Somnopolis

Hadley Freeman in the Guardian recently spoke about the phenomenon of ‘Hollywood Ugly’ as follows:

But to be honest, I find this and the whole skinny model shebang a lot less irritating than the tendency of TV programmes and films to feature an actor who is quite blatantly gorgeous and slim and talk about her as though she were the size of Canada. Tina Fey as Liz Lemon in 30 Rock is the most obvious example of this[..]

Not 'fugly'

Of course TvTropes has an article on ‘Hollywood Homely‘, and I advise you all to go give it a gander. Up to speed? Good.

“I pretty much just do whatever Oprah tells me to.”

Liz Lemon is certainly physically attractive, but she is also antisocial, crude, obnoxious and conceited. That’s ok though.

For she represents a real challenge to the notion that all Hollywood actresses have to be pretty, as well as conform to a moral perfection. Liz is a nerd and therefore outside the norm.

Here’s an example of what Michael Bay thinks a nerd looks like.

This is Australian actress Rachael Taylor, who played a hacker named Maggie Madsen in Transformers. Her introductory scene is hilarious, as she is sitting with a group of fellow nerds and hackers who are all male and to a man – ugly as heck. Yet in their midst is this beautiful blond Australian who, as I recall did not say anything memorable, but certainly looked pretty.

Yet this was a character who supposedly spent most of her time in-doors sitting in front of a computer and suffering from carpal tunnel. We’ll put the tan down to a judicious use of the sun-bed.

See to  my mind, rather than be yet another example of Hollywood Ugly, Liz Lemon is an assertion of how nerds can be attractive – but still be nerds. Remember Chandler in Friends? Matthew Perry’s not a bad looking guy, but Chandler Bing was a neurotic obsessive with low self-esteem and a little too fond of Die Hard. So not a catch then.

Liz equally is unattractive for reasons of her social ineptitude – and I like that Tina Fey’s chosen to portray her character in that way. It’s somewhat more true to life, even if 30 Rock does flirt with soap opera conventions and a Moonlighting style will they/won’t they possible hook-up between herself and Jack Donaghy.

Plus there’s a strong possibility Liz is the devil….

It’s Complicated was sold to audiences as a fun sex comedy, with a resurgent Alec Baldwin on top of his game having discovered his comedic chops with 30 Rock; and Meryl Streep, whom I am obliged to describe as ‘radiant’ (read still physically attractive despite her age – it’s a euphemism that makes my stomach feel queasy).

Turns out though it’s a movie about divorced baby boomers, perplexed by the thought that their lives haven’t amounted to much. What’s most troubling about the scenario is that these characters enjoy lives of such privilege it is hard to sympathise with their outpourings of remorse. This is par for the course for writer/director Nancy Meyers, who seems to specialise in stories about neurotic rich people enduring mild discomfort (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give, Father of the Bride). So the picture is not sexy or funny. Instead it’s overlong, dull in parts and disturbingly insulated from reality. Fifty-something characters act and speak like teenagers. The dialogue often feels forced and when Baldwin is off-screen the oxygen is sucked out of the film. This is not the fault of Steve Martin and Meryl Streep, both fine performers, but the material they are forced to work with.

Strangely I found the main storyline, whether Meryl Streep’s divorced patissier will choose ex-huband Alec Baldwin over nice guy architect Steve Martin, is a front. The distressing heart of the film is a needy empty-nester refusing to allow her children to grow up and live their own lives. Streep and Baldwin’s parents have three children who are each introduced to us as moving on to better things, much to their mother’s discomfort. The eldest daughter is getting married to that guy from The Office, the middle child spends more time chatting to virtual friends online than anyone in her immediate vicinity and the youngest son has graduated from university. The resolution to the movie is not Streep’s character Jane making a decision which lover she wants, but the complete infantilization of her children, left blubbering in a bed when the affair is revealed, all traces of independent living expunged from their characters. It’s a horrible moment and I really don’t know what Meyer is trying to say about the effect of divorce on the family unit with this film.

My other concern is that Baldwin, so winningly manic on 30 Rock has been reduced to this by-the-numbers staid fare, the pater familias of Stepfords engaged in an illicit affair that isn’t all that illicit. Having largely abandoned his film career for television, it’s sad that the capital he has gained as the hilarious Jack Donaghy does not translate to similarly well-written roles on film.

I’m worried that Tina Fey might have the same problem with upcoming film Date Night. Blurg!

Actor in a Leading Role – Jeff Bridges

Actor in a Supporting Role – Christopher Plummer/ Christoph Waltz(It’s the Battle of the Christophers!)

Actress in a Leading Role – Sandra Bullock

Actress in a Supporting Role – Mo’Nique (in the bag – see Robert Downey’s speech from Tropic Thunder)

Animated Feature Film – Up

Art Direction/ Cinematography/ Sound Editing/ Sound Mixing/ Visual Effects – Avatar (sfx extravaganzas sweep the techies)

Costume Design – Coco Before Chanel (It’s Chanel!!)

Directing – Kathryn Bigelow (Cameron’s too much of an ego, Reitman’s too callow, Tarantino’s too much….no one knows who Lee Daniels was and we don’t wanna go give a social realist director a big head. That’s not what the Oscars are about)

Documentary (Feature) – The Cove (those poor widdle dolphins! Plus it replaces the need for liberal America to actually *do* something about Japanese animal cruelty that could lead to an international incident)

Film Editing – Inglourious Basterds

Foreign Language Film - “The White Ribbon” – Germany (Hollywood pretends it ‘gets’ Haneke)

Makeup - “Star Trek” (see Avatar and ‘techie’, principle)

Music (Original Score) “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Which I want to win – but it won’t)

Music (Original Song) - “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best Picture “The Hurt Locker”/“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers (too close for me to call)

Short Film (Animated) “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (darker than previous entries, but still excellent)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay) “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche (Iannucci is the voicepiece for Liberal British guilt vis a vis the war atm)

Writing (Original Screenplay) - “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal (it comes as a shock to everyone that films are ‘written’!)

Throwing aside everything I’ve said…the Oscars are not about merit, or what are the ‘best’ films. They’re about promoting cinema. No film this year has done more to promote the idea of visiting the cinema than Avatar. It’ll make a killing, there can be no doubt.

Marissa Tomei won an Oscar. ‘cough’.