Shouldering the blame

Oscar Coverage Part 2: Best Supporting Actor

Djimon Honsou, “Blood Diamond”: I’m going to be honest with you: half the reason I’m watching this year is to hear how to properly pronounce this guy’s name. After Jake Gyllenhaal’s nomination last year for “Brokeback Mountain” and the countless puerile, remixed trailers thereof, there apparently must be at least one Best Supporting nominee per year whose name I will embarrass myself if I pronounce phonetically.

Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”: This is Arkin’s third nomination for the award, but his first for a role in which he refers to gay porn as “fag rags”. Arkin follows on the heels of last year’s nominee William Hurt in the subcategory of “critically lauded performances that were, regardless, about eighteen minutes in length, so we can’t really give you this, but thanks for coming”.

Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed”: Some people think it says something about the Academy’s sense of fair play that this movie also features critical favorite (and Best Screenwriting co-winner) Matt Damon and noted eyebrow-archer Jack Nicholson, who has gotten to the point where he throws Oscars at children who walk on his flowers, and yet it was Wahlberg who got the nomination. These people are ‘tards. Everybody knows Matt Damon is still doing penance for “Stuck on You”, and as for Jack, dew ya really wanna lissen ta anotherrr Oscarrr speech that soundss like thisss?

Eddie Murphy, “Dreamgirls”: The buzz about this is that Murphy, once the favorite, is looking at decreased chances after the release of his film “Fat Women and Asians Are So Funny, I’m Going to Do Mocking Impressions of Both”, retitled “Norbit” for U.S. distribution. This doesn’t sit right with me. If we’re going to disqualify any nominees who have made godawful films, then, hell… Forest Whitaker was in “Battlefield Earth”. That said, it would be nice if Murphy did one horrible film for every six good ones, instead of the other way around.

Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”: Haley is, of course, best known as motorcycling deus ex machina Kelly Leak of “Bad News Bears” fame. I don’t care one way or another about the performance, that’s just awesome. Maybe next year the kid who played Tanner can get nominated. I’ve got the perfect victory speech for him, too…

EDIT: P.S. Sorry, ladies. As of this past Wednesday, I'm off the market.

Who Should Get the Oscar Part 1: Best Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond": I've been hearing raves about this movie in particular and DiCaprio's renaissance in general, but I can't watch anything with him without making dated, but nonetheless hilarious (because I made them) "Titanic" jokes. Hey, heh heh, if he gets that award, I bet he'll "never let go". I rule.

Peter O'Toole, "Venus": See, I understand how O'Toole is getting confused. He thinks he's going to get a sentimentality Oscar since this is probably his last chance. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "sentimentality Oscar". There IS a sentimentality Grammy, which Ray Charles received posthumously a couple years ago, right around the same time Jamie Foxx won an unbelievably precedented Best Actor for PLAYING Ray Charles. Easy mistake, Pete.

Will Smith, "The Pursuit of Happyness": This is a landmark ceremony partially because two (2) whole black men are up for this award. Many speculate that this one will go to Smith, since his skin is a lighter shade and a win for  him is less likely to violate the Founding Fathers' vision of America as a nation where only white men could succeed, although Delegate Jefferson added that black women were more than welcome to "succeed" any time they liked. Smith has much the same problem as DiCaprio, that is, no matter how good his performance is, the media can't get past the fact that he used to be one of those hippity-hopper fellows.

Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson": At the risk of inviting a scolding from Sean Penn, I have to ask something: Who the hell is Ryan Gosling? I know he was in "The Notebook" (which I am unable to see due to a medical condition known as "having a penis"), but what else? I'm looking at his IMDB page right now. "The Slaughter Rule"? "Frankenstein and Me"? No. This guy isn't getting any Oscars while I'm whatever I am.

Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland": Thing about this category is, there's been absolutely NO suspense associated with it for the past two years. Jamie Foxx won? Really? You just punched my mind in the face. Whoa, slow down! Philip Seymour Hoffman? What a shock! Next you'll tell me Snape kills Dumbledore with Kevin Spacey's sled! Yeah, so, Whitaker is pretty much a lock this year for his performance as Ugandan dictator and fashion-plate Idi Amin, which nailed us to our seats figuratively much the same way Amin would have done literally. It's about time the Oscar stopped going to portrayals of tortured geniuses and started going to ingenious torturers.

Help! (You know I need somebody) Help! (Not just anybody)

I'm trying to come up with sportswear for this year's Mr. Hermitage, and it's going to be hard to top my Legolas getup from last year. So should I go with a riverboat gambler or a Gentleman Jim old-timey boxer? Or something else entirely? Please give me your thoughts.

THE WORST PARTS OF THE YEAR'S BEST MOVIES

This was definitely a good year for movies. I'd have to take off my shoes to list all my favorites, and that's saying something, since I have forty fingers on each hand. But nothing's perfect, and all my favorite movies this year had some nagging flaw. Here, in no particular order, are the five most damning, with a film-ruining rating of one to ten Jar-Jars.

Deja vu all over again ("Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest")
After the first film was such a huge hit, everyone immediately started scrambling to find and recreate the magic for the sequel. Their conclusion? The film needed THE EXACT SAME DIALOGUE to equal its predecessor. Heh heh, Jack wants to know why the rum is gone. Again. And that dog with the keys is back. Tee hee. Why aren't we laughing, you ask? Perhaps it's because we've already laughed at this stuff. We're not Pavlov's dog. Stop insulting our intelligence and come up with new material.
6 JAR-JARS

A bad case of red-eye ("Casino Royale")
What, exactly, was the point of baddie Le Chiffre having a habitually bleeding eye? It did nothing for the story, it was needlessly unpleasant, and it could never happen in real life... wait, I guess that makes it the perfect Bond villain deformity. Never mind.
5 JAR-JARS

Bale triumphant ("The Prestige")
SPOILERS AHEAD!
This is purely a personal thing, and this is an all-around spectacular movie, but come on: everyone without hormones clouding their judgment knows that, just like Jack Sparrow is cooler than Will, Han is cooler than Luke, and Wolverine is cooler than Cyclops, Hugh Jackman could kick Christian Bale's ass. So it was a trifle frustrating when, of the two fanatical rival magicians in this film, not only did Jackman's character turn out to be an unsympathetic twat, but he is eventually bested by Bale. Oh, well.
1 JAR-JAR

"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" ("X-Men: The Last Stand")
For those who don't know, this line was lifted, verbatim, from an honest-to-God internet cartoon. Hey, director Brett Ratner, if I wanted to see a guy trying desperately to prove he wasn't out-of-touch by making pop-culture references, I'd be watching the "Shrek the Third" trailer. Let's keep this guy on the web where he belongs, shall we?
4 JAR-JARS

Every moment Samuel L. Jackson wasn't onscreen ("Freedomland" and "Snakes on a Plane")
Do you really think people would have gone to either of these movies if they were vehicles for, say, Brian Dennehy? I'm thinking substantially fewer (which is saying something, since both of these films flopped). Dig it: we didn't come to hear about kidnappings that are blamed on minorities, or to watch cobras fall out of overhead baggage compartments. We came to watch our favorite bad motherf_cker misquote the Bible while he blows some poor schmuck away. We'd go see Jackson if he remade "Ishtar", but at least pretend you don't know that.
NINE JAR-JARS AND A MACE WINDU