Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or my on-going battle to lose weight in our fast food world. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly

As both a film critic and devoted movie buff, I get excited about the “super bowl for movie fans,” the presentation of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, which takes place this Sunday. More often than not I make Veal Oscar and crack open of a bottle of bubbly to enhance my enjoyment of the night. (Check out my predictions here.)

However, the ratings for the telecast have been declining in recent years, as not enough casual movie fans are hanging around to wait for the winners to step to the podium for their golden boys.

The Academy decided this year to try and draw more fans by increasing the best picture nominations from five to ten. The idea was that this would open up the nominations to more mainstream, popular movies. Surveys conducted by the Academy showed that movie fans were tired of seeing movies they didn’t see — and didn’t want to see —winning all the major prizes. Well it worked, as The Blind Side, District 9 and Up joined the expected nominees like The Hurt Locker, Avatar and Inglourious Basterds.

Sandra Bullock

Will The Blind Side win? Not a chance, but Sandra Bullock is the best actress frontrunner for her wonderful performance in the film.

Personally, I think giving out Oscars to movies that were brilliant, even if they weren’t big box office hits, is the way it should be. The ideal behind the Academy Awards is to honor movies that try to do more than earn a boatload of cash. When popular movies are also brilliant examples of artistry, that is the ultimate win win situation for the Academy.

Back in 1998, the success of Titanic, the top grossing movie of all time, gave the Oscar telecast its best ratings in more than 20 years, 57.25 million viewers; by comparison when No Country For Old Men won in 2008, the numbers of viewers was 31.76 million. Both were wonderful, Oscar worthy movies. One was a love story; the other was dark and sad. Dark and sad movies just aren’t going to be major box office hits.
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Kathryn Bigelow

The excitement of the Academy Awards officially starts full blast today with the Awards being handed out this Sunday. I am particularly excited about the possibility of Oscar frontrunner Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to win as best director.

A release from Women’s Media Center, reminds us that it is ironic that Bigelow has the best shot at winning when women, in general are currently losing ground in Hollywood. According to the release, women only comprised seven percent of directors and eight percent of writers last year (based on guild membership).

When movies were first born in the late 19th century and early 20th century there were quite a few female screenwriters, although female directors were nearly as scarce as they are today.

When checking out the video on their web site (watch it here), I found out that Northfield resident Lou Reichert, who used to run the Little Art Theater in Bargaintown, has a very personal reason for tuning in Sunday. His sister, documentary filmmaker Julia Reichert, is up for an Oscar for best documentary short subject, for the film The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, co-directed by Steven Bognar.

You would think that Mel Gibson would be on his best behavior, doing publicity for his first major film role since 2002’s Signs. In my review of Edge of Darkness, I tried to look objectively at his current work as an actor, not as a controversial figure.

Of course it is hard to do that when Gibson goes and puts his foot in his mouth again. While doing a TV interview with Chicago reporter Dean Richards, Gibson got annoyed when the line of questioning went back to his 2006 drunken tirade. Gibson suggested that is all in the past an asked Richards to move on with his questions. Richards then ended the interview at which point Gibson said goodbye but before the satellite feed shut off, Gibson muttered under his breath, “Asshole.”

This was stupid enough considering his tenuous connection to his fading fan base, and the power of youTube, but to make matters worse, he and his publicist tried to spin the remark. Gibson said the insult was hurled at his publicist, who was making faces at him off-camera. Please Mel, we are not that stupid.

Later in an interview on French television, he admitted that he has a short fuse. Ya think!

Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or my on-going battle to lose weight in our fast food world. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly

My mind couldn’t come together for one topic this week, so in the tradition of jazz music, I’m going to do a couple of riffs on the two topics floating around in my brain. Let’s start with the Oscar nominations.
I’m feeling pretty good about the Academy Award nominations and my predictions. I pretty much nailed all the major categories; my only miss in the acting ranks was supporting actor Christopher Plummer (The Last Station); he took the spot I thought might go to Oscar co-host Alec Baldwin (It’s Complicated). And while other prognosticators thought

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Julianne Moore would take the final supporting actress spot for A Single Man, I went against that conventional wisdom and decided the Crazy Heart surge would push Maggie Gyllenhaal into that final spot. I was right.

The ten nominees for best picture suggest that perhaps the decision to expand from the traditional five might actually work and bring more viewers back to the Oscar telecast. This was my weakest category, although I’m sure my top five (The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, Precious) would have been the only five in a normal year. I loved Sandra Bullock’s performance in The Blind Side and it is a solid film but not truly Oscar worthy as a best picture nominee. District 9 was okay but overrated, and while I thought Carey Mulligan was brilliant in An Education, the film was good but not excellent. I have no problem with Up being nominated; it was one of my favorite films of the year. I have to confess I didn’t see A Serious Man.
My one crushing disappoint was that former Margate resident Scott Neustadter failed to get an original screenplay nod for 500 Days of Summer, despite the fact that he earned a WGA (Writers Guild of America) nomination. I loved the film and his screenplay, co-written by Michael H. Weber.

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Peyton Manning

Is it just me, or is the Super Bowl failing to create much buzz this year, especially in our area? I don’t hear many people talking about it, even though it should be an entertaining showdown between two of the most prolific scoring QBs in the game, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning.

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Kathryn Bigelow.

After Avatar won the best picture drama award at the Golden Globes and Inglourious Basterds won the acting ensemble award at the SAG Awards, it looked like Kathryn Bigelow’s chances for becoming the first woman to ever win the Oscar for best director were fading. However, her Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker gathered some serious steam Sunday when she took home the best director nod from the Director’s Guide of America. It was the first time a woman has ever won the award. In 62 years only six winners of the DGA award have failed to go on and win the corresponding best director Oscar. In my predictions for the Academy Award nominations, I gave Bigelow the best odds for winning. I feel great about that decision right now. The Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow morning (Feb. 2) at 8:30am.

A publicity still from the 1950s.

The always classy actress Jean Simmons passed away over the weekend of lung cancer just shy of her 81st birthday this Sunday. One of my all time favorite moments in any film is her drunken seduction/dance opposite Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls (1955).
She first earned acclaimed as Ophelia opposite Laurence Oliver in Hamlet (1948), earning an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Her performance as evangelist Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960) is one of the finest performances in her career.

Her other memorable screen roles include All the Way Home (1963), a nice display of her comedic skills opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960), and another Oscar nominated role as an unhappy wife in The Happy Ending, directed by her husband at the time, Richard Brooks. In the category of a “guilty pleasure,” I loved her in the little seen Robert Wise romantic comedy This Could Be The Night (1957) opposite Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa and Joan Blondell.

A recent shot of Jean Simmons.

TV fans from the 1980s might remember her as the patriarch of the Cleary family (an Emmy winning performance) in the popular 1983 mini-series, The Thorn Birds, or as a diplomat, Admiral Satie, who has lost her sense of justice as she conducts a trial to uncover sabotage on a memorable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Drumhead” (1991). More recently she was the voice of the grandmother in the English language of the Japanese animation Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).

By all accounts she was a lovely person as well as a wonderful actress.

Fans of MTV’s Jersey Shore are a little sad to the see the show air its season finale tonight (Jan. 21) (though a lot of Jersey Shore residents are probably glad to see the controversial show go), but The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson has the perfect remedy. The show will air a pretty hysterical trailer for the fictional Jersey Shore: The Movie tonight (tomorrow morning, whatever). Entertainment Weekly scored an early look at the bit, which stars Mila Kunis, Nick Lachey, Tom Lennon and Super Mario (Ferguson).
Seaside Heights in Ocean County, where the show is set, may be a little removed from the A.C. area, but it’s not that far. After all, the cast made a trip to The Quarter’s Providence nightclub in last week’s episode and cast members will be appearing Feb. 13 at the Taj Mahal’s Casbah.
Besides, it’s just too funny, though slightly NSFW. Go here to see the clip.

And in a strange coincidence, Sea Isle City officials  issued  a press release today saying the city is not in talks to be the host of the next season of Jersey Shore. Apparently there is a rumor floating around that the Cape May County town is up next for the show. Sea Isle Mayor Leonard C. Desiderio says, “We have not been contacted about the show Jersey Shore filming in Sea Isle. This is an unsubstantiated rumor and in fact, we understand the show is returning to Seaside Heights for the next season. My staff and I are in communication with MTV to clear up this matter and ensure the media is provided with accurate information.”

The Oscar buzz that begins in earnest every September at the Toronto Film Festival often begins as a quiet whisper in Park City, Utah at the first major film festival of the new year, the Sundance Film Festival. Movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Hustle and Flow and 500 Days of Summer got their start at Sundance, which begins this Thursday.

The Runaways

Films that look interesting include Jack Goes Boating, the directorial debut of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, based on a play in which he also starred at the Public Theater in New York. There is already buzz about Twilight’s Kristen Stewart who stars as Joan Jett in The Runaways co-starring Dakota Fanning. James Franco stars as Allen Ginsberg in Howl. In the film Buried, Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal) stars as a military contractor buried alive in Iraq.

The Company Men is a drama about corporate downsizing with a big name cast — Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner and Chris Cooper, directed by John Wells (a TV director best known for his E.R. work). And in Welcome to the Rileys, James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo star as a couple mourning the death of their teenage daughter. Jake Scott, son of Ridley Scott, directs the film. For a complete list of films visit the Sundance Web site.

When Boardwalk Empire premieres its first episode on HBO, there’s a chance that it may go down in TV history as the most expensive TV Pilot ever. That’s according to a report on E! Online (the website for E! Entertainment television). It seems there’s another report floating out there in cyberspace that the pilot was made for $50 million, which, is like, really a lot of money for a TV episode.
Still E! points out that the show involves Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi and Mark Wahlberg (as a producer). Names like that don’t come cheap.
Boardwalk Empire is a semi-fictional depiction of Atlantic City during the prohibition era. It’s scheduled to premiere this fall.
Go here to read the report.

Martin Scorsese, flanked by Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

It’s a good thing that the Golden Globes don’t always mirror what will happen at the SAG Awards and more importantly, the Academy Awards.

For Oscar watchers, the GGs last night came up with some choices I don’t expect will be repeated by the Academy Awards. There are under 100 members in the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association), compared to around 6,000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, the Oscars don’t have a comedy/musical division for best actor/actress.

Watching the Golden Globes is strictly for stargazing and since the HFPA puts on a lavish show, a ton of stars do show up from both film and television.

Topping my list of unexpected wins was James Cameron’s Avatar picking up Globes for best drama and for Cameron as best director. As much as I admired his film and the brilliance of its updated technology, as well as a good story, I really expected the director’s prize to go to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker or Jason Reitman for Up in the Air. I also figured that either Hurt Locker or Up in the Air would win the drama prize.

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