HOLLYWOOD ENDING
The Golden Globes are back again! and since I’m told they matter, I must conclude that the films this year are rotten. Given, this is the Hollywood Foreign Press, and America is far from the top of the list when it comes to “friendly favorites,” so it would make sense that depression and Eastwood would reign again.
From the Everything Is Death team of Inarritu and Arriaga comes Babel, which grabbed nominations in most major categories including Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Sad Score, etc… Critics either praised the hell out of this three-hour sobriety test, or fell asleep during the first half. Regardless, the film portrays Americans and life in a world influenced by America as miserable, and so it’s a favorite amongst lefty art communities everywhere.
Sir Clint Eastwood got dual nominations in the dramatic category for his connected confusions Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags Of Our Fathers. The most ambitious attempt at political correctness ever attempted, it means one more year (how long can he dodge the bullet!) where a single, wrinkled old man, steals attention away from young artists. Unless of course you’ve spent twenty minutes wrestling with a naked hairy fat man…
Borat received a nomination for both its creator, Sacha Baron Cohen, and for Best Picture in the still puzzling “Musical or Comedy” category. Also up for that ever so-elusive award are: Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine, The Devil Wears Prada, and Thank You For Smoking.
Martin Scorsese received a Best Director nomination for perhaps his worst film in two decades. The Departed also garnered nods for most of the male leads, as well as Best Picture, and the second nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio, who was also noticed for his portrayal of a South-African diamond smuggler in Blood Diamond. Neither nomination makes sense, but Scorsese winning a Best Director Oscar this year would be in line with the same Hollywood logic.
The Queen and Helen Mirren are a few of the deserved nominees in what has been a very dismal year for Hollywood. The Departed being considered seriously is as baffling as its cartoonishly labyrinthine plot, and William Monahan’s nomination for Best Screenplay already solidifies what must mark the beginning if not already the end.
Television nominations aside, Warren Beatty is finally being awarded the Cecil B. Demille Lifetime Achievement Award, so for a final time we can watch his reel and remember the many co-stars he shagged in his heyday before getting shackled down by the sometimes beautiful, (but always pretty much evil) Annette Bening (scratching her way to the podium with this year’s Running With Scissors). After seeing the Awards, and listening to the enlightened speeches of actors/political activists, I’ll settle down and read about how Angelina Jolie is reaching out to Jennifer Aniston, and remember; even if life in Babel is sad, in US Weekly there are always happy Hollywood endings.
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