Assault on a Queen

I finally saw Notes on a Scandal over the weekend. It’s a marvelous, poisonous little bon-bon of a movie. It’s not nearly as great as some surprisingly gushing reviews led me to expect but it’s still a treat to see Dench and Blanchett going at it. And their final fisticuffs, which went way over the top, reminded me of the slap-down between Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon in one of the greatest forgotten camp fests of all time, What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?

Anyway, Dame Judi and Cate make quite a pair. And don’t forget, in this year when the Mighty Mirren is sweeping up trophies for her portrayals of both Elizabeth I and II, that these two great dames got Oscar nominations in the same year for their own portrayals of the Virgin Queen. Cate lost to It-Girl-of-the-Moment Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love, giving a performance that was truly lovely but about as meaty as Doris Day’s in Pillow Talk. But Judi managed to snag hers for the same film in which her eight-minute portrayal was, granted, one of the highlights. Forgive the tangent, but anytime I can gripe about Shakespeare in Love ruling and ruining an Oscarcast (like Titanic and Forrest Gump), I just can’t hold back.

What Becomes A Legend Most?

The SAG awards pretty much rolled out as predicted. No big surprises in the movie categories- which certainly would have livened things up a bit - but we have worthy winners in all five slots. Whether this latest victory puts LMS in the lead for Oscar's best picture, I have no idea. Lots of pros and cons on this topic can be found everywhere this morning.

I would prefer to focus, instead, on the two real highlights (for me, anyway). First, the prolonged ovation given to the greatest TV ensemble ever and my own favorite program of all time: The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Not even the best comedies on the tube today -- Scrubs, The Office, Weeds -- can hold the proverbial candle to this great company of actors. I just wish a clip reel had accompanied their all-too-brief appearance on stage.

The other sparkling moment for me was the tribute to my beloved Julie Andrews.
However, one small quibble: although it didn’t surprise me at all, given the success of The Princess Diaries franchise, that Anne Hathaway started the presentation, couldn’t they have done a little better? I mean Carol Burnett was right there, for crying out loud.

Where’s Charmian Carr when you need her ?

Anyway, we all have our big screen crushes. Mine has always been Dame Julie.
It began when, as a sensitive lad of seven, I sobbed uncontrollably at the end of Mary Poppins. Why did she have to leave Jane and Michael? Couldn’t she stick around a little longer? Obviously not, because she had to go get ready to play surrogate mother to another bunch of lucky urchins, the Von Trapps. Three years later, I was finding comfort in my rather rocky adolescence by standing in front of the mirror and lip-synching the entire soundtrack of Star! or pretending to be John Gavin (or Carol Channing) to her thoroughly modern Millie.

I lose all credibility with film snobs when I mention that The Sound of Music is one of my top five movies. Listen, I can debate the merits of Vertigo or Wild Strawberries with the best of ‘em, but there is nothing in the vaults of Tinsel Town that makes me happier than that glorious, widescreen confection. Something good, indeed.

And so it continues..... SAG Awards tonight

Tonight’s SAG Awards should provide the next big log tossed on the roaring fire of Oscar speculation, which seems to be more heated than ever before. I mean everyone has an opnion, and a lot of the more seasoned Oscar bloggers have perfectly good arguments for their predictions, even if no one can seem to agree on anything except Helen Mirren’s win for Best Actress.

I really don’t think the ultimate SAG winners will do anything to lock down any of the categories. For every person that says “Crash won SAG’s Best Ensemble Award and then won the Best Picture Oscar. It stands to reason that whatever wins Ensemble tonight is the frontrunner for the Oscar,” there is another person who can easily counter with “SAG gave the Ensemble award to The Full Monty but the Best Pic Oscar went to Titanic!” (sidenote: hooray for SAG!) Then, you have “SAG supporting actor went to Paul Giamatti last year, but the Oscar went to George Clooney. SAG is useless in predicting Oscars!” Then we hear “not so! SAG and Oscar agreed on the other three acting categories. Thus, a SAG win either guarantees an Oscar or at least a really good chance….”

My point is that nothing --no major sweep of the critics awards, no Golden Globe victory, no SAG triumph –can guarantee the final glory at the Kodak next month. Whatever happens with SAG and then with the upcoming DGA will only heighten the frenzy of this year’s surprisingly impassioned Oscar season.

There is so much stuff out there this year. My favorite commentary of the past few days comes to us courtesy of Nikki Finke at LA WEEKLY. It’s a great read. And very, very funny. Check it out.

OK, so a word about the five Best Actor nominees. They are the same for SAG and the Academy, and four of them represent the only nomination for their respective films. In other words, people like their performances but nothing else in their movies rate a nomination. I’ve been scouring the record books and I can’t find another year when this happened in this category. Sure, there have been years when winning actors had the only nomination for their films…but four out of five nominations in a single category? Hmmmm.

Furthermore, we seem to be looking at a showdown between Forest Whitaker and Peter O’Toole, yet their movies (The Last King of Scotland and Venus, respectively) are bottom feeders at the box office. As much as I’d love to see O’Toole snatch a surprise victory on Oscar night, is it even possible when his movie has made, as of today, less than $400,000 in its limited release? Is it possible that Leo D may win? At least Blood Diamond pulled in a few more nominations and did so-so at the b.o. And of course, there’s that other movie, you know, The Departed, in which he happened to star. I’m just wondering.

DREAMGIRLS WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU (...but, then again...)

Whew. What a day. I won't even attempt an analysis of what it all means. For that, and so much more, click on over to Oscarwatch where the experts, pundits and about a million bloggers and posters have plenty to say. While there, be sure to read Dan Kenealy's great analysis of today's pandemonium.

Like everyone else, I am very surprised by the Dreamgirls, Condon, and Nicholson snubs. (I'm not a fan of the latter's performance in The Departed but still thought his nomination was a sure thing.) Likewise I am bit baffled by the shut-out of Volver in certain categories. I'll give myself a fast and humble pat on the back for predicting Eastwood over Dayton-Faris in the Best Directing category, but then I totally didn't give Greengrass a chance. (This is a worthy nomination, by the way, but already a real dark horse since his United 93 didn't get a BP nom.)

So I'll now be spending the next month catching up on the pile of movies that have all, at last, come to town (Notes, Letters, Pan, Little Children of Men, et al) and enjoying the build-up to Oscar night.

Did anyone watch the coverage on E! this morning? Am I the only person who cannot abide Giuliana? Did anyone see how she kicked her cohost Leo (who makes Billy Bush look like Walter Cronkite) out of the way so she could slobber all over Salma Hayek? I miss the old days. Where is Hedda Hopper when we need her? Or Rona Barrett?

As for Dreamgirls, it's loss of best picture and best director nominations must surely come as punch in the pants to many. But think about the many, many other movies, all better than this one, who were also snubbed (and didn't at least have eight nominations to soften the blow). We'll start with the obvious, like Vertigo and Some Like it Hot and The Searchers and then conclude with a nod to one of the greatest movies of the past ten years, Far From Heaven.

The Academy's failure to salute Todd Haynes' masterpiece is just plain stupid. I've already complained about this in a previous post, so I'll not go down that road again.

Let's change the subject and end this little entry with happy birthday wishes to the great, the one and only Chita Rivera. West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago, The Rink, Spider Woman, Nine...my goodness. And the list goes on. And I even saw her in Merlin.

Oscar madness

It all boils down to this: all the speculations will draw to a close when the 2006 Oscar nominations are announced in about seven hours. My predictions run the same course as just about everyone one else. Surprises? Maybe Pan's Labyrinth, United 93 or Children of Men in a few major categories, but that's unlikely, I think. Still, I hope there is at least one out-of-left-field nomination to shake things up. We'll just have to set our alarm clocks and see.
Until then, good night, and good luck.
Oh, right. My predictions in the Big 6 categories, for what it's worth:

Picture
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Director
Martin Scorsese
Bill Condon
Stephen Frears
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Clint Eastwood
(or maybe Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

Actor
Forest Whitaker
Peter O'Toole
Will Smith
Leonardo DiCaprio
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat
(or maybe Ryan Gosling)

Actress
Penelope Cruz
Judi Dench
Helen Mirren
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet

Supporting Actor
Eddie Murphy
Jackie Earle Haley
Djimon Hounsou
Alan Arkin
Jack Nicholson
(or maybe Mark Wahlberg)

Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett
Abigail Breslin
Adrianna Barraza
Jennifer Hudson
Rinko Kikuchi
(or maybe Catherine O’Hara)

Friends, Romans, Etc.

It's been a crazy week, with too much time spent in front of the small screen. Looking past the gunk and grime of the Idol return and the disappointment of Dirt, not to mention a perfectly mesmerizing repeat of Deal or No Deal featuring a so-in-need-of-medication soccer mom who made strange barnyard noises during her short-lived quest for a family fortune, there were, thankfully, some highlights.

In addition to Season 2 of Ricky Gervais' marvelous Extras (kicking off with a surprisingly very funny turn by Orlando Bloom), I finally caught Matthew Vaughn's Layer Cake which only fuels my this-close-to-obsessive fascination with Daniel Craig. I admit this freely because, let's face it, I'm not alone. Violent, darkly funny, and way too aware of itself in spots, it's definitely a must-see crime caper worthy of the good press it got a year or so ago.

And the return of Rome offered plenty of reasons to feast on Sunday night's episode and go back quickly for seconds. This has got to be the best company of actors on television. And although the two leading ladies may never quite reach the pinnacle of stylish and bravura bitch-goddessdom defined by the brilliant Sian Phillips in I, Claudius, both Polly Walker and the divine Lindsay Duncan returned in full force as the eternal city's answer to Krystal and Alexis. I do hope they have a tussel in a lily pond, or the Trevi Fountain, before this season is over. The Vorenus-Pullo storyline is already darker than dark and, at last, James Purefoy's Anthony appears to be moving front and center of the action, after a first full season in which he spent most on screen time just brooding around Atia's boudoir. This second and, alas, final season has lots of promise.

It's very reassuring to me, in these not so cheery times, how many blogs have been giving above-the-fold coverage to sweet TR Knight's admittedly inarticulate and mildly befuddled response to Ellen's questions about the ongoing nastiness with Isaiah Washington. I mean, it's everywhere, from the usual Tinsel Town websites to those, um, other cyberspace destinations that usually focus on naked lumberjacks or hidden-camera locker room shenanigans. Anyway, kudos to Dame Degeneres for the interviews (ok, it maybe got a wee bit mutual-admiration-society towards the end, but why quibble?) Given the several celebrity coming-outs this past season, not to mention those adorable wedding pictures of John Barrowman and Scott Gill, I must admit I'm glad this one is getting so much air time. It's too bad the root of this is hate-speak but it's a good thing that Washington, who just can't seem to keep his big mouth shut, won't be allowed to walk away from this. Although fodder for tabloids, this and other "news" items can only help a lot of that younger generation currently grappling with sexual identity. I mean, I wish I had a Rosie or an Ellen while growing up. The best I could hope for was a juicy exchange between Mike Douglas and Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Yes, that explains so much. I know.)

This brings me to another clip, one that didn't get much of a replay. Or if it did at the time, I just missed it. It's our own little Doogie singing the confrontation scene from LES MIZ with his How I Met Your Mother cast mate Jason Segel on Megan Mullally's gab fest. I've liked Neil Patrick Harris for years, and, ok, he's about as butch as Felix Unger on the current show, but so what? I'll always be a fan because he recorded the best rendition of Sondheim's Evening Primrose ever. Yes, I know, Mandy did one with Bernadette, but it's over-wrought and hammy and I've never been a big MP fan, but this always comes up with anything about Sondheim, so I just have to say that and get back to where I started. Whew. OK, so check out Primrose; he's got a great voice that suits this heartbreakingly lovely mini musical. But back to this clip. I think it's hilarious. Judge for yourself.

And now, in closing, the doubly devilish, doubly delicious Livia:

The Party of the Year?

A search over at YouTube brings forth, sadly, very little on the Golden Globe Awards except for a bounty of clips from last night’s shindig. Give it some time and hopefully we will see scenes from the Globes in their glory days, back before they ever even pretended to be respectable, back before they became hot and holy precursors to the Academy Awards.

I remember a ceremony years ago when the late Nell Carter bounced onstage crooning THE most ridiculous song every composed for an awards show. “This is the party of the year,” she sang, while the lyrics awkwardly listed stars in attendance. Nell would blurt out a celeb’s name and the camera would find Susan Anton or Pia Zadora or Cornelia Otis Skinner for a candid camera “gotcha” moment. Everyone was always crowded at tables, getting snockered, ignoring the proceedings on stage until their name was called and they’d stumble up with humble gratitude and, usually in hushed and reverent tones that recalled Anne Baxter's Eve Harrington, graciously thank the Hollywood Foreign Press before slouching off stage to an after party with John Derek or maybe the Landers sisters.

Not any more. Last night’s show was fun but waaaaay too respectable. The last thing I need to do here is provide any kind of analysis on how these awards impact the Oscars. Plenty of experts, soothsayers and bloggers have already spoken on that topic today.

Let’s just say that the movie winners came as no surprise. In fact, for the first time I was 100% correct on my predictions. However, on the other side of the fence, with the TV honorees, there were surprises and disappointments aplenty. To begin with, they gave the trophy to the wrong Jeremy. This was Mr. Piven’s year. I am smitten with Ari Gold to the extent I was once smitten with Charles Ryder, as brilliantly and seductively essayed by the other Jeremy in Brideshead Revisted. For that one, Mr. Irons deserved a Globe, which he lost (parenthetically) to his costar Anthony Andrews. But, well, ok, here’s the thing: am I the only one out here who was more than a tad underwhelmed by Elizabeth I? Except for la Mirren’s great work, the whole thing was a creaky, ho-hummish affair. And Claus von Bulow’s performance, while certainly better than most stuff we see on the small screen, was a little dull and a bit mannered, especially when compared to anything the praiseworthy Piven put forth in this season’s Entourage. And what was he wearing last night? It looked like something discarded from Dangerous Liaisons – on Ice.

Ugly Betty is better than Weeds or The Office? Don’t think so. And why was there even a roster of nominees for comedy actress? It’s Mary Louise Parker. There is no one else. (apologies to fans of America Ferrera.)

Give me those heady days when Anne Francis could rightfully snag Best TV Star – Female for Honey West. Or take me to those fabulous jaw-droppers when supporting actors were all tossed into one line-up, regardless of how many episodes or type of show, and you would get Kirk Cameron going nose to nose with Sir John Gielgud. Or, even better, Justine Bateman going down to the wire with Olivia De Havilland. It just doesn't get any better than that.

.......Still, Someone Said She's Sincere

The lovely Yvonne De Carlo died this week at the age of 84. I suppose it was inevitable, but did we really need headlines such as "Munster Mom Dies"? Let's not forget all of her other achievements, including marvelous work in so many movies, including of course her Sephora in The Ten Commandments (ok, so she didnt' get to camp and vamp like Vincent Price, Anne Baxter and Nina Foch, but she still grabbed fifth billing in a cast of thousands.)

And let's all remember that she was the first Carlotta in the original Broadway company of Follies. She was the first to sing and record "I'm Still Here," Sondheim's great survival ballad brayed, bellowed and yodeled by every aging chorine from Elaine Stritch to Nancy Walker. But she sang it first. I have always loved the photo (see above) of De Carlo with Follies co-stars Alexis Smith and Dorothy Collins. It's from an issue of Time right after the show opened on Broadway. I was 14 years old when I saw it. Winter Garden Theatre. Saturday matinee. It's something I will never forget.

The Final Five?

And so, with the announcement of the DGA nominations, this year’s frenzy of Oscar speculations begins, at last and as always, to narrow down to the chosen few.
This year’s noms:
Bill Condon, Dreamgirls
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

For me, the only real surprise --and a nice one, at that-- was seeing Dayton and Faris on this list (I thought it would be Eastwood). It has been a long time since a directing team got a nomination here. I think we may have to look all the way back to 1978 when Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for their shared duties on Heaven Can Wait.

Anyway, the five films represented here may very well be the five films that grab the Best Picture Oscar nomination. Looking back, the majority of films that snag a DGA nomination find themselves in the running for the Academy’s top prize.

Oddly enough, they have a better chance of taking a Best Picture nomination than Best Director. Although last year the same five went for DGA, Oscar’s Best Director and Best Picture, that is rarely the case. The year before better represents what I’m yammering about. The DGA nominated:
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Marc Forster, Finding Neverland
Taylor Hackford, Ray
Alexander Payne, Sideways

The Academy went with four out of the five, but swapped out Marc Forster in favor of Mike Leigh (for Vera Drake). Yet the five Best Picture choices were Baby, Aviator, Neverland, Ray and Sideways.

The year before the Academy went with four of the five, but snubbed DGA choice Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) and went instead for Fernando Meirelles (City of God). Seabiscuit, however, rebounded with a Best Pic pick.

Are you following this? Does anybody care? I do. But please don’t ask me why. Any thoughts on who may miss out on the Directing nomination but still might swing one for Best Picture? My guess would be Dayton and Faris. Clint will take that slot away from them, but their Little Miss Sunshine will still be in the running for Best Picture.
We’ll see.

And the winner is "Claire's Knee"

The National Society of Film Critics just announced its 2006 award picks and, as always, this group did not disappoint. No Babel or Departed or Dreamgirls here.

As it does more often than not, this particular gaggle of critics selected as Best Picture a movie that isn't in the countdown as a possible Oscar contenders, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Sure, this one rates on lots of Top Ten lists and stands a good chance in the Foreign Film category (especially if ...Iwo Jima doesn’t land there too) but not as one of the Academy’s Big Final Five.

You can always count on these guys to shake things up a little just when the final stretch to Oscar Night suddenly becomes a grind. Over the years, the NSFC has selected as Best Picture such gems as Yi Yi, Mulholland Drive, Out of Sight, Topsy Turvy, Day For Night, and Scenes From A Marriage. In fact, since 1966 they have only agreed with the Oscar for Best Picture on four occasions.

Last year, the group was one of the few that did not cite Brokeback Mountain, or even Crash. It went with Capote. (Maybe its weakest choice since it deemed Babe worthy to bring home the big bacon). Anyway, take a look at the NSFC choices over the years. You’ll find lots (and I mean lots) of Bergman, either as best director or for guiding Liv, Bibi and Ingrid to their victories. But there’s plenty more foreign, offbeat, and indie-type films here than on the rosters of any other awards group. You’ll probably find a few titles to add to your Netflix queue.

Here are the 2006 selections, dedicated, incidentally, to the memory of Robert Altman:
Best Picture: Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Director: Paul Greengrass, United 93
Best Actor : Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress : Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor : Mark Whalberg, The Departed
Best Supporting Actress : Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada and A Prairie Home
Screenplay : The Queen, written by Peter Morgan

Note, please, another nod for Marky…the likelihood of his Oscar candidacy is just driving some people crazy. I love that. I hope he gets nominated AND wins. Not gonna happen, but how much fun would that be? Cheers, too, for recognizing Streep’s great and fabulous work in the category where it belongs: supporting.
So did anyone watch Dirt on F/X? I caught a repeat of the debut episode earlier this evening. It’s a perfectly fine trash wallow but not up to the standards of its network’s Rescue Me or The Shield. (I would have also mentioned Nip/Tuck had it not slouched its way into shock-value tedium this season. Ho Hum.) And that Grease audition/reality show is a true clunker. But I’ll probably tune again for at least one more episode. And I must admit that at one point tonight Billy Bush made me laugh. How often can you say that?

I guess I’m just waiting for Rome 2 and Color Splash, which pretty much illustrates how just how shamefully and widely swings my pendulum of small screen entertainment. Reality TV has more than its share of hunks du jour, but none any sweeter than David Bromstad. Other than that, it's more than likely Family Guy ("Who wants chowder?") and The Office or simply high-tailing it back to TCM where I seem to be spending most of my surfing time these days. Caught a few minutes of Theodora Goes Wild this morning…Irene Dunne at her best.

The Narrowing of the Nominations

So the Producers’ Guild announced its five nominations for Best Picture yesterday.
No real jaw-droppers here:
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

For the record, I was really happy to see Sunshine on this list. With each passing day its chances for a Best Pic Oscar nomination seem more likely.

Then SAG announced this morning and except for the scuttlebutt over Leo’s demotion to the supporting category (and thus, more than likely, booting either Jack or Marky out of this company), there were few surprises. Best Ensemble mirrors the Guild’s best picture choices with the exception of The Queen ko’d by Bobby, which really isn’t that surprising since at least half of the SAG members were in the latter.

At least things are starting to sort themselves out at this point as regards front-runners. Of the groups that have announced nominations (Producers, HFP, Online, Broadcast, and SAG) only Babel and The Departed have snagged Best Picture noms from all five. Sunshine and Dreamgirls grabbed four out of five. The Queen, with three, rounds out the Top Five contenders, for me, at this point in the race.

I would suggest that Letters from Iwo Jima remains a possibility as does United 93 (which currently has more Best Picture nods from the various critics groups….but this, of course, means nothing.) DGA nominations will, as always, help to focus or muddy final predictions.

For a banquet of discourse on the above and all things related, scoot over to Oscarwatch or Movie City News. Handy links are to your right.

Great Caesar's Ghost

Rome returns next week. And I can’t wait. At least we have something to look forward to over at HBO, given the confusion over the fate of the Deadwood movie sequels. For more on that topic, head on over to the bowels of HBO's website where some of Al Swearengen's most passionate fans are not holding back.

As for Rome, if the second season is even half as good as the first it will still be one of the best things on the small screen. Of course, now that Caesar is gone, we won’t have the weekly pleasure of watching Ciaran Hinds, one of our generation’s best actors, sink his chops into the juiciest portrayal of Emperor Julius we’ve ever seen. It was fascinating to watch him slide from noble warrior to power-crazed dictator. Blame it on Cleopatra, I suppose.

Maybe, if we are lucky, the writers will follow Shakespeare’s lead and bring back his ghost for a couple of scenes. If not, we still have guilt-wracked Brutus and studly hunk Antony (Tobias Menzies and James Purefoy) to keep things rolling along in the political arena, while Mommie Dearest Atia (Polly Walker) continues wreaking havoc on the home front.

And, let’s face it: any program that brings us the great Lindsay Duncan as Servilia, one of the original Sisters of Sappho, is a program worth watching.

The Year's Best Movie?

So I finally saw United 93. Like a lot of people, I let it pass me by when it was released this past spring. Despite its excellent reviews and high praise, I just had no desire to see it. Too depressing, I told myself. Wait until DVD. Well, I waited. And then the awards started piling up a few weeks ago. I can see why.

Is it the best movie of 2006? Maybe. Will it win the top Oscar? Hard to say at this point, although I’m hoping that it does. Then more people, like yours truly who put it off for the lamest of reasons, will be more likely to see it.

I’ll leave it to a few of the big guns like Kenneth Turan to discuss its merits. I’ll simply say here that I have never experienced anything quite like it. In less than two hours director Paul Greengrass and company remind us just how powerful movies still can be. It was hard to watch but even harder not to watch. And the last fifteen minutes just about tore my heart out. I cannot stop thinking about it.

Day For Night

After babbling in the last post about Best Supporting Actress, it is only fitting that we extend happy birthday greetings to the great Valentina Cortese. You may recall that her grand and Oscar-nominated performance in Truffaut’s Day for Night was overlooked in favor of Ingrid Bergman’s sweet and amusing cameo in Murder on the Orient Express. However, recognition still came Valentina’s way on Oscar night when the marvelous Bergman used her time at the podium to declare that Coretese, blowing kisses from the audience, should have been the winner. Good old Ingrid. What a sport.

Reflected Glory, continued: 2006 Movies in Review

As of today, the majority of the critics’ groups have proclaimed their top picks for 2006. Of course, garnering the lion’s share of these trophies means nothing in the final Oscar competition (think about Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven. Think about Brokeback Mountain.) Yet if Oscar gold was based on critical consensus, then we could wrap things up right now and bestow the honors as follows:

Best Director, Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Best Actor, Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress, Helen Mirren for The Queen
Best Supporting Actor, Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children
Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Hudson, for Dreamgirls
Best Picture, a toss-up between United 93 and The Departed.

But the race isn’t over yet. So let’s wait and see how things stand after the few remaining critics polls and the NSFC announce their choices in the coming weeks. I would suggest the only slam dunk at this point is Mirren for The Queen. She has taken every single critics’ award so far. The other four nominees should just stay at home on Oscar night. Then again, I really shouldn’t say this. After Crash stole the Best Picture Oscar, no bets are safe. Don’t worry, I won’t go down this oft-traveled road except to say that Brokeback Mountain had simply won too many pre-Oscar prizes not to be the front-runner. And if there had to be an upset, it should have gone to Munich or A History of Violence. (Wait. Sorry. The latter wasn’t even nominated). It’s old news, of course…but if you want to read the best commentary on this debacle, let me point you to Matt Brunson’s great essay from the archives over at Creative Loafing.

The Academy has often blundered with the Best Picture category; there is a long tradition of foolishness that goes all the way back to Cavalcade and extends up to Driving Miss Daisy and beyond. Voters haven’t made as many jaw-dropping choices in the acting categories, which makes me think Mirren’s chances are as good as gold. Also, other than Judi Dench in what is quickly becoming her annual Oscar nomination, does she really have any competition? Especially in a year when she has already thrilled us with her other Elizabeth and another Jane Tennison?

And while we are on the subject, am I the only Meryl Streep fan who is puzzled over the many pundits who see her as dark-horse winner? Don’t me wrong, she is delightful in The Devil Wears Prada, but Best Actress? Come on, she has less to do in this film than Nicole Kidman did in The Hours. I think Kidman is great. And we'll start with To Die For and Moulin Rouge! when listing the movies for which she deserves leading lady kuddos, but in The Hours she didn't have much more to do than her equally excellent colleagues, Streep and Julianne Moore, and may actually have had less time than that year's best supporting actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Oh, it's all too confusing.

When the best of our best offer small, meaty, intelligent, admirable, and praise-worthy performances but still manage to land top and above-the-title credit, it is immediately a leading role. Look, la Streep had more to do –and better showcases for her divine acting chops - in Adaptation and The Hours, yet she was considered supporting in both of those classics. But I bet if you get out a stop watch she had just as much, if not more, screen time in those movies than she did in Prada.

Meanwhile, over in the supporting category, it looks like Jennifer Hudson pretty much has her Oscar nom in the bag. Certainly the break-out star of the season, she’s getting much-deserved acclaim for her tough and soulful portrayal of Effie in Dreamgirls. She’s also leading a pretty close race in the critics’ derby for Best Supporting Actress (with Cate Blanchett hot on her heels). But there’s the problem, if you ask me: she’s not a supporting actress. She’s the star of the movie. When the show opened on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday won her Tony Award for Best Actress. In the film version, Effie’s role is just as substantial (if not more so, given her addition of a nifty new song) and Hudson should, therefore, go up against Mirren, Dame Judi, Meryl and gang.

So who will be among the overshadowed and runners-up this year? Let’s see, Abigail Breslin and Adriana Barraza for starters…they might make it into the final five, but I’d say their chances of winning are slim if they keep company with that powerhouse, Miss Effie Melody White.

New Year's Eve and Lady Caroline Lamb

Happy birthday to the marvelous Sarah Miles. Ryan’s Daughter, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Blow-Up, Lady Caroline Lamb: the list goes on and on: memorable performances in movies great and awful. However, nothing can top her fabulous Alice de Jange in that nasty little opus from 1987, White Mischief. You would go numb from boredom so easily if it were not for the Divine Sarah, obviously game for anything that was tossed her way.

Even fellow kook Geraldine Chaplin fails to entertain in this dreary catalogue of scandals set among a circle of naughty British expats in Kenya on the eve of World War II.

So it’s up to the madcap Miles to salvage this thing, which she does in, saving her greatest moment for the final reel. Here she pays her final grief-soaked respects to the corpse of Charles Dance, who has given an appropriately deadly performance throughout. Rattled with grief, her Alice reaches down to her nether regions and gives them a jolly good tickle, then wipes her fingers across the stiff’s lips, sealing them forever with her very personal, um, glaze. Brava! Where was her Oscar nomination for that one? She was robbed, I tell you. Robbed.