And you, President Obama, a law professor!

So, the Supreme Court came out with a big free-speech decision yesterday, and President Obama's response was that he needs "to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less." I've already used that quote as part of the discussion in the earlier post "On the day that the Supreme Court struck down a U.S. statute as a violation of free speech, Hillary Clinton was promoting free speech on the internet," but I want to break out a very particular question for discussion.

The President was a law professor — technically, a "senior lecturer" at the University of Chicago Law School — for 12 years. Why would a law professor oppose a Supreme Court decision on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the Court and honor our system of separation of powers?

Now, I've been a law professor and I've been with the professors for more than twice 12 years, and I have my answer to that question. I'll tell you that in a little while. I'll just watch this movie clip....



ADDED: A day has passed, and you've chewed over the question. Now, I'll give my answer. It is exactly what I, a law professor, would expect to hear from another law professor! The odd thing is that Obama, a politician, didn't stop himself from saying the kind of thing lawprofs say to each other.

Non-lawprof Americans tend to think that the Constitution really means something and that that the Supreme Court has a special role and expertise in saying what it means, that a 5-4 decision is something more than just a vote on what 9 power-wielders would like the law to be.

I would expect a politician to tend to the voters' feelings. Obama should have said that he would like to explore ways to write a new statute that will respect the rights the Court has articulated and still serve the good and proper goals that the defective statute was meant to serve. With some sugar about how rights are important.

Are Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton "even allowed to be in the same movie?"

"Doesn't this... mess with the talented, very pale actress space-time continuum?"

***

You know, I have a big problem with actresses these days looking too much alike. In an age of plastic surgery, there's a standardized insipid beauty that wrecks a lot of movies and can be downright confusing. But Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton don't represent that problem at all. They carry on the old tradition of highly distinctive beauty. Yet, even within that tradition, there can be too close a resemblance.

And then there's that wonderful "Coffee and Cigarettes" scene where Cate Blanchett plays 2 different women who look and act entirely different. Snippet:

Golden Globe nominations.

Here. Any opinions? I especially like the recognition for Ricky Gervais and "Extras." I find it weird that all "The Sopranos" got was a nomination for Edie Falco. It's as if it's a conscious strategy to force all "Sopranos" support to go to her. I like the nomination of Julie Christie for "Away From Her," but I haven't seen enough of the movies to know who was really the best actress of the year. I see Cate Blanchett got nominated in two categories — and plan to catch "I'm Not There," the one where she plays Bob Dylan, very soon if not today. And this is giving me some other good ideas for movies to see while I'm in Madison, with easy access to many nice theaters. "No Country for Old Men." "Atonement." What else?

Orgasmic moments in film/film reviewing.

Manohla Dargis describes a scene in the new movie "Elizabeth: The Golden Age":

Declaiming from atop her white horse, her legs now conspicuously parted as she straddles the jittery, stamping animal, she invokes God and country, blood and honor, life and death, bringing to mind at once Joan of Arc, Henry V, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair in one gaspingly unbelievable, cinematically climactic moment. The queenly body quakes as history and fantasy explode.

This movie is getting a lot of bad reviews, possibly from people who don't get or don't appreciate what it's trying to do. Let's check in with Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films Guide:

A lurid sort of Christopher Hitchens vision of history pervades Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Shekhar Kapur’s sequel to his 1998 art-house hit Elizabeth.

Christopher Hitchens? He's everywhere. (Omnipresent.)

The earlier film, which made a star of Cate Blanchett as the eponymous Virgin Queen, celebrated the triumph of bright, happy Elizabethan Protestantism over the dark, unwholesome Catholic world of Bloody Mary. Even so, that film’s church-bashing was tame compared that of this sequel, in which everything bad, evil and corrupt in the world ultimately is ultimately the bitter fruit of Religion. And by Religion, I mean Catholicism....

In attacking England, Philip [II of Spain] is convinced that he’s on a mission from God: “England is enslaved to the devil,” he declares. “We must set her free.” Certain that God is on his side as he leads his nation into a holy war that becomes a debacle, Philip couldn’t be a blacker, nuttier Hollywood villain if his middle initial were W.

Wait. Isn't Spain al Qaeda?

Other flirtations with topicality in this pre-election year include assassins and conspirators praying secretly in a foreign language while plotting their murderous attacks, and the Machiavellian Sir Francis Walsingham (returning Geoffrey Rush) torturing a captured conspirator during an interrogation. (Tom Hollander, who costarred with Rush in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, is running around somewhere in this picture, an odd juxtaposition in another film that ends with a sea battle with cannons.)

The film does go on to concede that the Spanish have other grievances against the English besides religion, such as the Queen’s tolerant stance on English pirates like Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) raiding Spanish ships.

Sex, religion, politics, pirates... Let's go to the movies!

"He wouldn't come near me. He was utterly repulsed by it."

Said Cate Blanchett about how her husband reacted to her when she was in costume for her role as Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There":

Actress CATE BLANCHETT terrified her husband while filming BOB DYLAN biopic I'M NOT THERE - because he was "repulsed" at the sight of her disguised as a man. The Elizabeth star appears in drag in the new movie - for which she was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month (Sep07) - but her spouse Andrew Upton hated seeing his usually feminine wife in character as the male singer/songwriter. She says, "He wouldn't come near me. He was utterly repulsed by it." And Blanchett admits she was prepared to go to great lengths to portray a man. She explains, "My friend put a sock down my pants and that kind of helped my walk."

My reactions:

1. What kind of repressed, no-fun husband is terrified and repulsed to see his wife in men's clothing? Even if he is into her femininity, disguising it should be intriguing. Is he horrified -- rather than fascinated -- by this:



2. But wait. Was he repulsed because she was dressed as "a man" or because she was dressed as the man who is Bob Dylan?

3. About that sock.... This puts a whole new interpretation on the title of one of my favorite songs "Walk Like a Man." I went over to YouTube to get a video of The Four Seasons -- you know I love them -- performing the original version. It's not there. It's just pure serendipity that when you search for "Walk Like a Man" on YouTube, you get this:

Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan.

The movie is "I'm Not There" -- directed by the great Todd Haynes. Here's the viral video:



The portrayal is very "Don't Look Back"-style Bob. You know:



I love that Bob.

Hey! Love that Bob! Remember "Love that Bob":

"She walks, talks, sings, smells like Bob Dylan."

Heath Ledger raves about Cate Blanchett's "incredible transformation" into the character of Bob Dylan, whom she plays in the new movie "I'm Not There." Cate is one of a bunch of actors -- Ledger, included -- who play Dylan in the film. But Cate's the best -- "beyond astounding."

I can believe that. If you assemble a lot of actors in a film that's kind of a big acting competition, she wins. I observed this in "Coffee and Cigarettes":

When a movie is broken into a series of vignettes as this one is, critics usually can't resist saying which vignette is the best and grousing that some vignettes are better than others. With an ordinary movie, it doesn't seem worth saying that some scenes are better than others! But with each vignette, you get a new set of two or three actors, so it's hard not to single out, for example, Cate Blanchett. Patty Duke style, she plays two cousins who have the same face, but different hair, clothes, mannerisms, attitudes.

She was utterly fascinating and brilliant.

So who's playing Bob Dylan in the biopic?

Adrien Brody's a great choice, but, unfortunately it's not that simple:

It takes a village to play Bob Dylan. Or so it would appear looking at the potential cast for director Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, an unusual picture in which seven different characters would represent portions of the legendary folk singer's life. Variety reports that Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Adrien Brody, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, and Charlotte Gainsbourg are among the actors about to sign on for the movie, which has received Dylan's stamp of approval.

We had to go and be all clever, didn't we?

You know, we've already got that dumb "Lennon" musical, with nine actors (including four women) playing John Lennon. And there's that "Palindromes" film by the other quirky director named Todd (Todd Solondz):

"Palindromes" [has] a central character named Aviva, a girl of about 12 played by eight different actors, two of them adults, one a boy, one a 6-year-old girl. She is not always called Aviva.

I'm tired now.

The morning after the Oscars.

Last night, I simulblogged the Oscars. The morning, what sticks in my mind?

First: how mad I am at Jamie Foxx for romanticizing child abuse! Why did people just sit back and laugh and accept his account of how much his grandmother beat him? Just because he presented it in a positive light? I'm grouping this with the stories surrounding Hunter S. Thompson's suicide. People in the public eye need to see beyond themselves and think about what they are legitimating when they choose to present a bad thing in their own lives in an uncritical positive light.

Second: how out of place Chris Rock was. I like him as a comedian: I've watched his HBO shows and I own a couple DVDs of his comedy routines. But his style is built on a harshness and his mode of delivery is yelling. That just didn't go with a roomful of elegantly dressed people -- even if they are too full of themselves and in need of some puncturing. Sean Penn's use of his time on stage -- presenting the Best Actress Award -- was awkwardly devoted to restoring the reputation of Jude Law, the one actor Rock decided to rip into most viciously. I'm sure Rock chose Law because Law is riding so high and is regarded as so handsome. But it was too mean.

Third: the fashion for inflated breasts has ended. All the coolest looking women had smallish breasts, including the two Oscar winning actresses, Hillary Swank and, especially, Cate Blanchett (who won for portraying that great small-breaster of the Golden Era, Katharine Hepburn). Last year's winner, Charlize Theron was also sporting the micro look last night. So was nominee Natalie Portman. They all looked great. (I enjoyed reading The Anchoress's review of the dresses, which includes: "I loved Swank's dress; it was dangerous and bold, and a hard - unforgiving - dress to wear - if her bustline was the merest big bigger, it would have been a disaster, but she pulled it off.")

UPDATE: Tom Bozzo notes that I didn't say anything about Clint Eastwood last night -- I was tired by the time he got up! -- and points out that I had a lot to say back when the nominations were announced. So let's look back at that post, which was a morning after correction of typos -- and a meditation inspired by one of the typos:

I meant to express irritation "for the Oscar-worthy projects that extract Oscar recognition from the Hollywood fossils," but I wrote "Oscar-worthy projects that extract Oscar recognition for the Hollywood fossils," which is an even worse sort of mistake because it makes sense and just means something I didn't intend to say. Looking at the statement this morning, however, I'm thinking I could intend that statement to some extent. There seems to be an attempt going on to extract Oscar recognition for the "Hollywood fossils" Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, but I wouldn't have used that epithet against them intentionally.

I will say though that Clint Eastwood looks horrible on the cover of the new Entertainment Weekly. When I saw it, I exclaimed "he looks like a snake head" about five times. Would grizzled old Clint get a face lift? Instead of a face full of interesting lines and crags, his thinned out skin is stretched back, forming a taut, glossy surface that does not look human. And it sure doesn't help that his ears are so far back that they are scarcely visible in the full frontal view. Why? Why? Why would someone that old do something that can't make him look young, but only make him look very weird? Why would an actor who is only suited to play weathered old men ruin his face -- his instrument -- in search of an unattainable look that belongs to men who belong in roles he could never have anyway? And why did Clint Eastwood get a nomination instead of Paul Giamatti? Maybe the old fossils look at his new, old snake head and see themselves.

In retrospect, that seems too mean. Clint Eastwood deserves credit for playing characters who are his age, and, on stage accepting the Best Director Oscar, he called attention to his geezerhood, showing the wisdom and grace of age. (See last night's post for the "wisdom and grace" reference -- it's from Drew Barrymore). I liked how low key and modest Eastwood acted. He's a real sweetheart, not a snake head at all!

ANOTHER UPDATE: MSM didn't like Rock. Tom Shales in the Washington Post called him "strangely lame and mean-spirited. " USA Today is harsher: "Loud, snide and dismissive, he wasn't just a disappointment; he ranks up there with the worst hosts ever." What's more:

[W]hat many viewers are most likely to remember — particularly those who feel Hollywood is out of touch with many of its customers — is Rock's lengthy attack on George Bush.

It went over big with the crowd, and if you voted for John Kerry, you probably found it amusing. But that routine had nothing to do with the Oscars, either, and it very likely sent half the audience fleeing from what was otherwise a politics-free evening.

But apparently, the ratings were good, so I suppose we're in for more of this sort of thing in the future. And what is that? An abrasive, political comedian followed by a parade of anaesthetized Hollywood folk with nothing to say? Actually, I think the people who voted for Kerry should be worried. But they'll have to get past their in-group enjoyment of themselves and their own imagined superiority and get some concept of how the people who didn't vote for Kerry -- AKA the majority -- respond to this sort of display.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Nina disapproves of my statement that a majority of people didn't vote for Kerry. Admittedly, I should have said a majority of voters didn't vote for Kerry, and I ignored non-Americans (though they didn't vote for Kerry either). [ADDED: And anyway, it is true that most people, including most Americans didn't vote for Kerry.] But I think her post overall is an example of exactly the problem I'm trying to talk about: Kerry voters do not want to worry about the impression they are making. They adored "Fahrenheit 911" and they trashed Bush viciously, and then their man lost the election. And then their reaction was: how could that possibly have happened? I'd say that if you want to win, you have to be able to imagine how things you find delightful look to people who don't share your politics.

AND MORE: Several people have written to say they also think Eastwood has had his face surgically altered, and one sends this picture link.

Power and image.

My post about Condoleezza Rice on GlennReynolds.com brought a lot of email, some of which I reprint here, but one email really stood out. Reader Edward Tabakin makes a brilliant association between Rice's new look and the new image devised by Queen Elizabeth I as she rose to power:

Ms. Givhan wrote in her article that "Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power . . . . the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature." Well, maybe her mind. My mind went to historical movies and history. The scene that came to mind was the one at the end in the movie "Elizabeth," with Cate Blanchett in the leading role. Elizabeth has foiled the Pope's plot to kill her and ordered the deaths of the conspirators, including the man she might have married had her life turned out a little differently. In the last scene, she makes herself up in a new look: she cuts her hair short, applies makeup almost like pancake makeup to whiten her face; she creates the image of Elizabeth R.



Elizabeth is famous for one particular speech, which she gave to the troops, the soldiers, sailors and marines, who were about to go out to fight the Spanish Armada. Spain was the great military power at the time, and England was a second or third rate upstart. Elizabeth was about 55 years old at the time 1588, roughly the same age the Dr. Rice is now. The photo of Dr. Rice before the troops also made me think of Elizabeth's Armada speech. Here it is:

My loving people, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

"I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too." Wow, who wrote that, Shakespeare? Cutting through the 16th century english, it's an amazing and inspiring speech. As every school child once knew, the English won that battle, defeated the Armada, and because the great island empire. Nineteen years later, the first settlers landed in Jamestown.

When I think about image and political power, the first movie that springs to my mind is this one. Too much focus on image ought to alarm us. We should worry that a political figure means to reach down past our reason to some primal level where we cannot defend against manipulation.

But Rice's new look does not consist of very much. Surely, it is not the sort of extreme and shocking transformation chosen by Elizabeth. But like Elizabeth, Rice must convince the world that she has the "heart of a king." We should not pretend woman are judged in the same way as men. Saying that you believe it is wrong to judge us differently does not make it stop. Even if you sincerely want to believe and even do believe that a woman can be a great world leader, something involuntary, underneath your conscious reason, may still say: but no, not her, she cannot be the one, this does not feel right. Whoever does overcome that prejudice and become the first woman President will need to be able to reach into that part of our mind and turn it around.

It may seem bizarre that thin, three-inch heels could dislodge that last grip of prejudice. How many times have feminists written that high heels symbolize sexual vulnerability by making a show of the woman's inability to run away? That is too rational. Something much less accessible to the rational mind occurred when people gazed on that photograph of the Secretary of State. Something in that image -- the heels, the black, the brass buttons? -- had a very strong effect.

If there were some way to figure out exactly how to devise an image that would make people accept the exercise of power, we would be in trouble. Or perhaps not: all who seek power would simply adopt that image and that would cancel out image as a factor, leveling the playing field. To a great extent, men have hit upon an answer: the dark suit, the white shirt, the red tie. But a woman who just adopts the power-seeking man's look would set off a whole different set of associations. Women need to find some other way, something similar perhaps, but also different.

In the historic movement of women into power, how women look matters, and Condoleezza Rice played a role. Those high-heeled boots belong in the Smithsonian, do they not?

ADDED: Even the men's power look is complicated, as a reader points out the recent shift to blue ties. Another reader asks whether Condi Rice is Galadriel and quotes this, from "The Fellowship of the Rings":

"In place of a Dark Lord you would set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"

MORE: Several people have emailed to say that running is not much of a sign of strength -- especially if you're talking about commanding the military. Standing your ground is the stronger position.

Another thing about those thin high heels: not only are they named after a weapon -- the stiletto -- but they exert a heavy force by concentrating your weight on a small point. Stiletto heels are quite damaging to floors for this reason. You could really hurt someone stepping on their toes with a stiletto heel: that's a power image.

And, of course, heels make you taller.

Simulblogging the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

7:05 (Central Time): Glenn Close wins for TV Movie Actress, beating, among others, Charlize Theron, who looks really cool in slick black hair. Close gasps about how daunting it was to do a role made "iconic" by Katharine Hepburn (in "Lion in Winter"). In the tradition of Screen Actors Guild Awards, Close speaks in terms of acting as a field of labor. Close is wearing a yellow, spaghetti-strapped gown, and her upper chest glistens with sweat. You can see her freckles. I've always had freckles, so I'm always pleased to see the freckles shining through a beautiful person's makeup. In the preshow, I could see that Jamie Foxx has freckles.



7:10: Now, for the TV Movie Actor. Geoffrey Rush (and not the freckle-faced Jamie Foxx) wins. Rush fondles the little naked man that is the statuette and says he deludes himself into thinking that when he's naked he looks like that little guy.



7:18: Jamie Foxx is the next presenter, and the teleprompter malfunctions (or he does). He comically calls for a do-over, and screws up again, and has to comically call for another do-over. He introduces the clip from "Ray." I haven't seen the movie, but is it all about how he cheats on his wife? Who needs to see that? The next award is for movie supporting actress. Based on the clips, I'm for Laura Linney. Cate Blanchett wins, creating the second opportunity of the night to talk about Katharine Hepburn (the character she plays in "The Aviator"). She talks about freckles! She thanks the makeup artist who painted every freckle on her face. Katharine Hepburn was another freckle-face. Freckles! It's a night in celebration of freckles! Now, there's a cool tribute to stunt people and puppeteers and voiceover artists and extras and dancers. They count as actors too in the Guild's way of structuring things. "Extras," in this way of thinking about things, are called "background actors."



7:33: Male actor in a comedy TV series is the next award. I don't watch any of these shows, so I don't care. Tony Shaloub wins. Sandra Oh is one of the presenters of the next award, and I love the way she looks and her green dress. The award is for actress in a TV series, and here I do know one of the shows: "Sex and the City." So maybe I hope Sarah Jessica Parker wins. But what do I know? Teri Hatcher wins. Sandra Oh, by the way, is in "Sideways," which I haven't seen, because when I went to go see it, I crashed my car and didn't make it. Teri Hatcher is wearing a weird, breast-smooshing black dress. Like most of the actresses, she's wearing extra-long dangly earrings. Paul Giamatti comes out to introduce the clip of "Sideways," and he gets a ton of applause, presumably because he got passed over for the Oscar. Now: Ellen Degeneres, giving the comedy series ensemble award. I love the ensemble awards. She tells some jokes and is pretty cute. "Arrested Development" and "Desperate Housewives" look great in the clips. "Desperate Housewives" wins. The women are all sheathed in such tight dresses that they have trouble walking to the stage. The guy that makes the speech -- some producer or whatever -- uses the opportunity to denounce reality TV, which he's "ringing the death knell" of -- a cause dear to the people in the room.



7:52: Mel Gibson comes out and does a bad job of reading the teleprompter. He's giving a lifetime achievement award to James Garner. Shots of Garner in the audience show him giving what looks to me like the stinkeye to Gibson. "Such low level crap they're celebrating," I say as they show the Garner clip show. He just doesn't seem to be an important enough actor to be getting this treatment. To his credit, he doesn't seem at all egotistical. He talks of doing his best. And you have to admit, he was a very handsome man when he was young. Oh, this is going on WAY too long. We're eight minutes into this! Garner comes up and says he's "umbled" to receive an award. Now, we're eleven minutes into it. This is insane! He's touched deep in his heart. Can you believe it? He loves his wife! "Actors are very special people." Can't go wrong with that in this room, but you people are on television. Finally, after thirteen minutes, the segment is over. Unbelievable!



8:08: Melissa Gilbert, president of the Guild, comes out to say some general things. She's wearing a pink dress, inflated breasts, and what looks like a boa of giant black ashes slung over her shoulder. Next is Don Cheadle, introducing the "Hotel Rwanda" clip. Now: Kate Winslet -- a big favorite chez Althouse. She's wearing a tight light blue satin dress. The clips are for movie supporting actor. The clip for Thomas Hayden Church has him saying "asshole" totally unbleeped. (The show is on "E!") [CORRECTION: The show was on TNT.] Morgan Freeman wins. The crowd goes wild! Standing ovation! The actors love this guy. He sings the "Maverick" theme song, because, I guess, the tribute to James Garner just did not go on long enough. Freeman thanks everybody on the face of the earth. Laura Linney comes out in a horrible blackish dress. She introduces the memorial to dead actors segment. First: Ronald Reagan! Big cheer for Rodney Dangerfield. Also for Ossie Davie, who died a couple days ago. Also for Jerry Orbach, Ray Charles, Christopher Reeve, and Johnny Carson. Surprisingly not so much for the greatest actor who died this past year: Marlon Brando.



8:25: Actress in a TV drama. They all look great. Jennifer Garner -- who seems pretty surprised -- wins. She's got a cool silvery dress. The small-breasted women are looking especially good in their dresses tonight. I hope that will be the new style. I'm quite tired of the balloony look. Actor in a TV drama. A chair thrown through a window is featured more than the actor in one of the clips. The dead man, Jerry Orbach, wins. His wife accepts, and she runs up to the stage. "How bittersweet, but it's still sweet." Clint Eastwood comes out to introduce the clip of his own movie, "Million Dollar Baby," which he briefly forgets the name of. Glenn Close introduces the award for TV drama series ensemble. I only watch "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos." "CSI" wins, which bores me. But, again, what do I know? I don't watch that show. The clip looked dumb.



8:42: It's the beautiful Johnny Depp! He's introducing the best actress award. It's between Kate and Hilary. Depp is all in black: black suit, shirt, and tie. He must want Kate, who starred with him in "Finding Neverland." (Kate's nomination is for "Eternal Sunshine.") Hilary Swank wins. Depp darts away -- the man is so shy. I'm glad to see Swank win, because I think she doesn't get so many roles, which I think is, frankly, because she is not as good looking as the main actresses who get the roles she ought to get. When she's gotten a great script, she's been great. Her mom's there. She thanks everyone. Leonardo Dicaprio and Cate Blanchett come out to introduce the clip from "The Aviator." Charlize Theron is next -- sporting the excellent new tiny breasts look. She's a bit late coming out, and she runs to catch up. The award is best actor in a movie. The award goes to the gloriously freckle-faced Jamie Foxx.



8:58: Chris just emailed me this link, showing that Charlize Theron is making a movie about the landmark sexual harassment case, Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines. The final award is announced, for movie ensemble: it's "Sideways." Another chance to see Sandra Oh's fabulous green dress. She does the speech too. "This has been such a pure filmmaking experience." Ah, her green dress and my green car, the greenness of destiny! I like that they are having Oh speak, because she's the only one of the four actors who did not get singled out for any nominations. Tim Robbins romps out to say, "Good night, everybody!" And that's the show! End of post! It's been a great privilege, simulblogging for you this evening!



UPDATE: A next-day realization.

Pixies we're sick of.

Dana Stevens trashes Natalie Portman's Golden Globe acceptance speech:

At the extreme unprofessional end of the spectrum last night was Natalie Portman, whose slip-of-a-girl adorableness has reached such thermonuclear levels that she all but ascended the stage in a cloud of pixie dust when she took the Best Supporting Actress award for Closer. Portman seemed overjoyed by her surprise win (and why shouldn't she be, going up against Meryl Streep, Laura Linney, Cate Blanchett, and Virginia Madsen?), but her complete inability to string together two sentences was off-putting. Sure, she's only 23, but the woman has been in show business for over a decade—couldn't she have prepared some remarks, however unlikely it was that she'd beat out the likes of Streep (whose character in The Manchurian Candidate could have crunched Portman like a piece of ice)?

Oh, let me just pile on by reminding people that Natalie Portman went to Harvard. Either Harvard has some explaining to do, Portman has suffered some catastrophic mental decline, or Portman is playing dumb.

"Coffee and Cigarettes."

I loved the movie "Coffee and Cigarettes" (which is newly available on DVD). Keep in mind that two of my favorite movies are "My Dinner With Andre" and "Slacker" before regarding my opinion as a recommendation. Here's the beautiful "Coffee and Cigarettes" website.

When a movie is broken into a series of vignettes as this one is, critics usually can't resist saying which vignette is the best and grousing that some vignettes are better than others. With an ordinary movie, it doesn't seem worth saying that some scenes are better than others! But with each vignette, you get a new set of two or three actors, so it's hard not to single out, for example, Cate Blanchett. Patty Duke style, she plays two cousins who have the same face, but different hair, clothes, mannerisms, attitudes. The final vignette is especially poignant. It features Taylor Mead, so unrecognizably older than he was in the Andy Warhol movies -- like "Lonesome Cowboys" -- where we loved him so much.

I must get back to watching "Dead Man," which, like "Coffee and Cigarettes" is directed by Jim Jarmusch. I watched about a third of that movie once and then got distracted by something -- too long ago to remember what. I'll have to go back to the beginning now. But the gorgeous black and white photography of "Coffee and Cigarettes" -- which looked great on the Sony HDTV -- makes me want to get back to "Dead Man." Longtime readers may remember that I bought "Dead Man" along with four other DVDs back in March when I went on a Johnny Depp-focused buying spree.

"Running with Scissors"--the movie.

I'm glad to see there's going to be a well-cast movie of the book "Running with Scissors." Here's the relevant portion of the Black Table interview with the author Augusten Burroughs:

[Black Table interviewer LITSA DREMOUSIS]: Hey, what's up with the film version of "Scissors"? Julianne Moore is in it, right?



AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS: Yeah, she is.



LD: Is that finished? Is that in post-production now?



AB: No, no, no. It's not finished yet. I think it's going to start shooting--I think Ryan Murphy told me it's going to start shooting in January, I think. The first draft of the script is done and he's going to make some revisions on that. I've read it and he did a great job.



LD: Is he the guy who writes and directs "Nip/Tuck"?



AB: Yeah. That's his little baby, one of them. I like him a lot. He's not an established film director, but I just have a gut instinct about the guy. To me, that's just as important. And he had a similar mother, so he totally got her [Augusten's mother]. I mean, it's different, the treatment of the book is different because it's a whole different media, you know? And I wasn't expecting it to be slavishly devoted to the book, but it's a lot closer than I expected, actually. A lot of the dialogue is just lifted up from the book.



He's switched some stuff around and made it great. It's going to be a great film, I think. I think it has a chance to be a great film. I mean, Julianne Moore, though, she could just sit there. She's got one of those faces that's just very interesting to watch.



LD: Anyone else we'd recognize?



AB: I don't know who else has agreed officially. I think, Cate Blanchett. I think she'll play Hope. Like I said, I'm not sure, though.

I'll just go out on a limb and say Julianne Moore will finally win her much-deserved Oscar. The role in question has everything an actress could ever want.



UPDATE: I wonder who is in the running for the fabulous role of the crazy psychiatrist Dr. Finch? I would think Tom Hanks, perhaps, or Robin Williams.

Fall movie preview.

The big Fall movie preview issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail today, and on the cover is my personal favorite actor, Johnny Depp. Not only is he clean shaven now, but he's got his hair combed back quite elegantly and he's wearing a suit. He looks quite like my father in the pencil drawing that I keep on the mantel. I'm having a bit of trouble getting past the cover! Hmm… the cover folds out and there are sixteen small pictures of various Fall movie stars. One of them is Maggie Gyllenhall, who looks uncannily like my own mother as a young girl. Okay, I'm finished with the cover. On to the magazine. Here's what caught my eye:



1. "Seinfeld" is coming out on DVD with "deleted scenes, blooper reels, an alternate version of the pilot, and cast commentaries."



2. Ereka Vetrini, Omarosa's nemesis from "The Apprentice," will be Tony Danza's sidekick on the new "Tony Danza Show." It's a talk show. Yeah, Ereka can talk.



3. Jamie Foxx, playing the role of Ray Charles in the biopic "Ray, " "wore prosthetics (modeled on Charles' actual eyes) to simulate the singer's blindness." He asserts that this was needed to avoid "cheating" as he moved around. It would be unaesthetic without prosthetics. But acting is faking it in all sorts of ways. Among the great actors who played blind sans eye prosthetics are: Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis and Gabrielle Anwar and Patty Duke and Virginia Cherrill. The movies seem to prefer blind women to blind men, but I note the great Mr. Muckle in my all-time favorite comedy "It's a Gift." And the guy in "Butterflies Are Free." Ah! The best performance by a male actor as a blind character was Al Pacino. Hmm… and there was good old Gabrielle Anwar as his love interest. What has become of of Gabrielle anyway? Oh, and another fine performance by a male as a blind character was Gene Hackman. It seems blind men are funny and blind women are dramatic. You can think about why, and think about whether Foxx's film will be a hit. He sure looks like Ray Charles in the photograph. He's also, according to EW, a fine pianist--he went to college on a piano scholarship. So he'll be doing all the piano playing as Ray. Nice fact to know: Ray Charles, who died in June, was able to witness the final cut of the film.



4. John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix play firefighters in "Ladder 49," which is supposed to be better than "Backdraft," which real firefighters hate (because it's unrealistic). The filmmakers want you to think "Black Hawk Down."



5. They remade "Alfie," with Jude Law as Michael Caine. I've never bothered to watch the Michael Caine one, so why should I care? Well, Law is much cuter than Caine.



6. So what's the Christian Bale diet? "I just didn't eat." He got down to 120 pounds (he's 6'2"). He also only slept 2 hours a night. What role required all that? Some paranoid guy in "The Machinist." He's bulked back up for "Batman."



7. New Alexander Payne movie. "Sideways." I loved "Election" and "After Schmidt" was pretty good. Good lord, this new film is set in a wine-tasting milieu!



8. "The Grudge"—they've hired the director of the original Japanese film ("Ju-on") to do the Hollywood version. Takashi Shimizu. It stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who looks just like Gwyneth Paltrow in this picture.



9. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet together at last! "Finding Neverland." A biopic of J.M. Barrie. I hope it's good, because this is one I'd like to see.



10. Kevin Spacey directs himself in a biopic of Bobby Darin. "Beyond the Sea." How could that possibly be good? Spacey is eight years older than Darin was when he died. And who is interested in the life of Bobby Darin? That's just crazy! It seems the only reason for this is that Spacey has always looked a bit like Bobby Darin. What's next for Kevin? A biopic of Lee Harvey Oswald?



11. It's biopic year for the Oscar-craving actors as Leonardo DiCaprio plays Howard Hughes (with Martin Scorsese directing) in "The Aviator." There really is some fascination in seeing Cate Blanchett impersonate Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale impersonate Ava Gardner.



12. Jim Carey as Lemony Snickett. He rides a Segway. Okay.



13. "Proof," "Closer" … I guess I'm supposed to care about these Oscar-y productions. I'll wait for the reviews. And even if they are good, I'll probably resist, because I still remember getting hoodwinked into seeing "The Hours." Prestige movies for women: leave me alone!



14. Then there's the question: What Don Cheadle movies can I see in December? There's "Hotel Rwanda," in which Cheadle plays the role of Paul Rusesabagina, who saved the lives of 1200 Tutsis in 1994 (a great story). And there's "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," a political thriller that also stars Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.



15. They're making a film of "Get Smart," with perfect casting: Steve Carell.



16. A current film I'd buy right now if it were on DVD: "Los Angeles Plays Itself." It's a documentary about L.A. as it appears in the movies.



17. Ah! Finally, a decent DVD of "Purple Rain." Make sure you get the 20th Anniversary version. Don't buy this one.