carter who was so against-type revelatory in Fight Club and Nicole Kidman who was supposed to get locked up in that Panic Room but ended up just being a disembodied voice on a phone in the same film.

To come full circle from his music video days, wouldn't it be fun to see three actors Fincher used there in one of his feature films? Why not cast Christopher Walken (Madonna's "Bad Girl"), Elijah Wood (Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" when he was only 8!) or the egregiously underused Lesley Ann Warren (Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun") in a future movie?

Finally... 
We must dedicate this list to the woman who introduced us to one of our favorite directors. David Fincher famously built his visual rep on a series of gargantuan Madonna music videos (Fincher won an MTV Video Award for "Express Yourself" though the big M did not) before escaping to feature films.

 Most people went to see Alien³ because it was the third in a franchise. I went to see it because I wanted to see if the man behind the frankly incredible images in Express Yourself, Oh Father, Vogue and Bad Girl had a feature career in him. He clearly did though most critics and audiences were not impressed. That movie needs a critical reevaluation because it was plain as day even then that he was already a cinematic wizard. My suspicion is that the shockingly nasty and merciless tone threw people off and he lost them in the opening shots by killing off Newt. It was always going to be roughly received, no matter how well made, coming after James Cameron's untoppable Aliens (only among the greatest action films ever made) but the tonal shift further chilled that inevitably cool response.

The second woman we reluctantly must dedicate this to is Paula Abdul since she's also a 4 time Fincher graduate. His videos for her aren't as good but he didn't have as much to work with, you know?

This series is about director's actor preferences but we'd like to note that Fincher, like most great auteurs reuses behind the scenes personell as well. Frequent collaborators include composer Howard Shore (3 films), editors James Haygood (3 films) and Angus Wall (4 films), cinematographer Jeff Cronenwerth (4 films), and production designer Donald Graham Burt (the past 4 films).

If you enjoyed this article, pass it on to your [ahem] Social Networks. Wink! Nudge!
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further reading? SEE THE NEW BLOG
also... "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on Se7en
and Oscar discussions regarding The Social Network

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Unsung Heroes - The Students of "Election"

This is Michael C. from Serious Film  back again to shine a light on a cinematic achievement that has been hidden for too long in the shadows. This week it is a film I've been an evangelist for since it's release over a decade ago: Alexander Payne's Election (1999). Pick Flick!

Is there any setting more misrepresented in movies than high school? Courtrooms, maybe, or hospitals with their staffs four times bigger than anywhere you could actually find. But at least these places use reality as a jumping off point. The majority of movie high schools, with their student bodies straight from central casting and their campuses the size of Ivy League universities, appear to have been fabricated completely to fit the needs of Hollywood producers.

When a movie like Alexander Payne's Election (1999) finally comes along, which rings true in detail after detail, one wonders what they did differently. The success of Payne's film is undoubtedly in large part due to his decision to shoot in a real high school while classes were in session, and to use the actual students of Papillion La Vista High School generously throughout the film. It may seem like a minor decision, but it adds a crucial air of credibility to the movie.

For one thing, they look real high students. It may seem like an obvious point, but it actually makes Election quite a rare specimen. Most movie students look like they're pushing thirty, and dress as if they are on their way to a commercial shoot for Axe body spray. Acting ability aside, the mere act of going through wardrobe and make-up adds a layer of polish that audiences register. In Election, even the more dramatic moments of the story -- Tammy's speech, Mr. McAllister's sabotage --feel less like scripted plot points because the unaffected presence of real students subliminally signals to the viewer that nothing phony is happening.

That realism must also have rubbed off on Broderick and Witherspoon who both deliver performances that stand as career high points. According to the DVD commentary, Payne frequently sent in real students to improvise with his stars. Knowing that their performances were going to be so readily judged against the genuine article must have worked as a safeguard against putting in too many actorly touches. It is especially impressive that Election manages the feat of meshing Witherspoon believably into the mass of ordinary teens, considering she is as glamorous a star as we've got, and Tracy Flick as a role is full of invitations to go over-the-top.

On top of all these benefits, some of the kids are just plain good. Lots of moments that stand out in my memory from Election are the little bits of documentary realism from the students. The kids who ramble through their explanations of morals vs. ethics set the stage perfectly for Tracy and her "Ooh, ooh, call on me!" routine. I also love the boy who delivers that strange cackling heckle when Tammy takes the microphone and the girl who lets loose with a few dance moves when the crowd is chanting Tammy's name. And the kid who ad-libs reasons to Broderick why he needs to retake a test has a naturalism that a lot of pros could learn from.

It's telling that for all its arch filmmaking touches, Election feels more authentic than just about any other high school movies one could name.
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Cast This: Gravity (Without Angelina Jolie)

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I'd never mentioned Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming sci-fi epic Gravity. And here's a worrisome opportunity to do so. According to CHUD Angelina Jolie has passed on the big budget project for a second time. That type of a "no" can often doom an expensive project.

Gravity sans Jolie. What will they do?

Who will Alfonso Cuarón find to handle the heavy duty film-carrying demands of the role? The film concerns a man and a woman who are stranded in a space station. Or at least the woman iss (details are kind of unclear) The rest of the crew is dead. Robert Downey Jr has the principal male role but for whatever reason, it's a supporting gig. Gravity will rest on the female lead's shoulders. Most exciting from a filmmaking perspective is not, for me, the abundant groundbreaking CGI (as much as in Avatar) but that Cuarón wants to include long unbroken shots... one of them 20 minutes long.

Long unbroken shots are just about my favorite cinematic thing in the world after actresses so I should have mentioned this project long ago. This movie gives both. And Cuarón's already given plenty just by making Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men. (Speaking of unbroken shots...)

Anyway, this has got to be a tough role to cast... and not just because of bankability issues. Not every actor would understand the shift in performance style required to carry huge metaphysical but also action-tinged sci-fi epics all by their lonesomes. Who were the last actors to do so? I guess Jodie Foster (Contact), Hugh Jackman (The Fountain), and George Clooney (Solaris) have all given that a go in their respective ways. Carrying a survival epic on your own? Tom Hanks in Castaway pops into mind... though that's decidedly earthbound. But we'll allow for him since he's also got the stranded in space thing with Apollo 13. Obviously you have to have a star people love to look at if they have to spend 90-120 minutes with primarily one face.


I always find it amusing/annoying that when big roles for women that don't seem to require a specific age range are being cast, studios always seem willing to consider any currently hot A list star of any age and virtually every 20something in town with any heat that month even though there's usually no proven bankability (which is how so many people end up starring in like 10 movies simultaneously and are never heard from again. Remember Kate Bosworth?). Studios will almost never bank on someone who once had heat and lost it despite the cold hard fact that showbiz is nothing if not a random chaotic collection of people who are walking embodiments of the cyclical nature of heat.

"Interested" lists always make me realize how rare and lucky we are as moviegoers when something accidental happens like when someone gives someone great a real shot even though they aren't perceived as "hot right now" or bankable or on every shortlist in town. Like Marisa Tomei in all of her Oscar nominated roles. She was never on the top of every list but she's so damn talented and reliably watchable. Or like Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham in '88. She had to fight to get that and then was magnificent obliterating any notions that she had already peaked. Many people even thought Streep was over in the early 90s, you know?

Who would you cast? Bear in mind we know virtually nothing about the role other than that it's a solo and the character has a daughter back on earth (so you can't skew as young as Ellen Page, or at least you probably shouldn't because why would someone leave a baby on Earth while they were space travelling?) They'll have to have chemistry with RDJ if he stays on, and they'll need to be comfortable in an effects heavy film (which is why I worry about the studio's interest in Natalie Portman. When exactly is she good in those situations even though she's often good elsewhere?). I'd be considering Gwyneth Paltrow first (I'm serious) and then probably Nicole Kidman. Hell, I'd even test Christina Ricci on account of the curveball aspect of it. There's a familiar interesting face that nobody would be expecting but that many people would enjoy and if she ever delivers big somewhere a million people are going to say "I knew she had it in her all along!". But as much as it surprises me to hear myself type it, the studio's rumored interest in Sandra Bullock makes total sense to me artistically even if they're probably only interested due to the monetary heat. Still, I can imagine her being a good match with RDJ and her uncomplicated but highly watchable acting style might actually be an assett to an effects heavy film. She's never tried one and maybe she'll want to stretch a little post-Oscar?

The possibilities are endless... aren't they?

I'll shut up now. I do go on. Your turn. Which actress would you love to see carrying a sci-fi epic for Alfonso Cuarón.
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Double Oh! (Casting News)

By now you've heard that the great casting search of 2010 (distaff division) has ended. Rooney Mara has landed the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Rooney & Noomi

That's the role that Noomi Rapace played in the Swedish trilogy based on the best selling book franchise about men who really hate women. David Fincher rejected most of the famous names who wanted the coveted role of this short little sociopath. Little known fact: in addition to height and age requirements only actresses with double O in their name were considered for the famed Tattoo part.

Soleil Moon Frye was deemed too old, despite having come to fame playing short little sociopath Punky Brewster.

Speaking of double Os, it'll be nice to see 007 Daniel Craig again, won't it? Especially with Fincher's camera on him. Think of the multiple wonders Fincher's camera pulled from Brad Pitt over the years, give or take Benjamin Button.

In other strange double lettered casting news Marilyn Monroe ("MM") was supposed to be a character in two upcoming features with major actresses like Naomi Watts (Blonde) and Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) playing her.


Now, supposedly there's a third Marilyn picture in the works. The author of the book "The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog", which is about the last two years of Marilyn's life as seen by the pet terrier that Frank Sinatra gave her, thinks that Angelina Jolie will play her in the film adaptation. But that sounds like an author delusion. What a strange movie that would make. Not that there's anything wrong with strange movies. We like them.

New Rule: In the future all movies must contain at least one scene involving a character named Marilyn Monroe so that every actress gets a chance to play her. Apparently they all want to.

Could Have Beens: Josh Hutcherson Parker / Toni Roxie Collette

Josh Hutcherson's Spider-Man screen test went up at Latino Review. Though I'm sure they'll be pulled soon it's fun to watch. It's actually interesting to see how much effort went into these screen tests. Wouldn't it be great to see all of them back to back? We're talking wire stunts, editing, scene recreations from the original Spider-Man. Everything. Plus, it's not one of those audition tapes that makes the actor look bad. Hutcherson looks like he'd be an excellent Peter Parker. All the press he got for even being in the running will surely do him good. Well, that and holding his own in the stellar The Kids Are All Right cast this summer. I see a SAG nomination come January 2011 (ensemble).

Here's the video and a few screen caps in case it disappears.




The online wailing about Andrew Garfield is a clear case of fear of the unknown. He's as solid a choice as any and probably moreso given that they went with him without any bankability whatsoever and him being older than they'd planned on going. In other words: they know something we don't, having seen his screen test.

But "could have beens" are fun, too. Every once in a blue moon I try to imagine Basic Instinct with any of the women who were considered or rejected it before Sharon Stone got it... and there were so many. I always wonder if Holly Hunter would have won a second Oscar for As Good As It Gets had she not priced herself out of the movie. Or I try to picture Rachel McAdams as Invisible Girl in Fantastic Four. Easy! Or Brad Pitt attempting an English accent for About a Boy. How weird would that have been? (That's why Not Starring is such a fun site to visit randomly.)

This topic also makes me think of Evita (1996) and how it might have been Streep or Pfeiffer (who recorded a demo) instead of Madonna in another iteration.

My saddest could-have-beens will probably remain Michelle Pfeiffer as Clarice Starling (Fact: turned it down) -- not because Jodie wasn't superb but because, well, Oscar! -- or Toni Collette as Roxie Hart in Chicago (Rumor: deemed not bankable enough despite being first choice). Both would surely have been excellent.



But maybe the Toni Collette as Roxie thing haunts me only because I l-o-v-e-d her in The Wild Party on Broadway so much. And because I wanted her to play Liza Minnelli for so long in a biopic. I'm dying to see Toni in another musical. Will it ever happen again?

Emmy Nominations Tomorrow

I just remembered that the Emmy Nominations are nearly upon us. I try not to think about them too much because I am always sorely disappointed.

Lost Causes I'm Rooting For: Anything Friday Night Lights -- yegods that show is brillz but particularly Connie Britton and Zach Gilford. Plus Enver Gjokaj for season 2 of Dollhouse. It seems like that was cancelled a hundred years ago but it only ended this past January. He was quite awesome/rangey as Victor even doing impersonations that were on par with several Oscar winning mimicry efforts. Because he was doing excellent work in the genre of sci-fi though, nobody noticed. He has only done 1 (just 1!!!) guest spot job since Dollhouse's cancellation. I am normally not this cocky about things I've never done but I swear to god they need to fire that entire town's casting departments and just replace them with me because they are CONSTANTLY ignoring people who've already proven their worth. That's like burning money!

Nail Biter: All three principle Mad Men women (and a few of the guest stars too) and 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski. The shows are popular with Emmy, the actors less so. But so much deserve.

Shows That Will Do Well That I Like: The United States of Tara, Modern Family, Nurse Jackie, Mad Men and Glee will obviously be there but in what numbers? I cracked myself up reading my review of the Glee pilot this morning. I was worried that they wouldn't let Matthew Morrison sing?!? Hee. I also said the show had a light touch. Wow, that turned out wrong. I love the show but boy did they abandon that light touch for full throttle AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU YOU'RE GONNA LOVE ME!!! belting in record time.

UPDATE: the nominations have arrived.
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The Last Linkbender

Angry Asian Man has been covering the racist casting of and boycotts of The Last Airbender movie and rounding up links. I think this one from Racalicious about "race bending" is a good overview of the controversy though I have two nitpicky responses that have nothing to do with race.

1. It's not accurate to claim that Hollywood clings to a "mindset from the 30s" when it comes to pleasing the male demographic. Hollywood was just as interested in women in the 30s. The 'please the boys at all costs / ignore everyone else' mandate isn't really unmistakable in cinema until the modern blockbuster era.
   
2. Though it's true that race is a trickier subject than gender, the statement that it's "easy" to combat media driven gender stereotypes is not accurate at all. Those media messages are still pervasive and confusing in 2010 and still shape people's ideas about what's of value (men and their p.o.v.) and what's not (women and anything deemed "feminine"). American culture is still f***ed up about gender and Hollywood reflects that back to us and reinforces it all the time.

I guess anyone protesting this movie has to be happy that the reviews have been so very terrible. Too bad about the box office, though. M Night Shyamalan isn't exactly respected these days but his movies still open well. To make matters more complicated, M Night who is of Asian descent himself claims that the casting decisions were entirely his. I'm not sure I'd want to claim credit for that myself if I were him but he's not exactly known for having perspective about his own projects... or for not taking credit for everything.

Dev Patel, the only non-Caucasian of the four lead roles.
Naturally, he's the antagonist. Business as usual for Hollywood.

Andrew Wheeler has a good piece on the controversy, too, at his dependably interesting blog
The Post-Game Show. I love this bit on M. Night Shyamalan's 'I'm Asian so it can't be racist' style defense.

This is the minority author as the sole arbiter of minority identity. Last time we heard that response, it was from Torchwood writer Russell T Davies on the subject of Ianto’s death on that show, and that time it was even less elegantly expressed; “We’re talking about issues in my entire life here, not just one small television program. … [Critics] should simply grow up, do some research, and stop riding on a bandwagon that they actually don’t know anything about.”

Never mind that critics of Davies were often gay, and critics of Shyamalan have often been Asian; because Davies is gay and Shyamalan is of Asian-American, it is the audience’s ‘misunderstanding’ that’s to blame, and no reflection on the author or director’s insensitivity.

The whole piece is a really good overview of the problem and the massive gaps in the logic that attempts to justify the preproduction casting decisions.

I was actually interesting in seeing this movie. I have a largely undiscussed weakness for sci-fi/fantasy (and four elements stuff) and I find Shyamalan fascinating in a dichotomous talented/idiotic kind of way. But the reviews suggest there isn't much of worth in the film. Did any of you see it over the weekend? If so, do you agree with the excoriation it received?

Top Ten: New Academy Members 2010

it's not Tuesday but it's time for a Top Ten anyway... as this is yesterday's news already!

AMPAS used to hide their membership roster like the vote tallies but in the information age, they've opened up. Now we get to see the whole list of new invitees each year. I wonder how they keep they're membership around 6,000 given how many people they invite annual. Maybe enough people reject the offer, stop paying their dues, or pass from this mortal coil each year to balance it out?

You can read the full list of recipients at Indiewire, but as is the Film Experience tradition, we like to pinpoint the newest (potential) members whose future ballots we'd most like to see. So let's have at it.

New Academy Member Ballots We Most Want To See

10 Bono & The Edge (music)
They're two separate people but we'd like to imagine them filling out their ballots together inbetween sets. We'd like to also imagine that they'll have better taste than the rest of the often confounding music branch.

09 Bob Murawski (editor)
We love his work on The Hurt Locker and the Spider-Man films and he's a fellow Michigander. Extra points for that. Plus editing happens to be the most fascinating category in terms of how one judges it? How do you know how well an editor is doing if you can't see all the unused footage? And are they really that obsessed with just choosing the movies they love as their nominees or are their individual ballots so very individual that only the absolute common denominators are able to rise up to snag nominations, the common denominators being the pictures people love most, regardless of editing skill (i.e. Best Picture nominees)

08 Laura Rosenthal (casting director)
It's the job I'm personally most jealous of in Hollywood. I assume the casting directors can only nominate in the Best Picture category but in a way, shouldn't they have a say in all four acting categories? Their very business is studying actors and deciding who is best... for the part. Some interesting things on her resume: The Messenger, Chicago, I'm Not There, Far From Heaven and Savage Grace. It's worth noting that this woman was smart enough to give Samantha Morton her first two American gigs (Sweet and Lowdown and Jesus's Son)

07 Janet Patterson (costume designer)
Her filmography is short but damned if her accomplishments aren't tall. Consider: Peter Pan, The Piano, Oscar & Lucinda, Bright Star, Holy Smoke!, The Portrait of a Lady. She should already be an Oscar winner by now but after four nominations, it's nice that they're extending an offer. Strangely, the Academy's costuming branch is so small that last I checked it wasn't even listed among their categories. Are there really more makeup artists in AMPAS than costumers (click here and scroll down to bottom of page). If so, why? But then again, maybe my numbers are out of date.


06 Peter Sarsgaard (actor)
He finally wore down their resistance. That Shattered Glass (2003) snub still stings years later. He works a lot and even if we're starting to want him to truly surprise us again (we fear he's going to become a Ben Kingsley i.e. a great actor who shamelessly phones it in for too many paychecks) we like him. Who will he vote for? Besides Maggie & Jake.

05 Adam Shankman (director)
He's had experience in producing, acting and directing and was a key player in this last Oscar ceremony. We don't mean this in a judgmental way but he strikes us as the type that will vote for his friends. But he seems to have so many of them that won't he have to snub most of them each time he votes? Does having a million friends, mean voting for your friends doesn't really compromise your ballot? Now, Academy members can only nominate in the category of the branch they're invited to join (as well as Best Picture... then they can vote for the winners in most other categories when the final ballots go out). So this means that he'll be able to have his say at who did the best directing job each year. We love Hairspray and we don't begrudge him Academy membership -- he's a serious power player -- but as a director? Wouldn't he be a better fit for the producer's branch?

04 Zoë Saldana (actor)
This All American beauty (of Dominican/Puerto Rican descent) was probably invited due to those back-to-back blockbusters (Avatar, Star Trek) but if you stop to consider that she's acted opposite everything from green screens (Avatar and the like) to wood (Britney Spears, Crossroads) and on to A grade thespians like Johnny Depp and Sigourney Weaver she probably knows a thing or two about the acting process in all its iterations. And having recently singled out Tang Wei in Lust, Caution as one of her favorite performances, we know the girl is discerning and willing to look beyond Hollywood for "best". AMPAS could use more of that. We would love to see her nomination ballot in all four acting categories this coming January.

03 Jacques Audiard (director)
This French auteur's last three features Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet have all crackled with intelligence, electricity, fine acting and interesting choices. Now being great at something is not the same thing as being great at judging it... but it surely can't hurt. We're always curious about AMPAS's foreign outreach. How many of them say yes to membership and when they do, how international are their ballots compared to, say, Ron Howard's... or Adam Shankman's for that matter?

Audiard directs with his hands.

02 Vera Farmiga (actor)
Her breakthrough, critically speaking, came when she won the LAFCA Best Actress prize for Down to the Bone (2004). Incidentally that film was directed by Debra Granik, who's currently helping Jennifer Lawrence break through with Winter's Bone (2010). Will more actresses line up to work with Granik? That'd be a smart move. It took the Academy another five years to notice Farmiga. Given her frequently fine rapport with male co-stars, we're actually more curious about how she'll vote for the male acting categories than her own. We know she loves Michael Fassbender so... points for that. But the real reason she's ranked so high is those crazy eyes. What do they see? We like to theorize that people with crazy eyes are actually crazy. And crazy is way better than same ol' same ol' when it comes to awards balloting.

01 Mo'Nique (Actor)
Admit it, she'd top your list too. On account of what the hell would that ballot look like? Her already legendary performance in Precious showed previously hidden depths so maybe she'll be able to see it in others, too? In addition to her being an atypical Oscar winner (they don't usually go for female comics) we're intrigued by whether or not she'll take the process seriously given that when last year's race first began she seemed famously disinterested. Will that initial skepticism make her one of those types that just votes for her friends, or doesn't vote at all or even refuses membership? Or will she just crack herself up like she does onstage while she scribbles down outlandish performances? Or did the Oscar journey, which culminated in that beautiful shout out to Hattie McDaniel's history-making win for Gone With the Wind (1939), convert her to the importance of the legacy of Hollywood's High Holy Night?
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The rest of the lists if you're curious [source]

Actors:
 Tobin Bell (Saw), 
Miguel Ferrer (Traffic), 
James Gandolfini (In the Loop), 
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), 
Mo’Nique (Precious), 
Carey Mulligan (An Education), 
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Mother and Child), 
Peter Riegert (Traffic), 
Sam Robards (American Beauty), 
Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, pictured left), 
Adam Sandler (Funny People), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Shaun Toub (Iron Man), 
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), 
George Wyner (A Serious Man)

Animators:
 Ken Bielenberg (Monsters vs Aliens), Peter de Seve (Ratatouille), 
Steve Hickner (The Prince of Egypt), 
Angus MacLane (Toy Story 3), 
Darragh O’Connell (Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty), Simon Otto (How to Train Your Dragon), Bob Pauley (Toy Story 3), 
Willem Thijssen (A Greek Tragedy)

Art Directors/Set Decorators/Production Designers:
 Kim Sinclair (Avatar), Dave Warren (Sweeney Todd), Maggie Gray (The Young Victoria), Douglas A. Mowat (The Sixth Sense), 
Caroline Smith (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), 
Kirk M. Pertruccelli (The Incredible Hulk), 
Edward S. Verreaux (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)

Cinematographers:
 Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker), 
Christian Berger (The White Ribbon, pictured left), Hagen Bogdanski (The Young Victoria), 
Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation), Tom Hurwitz (Valentino The Last Emperor), 
Dan Mindel (Star Trek), 
Tobias Schliessler (Hancock), 
Stephen Windon (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), Robert Yeoman (The Squid and the Whale)

Costume Designers:
 Catherine Leterrier (Coco before Chanel)

Directors:
 Juan Jose Campanella (The Secret in Their Eyes), Lee Daniels (Precious), 
Claudia Llosa (The Milk of Sorrow), Lone Scherfig (An Education)

Documentary:
 Nancy Baker (Born into Brothels), 
Rick Goldsmith (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers), Davis Guggenheim (It Might Get Loud), Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water), 
Cara Mertes (The Betrayal), 
Frazer Pennebaker (The War Room), 
Julia Reichert (The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant), 
Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me)

Film Editors:
 Robert Frazen (Synecdoche, New York), 
Dana E. Glauberman (Up in the Air), Joe Klotz (Precious), 
John Refoua (Avatar)

Live Action Shorts: 
Joachim Back (The New Tenants), 
Gregg Helvey (Kavi)

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists:
 Kris Evans (X-Men The Last Stand), 
Jane Galli (3:10 to Yuma), 
Mindy Hall (World Trade Center), Joel Harlow (Star Trek), Jenny Shircore (The Young Victoria, pictured left)

Music:
 Christophe Beck (The Hangover) 
T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart), 
Brian Tyler (Fast & Furious)

Sound:
 Frank Eulner (Iron Man 2), Adam Jenkins (I Love You, Man), Tony Lamberti (Inglourious Basterd), Dennis Leonard (The Polar Express), 
Tom Myers (Up), 
Paul N.J. Ottosson (The Hurt Locker), Resul Pookutty (Slumdog Millionaire), Gary A. Rizzo (How to Train Your Dragon), Michael Silvers (Up), Gwendolyn Yates Whittle (Avatar)

Visual Effects:
 Matt Aitken (District 9), Karen Ansel (Angels & Demons), 
Richard Baneham ( Avatar), Eric Barba (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Paul Debevec (Avatar), Russell Earl (Star Trek), 
Steve Galich (Transformers), 
Andrew R. Jones (Avatar), Dan Kaufman (District 9), 
Derek Spears (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), 
Steve Sullivan (Avatar), 
Michael J. Wassel (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

Writers:
 Neill Blomkamp (District 9), Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker), Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious), Nick Hornby (An Education), Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek), 
Tom McCarthy (Up, pictured left. He's also an actor), Roberto Orci (Star Trek), Terri Tatchell (District 9)

At Large, Executives, Producers & Public Relations
 Christopher W. Aronson, 
Jim Berk
, Philippe Dauman
, Sheila DeLoach
, Donald Peter Granger
, Nathan Kahane
, Andrew Karpen, 
Ryan Kavanaugh, 
David Kosse
, David Andrew Spitz
, Emma Watts, Stephanie Allain, Gregory Jacobs, Jon Landau, Marc Turtletaub, Glenn Williamson, Dwight Caines, Suzanne M. Cole
, Tommy Gargotta
, Sophie Gluck
, Josh Greenstein
, Pamela Levine
, Wendy Lightbourn, 
Michele Robertson, 
Tony Sella, Darcy Antonellis and John Lowry

Which ballots do you want to see?
Do you think anyone will reject the offer?
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Viggo, Posterized

With the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road coming out on DVD on Tuesday (I'm eager to give it another look) I thought we should focus on one of the best actors working: Viggo Mortensen also known as "Aragorn"

<--- Viggo at twenty-two

Aragon's filmography is super odd. Or maybe not. In many professions if you do good work, your career very gradually swells but there's plenty of detours and error along the way as you feel your way up the ladder. I guess it just feels odd in the context of the movies. When we think of leading players in Hollywood don't we tend to think of them in terms of overnight sensations, has beens, or stars that have always been and will always be with us and seem to have arrived fully formed (Streep, Pacino. That type)?

Viggo fits none of those categories but he's very much a leading actor. I remember reading a magazine article about him around 1998 or so -- I think it was in conjunction with the release of A Perfect Murder -- calling him "the hot new 39 year old" as if he were a) new and b) way too old to find stardom. As it turned out he wasn't. He was too young.

Here's the posters... albeit missing a few.
Scroll carefully as there's an intermission this time!

Witness (85) -debut | Prison (88) 1st leading role | Fresh Horses (88)

Leatherface TCM III (90) Young Guns 2 (90) The Indian Runner (91)
Viggo's first solo poster! (Thanks, Sean Penn)

Boiling Point (93) | Deception (93) | Young Americans (93)

Carlito's Way (93) | The Prophecy (95) | Crimson Tide (95)

Portrait of a Lady (96) Albino Alligator (96) Daylight (96)

INTERMISSION: At a casual glance it seems like his career is just one solid upward slope of increasingly large parts in fairly successful films (he's third billed in the Sylvester Stallone action flick) but it's actually messier than that. In the mid 90s he's also doing straight to DVD movies plus he's dipping his toe into Spanish cinema - he speaks fluently - and even taking roles where he plays characters like "homeless guy" despite already having Hollywood's attention to some degree. Did he ever say no? Perhaps he slept just 3 hours a night the whole decade.

At any rate the career heated up once Demi Moore demanded he suck her dick. This unusual career move also worked wonders for Ashton Kutcher. (I kid. I kid. I couldn't resist)

GI Jane (97) | A Perfect Murder (98) | Psycho (98)

A Walk on the Moon (99) | 28 Days (00) | The Fellowship of the Ring (01)

The Two Towers (02) | The Return of the King (03) | Hidalgo (04)

A History of Violence (05) | Alatriste (06) | Eastern Promises (07)
we never got Alatriste in the US. (sigh)

Appaloosa (09) | Good (09) | The Road (09)

Viggo Mortensen quite obviously improves with age. One could say he's like a fine wine but he's more of a whiskey, don't you think? I do worry about all three of his 2009 efforts flopping. Will the lead roles keep on coming? Next up is his third go at being David Cronenberg's muse. Actors are always better off once an auteur suddenly can't live without them.

How many of these 27 movies have you seen? I've only seen half of them. Oops.
What do you first think of when you hear the name Viggo? Tell all in the comments.
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