"I feel like throwing up when I hear it. No, I shouldn't say that. No, actually, I do feel like throwing up."

"I wish I could say, 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll."

Kate Winslet experiences seasickness on the Titanic... song.

"America secretly loves whipping itself up into a frenzy over this sort of thing, but it wasn't just the rightwing press expressing outrage..."

"... even Pitchfork was in on the act. 'In the few bars Madonna was kind enough to grant her during the biggest television event of the year, MIA's message to America was simply, "Fuck you"' it complained, somewhat innacurately (surely the message was 'I don't give a shit', otherwise she'd have just said 'fuck you'). It went on to conclude that: 'It wouldn't be the worst idea [for MIA] to draw as much focus as possible back on to her music.'"

Writes Tim Jonze in The Guardian, embarrassingly choosing the word "inaccurately" to spell inaccurately.

This is all so stupid. First of all, listen to the recorded song, or just read the lyrics. "I'mma say this once, yeah, I don't give a shit" is in the original song, so it's not as if MIA was going off script and inserting some spontaneous self-expression. Even though Madonna has famously sung "Express Yourself" — and even sang a bit of it during last night's big show — MIA didn't suddenly come up with an opinion and decide to spit it out to the world. And the word "shit" wasn't even vocalized. If you think you hear it, you're only hearing it in your head because it's the word that rhymes and obviously follows "I don't give a," and there was a hissing "shhhh" sound in the instrumentation that was used for a bleeping effect.

So the only issue is the giving of the finger. I remember when the America Online movie discussion forum was afire with the discussion of the finger back when "Titanic" came out and the Kate Winslet character gives the finger. Here's an old "Straight Dope" column from 1998 discussing whether it was historically accurate — or as they say in England "acurrate" — for Rose to give the finger in 1912? ("[T]he middle-finger/phallus equation goes back way before the Titanic, the Battle of Agincourt, or probably even that time Sextillus cut off Pylades with his chariot.")

Are we going to get all heated up about the finger again? Because that would be really stupid. A throwback to 1998. But what the hell. We are that stupid. We are getting all jazzed up about "Titanic" again right now:

Fans crashed multiple servers trying to secure advance tickets for the now sold-out Feb. 14 preview screenings of Hollywood's "Titanic in 3D," producers said.

You want to know my opinion? I think giving the finger is completely appropriate.

Jerry Seinfeld attempts to do a comic riff about Lady Gaga giving Mets fans the finger.

Seinfeld was asked about this because the singer was moved to his private box at the stadium the other day:

"This woman's a jerk. I hate her," Seinfeld said. "I can't believe they put her in my box that I paid for! You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we're living in now?"

"It's pathetic," he added....

"She's a jerk," he continued. "What is she giving the finger [for]? What's the finger anyway? Speaking of interesting and new, how old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?"

This finger incident happened a while back. All he has is "How old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?"? That's pathetic. If she'd just given the finger, I would have thought it was interesting to see how Seinfeld gets started working on one of his little what's the deal with that routines. But he's had time.

And, by the way, I remember the subject — "How old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?" — being discussed at great length back when the movie "Titanic" came out. It was an important moment in character development when Kate Winslet (as "Rose") gave some guy the finger. Was that an anachronism in a movie set in 1912? But I'm not going to do your research for you, Jerry. You're going on the radio. You've had some time to put some jokes together. Do some research!

Saw the movie "Changeling" last night but I don't like to write movie reviews...

... so let me do what I did for the last Clint Eastwood movie I saw and challenge myself to write a list of 10 things. Here goes:

1. There were several points in this movie where, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would have turned it off. It's incredibly melodramatic. But if it's true, it's not incredible. It's credible.

2. I loathe movies about children in danger, both because I don't enjoy seeing children suffer and because I don't want to watch an actress ham it up pretending to be a mother who is agonizing over her suffering child. But I shielded myself from knowing what the story was going to be because I was told — by my son Chris — that the movie contained the greatest acting performance of the last decade and once I decide I will see a movie, I avoid reading anything about the plot.

3. I'd never seen an Angelina Jolie movie before. Looking at the list of movies she's made, I can see why. Although she seems like the biggest movie star in the world, she hasn't made many movies, and they aren't very good. She's done genres that I don't much follow (anymore). For example, she did one of the voices in "Kung Fu Panda." When I think of "Kung Fu Panda," I think of the Joshua Ferris short story "The Dinner Party":

“They just got their dates wrong, is all,” he said, “and tomorrow, when they call, they’ll tell you how sorry they are. They had to turn their phones off during the late showing of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ or something.”

“So they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda’ tonight,” she said.

“Or something like it.”

“And they turned their phones off so they wouldn’t ring during ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”

“Or,” he said. “Or.” He put his finger up. They were standing near the bedroom doorway. There was dim light coming from the dark room and he was suddenly irrationally afraid, as he had been as a child, that if anyone stepped inside, if she stepped inside, she would plummet to the center of the earth. He lowered his finger. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”

One wouldn't see "Kung Fu Panda."

4. Jolie emotes. That's for sure. It's what's called for and she does it. She goes all out and does it. She's the female Jack Nicholson. And this movie has a good dose of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in it. Now, take your medication. Or we'll give you an electroshock treatment. "Changeling" also made me think about another great Jack Nicholson movie, "Chinatown." Lots of L.A., lots of corruption.

5. Did Jolie out-act Kate Winslet? Winslet won the Oscar that year — for "The Reader." "The Reader" is also a melodrama, but it presents itself in less of a melodramatic style. Although "The Reader" is set in the Holocaust, the character is fictional, and her story is presented in a more dignified Oscar-worthy vehicle.

6. Quite oddly, there is a scene in "Changeling" in which the main character is listening to the Oscars presentation on the radio and rooting for her favorite movie to win. The movie is "It Happened One Night," and Jolie's character expresses her fondness for Claudette Colbert, who won an Oscar for her role. "It Happened One Night" swept the top 5 categories at the Oscars, and it wasn't until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that another movie swept the Oscars. I wondered what Clint Eastwood thought he was saying to the Academy by putting that Oscars scene in "Changeling." I don't think he was kissing their ass trying to get Oscars. Maybe it was a way to say Oscars are amusement for the people and they don't really matter to me anymore. But it would be pretty funny for Jolie to win an Oscar for a role where we'd have a clip of her in character getting excited about an Oscar win. It would be cute. Maybe she got some votes from Academy members who liked that.

7. Like "The Reader," "Changeling" has a scene that depicts

a hanging and uses a closeup of the hanged person's dangling feet — or is it just the shoes on the floor in "The Reader"? I forget.

(Mouse over Highlight to reveal spoiler.)(I think that's the first time I've used HTML that way.)

8. If you like red lipstick, this is the ultimate red lipstick movie. You've got, first of all, Angelina Jolie's famous, immense lips, and then you've got red red lipstick — of the historically accurate matte texture. And it looks like it was put on amateurishly by the character.

9. You like cloche hats? You will see cloche hats. Angelina Jolie's character seems to require a cloche hat — and gloves. (I couldn't figure out how she avoided getting red lipstick all over her gloves.) This is the ultimate cloche hat movie. What does the cloche hat mean? It speaks of the character's vulnerability and need for armor, which makes it

especially painful for us to see her without its protection when she's thrown into the psycho hospital.

10. What's with Angelina Jolie's hands?

11. Jolie calls Clint Eastwood "very much the ideal man":

Maybe it's generational, but I think we could use more of it. People look up to him. He is absolutely who he is. He doesn't apologize to anybody. He has very, very strong, decisive opinions and is very gracious as a man, as a friend and somebody on set as a director, too.

She tags on the wifely niceness — "Brad knows that he's my ideal man" — but, reading that, I hear the emphasis on "my." Brad may be her ideal man, but Eastwood is the ideal man.

Oh! I went to 11. I thought it would be hard to get to 10. Ha. I guess I enjoyed that movie. Maybe I'll watch it again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Back in the 80s, we used to love showing "The Terminator" to people who hadn't seen it yet. All the surprises would be new again. Last week, I was flipping channels and came to rest on "From Dusk to Dawn," which had just started. I'd seen it before, but Meade hadn't. Great vicarious fun for me.

"There was always an air of smugness about the way Kate Winslet portrayed her life and relationship that rankled slightly."

"She paraded her happiness and her marriage was routinely held up as a paradigm of perfection. Now the truth is out, it’s hard for ordinary people not to feel a tinge of schadenfreude."

"He'd yell from the other room: 'Press your hand into her back more! And when you take her face, really grab it!'"

It's a dangerous thing when your husband is the movie director ordering the beautiful naked actor to sex up that scene with you, the beautiful naked actress.

That movie "put a lot of stress on their marriage," the friend said. "Kate [Winslet] came to regret making ["Revolutionary Road"] with Sam [Mendes].

"They've been pretty much living separate lives since the end of the summer," the friend said. "They realized some time ago that they were not a good fit. They were more like brother and sister."

Movies are art, and they can affect us profoundly. They can jar us into realizing things about our lives — things we would otherwise exclude from our conscious mind. Then, consider what it is like when  you are inside of a work of art as an actress, summoning feelings to create a performance, and the feeling you need to display is deep in the sexual realm of your body and the feeling needs to extend to the gorgeous, naked Leonardo DiCaprio. And there in the other room is your husband, a man who no longer excites you in bed, and he is telling you — urging you — to transfer all the passion that is inside you onto that ravishing man.

She is Kate Winslet, the most brilliant actress of her era — renowned for her ability to manifest sexual desire on screen — and she needs to go on and on pulling performances out of the core of her being. Her once-husband, now-brother Sam Mendes is an artist too, and, one assumes, he understands all this and is able to let go of his beautiful love and go on...

Meryl not Kate. Sean not Mickey.

Surprises in the top acting categories for the Screen Actors Guild Awards tonight.

I loved the way Meryl was all breathless and surprised. "I didn't even buy a dress." And, she assured us, there really is no such thing as the greatest living actress. But, deep down, didn't she know that she is that woman?

The Oscar nominations.

Here.

Observations:

1. Kate Winslet's performance in "The Reader" is classified as a "leading role," and it is her only nomination. She won Golden Globes for "leading" in "Revolutionary Road" and for "supporting" in "The Reader." The Academy is not buying that, and I'd say rightly so. It's a leading role in "The Reader," and I'm tired of big stars getting their roles categorized as supporting to horn in on the lesser actors with smaller parts.

2. "Revolutionary Road" generally seems snubbed. Leonardo DiCaprio didn't get a nomination. (Though Michael Shannon got a supporting nomination.) And there is no Best Picture or Director nomination.

3. I've seen 4 of the Best Picture nominees: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Milk," "The Reader," and "Slumdog Millionaire." I haven't seen "Frost/Nixon," and frankly, I don't want to. I can see in the trailer the way Nixon's own words have been edited and ham-acted into something they were not. I'd give the Oscar to "Slumdog Millionaire." "Milk" would be fine too.

4. Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor"? I know nothing about that one. I guess he must have been good. I'll try to check it out before saying I think Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke should win Best Actor. I think Rourke will win because he suffered so much making that movie.

5. Melissa Leo in "Frozen River"? Again, I know nothing about that one. And I haven't seen Angelina Jolie in "The Changeling." (Oddly, I've never seen Angelina Jolie in anything! I guess I just done share her taste in films.) I guess the plan is to give Best Actress to Kate Winslet. Wonder if there will be a backlash.

6. I've seen all the Supporting Actress films. Personally, I love Penélope Cruz. What an amusing performance!

7. I've seen 3 of the Supporting Actor films. I love Robert Downey Jr., but I haven't seen "Tropic Thunder." (I will.) I saw "Iron Man." And I haven't seen "Revolutionary Road" yet, because it hasn't hit town. I've seen "Milk," "Doubt," and "The Dark Knight," and if it were between those 3, I'd pick Josh Brolin in "Milk." That was one of the most effective performances I've ever seen. And I went into the film not knowing he'd been singled out as especially good, so, for me, he came out of nowhere and killed.

8. I see both Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got nominated. Congratulations to the happy couple. Life's not fair, but they seem to be decent people making good decisions. No need to hate them.

"The Reader" is a law movie.

Around last Christmas, I got into a bit of a dispute with Eugene Volokh over the movie "The Reader." I had written about the way the actress Kate Winslet took offense at the use of the term "statutory rape" to describe the sexual relationship between her character — the 35-year-old Hanna Schmitz — and the 15-year-old Michael Berg. I'd acknowledged that you'd have to "check the statute books" to know if the term "statutory rape" technically applied, but Eugene Volokh nevertheless said:

Ann Althouse discussed Kate Winslet's rejection of the term "statutory rape" for the relationship in The Reader (Winslet's new movie) between a woman in her mid-30s and a 15-year-old boy. As best I can tell, Althouse does take the view that the behavior is indeed properly labeled "statutory rape," both legally and morally....

As to the legal question, in the country where the movie is apparently set — Germany — sex between an adult and a 15-year-old is now generally not statutory rape: The age of consent there is 14. I don't know what it was in Germany in the late 1940s, but I can say that in many American states it was 14 until the 1990s (the latest to change, I believe, was Hawaii, around 2000)....

Now none of this tells us what the age of consent should be, or how seriously the law should take sexual relationships between adults and people slightly under the age of consent. But it does suggest that we can't just conclusively assume that a fictional relationship in a movie, set in a different time and place, can be treated as "statutory rape" simply because today all American states would treat it as such, though today many Western countries would not treat it as such, and until recently some American states wouldn't treat it as such.

At the time, I wrote that I thought that Winslet's interviewer had probably used the term "to just mean sex with a person who is too young" and that "Winslet seemed obtusely unreflective":

A great actress, like Winslet, ought to want to explore the moral complexities of her character's situation. It doesn't much matter whether her character is committing a crime. Characters in movies often commit crimes, but the actors should know when they are playing characters who are engaging in behavior that many people consider to be morally wrong and that is often criminalized because it is considered wrong. If her idea is I thought I was playing a lovely person that's just dumb.

This was all without seeing the movie. Then, when I saw the movie, I was floored to see that there was a central question in the movie about the relationship between the law as written and the morality of right and wrong. This question was not about the sexual relationship, but about what Germans did under the Nazi regime. How are we to understand the guilt of those who did what was legal under the law of the time?

I've been meaning to write about this for weeks, but I realized I needed to go back and see the movie a second time so I could write down some quotes, especially the quotes of the law professor — for, yes, there is a law professor in the movie, and he makes some sharp points about law and morality. Let me tell you about this part of the movie. (Spoilers ahead.)

It's 1966, and Michael Berg is now a student at the University of Heidelberg Law School. A crowded lecture room empties out, and the next class has only 6 students. This much less popular class deals with "the question of German guilt." The teacher, Professor Rohl (played by Bruno Ganz) lectures: "Societies think they operate by morality, but they don't, they operate by law." Even though "people who kill tend to be aware that it's wrong," he says, society will not convict them of murder unless the prosecution can prove the elements of the crime as written in the law of the time. This being so, he says, individual Germans cannot be considered guilty solely because they worked at Auschwitz.

The students are required to attend the trial of a group of women — former Nazi prison guards — who failed to open a locked door during a fire, causing the death of 300 women and children prisoners. One of the defendants is Hanna Schmitz. In class, one student is disgusted by the law professor's legalistic attitude: "You keep telling us to think like lawyers but they are guilty... What is there to understand?" This student sees all the Germans of that generation as guilty — "everyone knew" — and the trial as "a diversion" that is only taking place because one woman survived the fire (along with her daughter) and wrote a book. What would he do? He'd like to shoot that woman that Berg is always staring at:. "I'd shoot her myself. I'd shoot them all." Clearly, he would be guilty of murder under the current law if he were to do that, but his point is that the law is morally obtuse. There is far too much guilt to take any satisfaction in isolating a few individuals for prosecution.

When we next see the trial, Hanna is asked why she did not unlock the door when she knew the people inside were burning to death. The judge pushes her to admit that she was afraid she'd be charged with a crime. He's thinking in legal terms and assumes that she too must have thought that way. It makes sense: If she'd been thinking in moral terms, wouldn't she have opened the door? But Hanna's answer is that she was a prison guard and if she'd opened the doors, the prisoners would escape: There would be "chaos." That's not great moral reasoning, but her mode of reasoning is morality, not law.

Later, Hanna withholds exculpatory evidence. She is illiterate, but she won't admit it, even though she is accused of writing a report that will damn her. She even lies and says that she did write it. There's a complex morass of guilt. She did serve as a guard and could have unlocked the door, but did what, at the time, she thought was right. Now, she declines to present the defense that could help her within the legal system, and she even violates the law, committing perjury, perhaps because, like that rebellious law student, she's now aware of a profound moral guilt that exists beyond law.

I say "perhaps," because it also seems that she is motivated by her shame about her illiteracy. Now, this is a bit of a problem with the movie. You can very easily come away from the movie thinking: She's responsible for 300 deaths but what she's really ashamed of is not being able to read? Ridiculous! Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for the Nazi.

You can deal with this problem by seeing illiteracy as a symbol of the failure of all Germans to "read" their own history. There is also much talk of "secrets" — the secrets of literature and of history, and illiteracy is specifically her secret. In prison, Hanna learns to read, and even though she isn't reading German history — she's reading "The Lady With the Little Dog," "War and Peace," and "The Odyssey" — the learning is presented as symbolic of what Germans need to do. As an old woman, Hanna tells Michael Berg 3 things: she's learned to read, what she feels isn't important, and people should learn from her example.

After her death, Michael goes to New York to visit the daughter of the woman who wrote the book about the fire. This woman does not want to learn anything from him. The prisoners did not go to the camps "to learn," she says — the camps were "not therapy." "Go to the theater, to literature, if you want to learn. Nothing comes out of the camps." But she accepts a memento from the camp, and putting it next to a photograph of her dead family, she reveals that she has never forgotten. As she said to Michael, "Illiteracy is not a Jewish problem."

But I'm going beyond the scope of what I mostly wanted to say, which is that "The Reader" is — among other things — a law movie — really, a jurisprudence movie — exploring the difference between law and morality, between what is written and what is good.

I should end by returning to the subject of statutory rape. The term "statutory" in the name of the crime draws special attention to the way crimes are defined in statutes, and whether something is a prosecutable crime depends on what is written in the statute. But there are larger ideas of what is wrong, and these matter — even more. There are sexual things adults do to the young that are wrong regardless of the details in the statutes.

Finally, having seen the movie a second time, I no longer believe that Hanna takes advantage of the 15-year-old boy. Closely watching the sequence before she suddenly — naked — embraces him from behind, I can see that the boy arrives at his desire to have sex with her first, and she is able to see what he wants before she, sympathetically, offers herself to him. So, on second viewing, the legal and the moral question became, for me, more starkly separate.

I have no idea whether the filmmakers intended the exploration of the difference between law and morality to extend to this issue, but the issue is there nonetheless, and it's one more reason to recommend "The Reader" as a law movie.

10 thoughts about "The Wrestler."

1. To be fair to Marisa Tomei, it should have been titled "Meat." But "The Wrestler" is apt, because Mickey Rourke's role, as a wrestler, is much larger. But the 2 actors have equivalent parts, as human meat, making a life out of a crude display of the body. And when Rourke's character, Randy the Ram Robinson, retires from wrestling, he works at a deli counter, making up orders of sliced meat, and there is, at one point, a literal depiction of the man as meat — which I won't spoil. (Don't you hate spoiled meat?)

2. We see a lot of Marisa Tomei's naked body. It's right in our face, lap-dance style. Unlike Kate Winslet, who is always getting naked for the movie cameras, Marisa Tomei has already won an Oscar. And she is not bathed in the kind of cinematic romantic light that makes us think — as we always think when we get to gawk Kate — how beautiful and how brave. You have to struggle — crawl across the floor — to get to a feeling of respect for the actress who submitted to this script. Like the sex dancer she portrays, you think does this woman need the money so desperately?

3. Tomei and Rourke display formidable bodies topped with aging, messed up faces. In one scene, Tomei — off from work — shows up with no makeup at all. Tomei is 45 and — in her face — she looks it. Randy tells her she looks clean. She didn't look that clean, but practically nothing is clean in this movie. It's an entire world of ramshackle filth.

4. Tomei is required to utter some of the most awkward lines I have ever heard in a movie. While giving Mickey Rourke a lap dance, she has to spontaneously utter some quotes from the movie "The Passion of the Christ" and then explain that she was quoting something from the movie "The Passion of the Christ." You get the point, early on, that Randy the Ram should be understood as a Christ figure and that the narrative should be seen as The Passion. Now, you may rightly wonder why. Movies often cue us to understand a character as a Christ figure, but what is The Ram suffering for?

5. Randy the Ram. Get it? Christ is the Lamb. And The Wrestler is the Ram. O, ram of God, who... who what? Redeems us of our last shred of dignity?

6. The Ram is scourged like mad. I haven't seen "The Passion of the Christ," so I can't tell you how close the various shots in that movie might be to the shots in Mel Gibson's magnum opus. But that cut to the forehead — crown of thorns, right? — even if it is self-inflicted. Getting staple-gunned all over his body? You just know that if the Romans had had staple guns, they would have staple-gunned Christ all over his body. (If that had happened, the staple would now be a holy symbol. Link to the script for "Lenny," wherein Lenny Bruce says "Good thing we nailed him when we did, because if we had done it within the last years, we'd have to contend with generations of parochial schoolkids with little electric chairs hanging around their necks." And here's the corresponding Bizarro cartoon.)

7. I've been noting a Hollywood trend of delivering pedophiliac titillation with artistic prettification. But "The Wrestler" does not fit the trend. The sex in the movie is completely adult — and it's also grubby and ugly. There are children in the movie too, though, and Randy the Ram actually plays with them. He wants to retain his self-esteem as a wrestling hero, so he play wrestles with them, gives one an action figure of himself, and lures another one into his shabby trailer to play an old Ninetendo game (in which he is a character). In real life, people seeing that evidence would suspect the man is a pedophile, but in the movie, he is absolutely not.

8. This movie belongs on a list titled "Movies With Scenes in a Supermarket Aisle." (I'd love some help compiling this list — and also a sub-list "Movies With Scenes in a Supermarket Cereal Aisle."

9. Of all the things that made me voice the syllable best transliterated as "ugh" — one of them was egg salad.

10. I know people want me to say, when I do one of these lists, whether I am recommending the movie.

ADDED: Re #9:

AND: Mickey Rourke talks about making the movie: Part 1, Part 2.

UPDATE: This post memorializes my first date with Meade, on January 17, 2009.

Oprah to Kate Winslet: "I love your breasts... Your breasts do what real breasts do."

Kate Winslet to Oprah: "The way they race for sanctuary in your armpits when you lie on your back."

There's a big difference between Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver.

They both won 2 Golden Globes in one year, and Sigourney Weaver then failed to win an Oscar — but that's not going to happen to Kate.

"Kate Winslet... looks so good wearing red lipstick that maybe all of us women will be wearing red lipstick tomorrow."

I said it last night, live-blogging the Golden Globes.

Today: "Madonna the dupli-Kate with her new transformation impersonating Winslet."

ADDED: I fool with red lipstick and Photo Booth:

I'm live-blogging The Golden Globes.

6:00: Come hang out with me. I'm watching Nancy O'Dell on the red carpet interviewing the Jonas Brothers. They seem like nice young men, but boring. I guess they don't need to be interesting, as they are obviously loved for whatever it is they do — which I've never experienced.

6:05: Commenting on her success, Miley Cyrus says she's not a big planner, but "God has a plan." She looks pretty there in her very long drapey white dress, with her dad who's flat-ironed his hair as much as a man possibly can.

6:15: Steve Carrell bows down to Ricky Gervais.

6:27: Gah! I screwed up the title line. Fixed. Sorry. The red carpet stuff is made less glamorous by the presence of TV folk, who seem especially interested in getting camera time. Meanwhile, we see Kate Winslet lurking over there, looking splendid.

6:29: Vanessa Hudgens's hair doesn't just look like a wig, it looks like a play wig. Jessica Lange is escorting Drew Barrymore. They are holding hands. I love Drew's hair — it seems to be inspired by Marilyn Monroe after a long night of drinking. Blah! Now it's Jeremy Piven whining about his ailment that no one believes he has.

6:41: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio together again. This time he's the one who looks ever so slightly bloated. She's wearing a black dress and looks so good wearing red lipstick that maybe all of us women will be wearing red lipstick tomorrow.

6:47: Is that Tom Cruise's phone ringing? He's moved off to the side so Nancy O'Dell can get to Robert Downey Jr. — who's wearing dark sunglasses and looks very unkempt, yet brags about his sobriety — and then Sting — who's very red and bloated and bearded. He needs to go on Tom Cruise's diet, because Tom looks radically rejuvenated, all sharp edges.

6:50: Marisa Tomei promotes her movie — "The Wrestler" — which she says is "very verité."

7:01: Jennifer Lopez is handing out the Best Supporting Actress movie award. And it's... Kate Winslet. She's acting flustered, which she attributes to her "habit of not winning things." She's glistening with sweat. And maybe the rest of us women will try to be glistening with sweat tomorrow. She's thanking the movie makeup people for "making me look so old." [LATER: Ricky Gervais says he told her if she did a Holocaust film she'd win. This is a reference to the first episode of "Extras," where Winslet plays herself as an actress who is doing a Holocaust film in order to win an Oscar.]

7:07: Best Song. I was going to say I don't care, but then I see that the "Gran Torino" song is up. And there's Bruce Springsteen, who bellyached his way through a typical Bruce Springsteen song for "The Wrestler." And damned if he doesn't win. "This is the only time I'm going to be in competition with Clint Eastwood. That's for sure."

7:19: Supporting TV Actor. I guess Ben Franklin will win. Yeah. Tom Wilkinson. One of these days I'll finish watching the episodes of "John Adams." It wasn't my favorite sort of thing, but Wilkinson was good in it. He's acting quite geezerly now.

7:22: Supporting TV Actress. The only one I know is Laura Dern from "Recount." And she wins. She played Kathrine Harris — very amusingly. Oh, now, she's blabbering about the election and looking forward to "amazing change in this country." I hope that doesn't make anyone else think now would be a good time to talk politics. At least, her little TV movie was about a presidential election.

7:31: Best TV Actor is Gabriel Byrne, but he's not there. So on to Best TV Actress. Anna Paquin wins for "True Blood." Remember how cute she when she won an Oscar -- as a little girl? By the way, the presenters are the 2 young actors who are playing Captain Kirk and Spock in some new "Star Trek" project. They look interestingly like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy — but handsomer — younger and handsomer.

7:40: "Wall-E" wins for animated movie, and the guy accepting the award thanks his kids and says they inspire every emotion he tries to capture on film. That sounds nice until you think about it for about 2 seconds.

7:45: Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical goes to Sally Hawkins, and I'm sorry I didn't see "Happy-Go-Lucky." She beat Meryl Streep, who detains her on the way to the stage. Bow to the Streep. She beat Emma Thompson too. And Frances MacDormond. That's some major ass-kicking.

7:56: Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore are still holding hands. They're presenting the Best TV Mini-Series or Movie. Unsurprisingly, "John Adams" wins. Surprisingly, the award is accepted by Tom Hanks. He could use some makeup.

8:01: Best Supporting Actor in a movie. Heath Ledger wins. He's not there to accept the award... needless to say. The director Christopher Nolan accepts the award. They show the "You complete me" clip.

8:05: Here's a list of all the nominees, in case you're wondering who the losers are. Now, here's Tom Brokaw. Why? Oh, he's introducing the clips for "Frost/Nixon." Funnily spoofed on "SNL" last night as "Frost/Other People."

8:09: Best Foreign Film. Oh! Israel won. "Waltz with Bashir." The producer accepts and says he hopes when his kids watch the film some day, the war it depicts will be something from the past.

8:13: Actress in a TV Mini-Series/Movie goes to Laura Linney — Abigail Adams — and it's no surprise. She's wearing an ugly dress and that hairstyle that mainly consists of not brushing.

8:22: Movie Screenplay. "Slumdog Millionaire." Excellent!

8:24: Best TV Actor. Alec Baldwin. I don't watch his show, but maybe I should.

8:33: Actor in a TV Mini-Series/Movie. Of course, it will be Paul Giamatti, right? Yes.

8:38: Best TV Comedy series. Obviously, it will be "30 Rock." I've never watched it. Heard it's good.

8:45: Original Movie Score. Gotta be "Slumdog." Yeah. A lot of movie music is just background emotional mainipulation, but "Slumdog" had some really exciting stuff. The composer thanks the "billion people from India."

8:48: Everyone seems to know that Tina Fey will win Best TV Actress, and she does. She's got a dress cut all the way down to the waistband, but don't get nervous. It's clearly glued on. She's bitching about the internet. She's telling specific bloggers — I think they're bloggers, they sound like bloggers — they can "suck it." It's nice to know the celebs read what the bloggers say about them and that it can bug them.

9:03: I'm not interested in watching the honoring of Steven Speilberg. It's not about this year's movies. It's such a drag. I hate all the shots of actresses faces — all that admiration. I imagine them all thinking about whether they look pretty giving the impression of caring.

9:15: A big one: Best Director. I say out loud: Danny Boyle. And that's right. It's Danny Boyle. I loved "Slumdog Millionaire" — saw it twice. Apparently, everyone in India is watching. That would be 1 billion people. Maybe some of them are watching TVs in shop windows, like the people in "Slumdog."

9:21: Colin Farrell wins the Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical. He says things like "Ignorance is nemesis."

9:32: Sacha Baron Cohen is riffing on the subject of economic hard times. "Even Madonna has had to get rid of one of her personal assistants. Our thoughts go out to you, Guy Ritchie." The audience sighs with disapproval... and also laughs. The award he's presenting is Best Musical/Comedy. Ah! "Vicki, Christina, Barcelona." Nice to see a Woody Allen movie win.

9:40: Best Drama Actress. This is the one where the GG website seemed to reveal that Anne Hathaway had won. But no! It's Kate Winslet!!!! Our Kate! She's won twice! "Okay. Gather." "I want to thank my beautiful agents."

9:46: Best TV Drama: "Mad Men."

9:53: Best Drama Actor. Mickey Rourke! I'm glad he won over Sean Penn simply because he's there and Sean is not. He gets a big, enthusiastic standing ovation. He looks really cool — sleazy cool — with stringy, highlighted hair, a mustache, light sunglasses, dark spray-on tan, dark satin lapels, and a dark sequined scarf. It shows that he really wanted it. He's touchingly pleased and genuinely humble.

10:00. Tom Cruise is here to give the Best Drama award, and I think we know it's going to be... it is... "Slumdog Millionaire."

10:03: The producer accepting the award, getting rushed to wrap up, says "Oh, fuck!" and the audio is removed. So we know it was tape delayed, and I wonder if this will affect the Supreme Court's "fleeting expletives" case. See? It's not hard to snip out the fleeting expletive. And here it is so conspicuously demonstrated. (And now, I can put the "law" tag on this post.)

10:07: Ah, finally, it's over. Highlights: Kate winning twice. Mickey Rourke. All the kudos to "Slumdog."

Kate Winslet is "so offended" by the use of the term "statutory rape" to describe what she does in "The Reader."

Even though we see her having sex with a 15-year-old boy.

Q: Do you ever have any trepidations about approaching controversial material like abortion in "Revolutionary Road" or statutory rape?

Winslet: I'm so sorry, "statutory rape"? I've got to tell you, I'm so offended by that. No, I really am. I genuinely am. To me, that is absolutely not this story at all. That boy knows exactly what he's doing. For a start, Hanna Schmitz thinks that he's seventeen, not fifteen, you know? She's not doing anything wrong.

Check the statute books before acting on Kate's legal advice.

They enter that relationship on absolutely equal footing. Statutory rape – really please, don't use that phrase. I do genuinely find it offensive actually. This is a beautiful and very genuine love story and that is always how I saw it.... She wasn't cruel to him. She didn't force him into anything at all.

Don't all statutory rapists say this sort of thing? It's more of an argument for abolishing the crime of statutory rape. Do you think 36-year-old women should be free to seduce 15-year-old boys?

There's nothing I believe to be remotely inappropriate or salacious about that relationship.

Defamer adds this:

Salacious? Well, we've never seen a teenager's ball hair lit so romantically in a film, but then, we haven't yet caught up on our Criterion editions of the Bel Ami catalog.

I'm just going to assume I know what those last 3 words refer to. I'm afraid to Google them!

(By the way, the actor playing the role was only 17 when most of the scenes were filmed. They did some last minute filming of the naked parts "literally days" after he turned 18.)

Winslet should have talked about how complex the story is and how difficult it was for her to understand how the character could believe what she was doing was simply beautiful and loving when there was so much else that she should have seen. Winslet is there to promote the movie and to promote herself as an actress, so why would she simplify the moral context of the movie?

One answer is that she is genuinely afraid that the movie will be ruined if people get the impression that to see the movie is to see teen pornography. If what the character does in the movie is a crime, and if the scenes involve graphic nudity, then it seems criminal or at least morally wrong to go to see it.

ADDED: Eugene Volokh links here and says:

Ann Althouse discussed Kate Winslet's rejection of the term "statutory rape" for the relationship in The Reader (Winslet's new movie) between a woman in her mid-30s and a 15-year-old boy. As best I can tell, Althouse does take the view that the behavior is indeed properly labeled "statutory rape," both legally and morally.

No, I say for legal advice, check the relevant statute. It depends on the statute applicable at the time and not, as Winslet seems to think, whether it was a loving, consensual relationship. But the interviewer was really using the term "statutory rape" to just mean sex with a person who is too young, and that was what Winslet seemed obtusely unreflective about.

I'm critical of Winslet for being simple-minded, probably to promote the movie -- so people won't think it would be wrong to view the movie (since we know to steer clear of child pornography). A great actress, like Winslet, ought to want to explore the moral complexities of her character's situation. It doesn't much matter whether her character is committing a crime. Characters in movies often commit crimes, but the actors should know when they are playing characters who are engaging in behavior that many people consider to be morally wrong and that is often criminalized because it is considered wrong. If her idea is I thought I was playing a lovely person that's just dumb.

I will say that my intuition is that 15-year-old boys are unlikely to suffer lasting emotional harm from affairs with 30-something-year-old women, any more than from any first sexual relationship, whether at 15 or 16, and whether with a 35-year-old or another 15-year-old.

It wouldn't be much of a movie if the relationship didn't have a profound impact. I think the story is about how deeply it hurt him. Do you have a teenage son? How would you feel if a 36-year-old woman seduced him? How would you feel if she not only gave him his first sexual experience, but captured his romantic imagination for years, keeping him from developing in relation to girls his age?

Now, Winslet herself at the age of 15 began a relationship with a 28-year-old man, and this relationship continued for 5 years, so you can see that she has some motivation to idealize this sort of thing. Do you have a teenage daughter? Picture a 28-year-old man seducing your 15-year-old daughter. Although, Winslet's parents accepted the relationship, I think most Americans hate this sort of thing.

Where to draw the lines of criminal law is a distinct, but not entirely separate, matter. But, again, this is a work of art, and what matters most is the artist's understanding of the human mind.

IN THE COMMENTS: Linus wrote:

... I find it a little strange that so many men (including Professor Volokh, whom I admire) think that it's unlikely the boy would be damaged, simply because when they were 15, they had fantasies about scoring with an older woman. Man, when I was 15, I was an idiot. I thought I wanted a whole bunch of stuff that, I know now, would've scarred me for life if it would've actually happened.

I mean, when you are asking the question "is this a good idea?", is it really persuasive to answer with "well, my 15-year-old self would approve"?

The Golden Globe nominees are announced...

Here. I've seen few of these things -- and not just because many of the best movies don't play until the end of the year. It's also that I don't enjoy going to the movies these days -- for about 6 reasons.

But I did see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," which is up for best comedy/musical. And it's got a best comedy/musical actor, Javier Bardem, and supporting actress, Penélope Cruz. I haven't seen the competition, so it's not my place to say who ought to win, but they were excellent, especially Penélope Cruz. She's in competition with Kate Winslet -- a favorite actress chez Althouse -- who is nominated for "The Reader," but Kate also has an actress in a drama nomination, for "Revolutionary Road," so both Kate and Penélope can win.

There's some interesting competition, too, in the supporting actor category:

Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder (2008)
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder (2008)
Ralph Fiennes for The Duchess (2008)
Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt (2008)
Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008)

All I can say is, if you're going to give anyone extra points for drugs, give them -- the points, not the drugs -- to Robert Downey Jr. for living, not to Heath Ledger for dying.

"Kate Winslet's very naked performance was denied a spot on Mr. Skin's Top Celebrity Nude Scenes of 2008."

Defamer asks: "Could this be an Oscar precursor?

Poor Harvey Weinstein just can't catch a break for The Reader.

I read "The Reader." Eh. I also read Mr. Skin's list and it's pretty funny. You can get an idea what his standards are. Maybe Kate's scenes weren't brightly lit enough. All females though, which reduced the competition.

Too bad for Kate. Will she ever win an Oscar?

Into the movie theater, "Into the Wild."

I saw the movie "Into the Wild" yesterday. This was only the second movie I've seen since arriving in New York in mid-August. (The other was "Across the Universe" — blogged here.)

Why don't I see more movies? 1. I don't like the physical constraint of committing to sitting in a chair for 2 hours. 2. I only go to movies I think I'll like and still don't much like the movies I see. 3. Few movies seem like the sort of thing I'll like. 4. I have no shortage of other things to do (which is the case for anyone who loves to read). 5. I don't find myself in social situations where going to the movies is what people do together (and I don't see why people want to spend their precious time together doing something that involves so little interaction with each other).

Why did "Into the Wild" overcome my resistance? 1. I wanted to take a cab to 27th Street and 11th Avenue to begin a walk that would take me through a bunch of art galleries...



... and then all the way back to Brooklyn Heights, and "Into the Wild" was playing at a theater on 19th Street and Broadway, so what I usually experience as noisome restraint would rest me up for the walk through downtown Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. 2. Having read the book "Into the Wild," I was interested in seeing a visualization of it. 3. Some of my very favorite movies are about men at the existential edge: "Grizzly Man," "Touching the Void," "The Pianist," "My Dinner With André." (I know André is just sitting at a restaurant table throughout the movie, but he describes a search for his soul through mountains, deep forest, the Sahara, and the inside of a grave.)

How did I like "Into the Wild"?

1. The actor — Emile Hirsch — who played Christopher McCandless, was cute — like the young Leonardo di Caprio — but he did not radiate emotion. Compare him to Adrian Brody in "The Pianist," whose character, like McCandless, is starving. Brody made me feel what was happening to him as he descended into the most desperate human condition. Hirsch couldn't do that, though he was supported by terrific actors (especially Hal Holbrook), profound landscapes, and that squalid little bus. He seemed like a really nice kid with a lot of idealism and enthusiasm who made a few unfortunate choices and so, sadly, never got the chance to grow up. Unlike the character in "The Pianist," McCandless made his own choices. He rejected society, but we can't see much anti-social edge in Hirsch's portrayal.

2. The photography didn't move me. The beach, the canyon, the desert, the mountains — these are all beautiful locations, but this isn't a travelogue. These things should be photographed to convey emotion, but they looked about the way they'd look if you went there and saw them for yourself. There are 2 key scenes where Hirsch climbs up a hill, acts enthused, and gets the old man played by Holbrooke to climb up there too. It reminded me of the scene in "Titanic" when Leo DiCaprio shows Kate Winslet how to live by getting her to stretch out her arms on the prow of the ship. It's a Hollywood cliché. (Too bad Hirsch didn't yell "I'm king of the hill!")

3. I nearly walked out about a third of the way in. Something about Hirsch and Catherine Keener romping on the beach and plunging into the ocean felt stupid and phony. We're told the character is afraid of water, and then Keener — the mother figure he finds to replace his real and too-distant mother — makes it possible for him to go swimming. I forced myself to stay, and I see the story arc this was part of. He leaves his inadequate parents. (They're excited about the idea of him going to Harvard Law School and haven't a clue why he doesn't want them to buy him a new car.) He goes on the road where he finds replacements for his mother and father (Keener and Holbrook). He interacts with water — gets caught in a flash flood, kayaks through rapids, plunges in the ocean, fords a stream — which are probably meant to symbolize birth/mother. And he encounters a rocky terrain and kills and butchers some animals — squirrel and moose — (squirrel and moose???) — which are probably meant to symbolize his struggle with death/father.

4. The movie raises but hardly explores the issue of celibacy. We're shown this attractive young man, who seems to have a feeling for other people, in the presence of sensuous females. Kayaking, he comes upon a bare-breasted woman, but she has a boyfriend and he has to run off. (He's running from park rangers). Later, a beautiful, sensitive girl throws herself at him, but she's 16, and he's upstanding about that. (He burns his money and Social Security card, he kayaks in violation of clearly stated rules, and he steals rides on freight trains, but he's rigorous about the age-of-consent laws.) So the movie shows us the path not taken — love from a woman could replace the inadequate parents — and the character is given pat excuses for not going there. Still, why did he forswear sex? In the end, dying alone, he writes in his notebook: "Real happiness must be shared." This is very affecting, and it is an important idea in the intellectual development of this man who reads a lot of books. But something is left unexplored. Why didn't McCandless want sex?

Did you walk all the way home?

"The rest of the Republican Party is like Kate Winslet, desperately trying to pry the McCain campaign's frozen clammy hand from our own..."

Analogies from the mind of Hugh Hewitt, which is seething with hostility for John McCain... in a post that's illustrated with a picture of a DVD box that does not contain "Titanic," because the "Titanic" box doesn't have a picture of a big, smoking gun.

Conservatives are not happy with the immigration bill -- if we may judge from this poll of 51 right-wing bloggers.

CORRECTION: It's Dean Barnett, writing on a blog called Hugh Hewitt. (I thought once you named the blog after yourself, you'd missed the chance to bring in a co- or guest-blogger. I impetuously named my blog after myself, without giving any thought to the matter, but I do find it confusing when there is a name in big letters at the top, but someone else is writing.)

"That's just some women sitting 'round in a book club, and you made it so interesting."

Don't you think that's an odd thing for -- of all people -- Oprah to say?

She's always pushing her book club, yet here she is revealing that she thinks women gabbing in a book club setting is the dullest thing in the world. Or is Oprah getting excited about "Madame Bovary" and the real, deep meaning of female adultery?

She's got Kate Winslet on the show, and Kate's talking about her (Oscar-nominated) role in "Little Children." And we've just seen the book club clip, where those other suburban women don't see the significance of female adultery, and our Kate -- in character -- says:

I think I understand your feelings about this book. I used to have some problems with it myself. But when I read it in grad school, Madame Bovary just seemed like a fool. She marries the wrong man. Makes one foolish mistake after another. But when I read it this time, I just fell in love with her. She's trapped. She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery, or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle... She fails in the end, but there's something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion. My professors would kill me for even thinking this but, in her own strange way, Emma Bovary is a feminist... It's not the cheating. It's the hunger. The hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.

Oprah gushes:

Wow! Wow!! Wow. Thank you. I mean, the first time I saw that scene, I got chills. I thought that was so... liberating! I mean, and even now, the little hairs, standing on my head, when you said, "It's not the cheating. It's the hunger."

And X number of suburban housewives plunge headlong into disastrous adultery for the pure brilliance of the hunger. Even Oprah admits that life isn't found in reading groups! Over the years, she's made it seem that maybe it is, but in this intense moment, she makes it crashingly obvious that it is not!