Liam Lacey Since this is apparently the year of The King's Speech, let's start by quoting George VI's famous address in that film: "In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, I send to every household of my peoples, both at home and overseas, this message, spoken with the same depths of feeling for each one of you as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself."
Now, let's translate that into Oscar-acceptance talk: "Omigod! I can't believe this! This is so - grave and fateful. I just wish I could cross all of your thresholds. Whoops! Looks like I have to wrap this up. Hi mom!"
Wouldn't have won the war, would it? I'll begin with two questions. Why are Oscar speeches so feeble? And do you agree that, after six weeks of award shows, the Oscars feel redundant, like the Last Awards Show Standing?
Victor Dwyer To counter-quote you, channelling Matt Damon's ornery cowboy LaBoeuf in the adapted-screenplay-nominated True Grit: "You give out very little sugar with your pronouncements." I look at the speeches' predictability as the reason it's extra fun when Adrien Brody jumps Halle Berry, or the real former crackhead from The Fighter jumps out from behind the curtain at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and hugs Christian Bale.
Johanna Schneller It's true, we're all feeling fatigued with run-of-the-mill "shocked" speeches - especially this year, with the same four acting winners marching in lockstep from show to show. But I have an idea that will liven things up: Everyone should treat the awards shows like an ongoing reality series - The Real Winners of Hollywood. They could develop a narrative arc from speech to speech. Colin Firth could hint at his mid-life crisis at the Golden Globes, glower in denial at the SAGs, have a full-on breakdown at the BAFTAs [the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards]and then at the Oscars, pronounce himself cured. Natalie Portman could give us weekly updates on her pregnancy weight and ultrasounds, go into labour on the Oscar podium and deliver the baby at the Vanity Fair after-party. The ratings would surge!
Liam Or they could wear progressively more revealing designer duds at each awards show until their full-frontal Oscar coronations.
Victor Jesse Eisenberg exposed! No thanks. Redundancy is an issue, but the Academy itself is the worst offender: For once we have a blessedly Streep-free Oscars, but Jeff Bridges up for True Grit a year after winning for Crazy Heart makes me feel like I'm lost in an Inception time tunnel. Of course, he'll likely lose to Firth, who was last nominated, let's see ... last year.
Johanna "Blessedly" Streep-free? To quote - I dunno, someone - fie on you for that! At least Meryl knows how to make a speech.
Victor Fie? I'd prefer: "They told me you had grit, and that is why I came to you." As for your fatigue with mom-thanking, Liam, I'm with you but think the least the winners can do is blow a kiss to their mothers in a year when the best-picture nominees brought us some very creepy moms: a delusional stage mother ( Black Swan), a violence pimp ( The Fighter), an adulteress who does it with her child's sperm donor ( The Kids Are All Right) and a zombie ( Winter's Bone).
Liam Let's not forget best-supporting-actress-nominated Jacki Weaver as the criminal matriarch in Animal Kingdom; the little girl's incompetent mother who can barely spell c-a-t in True Grit; and of course the mom in Canadian Denis Villeneuve's foreign-language-nominated Incendies, who bequeaths her children the most insane gift imaginable.
Johanna Haven't you heard? It's the year of the woman. All those role models! I include Hailee Steinfeld's character in True Grit, who doesn't grow up to become a mother, but does turn into a humourless, one-armed scold.
Liam To compensate, I guess, the producers are inviting not just the nominees to the show, but what they call the "mominees" - mothers of the nominated stars - who will appear on camera and share stories of celebrity diaper training. Oscars producer Bruce Cohen said the first thing he wants to do is get all the moms tweeting. I hope they don't end up bomb-inees.
Victor Too bad King Bertie didn't have Twitter, though I guess then Colin wouldn't have a nomination. The drearily dutiful King's Speech, by the way, is near the bottom of my best-pic short list. Every time Edward and Wallis briefly darted onscreen, I wanted to escape the theatre with them to a fabulous, protocol-breaking party. Ditto those devious Winklevoss twins in The Social Network.
Johanna I, too, am depressed that The King's Speech, which just swept the BAFTAs, seems set to dominate the Oscars. It's a nice movie, respectable, well-acted and, zzzzzz ...
But that's precisely the problem with such a lengthy Oscar process. Way back in 2010, or 2005, or whenever this endless awards season started, everyone agreed The Social Network was the best film, and the best-directed film, and the best-adapted screenplay. But by February, the front-runner has to have flagged, not because its quality has dimmed, but because everyone is tired of it. To keep Oscar "interesting," Hollywood has to change the story.
Liam I don't see any puppet masters at work here, apart from Harvey Weinstein's Napoleon-worthy campaign for The King's Speech. I don't think "everyone" is tired of The Social Network. Critics embraced it, but the Hollywood guilds have been pretty consistently behind the King. The Academy always loves the heart-tugger.
Victor What are you saying, sweetheart? Tell me what you're saying. Okay, so now I'm ripping off Melissa Leo in The Fighter (which will unjustly lose original screenplay to Inception, which would, in a just universe, be up against Toy Story 3 for best animated feature), but only because I want to say The Fighter would have been nominated even if it hadn't been so heart-tugging: It's a fine film made Oscar-worthy by the sheer will of its woolly and wonderful cast.
Johanna Hate to break it to you, V, but I agree with Liam. I'm betting The King's Speech will win original screenplay (plus a lot more). For voters who like their winning pictures to be classy, straightforward and a touch mundane - which seems to be the majority of the Academy - screenwriter David Seidler will be irresistible. A stutterer himself, his uncle was treated by the same speech therapist Geoffrey Rush portrays in the film. He's a Hollywood veteran (age 73) whose London home was bombed by the Nazis in the Blitz. And he's been trying to get this movie made for a long time, waiting politely for the Queen Mum's permission. His speech could be one of the night's emotional high points.
Victor Which leads me to my next question: Any theories about why so many true stories are up for best pic this year - The King's Speech, The Fighter, The Social Network, There Will Be Stub ... sorry, 127 Hours (which should get an Oscar for cockiness for its dozen or so product placements made from inside a deep pit in the Utah desert).
Liam The obsession with "real life" seems a particularly timely one. Hollywood's main business is making movies based on comics or fantasies that involve extensive CGI work and not so much acting. There's a paradoxical model now that "artistic" movies should be about real life. How often have we seen "inspired by a real story" at the start of stories that weren't real?
The New York Times described the book on which The Social Network is based as "non-fictiony" - scenes, dialogue, even motivations were made up. The King's Speech plays like a Rocky movie: Listen to the BBC tape of the real speech; he still stammered.
The only two blockbusters up for best picture - Toy Story 3 and Inception - are the only real unalloyed fantasies. For me, Black Swan is the big exception: an artistic movie with no real-life basis. It's audaciously metaphoric.
Johanna It seems to me that things are "getting real" in the other sense, too. American moviemaking is in a recession-battered, root-for-the-underdog phase. Perhaps the legions of L.A.'s valets and dog-walkers are communicating to their mogul and agent bosses that they're feeling beaten down and wised up. A lot of the nominated films are about people struggling: to keep their home ( Winter's Bone), to stay sober and to get a break ( The Fighter), to see justice done ( True Grit), to achieve artistic greatness ( Black Swan), or simply to stay alive ( 127 Hours).
Victor Don't forget Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head in Toy Story 3. That was not a nice daycare they got donated to.
Johanna Ha! Underfunded and overlooked, just like the rest of us.
This feeling spills over into the documentary category, too: I think we'll see Inside Job, a solid, old-school, angry doc about the banking meltdown, win over Exit Through the Gift Shop, a more modern, ambiguous entry. Even The King's Speech, about a very cushy life, appeals to the masses because Bertie isn't just a king, he's also a man with demons; we can root for him to battle them and win.
This may be another reason The Social Network has cooled: It's about a selfish, me-first America - there's no redemption in it, and Americans love their redemption. At the end of 127 Hours, for example, James Franco's character has an epiphany: He's sorry he didn't call his mom back, he's sorry he's been selfish, he's going to change. At the end of The Social Network, Eisenberg's character is alone, grimly unloved, but determined not to change. I think the Academy is going for warmer stuff this year.
Liam Every year, I think. I mean, 127 Hours was written by Simon Beaufoy, the guy who wrote The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire. We know best actor will go to either the guy with the stammer (Firth), the guy with one eye (Bridges) or the guy with one arm (Franco). A socially maladjusted computer nerd just doesn't have the same cachet.
Victor Don't forget Javier Bardem in Biutiful, the guy with the terminal cancer.
You both may be proved right, though I'd argue it's The Social Network that captures the zeitgeist, celebrating and mirroring the shallowness that Facebook peddles as intimacy (and I'm predicting it will win best movie). That said, I have my own underdogs I'd like to see win: Black Swan and 127 Hours for their strange courage. I don't know which bowled me over more, Franco's climber stabbing off his arm, or Portman's ballerina doing what she did to her toenails. I also think Franco's cheery take on doom should but won't win him best actor (I'm guessing it did play a role in getting him the job of Oscar-night co-host), though I'd give best actress to Nicole Kidman's fragile/willful mom in Rabbit Hole - there's one mother Hollywood can be proud of.
Johanna Oh, we're talking fantasy wins now? Mine would be Franco too, for the sheer charisma it takes to hold the screen that long in such tight quarters. I'd also vote for Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine, in a performance that toggles back and forth in time yet stays true at every moment; John Hawkes for supporting actor in Winter's Bone, because he does everything Christian Bale does in The Fighter without showing off quite so much; and Amy Adams in The Fighter, because I went to high school with that girl and she got her just right.
The other category I'm obsessed with is adapted screenplay, to my mind the most competitive of the year. I'd vote for The Social Network, because I'm so happy that a movie about geeky geniuses was written by a geeky genius who convincingly conveys their language and their big brains.
But all the scripts here are worthy winners, whereas, outside of The King's Speech, original screenplay is a pretty thin field. Coming up with something original and getting it made is nearly impossible these days, because Hollywood is more risk-averse than ever.
Liam Really? I think it's a category full of interesting oddities. Mike Leigh's Another Year is outstanding, Inception is at least half-inspired and The Fighter a savvy blend of Rocky and Jersey Shore. The Kids Are All Right is an original lesbian family comedy, Black Swan's audaciously whacked out. Only The King's Speech is somewhat conventional, but well-crafted, and yes, I agree it will probably win.
Victor I'm kind of with Liam here. And I honestly think the strong script of The Kids Are All Right was unfairly sabotaged by the casting of Mark Ruffalo (up for supporting actor) as the man who tempts a gay woman out of her monogamy.
Who cares if her imperfect marriage and her impetuous fling were subtly foreshadowed? One half of any dead-bed couple - gay or straight - is going to break down and have an affair if Mark Ruffalo walks into their life. No backstory required.
Johanna You're right - and even juicier, he rode into their lives on a motorcycle.
So let me ask you this: If the major studios are making fewer films, and certainly fewer awards-calibre films; and if the ratings for the Oscar show are trending down; and if winners don't get a bump at the box office, why is Oscar season more intense and expensive than ever?
Liam The Oscars don't have to be connected to anything - the TV show makes $50-million (U.S) a year for the Academy. And this year's Oscars put a pretty good face on the industry: Seven out of the 10 nominated films are approaching or have made more than $100-million in domestic grosses.
But you're right, Hollywood is a franchise business where the real money isn't in the theatres, but the spinoffs. Yet even there, DVD sales are falling, and television and cable sales too. I keep thinking that every one of those gushing winners is secretly praying video-on-demand will somehow save their industry and their job. Otherwise, they may be moving back in with mom, and thanking her for doing their laundry.
Johanna Woof. The moms will be doing some heavy tweeting then, for sure.
Liam Lacey
Johanna Schneller