New Grit

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Yesterday we revealed some of People Magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" for 2010, but they forgot one, Josh Brolin. Anyone who doesn't think Josh Brolin is not one of the hottest guys on the planet needs his/her head examined.
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Brolin's new movie, "True Grit", opens next month, and we're hoping it might bring Brolin his much deserved first Oscar. The movie itself, directed by The Coen Brothers, is so highly anticipated, that literally every film critic which normally predicts the outcome of the upcoming Oscars is putting their predictions on hold until they see "True Grit". If "True Grit" lives up to expectations, it could crush at the next Academy Awards.
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To read our ongoing posts about "True Grit" over the past year, go to the Labels List at the right of this page and click on "Movies - 'True Grit'".

And Make Way for More Grammys As Well

The all star cast for the new "True Grit" includes Jeff Bridges and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin.
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..And in case you're instantly entranced by the music in the film's trailer, as we were, the song is an old hymn, "Where No One Stand Alone" sung by the Peasall Sisters. If the Peasall name sounds familiar, the girls also sang on the soundtrack for an earlier Coen Brothers' movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou?". .
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.The soundtrack for "O Brother Where Art Thou?" won the 2002 Grammy for Best Album of the Year, causing an infamous outcry from a muscially ignorant P. Diddy who couldn't believe that a "country album" could beat a hip hop album for the Album of the Year Grammy. Oh, Diddy, Diddy, Diddy... maybe one day you'll actually know something about really great music. But we doubt it.

Hollywood Watch, Part XV

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And speaking of Hollywood remakes, we've written a couple of times about the highly anticipated Coen Brothers remake of "True Grit", starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin.
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(click on "Movies - 'True Grit'" in the Labels List)
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The movie is currently being shot in Granger, Texas, (the stand-in for Ft. Smith, Arkansas), and these photos from the set popped up on the internet yesterday.
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We're guessing the girl in the black dress is Hallie Steinfeld, who's playing Mattie Ross, and of course, in the next photo is Oscar winner, Jeff Bridges, who plays the iconic role of Rooster Cogburn, the role which won John Wayne his only Oscar.
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And in the final photo is what appears to be the set for what is supposed to be Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
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Every movie fan in the world is holding his/her breath, wondering if the much beloved, classic film will be tarnished by the making of a another poorly produced, typical Hollywood remake. But with the incredibly talented storytellers, the Coen Brothers, at the helm, almost everyone is hopeful, and even excited.

More Arrivals - 7:35 pm

Okay, Ryan Seacrest just said to Evan Rachel Wood, "I think I can smell you." So before we lose more brain cells, we're switching to CNN, where the red carpet host, A.J. Hammer, is not only way smarter than Seacrest, but a hell of a lot cuter.
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A.J. just talked to the sexiest Hollywood couple alive, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane. God, those two are hot!









Martin McDonagh, nominated screenwriter for "In Bruges". Wow, what's with the hot writers this year? First Dustin Lance Black, and now, Martin.

You Must Love Me and Give Me a Trophy!

The SAG Awards were held Sunday night, and it wasn't pretty. Look, we love Hollywood, we love movies and movie stars, and we love awards shows. Any day we get to see famous people make fools of themselves is a day worth living. But we were struck with two thoughts during this year's SAG awards.
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First, why is it that the same people get nominated over and over again at all of these awards shows? Of the thousands of people who vote for these things, no one, not one single person noticed the work of Michelle Williams in "Wendy and Lucy", Eddie Marsan in "Happy-Go-Lucky", James Cromwell or Richard Dreyfuss in "W.", Benicio Del Toro in "Che", anyone from "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days", anyone from the devastating "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"? And "Slumdog Millionaire" which has won, and will win, every award this year for Best Movie doesn't have one single cast member worthy of recognition? How do you have a Best Movie without a Best Performance? Or is it that no one in the movie business actually watches movies, and they all just line up like sheep and vote for whomever they're told is "the best" that year? Show some imagination, folks, you're supposed to be creative people.
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And second, there is a time and place for everything. Right now, we happen to be going through one of the roughest and scariest times in the history of our nation. We're hopelessly mired in two fucked up foreign wars, our economy and health care system are on the verge of complete collapse, and thousands are losing their homes, their pensions and their jobs. So maybe it's not the right time for spoiled, multi-millionaire movie stars to get all teary-eyed and flog their privates on national television because someone gave them a trophy. We're not saying that we can't enjoy the good times, even frivolous activities during hard times, but the movie stars might remember to be a little more humble in their acceptance of these awards, that getting a trophy is really not very important in the big picture of life, especially when so many around you are genuinely hurting.
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But for what it's worth, here's what we noticed at this year's SAG awards.



Here's your SAG Awards ballot. Write down my name and spell it right. Fail to mail it in on time, and you'll burn in hell, bitch!







Sean Penn won Best Actor for "Milk", for which we were very happy; he was fantastic in the film. We mentioned in our previous Oscar post that we think Frank Langella will win the Oscar instead of Penn, which we still believe. But regardless of who wins awards, is it just us, or does Sean Penn get sexier and sexier as he gets older?



Meryl Streep won Best Actress for "Doubt", which was richly deserved, but it was a little creepy to watch her Prom Queen-like reaction to winning the trophy. Come on, Meryl, you've already won two Oscars, and have been honored with an AFI Tribute, for god's sakes, at which everyone in Hollywood and their mothers showed up to lick your feet and drink champagne strained through your dirty socks. So is it really that big of a shock that those same people would line up once again to kiss your ring and turn over to you their first born? Grace, Meryl, grace.






Mickey Rourke lost the award, but he still managed to skeeve out every woman in the room. Five minutes after kissing Angelina Jolie's hand, her hand began to turn green and small bug-like creatures started making their way up her arm. Brad rushed her to the hospital, and after a painful, radioactive scrub, Jolie was on her way to recovery. Moral of the story: when the guy who hasn't bathed in a few months comes near, keep your arms and hands inside your vehicle.





The sexiest guy of the night, Josh Brolin. In fact, forget Brad and Angelina, Josh and Diane Lane are the hottest couple in Hollywood. Josh lost the Supporting Actor SAG, but we still think he'll win the Oscar.

Oh my god! She's still at it. Shut up, Streep, and sit the fuck down. Let someone else in the room have some air!








This guy won another award for "acting". What? First, we don't know anyone who actually watches this show. And second, of just the few snippets we've seen of it, Hugh Laurie's "acting" is so awful, so hammy, so over-the-top, we'd rather hold our hand over an open flame than to have to watch more. This guy is so full of himself, he definitely deserves to be punished. In fact, remember the good old, American colonial, witch hunting days in which the townfolk would make someone lie down, they'd place a wide board on top of him, and slowly pile rocks on top of the board until the guy was crushed to death? We keep having this recurring fantasy in which Hugh Laurie is underneath that board, and everytime he wins another award, we get to add that heavy trophy to the pile already on top of his board.

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We're not sure why Mrs. Tom Cruise was there. Did someone leave the basement door unlocked? Is she simply fulfilling her contractual obligations as a highly paid beard? We don't know, but we were definitely creeped out by her glassy-eyed, Stepford-like stare.

And speaking of "the couple", what's up with Angelina these days? She dresses in bland shrouds, her hair looks like crap, and every time the camera cuts to her at the show, she looks so clenched she looks like she's pinching a hole in the seat. Holy crap, lady, if being a well-paid, famous movie star is that painful, then get out of here, go snatch up some more kids to adopt and stay the hell home. This girl looks so miserable, she looks like she's one step away from taking Billy Bob back.
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Kate, Kate, Kate. Oh honey, we LOVE you, and your performance in "The Reader" was phenomenal. Seriously. But come on, you've won a few awards now for this role, and you'll probably win some more, so you might want to sit down at some point and actually write out a little "thank-you" speech. Please stop going up on stage and acting like a 12 year-old boy who just had his first orgasm: breathless, panting, face flushed and overwhelmed at how good it feels. Remember: gather!






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Oh, here we go, the moment we knew was coming, and the moment which makes everyone secretly cringe. Heaping an award on the dead guy. Heath Ledger was good in "The Dark Knight", he wasn't great. But everyone's rushing to give him the trophies they should have awarded him for "Brokeback Mountain", but for which they were too gutless at the time to give him. It's just very wrong. And as always is the case, giving someone an award out of sympathy robs another person who might truly be worthy of that same award. Grow up, people!




The other sexiest guy of the night, Jon Hamm of "Mad Men". Wow. Could you imagine if he went over to Josh Brolin's house one night to read a script, and Diane Lane happened to be out of town, and Josh and Jon had a couple of drinks, and they (deleted), and then they went outside and (deleted), and then, when they got out of the hot tub, they went inside the house and (deleted)? Wouldn't that be hot?





Oh, holy crap, she's still going! What will it take to get her to sit down? Someone please take her trophy away and remind her that she also made "Mamma Mia" this year. Okay?

Does This Gold Statuette in my Hand Make Me Look Fat?

OSCARS '09

(David Cross and Kate Winslet in "The Reader", Viola Davis in "Doubt", Josh Brolin in "Milk", Dev Patel in "Slumdog Millionaire")

Well, here we go again, the Oscar nominations have been announced, and Hollywood's biggest horse race of the year has begun. While the Oscars supposedly go to the "best" performances of the year, the winners actually win for a variety of reasons, i.e. popularity, politics, lifetime achievements, sympathy, etc. Sometimes the Oscar goes to the person who actually delivered the strongest acting performance, but don't count on it. Remember in high school when your vote for the Homecoming Queen depended on whether or not you liked her, if you didn't like her, if you thought she was a slut... well the Oscar race is just an overgrown Homecoming Pageant, only the people are older, much richer and have egos the size of Oprah Winfrey's ass.
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Best Actor:
Richard Jenkins - "The Visitor"
Frank Langella - "Frost/Nixon"
Sean Penn - "Milk"
Brad Pitt - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke - "The Wrestler"
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We'd like to see Sean Penn win so with the help of the movie "Milk" we can continue to shove our gay rights agenda down the throats of America and maybe even recruit a few small children to come over to the gay darkside... oh sorry, we were channeling Jerry Falwell for a moment. Seriously, we loved Penn in "Milk" and thought his performance encompassed a full range of the human arc, and not for one second did we think we were watching Penn, he became Harvey Milk.
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Who will win: Langella. Frankly, it's a four-way race, Jenkins is the only contender who you can safely bet against, he's just not well known enough. His nomination is his reward. Mickey Rourke is a sentimental favorite, but he's just too weird for the older, more conservative Oscar voters, and even though everyone loves Brad Pitt, most people still don't think he can act, and having Angelina Jolie is reward enough. So it comes down to Penn and Frank Langella. We have to go with Langella; Penn has already won an Oscar, and many will think it's Langella's turn to be rewarded for a lifetime of strong performances.
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Best Actress:
Anne Hathaway - "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie - "Changeling"
Melissa Leo - "Frozen River"
Meryl Streep - "Doubt"
Kate Winslet - "The Reader"
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We'd like to see Kate Winslet win. She blew us away in this role, playing a depressed, empty shell of a woman who's guilt has turned her into a walking ghost. There are no hysterics in this performance; it's just a bleak, realistic performance that's very unsettling to watch. Winslet's never had a role this complex, and she blows it out of the water.
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Who will win: Winslet. Forget Leo and Hathaway. No one knows who Leo is, and no one saw the movie. Hathaway is a popular young ingenue, but many will assume that she'll have plenty of chances in the future to win. Jolie could take it, but she's won before, and she's not as popular in Hollywood as she once was. Don't count out Streep, but she's already widely recognized as the most important actress of our time, so many voters will consider that reward enough. It's definitely Winslet's year. She's been nominated five times before, but has never won, and she's very well liked in Tinseltown. And strangely enough, her performance really was probably the strongest of the year. Go figure.
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Best Supporting Actor:
Josh Brolin - "Milk"
Robert Downey, Jr. - "Tropic Thunder"
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - "Doubt"
Heath Ledger - "Dark Knight"
Michael Shannon - "Revolutionary Road"
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We'd like to see Josh Brolin win. Not only for his strong, understated performance in "Milk", but because we loved him in "W." and "No Country for Old Men", films for which he wasn't recognized. He's got incredibly strong career momentum going for him, and we'd like to see of what else he's capable.
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Who will win: Brolin. Michael Shannon? Never heard of him. Hoffman already won an Oscar, and his role in "Doubt" was lightweight. Normally, we'd say the Academy might as well go ahead and mail Brolin's Oscar to him, that he's got it nailed down, but in this particular year, he's going up against two actors who have very strong sentiment on their sides. Ledger is dead, and this would be the Academy's last chance to give him the Oscar he should have won for "Brokeback Mountain". However, despite those strong feelings of sympathy, Oscar has only once before gone to a dead actor, Peter Finch for "Network". And the crucial difference here is that Finch's performance in "Network" was iconic and still leaves one breathless thirty years later, while Ledger's role wasn't really that meaty. Unusual, yes, but meaty? no. Plus, if Ledger wins, then someone else will have to accept the award for him, and no one wants to watch some unknown second-stringer get all choked up on someone else's behalf. On the other hand, Downey, Jr. is still with us and very much alive. After years of a drug wash-out, he's come roaring back to not only shine in several small roles, but to also star in one of the biggest blockbusters of the year in "Ironman". And never forget how much Hollywood loves blockbusters. Blockbusters mean the studio chiefs get to hire another nanny, buy another beach house and purchase even more expensive gifts for their mistresses. So it'll all come down to which vote wins, sentiment or real career achievement. In the end, even though the audience would love to see Downey, Jr. complete his comeback with an emotional, teary-eyed acceptance speech, we're going with Brolin, simply because his role was dramatic and Downey, Jr.'s was comedic. And drama almost always trumps comedy when it comes to finding Oscar's g-spot.
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Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams - "Doubt"
Penelope Cruz - "Vicky Christina Barcelona"
Viola Davis - "Doubt"
Taraji P. Henson - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Marisa Tomei - "The Wrestler"
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We'd like to see Viola Davis win. Even though she only had one scene in "Doubt", in that one scene she stunningly portrayed a woman who transformed in seconds from someone who was nervous and scared to desperately overwhelmed to someone who was frighteningly determined and could back down Meryl Streep with one look. We haven't seen a single-scene performance that strong since Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for a similar sized role in "Network".
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Who will win: Cruz. Viola Davis is new to the heavyweight scene and as mentioned, her role is very small. She could win, but don't bet on it. Amy Adams is slowly building real momentum toward a future Oscar, but not for this lighter role. Marisa Tomei manages a nomination every so often only because the Academy is still embarrassed for having given her the Oscar for "My Cousin Vinny", and they're hoping that if she wins another, they'll be vindicated. Forget it. Come on, Academy, just admit you fucked up and live with it. Henson is one of those "Fu Fu" nominations. The Academy likes to think that it's high minded and artistically gifted, you know, as in fancy, or "fu fu". Please. Most of the people in the Academy are about as able to recognize real art as we're able to put on a bra and pass for Angelina Jolie. But the way that the Academy tries to earn it's "Fu Fu" cred is by every so often nominating someone that no one else has even heard of, thus seeming to know something the rest of us don't, thus seeming more insightful than us, thus more "Fu Fu". Don't fall for it, it's "Fu Fu" bullshit, and what's most sad about it, is the same people who nominate someone like Henson wouldn't actually vote for her in a million years. So that leaves Cruz. And she'll win for a variety of reasons. She's been nominated before, thus having earned the respect of the Academy, and she's worked for years earning her dues, turning in a number of solid performances, (she probably should have been nominated for 2001's "Blow"). She's very good in "Vicky", but the most important indicator of her potential to win is the fact that "Vicky" is a Woody Allen movie, and Woody Allen has an incredible track record for directing actors to Oscars noms and wins. Fourteen actors have been Oscar nominated from Allen directed films and four have won: Diane Keaton, Michael Caine, Diane Wiest, Mira Sorvino. On the night of February 22, 2009, we suspect that winning tally will go to five.
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Best Director:
Who cares?
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Best Movie:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire
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We'd like to see "Milk" win, but we predict the winner will be "Slumdog Millionaire".