red fuzzy jesus

Oscar Predictions

I love the academy awards because I love good film.  And I think it has stayed true to honoring the best in film even with years of criticism for not featuring more box office crowd pleasers.  I also think this year’s list of nominees has more ‘sure things’ than any list in recent memory.  I could be wrong, there are always upsets and surprises.  But, I’m going to go ahead and make some predictions anyway and see later how close I actually was. 

Actor in a lead role: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Actor in a supporting role: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Actress in a lead role: Natalie Portman (though it could be Annette Bening)

Actress in a supporting role: Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3

Art Direction: Inception

Cinematography: True Grit (but this category is one of the more open ones)

Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland

Directing: David Fincher (though it could be Tom Hooper.  Also, Chris Nolan should have been nominated.)

Documentary: Gasland (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work should have been nominated.)

Documentary (short subject): The Warriors of Qiugang

Film Editing: Black Swan

Foreign Language Film: Biutiful

Makeup: The Wolfman (Alice in Wonderland should have been nominated)

Music: Wide Open, but I’m rooting for The Social Network and Trent Reznor

Music (Original Song): We Belong Together, Toy Story 3

Best Picture: The Social Network (I know The King’s Speech is possible but unlikely)

Short Film (Animated): No idea, but I hope to see those soon.

Short Film (Live Action): Ditto

Sound Editing: Inception

Visual Effects: Inception

Sound Mixing: I honestly don’t understand this category

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network

Writing (Original Screenplay): The King’s Speech

Biggest Snubs: Julianne Moore, The Kids are Alright; Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter; Christopher Nolan, Inception

Rage Against the Kids

[Warning: Spoilers Abound]

Friday night I was there with friends to see the opening night of 28 Weeks Later.  Growing up I was never particularly a fan of zombie flicks or horror films in general.  But friends in recent years have changed that and now I’m quite the enthusiast.  In addition to those friends something else has helped changed my mind.  28 Days Later and its sequel promise to transcend if not change all together the horror genre.  The original 28 Weeks did escape many of the trappings of horror movies including the low brow clichés of the Friday the 13ths of my youth – so much so that it has lead to numerous annoying discussions of whether 28 Days is, in fact, a horror film.  Even in reviews I have noticed writers having some difficulty categorizing this film with some calling it a horror movie, others just a zombie movie, and many opting for the more generic “thriller.” 

And thrill it did.  Like the recent Dawn of the Dead, the best scene in 28 Weeks might be its opening.  At amusement parks the thing that kills me is not the big drop on a roller coaster.  It’s that slow ratcheting sound as the coaster is pulled up the first big hill.  Weeks does this well.  The movie opens during the time of the first film when Britain is decimated and the few remaining survivors are barricaded in farmhouses sustaining on canned food and candlelight.  The peaceful dinner and tense conversation of this opening is tortuously long because you know what’s coming; a zombie attack.  And when it comes it doesn’t disappoint. 

The herds of people with the “rage” virus appear on the horizon and make waste of the flimsy wooden barriers over the windows and doors.  They tear through these protections so easily one wonders why the people in the house bothered erecting them.  And the nice elderly couple, the sweet young girlfriend, the gruff young male friend, and the too-cute little boy are predictably torn to shreds.  The only person who gets away is the loving husband and father who chooses to abandon his wife rather than throw himself in front of the zombies in a vain attempt to slow their rampage. 

What Weeks assumes, heavily, is that everyone who sees it has seen the original.  It’s a safe enough assumption.  The target audience for the first is the same as the second and that variety of movie fan tends to be a pretty dedicated bunch.  But I was with someone who had not seen the first and listened as she whispered a lot of questions to her boyfriend.  Weeks makes no effort to inform viewers of what is going on with these zombie people.  It has a quick text at the beginning that indicates a timeline but does not explain how these people and Great Britain got the way they are in the movie.  This is contradicted by a throw away comment about the virus not being able to jump species when everyone remembers humans got it from lab monkeys in the first place. 

This is unfortunate because 28 Days and Weeks offer the most plausible cause of zombieism to date.  Rather than some meteorite hitting the earth, a virus develops that makes people into zombies.  It is perfectly biologically plausible that there might someday be a communicable virus that completely over stimulates adrenaline while totally suppressing logic creating “people” that are nothing but instruments of pure obsessive wrath.  We get from the doctor in the film that the “others” have a rage virus but where it came from and why Britain has all but disappeared is just taken for granted in the sequel and not really addressed.

A good test of a movie like this is how affected I am afterward.  On the way home in the subway an express A train pulled in at the same time an express 2 train arrived upstairs.  This lead to large crowds of people rushing en masse to catch their corresponding trains.  And seeing two thick groups of people rushing up and down the staircase respectively made me really uneasy.  There was no danger, of course, just a large number of people trying to catch their fast trains.  But having just seen Weeks I really didn’t enjoy being in the middle of it. 

When I visited London for the first time a few years ago I had cheerful English imagery of the Queen and red busses in mind.  Having seen V for Vendetta, Children of Men, and 28 Days in the past year my more recent trip to the city on the Thames had a creepier uneasiness.  I don’t think Weeks is going to help that much either. 

Going back to transcending the genre though, horror films (or thrillers) are sustained through series of bad choices.  In order for the mayhem to continue someone has to do something stupid like run upstairs when they could slip out the backdoor or break away from the group in the woods when you know it would be safer to stick together.  Weeks manages to avoid a lot of that syndrome.  I found myself considering what I would do in similar situations and it didn’t always differ too much from the characters.  Sure, people make stupid mistakes.  The kids in the film set off the conflict by exploring greater London when they should know better.  But, for the most part, people react the way one would if hell was breaking loose around them.

They go down into a dark, zombie-infested subway, which is a stupid choice but makes sense because they’re trying to escape opaque clouds of poison gas and a helicopter.  (The opaqueness of the clouds is another issue.)  The only really unbelievable part that takes you out of the movie is the omnipresence of the zombie dad.  As the kids run and drive all over London trying to escape ragers and American troops ordered to kill anything that moves, zombie dad keeps popping up.  He’s in the building, the street, the park, the subway.  It helps to forward the silly family storyline I guess but it just seems ridiculous that these kids keep encountering dear old dad at every turn instead of any of the thousands of zombies that could come around the corner.  This is made all the more screwy when you consider zombie dad has survived sniper fire, poison gas, and firebombing in order to keep running into to his poor kids leaving one friend to make the hilarious comment, “Man, this guy really hates his kids.” 

Another funny but disjointing moment came when the kids go down in the pitch-black subway.  The doctor directs them through the night scope on her gun.  But, no matter how hard I tried I cannot disassociate night vision from sex tapes.  As the teenage daughter looks back at the night scope in rapt terror I half expected Rick Salomon’s large wang to appear screen left.  I can’t be the only person with this hangup. [Sidenote: The girl playing the teenage daughter is named Imogen Poots!  That is either the best or worst showbiz name ever.] 

All and all Weeks delivers on excitement and a passable, believable plot.  I don’t look for flawless narratives when I go to this type of movie.  I understand that I have to suspend my disbelief a little more and not get hung up on holes or cheesiness too much.  It’s not as raw as it’s predecessor but one assumes that a sequel to a surprise hit is going to have a larger budget and more blockbustery feel.  It doesn’t fail to satisfy my lust for over the top movie violence or blood splattering and it has more than ample tension building and jumpy payoffs.  And the music is surprisingly enjoyable.  It was a fun ride but not life changing.  Like my students, this movie succeeded in passing my expectations but only because I’ve learned to preset those expectations to little and low. 

IN THE CLOSET WITH BEN DOMENECH IV

I’ll say a final word on poor disgraced “columnist” Ben Domenech and then let the dead horse lay.  By now most everyone knows that Washingtonpost.com (which is separate from The Washington Post paper edition) hired a 24 year old far-right activist and Bush appointee to offer a unique perspective to their opinion pages.  As Domenech has built his young career solely on inflammatory invectives to everyone who isn’t a right-wing White Christian, the progressive half of the blogosphere rose up to attack the Post.com’s decision.  Most of the criticism centered on Ben’s party-line activism absent a counterpoint blogger.  But as the bloggers dug – really they just Googled his articles’ excerpts – they found Ben to be a serial plagiarist.  What at first seemed to be some poor attribution while writing for the student paper in college was exposed as blatant cutting and pasting for publications like the National Review.  The examples of inarguable and inexplicable plagiarism grew till Ben “resigned” from the Post.com.

I said yesterday that I was uncomfortable fighting to get a blog removed simply because of its views no matter how offensive.  Using en masse protests to smother viewpoints is the calling card of the religious right and progressive minded people should have enough respect for pluralism to dispute arguments instead of just silencing them.  However, plagiarism is a good reason to fire a writer.  While it may seem mean for others to dig through your professional life to find fault, if you build that professional life on a foundation of animosity to so many you should not be surprised when that foundation causes your fall. 

The defense of Ben has been as interesting to watch as the attacks.  First “conservative” bloggers rushed to their keyboards to say that it was all a liberal hissy fit – a vast left-wing conspiracy if you will.  Then, even the fire-breathing uber-right site Ben co-founded, Redstate.com, acknowledged Ben had serious questions to answer.  It was sad because they kept posting updates to previous postings as reality took hold.  Ben flailed his drowning reputation around coming up with bizarre explanations such as P.J. O’Rourke had met him and given him permission to republish his work under Ben’s name.  But the NY Times found O’Rourke who said he never met Ben and never gave that sort of permission to anyone.  Ben claimed he wrote for two publications at once while working at the National Review and that’s why the same text appears in two different articles.  But the other articles clearly have other author’s names attached to them who are still alive to contradict.  Eventually, Ben re-posted ‘contrition’ on RedState admitting to rampant plagiarism. His rabid supporters on the site encouraged him to “take some time off.” 

Of all the defense of Ben the one most compelling is the argument that he made his mistakes when he was young and detractors shouldn’t be going into the histories of teenagers to find fault with their writings.  That is the most convoluted reasoning considering how Ben has been billed.  His bio boasts he’s the youngest Bush II appointee and has all these professional accomplishments at a young age.  Then when those accomplishments are put under scrutiny and found to be wanting we’re told we’re not supposed to pick on the work of people when they were younger and made mistakes.  He’s only 24 now! 

The story reminds me of poor disgraced Steven Glass.  My roommate, Tyghe, and I watched his biopic, Shattered Glass, a few months ago.  He too was a celebrated super successful kid at the age of 24 whom everyone praised for quick assent after college.    But his reputation began to unravel when examined by critics.  It may be an oversimplification but 24-year-olds shouldn’t be editors or senior anything for major publications.  It stands to reason that one grabbing the golden ring that quick cut some corners. 

Of course, Ben was trained exclusively for this type of work.  Much hay has been made about his home-schooling and his pedigree as the son of a Bush appointee.   While some home-schooled kids develop genius aptitudes for spelling bees and Geography olympics many who are home-schooled in order to prevent contradictory viewpoints just end up incapable of original thought.  The “pro-family” websites including Focus on the Family, which Ben wrote for, relentlessly pound the idea that parents should home-school to restrict secular influence on their children.  Put less kindly, the only way to create a foot soldier for the religious right as an adult is to saturate a child’s mind with limited perspective till all he can process is theo-poli rhetoric.  If Ben’s family followed the model of Dobson, and one would assume they did, then Ben’s childhood education consisted of mommy withholding the cookie plate until he prayed to Jesus, Mary, and Reagan.  A thoughtful mind is not constructed from this upbringing. 

Dr. Myers' piece summed up the analysis when he said he was “not surprised to learn that he [Ben] is the product of home schooling, which in its worst instances can foster an unfortunately narrow point of view, and usually means the kid is instructed by someone with absolutely no training in education.” 

Of course Ben went to the same college I did.  But by the time he got there he was so fixed with the theo-politics of his training that he thought it best to criticize the education system the entire time he was there.  While a student he wrote for Boundless – another site by Focus on the Family – in which he bi-weekly criticized how stupid the liberal professors were and how if he were in charge he’d have a whole different education model than the liberal elite.  His four years were just a formality while he waited to advance on DC with the rest of the Christian soldiers. 

Once out of college Ben had no original thought to present but parroted the same repetitious stuff that appears on all the pro-family sites.  What has struck me about Ben’s writings for RedState and Red America is their lack of personal perspective.  The judges on American Idol have an oft used criticism.  When a contestant gets all the notes and words to a song correct but fails to personalize the music they say the contestant sang karaoke instead of making the song their own.  Ben sang karaoke.  He was programmed as a child to utter the talking points of the religious right.  And nothing he wrote came from a personal observation but rather a rote recitation of specific activism.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Ben plagiarized.  He literally right clicked portions of other web pages, selected copy, and pasted them into his own posts.  The evidence is there and someone at the National Review online was asleep at the switch.  But this is exactly what he as a writer was trained to do.  Not think… not critically analyze and be a student of the world…  when new information was presented to him, even in college, if it did not match his programming it did not compute.  So what you are left with is a writer that can only spit out what has been allowed to get in. 

If you care enough to examine his writings, and you probably don’t, compare them to a similar topic on CWFA.com, Family.org, WND.com, or any of the other “pro-family” propaganda mills you will see endless redundancy.  Dogma is all they can sputter.   So, Ben Domenech was disgraced not because he was a religious right writer who got caught cheating but because the very essence of religious right writing is lack of original thought.  Because a writer needs to go through a process of finding his voice and developing a personal style he usually isn’t on top of the world at age 24.   It requires personal development over years to have an authentic and unique perspective on life. It also requires the type of formal and informal education that exposes you to viewpoints with which you disagree and people that live by different codes.  Without that type of development and influence Ben had nothing new to say.  The inability to speak personally rocketed him to success within the fandom of the far right but that same inadequacy is what caused his downfall once exposed to a wider audience.       

THE GAYNESS OF ENNIS

Brokeback Mountain is easily one of the most talked about films this year.  More reviewers reviewed it than any other movie on Rotten Tomatoes.  It swept the LA Critics awards and just received several Golden Globes nominations.  It is also expected to be a heavy Oscar contender.  With so much written already about the movie, it is difficult to find something new to say.  Upon careful review, however, there is something more worth noting – a lack of definition for the one thing that sets this movie apart. 

Although Brokeback is often called the “gay cowboy movie,” among the reviews and other articles there seems to be a lack of consensus on whether or not the two main characters, Jack and Ennis, are gay.   The answer to that question lies in what someone believes “gay” is.  The two characters themselves claim, “I’m not queer,” and they do marry and father children suggesting a rejection of the “gay lifestyle.” 

Some gay men have a total aversion to naked women.  They are so turned off by them that they can’t muster enough attraction to perform sexually.  Others, I would say most, can physically have sex with women and probably even enjoy it.  They can care about women and build lives with women.  Because Ennis and Jack both get married and have children they are obviously capable of sex.  This reality is what prompts some writers to declare the men are not gay.  They may be straight men with an inexplicable attraction for just each other or somehow bisexual but they’re not gay because they have wives and kids.  Gay men don’t have sex with women.   

I reject the notion that ability to form relationships with women, even sexual ones, is proving the gay negative.  In the movie, even though the two characters have wives, at a level deeper than sex lays a desire for each other.  The sex with their wives is perfunctory while with each other they achieve a truer level of intimacy.  The ability to marry and have sex with women has enabled gay men for generations to deny they are gay.  Living out the lives of their straight counterparts enables denial.  However, I would argue men in that situation are still gay if the person with whom they achieve real intimacy and personal satisfaction is another dude.  Even if they sleep with a hundred women, if they’re truly honest with themselves (easier said than done) they may conclude that men satisfy something more.  That, to me, makes them gay. 

This distinction speaks directly to the gay/ex-gay debate.  Many programs (all religious, most “Christian”) advertise the ability to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals.  However, these programs are only successful in alternating behavioral expressions of sexuality and even then, not so much.  The AFA has had a video out about their triumphs in curing gayness.  It’s called It’s Not Gay and it chronicles the successes of ex-gays.  There’s just one problem.  The people in the video now admit that although they went through the motions of being straight, they were never actually as attracted to people of the opposite gender as their own.  Michael Johnston, the central “character” in the “documentary” is now suing the AFA asking them to stop distributing the video because at the time it was made he was still having secret, and dangerous, sexual encounters with men.  He no longer wants his name and likeness to be used to promote a false idea. 

With this line of thinking comes some controversial assertions.  Some married men with children may be gay.  And it is possible to be gay even if you have never acted on those desires.  If your definition of “gay” is behavioral then you cease to be gay when you have sex with a woman instead of a man.  If you definition of “gay” includes deeper notions of love and intimacy then you retain your gayness regardless of with whom you sleep. 

What makes one person attracted to another is a great mystery of the human experience.  Most couples cannot describe in finite detail exactly why they are in love with the object of their affection.  Abstract notions of love and intimacy supercede more superficial behaviors and cultural norms.  There is no “gay lifestyle.”  Rather, there is a mysterious gay identity and those with that inclination vary in lifestyle from the cripplingly repressed to the drag queen on roller skates in the pride parade.

The characters in Brokeback are tragic in the same way that anyone is tragic who cannot be with the one they love for whatever reason.  But the tragedy runs deeper.  Ennis seethes with anger that only worsens with age because despite his best efforts he cannot be the man he feels he should.  The self loathing and self torture he endures as he tries to have a relationship with his wife and tries to push Jack away would make any religious ex-gay proponent beam with pride.  Anyone whose heart is not inhibited with absolutist ideology would have that heart break for poor Ennis and Jack.  Their lives would be so much more fulfilling if they could just be loved the way they need to be loved. 

Men like Jack and Ennis have a much easier time these days.  Part of that progress is due to movies like Brokeback.  But this movie goes further not because it features two gay male leads but because it highlights the humanity of gays.  Gays in films usually languish in stereotypes and charicature.  This movie treats them as fully realized complex people.  One would hope a greater portion of society would do the same.   

Post-Zombieism: Exploring Moral Roots in Zobiefied England

This weekend I finally saw the movie 28 Days Later. While disappointed with the scariness factor I was pleasantly surprised by the number of thought provoking questions the film raised about sources for morality and situational ethics.

Two disclaimers should be stated from the get go. One, if you haven’t seen the movie I may say a few plot spoilers but nothing that will take away from your overall enjoyment should you rent it someday. Two, I know already that I am interpreting messages from the movie that may never have been intended. That’s okay because the value of art is rooted in the interpreter’s ability to ascribe meaning where no obvious meaning exists – at least that’s why I’m told there are so many paintings of plain red squares at MOMA.

Like Dawn of the Dead, society in 28 is taken over quickly by an infection of ‘rage.’ Though the word zombie is never used, those infected lose rationality and act like rabid animals, consumed only with the compulsive need to consume and/or replicate the infection. Also like Dawn of the Dead, the scariest thing in 28 is the total breakdown of society. No loved ones, no government, no utilities, no community are all much scarier than the most vicious infected person. The few remaining uninfected people have to ban together for protection and scurry to stay alive all the while having little if anything left to live for.

The moral questions begin when the four uninfected new friends make it to a military base where about seven British soldiers, all men, have also managed to remain uninfected by use of heavy artillery. Once inside, Jim, Salina, and Hanna enjoy about a day of peace before realizing the soldiers intend to sleep with Salina and Hannah because there is nothing else to live for unless there are women.

The movie takes strong moral stands that follow an incongruent logic.  While never wanting to condone rape I am hesitant to condone murder as presented in this film – especially brutal sadistic murder. In an effort to prevent Salina and Hannah’s raping, Jim shoots one soldier, releases an infected person into the base to run around and dismember other soldiers, and later kills a man slowly by pressing his thumbs into the soldier’s eye sockets. The movie depicts rape as absolutely evil and death by eye gouging as absolutely justified. This contradictory juxtaposition of ethical rationalization is questionable. What makes one action moral and the other immoral?

Presumably, with the break down of society, morals are based on the survival of the individual. That which keeps you alive is morally justifiable even if it means beheading infected children. Even though society is gone, the characters cannot revert to pure natural law because they can’t instantly erase the ethical programming of having grown up in a society. That leaves an imbalanced mish-mash of value judgments. Beyond base level self-preservation a barely higher level of morality would suggest actions are justified by the need to continue the human race. In this way, Salina’s refusal to even consider sex with one of the soldiers may be considered immoral. Since she and the under-aged Hannah are the only two females known to have survived, situational ethics might suggest that her resistance to sex with any of the men is equally if not more immoral than the proposed rape. Also, her vicious fighting of the soldiers in those specific circumstances can be viewed as immoral because it only increases the chances poor little Hannah will get the bulk of the raping.

In order for the survivors to sustain they need to preserve the integrity of the base. Those circumstances then must call Jim’s actions into question, which are depicted in the movie as being heroic. By intentionally setting an infected person loose in the base his intention becomes to kill those inside even though they may be the only hope of creating a new society. Likewise, intentionally killing other survivors, equally depicted as heroic, could also be viewed as immoral simply for the reason that with every death the survival of the human race becomes less likely.

Where do morals come from? What makes one action immoral and another heroic? That is an endless debate among theologians and philosophers that can’t be settled here. But this movie seems to suggest morals are both products of specific circumstances and yet absolute regardless of circumstances. The movie tries to have it both ways creating a situational ethic in which actions that reduce the likelihood of self-preservation are justified by the drive for self-preservation. This is senseless and yet, as the story unfolds, completely reasonable.

The only answer for this contradiction is the scene in which Jim sees a plane in the sky. Just before he continues killing soldiers the plane lets him know that there are other survivors and somewhere is functioning well enough to fly planes. This still doesn’t explain why the movie believes, when society breaks down and there are no formal rules, rape is bad, murder is grrrrrrrrreat! One can usually recover from rape. No one recovers from death by eye gouging.

Someday I will watch a fluffy horror movie and just enjoy the jump moments. But today I will mull these questions of where morals come from outside of any interpersonal system. Why are Jim’s vicious murders in the movie depicted as noble acts in the context of zombies? My ultimate subconscious goal may be to find some justification to murder the obnoxious guy in the silent study lounge that insists on muttering the words of his book under his breath while he reads. Zombie ethics activate!

Oscar Locks

(Archive Apr. 2003)

It’s Oscar time again. Time to borrow a bazillion dollar dress and jewels and show up to reward achievements in film and I actually care. I usually try to ignore award shows. It’s becoming a bit difficult because there are so many now. ESPN has an award show? TV Land is having some show where they give out awards for classic TV. Some bored schmuck at VH1 came up with the Big In 2002 awards that turned out to be ironically miniscule in celebrities and relevance. There’s Cable Ace, Kid’s Choice, Lady of Soul -- are the Blockbuster awards still handed out? Most of these are an excuse to get as many pseudo celebrities as possible in the same room and generate interest to sell advertisements at a higher price. If anything is rewarded it’s for whatever made the most money. They reward what is easiest to swallow and most appealing to the mass public instead of more sincere notions of art. The Oscar’s are a bit different. They tend to reward progressive and thought provoking work and genuine talent, even box office bombs. This is not always the case. The Oscars are the epitome of Hollywood politics and power mongering but there’s still enough artistic integrity there to make viewing them worthwhile.

Every entertainment reporter and film critic will make across the board predictions on winners this week. Each will probably be right on some and wrong on others. The Academy is not predictable. The inexplicable upsets each year fuel the gossip machine and befuddle experts. Because I am not an entertainment reporter, expert or film critic and I recognize the volatility of back stabbing starlets I will limit my predictions to three easy locks.

The Best Picture and Best Director will go to Chicago. Easily the most talked about film of the year it succeeds in the Shakespearean tradition of appealing to multiple levels. For the cock fighters and pickpockets on the floor there’s the sexy women, the hand clapping show tunes and sultry violence. For the high brow in the seats there’s the social commentary on media obsessions and creations, the exploration of the relationship between sex and violence and the questioning of what really makes a celebrity. The seemingly inadaptable for film Broadway musical was retooled by the concepts of director Rob Marshall. His idea to have all the singing and dance numbers occur as dreams in the main character, Roxy’s head gave the movie depth and believability. His subsequent reworking of the script to create the aforementioned levels moved Chicago from splashy musical to compelling film. It still wasn’t my cup of tea but the end result is commendable.

The Best Actress will be Nicole Kidman for her role in The Hours for several reasons. For starters, this is Nicole’s year. Oscars for best Actor and Actress often go to the previous year’s biggest upset. Having lost just barely to Halle Berry’s Monster last year she’s due for recompense. There are other ways Hollywood politics are working in her favor. She faired better in public opinion after her break up with Tom Cruise and has had increasing success on her own. Despite her previous good work her longevity was always partially credited to who she was married to more than anything she did on screen. (Too many backhanded references to Kate Capshaw come to mind now for me to choose just one.) She also shut up her shrill defense of unpopular brute Russell Crowe, which can’t hurt her in the polls.

Kidman is at the right place in her career arch. Oscar usually awards dynamite standout performances from actors previously unheard of like Cuba Gooding Junior in Jerry McGuire, Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinney and Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry or they reward long standing actors who have progressively done more significant work and built a reputation. The ladder is the prize at the end of a long journey and can establish an actor as Hollywood royalty. The former can mean sudden death to one’s career. All three of my examples had trouble getting quality work after winning Oscar. Marisa Tormei is finally back on the A-list. Hilary Swank’s role in some formulaic disaster movie perfectly follows the formula for post Oscar disaster. I used to feel sorry for Cuba Gooding Junior but after reading his newest movie’s premise, plot and punch lines are all based on one long, stupid, homophobic joke I now think he deserved the cinematic defecate of Snow Dogs.

There’s one more thing working in Kidman’s favor. The Academy loves the pretty girl gone ugly syndrome. From a pale, plain, poor Berry begging for validation to the sock in Swank’s shorts to Paltrow’s drag in Shakespeare In Love there is a long tradition of confusing downplays in feminine appearance to quality character development. Kidman’s fake schnoz gives her this advantage. When she gets her statue I will be tempted to banally announce she won by a nose but I will resist. One more prediction; others won’t.

The rest of Oscar night is a toss up and I’ll be watching. I admit it’s at least 90% apparel, wealth and status but all that is fun too and a reflection of ourselves starker than any movie. To compensate next week I will attend the DC Film Club’s viewing of a legitimately artistic work followed by “intellectual discussion of real film.” I hope to watch, listen, and learn from these more-indie-than-thou movie elites. Let’s hope my acute knowledge of Tom and Nicole doesn’t get me barred from the room.