I watched some of the MTV Movie Awards.

OH GOD I COULD ONLY TAKE SO MUCH.

Random observations:
- Rainn was funny. DWIGHT SCHRUTE!
- Anne Hathaway presenting an award to Johnny Depp: my personal nightmare come true?
- How many of those things does Johnny Depp have, anyway?
- THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID! Oh, Steve.
- DON'T LET RDJ NEAR THE POT! WHY DID YOU DO THAT!
- Between James Franco and Seth Rogen, I'll take the latter.
- It's a really bad thing when the MTV Movie Awards nominate your Best Picture of the year for their equivalent of Best Picture, and your Best Actress of the year for their equivalent of Best Actress, and the Oscars don't.
- the skit with the monkey and Verne Troyer and the Orbit lady was so repulsive I had to turn off the awards.

Public service announcement.

Every time you give him:

your personal Best Actor award in 2007 over him:

God mercilessly kills a kitten.



The more you know...

The Top 15 Most Overrated Performances of the 2000s.

Taking into consideration that "overrated" is overrated. ;) I tried not to rank them in order of how good they were, but rather in order of how overrated they were. Also, yes, I kept it to one Cate Blanchett and one Johnny Depp performance each. ;)

15. Salma Hayek - Frida
I just read in, I think, Glamour magazine, where they were talking about Frida, and they said, of course, "Salma becomes Frida." GOD, I AM SO TIRED OF THIS. Makeup makes a lot of these biopic performances what they are. Salma seems all "oh my God I am in a prestige picture and I need to ACT!!!" throughout the whole movie, and thus loses all the joy and vitality she could possibly have. Not totally overrated because she almost never wins in 2002 due to the combination of The Hours ladies and Julianne Moore. But even a nomination is very very undeserved.

14. Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator
Not at all a bad performance. In fact, it's pretty good. But when I hear people calling this the greatest male performance of the new millennium, or even of all time, I do cringe a little. The performance doesn't seem to have a lot of sublety, though Leo has absolutely explosive screen presence and is absolutely natural. Like I said, it's good, it's just drastically overrated. He didn't deserve his nomination... but then again, very few of his fellow nominees did (2004 was such a terrific year for movies, and such a terrible year for the Oscars...).

13. Sean Penn - I Am Sam
Awful. Just awful. Hammy and horrendous and without a note of sublety. He doesn't even look interested to be there. This would be higher, but there are definitely those that agree with me.

12. Adrien Brody - The Pianist
I'm a really big lover of sublety and naturalism, as has probably become clear from this entry where I say "sublety" about 204860486 times. But Adrien was just too subtle. He was boring, and is one of few actors I would say just can't hold a movie in lead. I'm a huge sap and cry over everything (Crash or a movie that can be better-compared to this one, Schindler's List, pretty much destroyed me the first time I saw it), but I hardly cared about this guy.

11. Joan Allen - The Upside of Anger
Should probably be higher on this list. Wow, she was terrible. Like, Razzie-worthy. I thought she was just a horrible shrieking harpy that could not possibly be mistaken for any actual living human being. I didn't find her funny. Her attempts at being sexy are just laughable and bring her performance down even more (and no, I'm not being one of those "OMG WOMEN OVER 40 SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING SEXY" people. She was just laughable at it. Honestly, Helen Mirren was sexier in The Queen. Okay, that's an exaggeration. But still.). I hated every minute of this movie and her performance and I don't understand why people liked it.

10. Emily Blunt - The Devil Wears Prada
I know, frequent readers of this blog (if there are any of you........) are probably shocked! shocked! that she is not #1. But there are performances that are way worse that are way more praised, so I'm not going to overstate my case. Emily was fine. However, she was in no way award-worthy or even close to award-worthy. She was pretty funny, which is nothing a million other actors and actresses haven't done in the past, and she stole scenes from Anne Hathaway, which is really not hard. Her character was badly written and I think she made more of it than was on the page, but I never felt sympathy for her, like I did with Meryl Streep's. Most importantly, I never felt like she was an actual human being, unlike, again, Meryl Streep. She was just a quip machine.

9. Rinko Kikuchi - Babel
I really hate to oversimplify performances like this, but: she showed her vagina a lot and made weird faces. She didn't ever express her pain to me. She has one brilliant second in the club where she sees the guy she likes kissing another girl and her face just falls, but it's literally a second. The rest of her performance is terrible and desperate for attention.

8. Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
Another "wow, terrible, how could anyone like this?" performance. SO HAMMY AND UNREAL AND ACTING!!!!!!. I can't stand Desperate Housewives, but from the little of it I saw, Felicity was just great there. I still find her likeable, but I don't know why she's so terrible in movies. I'm so thrilled Reese got that Oscar!

7. Julianne Moore - The Hours
All the ladies in The Hours are fairly overrated. None of them even deserved a nomination (except for, oddly enough, Toni Collette), and it's nowhere near the best work of any of their careers. But seeing as Julianne Moore was the worst of the three by far, I included her here. It's not a horrible performance; she definitely makes you feel something. But that's probably just her role and all the crying and menstruation (;) I like The Hours, I do) it involves. Moore is always stylized, sometimes a little too much for me. This is one of those times. Her performance just seems like a bunch of weepy scenes with little connective tissue.

6. Joaquin Phoenix - Gladiator
Bad. Hammy. Prancy. Yuck.

5. Naomi Watts - 21 Grams
This is partially her awful movie's fault. By fucking with the time so much, it eliminated any possibility of a real "thread" going through her performance. So...it comes off as a lot of screaming and howling and histrionics, which I despise. It's like she took that breakdown part in Mulholland Dr. and just acted that the whole movie, and it is way too much. Terrible, terrible, terrible. But at least some people agree with me.

4. Cate Blanchett - The Aviator
From the first time I saw this film, I've never seen what anyone else saw in her. I didn't think she was magical or that she lit up the screen at all. What I saw was a well-accented but emotionally dead and somehow creepy performance. Worst of all, I can always, always see the wheels turning when I watch Cate here, something you never saw with Katharine Hepburn. I think that is the biggest insult to Kate of all.

3. Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean
I'm pretty surprised this isn't #1 myself. But yeah, what can I say, I am running out of steam. I didn't think he was funny, and I didn't think he created any sort of real character. We don't know who Captain Jack is, despite all the hoopla about him. And that's a real crime, and it's purely Johnny's fault. Awful. With stuff like Ed Wood, it's pretty gross that this is what finally got him attention.

2. Marion Cotillard - La vie en rose
My hatred for this film and performance is still so fresh in my mind. She's in the Naomi Watts camp - any way her performance could have been good was destroyed by the filmmakers, making it look like all she does is scream and howl and overemote. She's way worse than Naomi, though. Marion creates a thing of nightmares and does an incredible disservice to Edith Piaf by not playing her, but by creating an empty shell of hysterics and makeup. Just terrible.

1. Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Connelly's performance in Requiem for a Dream is the second best performance of the 2000s. Until 2007, it was THE best. Unfortunately, her performance in A Beautiful Mind is one of the worst. Period. She's got my Razzie for it. She literally does nothing. She doesn't play it quiet and bring emotion and sublety and make you feel for her, but I don't really think sublety is Connelly's thing. That's fine. She's not terrifically subtle in Requiem for a Dream and that performance is fucking amazing. And yet, here, she doesn't go over-the-top, yet explode with fire and passion and light up the screen. She just looks bored the entire running time, like she knew she was going to get an Oscar for playing the supportive girlfriend/wife in a prestige movie made to appeal directly to AMPAS. Actors that are natural get a ton of credit for me, and actors that look like they'd rather be doing anything else get major shit points from me. This, my friend, is where shit points might as well originate. Yuck. 7 years later, I'm still complaining about her Oscar win over 4 great performances.


Also overrated (not in any particular order other than the one I remember them in): Bjork - Dancer in the Dark (duh. I just thought of this. I don't feel like writing up a new writeup, but suffice it to say she would be really high.), Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal (would be on the list if not for the "one Cate Blanchett performance" rule), Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter - Sweeney Todd, Audrey Tautou - Amelie, Amy Adams - Junebug (sorry, Jesus), Kate Hudson - Almost Famous, Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age (a lot of critics loved her), Patricia Clarkson - Dogville, Patricia Clarkson - Far from Heaven, Patricia Clarkson - Pieces of April (Clarkson is soooo notttt the "supporting actress godsend" that most portray her as. She's usually good, but not award-worthy.), Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl, James McAvoy - Last King of Scotland, Annette Bening - Being Julia (this would be on the list, except nobody online seems to like her here thank God), Judi Dench - Iris (people saying she was better than Julie at the whole Alzheimer's thing makes me crack the shit up), Diane Keaton - Something's Gotta Give, Jim Broadbent - Iris, Matt Dillon - Crash, Thomas Haden Church - Sideways, Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children, Natalie Portman - Closer, Shohreh Aghdashloo - House of Sand and Fog, Thora Birch - Ghost World, Gael Garcia Bernal - kind of everything, Ed Harris - The Hours, Adam Sandler - Punch-Drunk Love, Naomi Watts - King Kong, Ziyi Zhang - Memoirs of a Geisha (this one's not so loved on the internet, though, thank God), Eva Green - The Dreamers, Ellen Page - Hard Candy

Yeah, they're great to spectacular, but calm down people: Nicole Kidman - The Hours, Meryl Streep - The Hours, Julianne Moore - Far from Heaven, Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake, Helen Mirren - The Queen, Isabelle Huppert - The Piano Teacher, Joaquin Phoenix - Walk the Line, Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote, Penelope Cruz - Volver, Gael Garcia Bernal - Bad Education, Kate Winslet - Little Children (not so much now, but when it came out people were FLIPPING OUT!!!!), Ziyi Zhang - 2046, Mark Wahlberg - The Departed, Jack Nicholson - The Departed, Saoirse Ronan - Atonement, Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton (the way the blogosphere talks about it, you'd think God got an Oscar), Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Maggie Gyllenhaal - Sherrybaby, Cate Blanchett - Heaven, Parker Posey - Best in Show, Jake Gyllenhaal - Donnie Darko, Daniel Day-Lewis - Gangs of New York, Bruno Ganz - Downfall

And just to get the warm fuzzies out there, here are tons of sadly underrated performances (I don't nominate nearly all of them, and if they all got a ton of attention a bunch of them would probably be pretty overrated, but most of these get almost no attention, which is sad as they are great): Clive Owen - Croupier, Forest Whitaker - Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Cate Blanchett - The Gift, Jeffrey Wright - Shaft, Philip Seymour Hoffman - Almost Famous, Jack Black - High Fidelity, Gary Lewis - Billy Elliot, Samantha Morton - Jesus' Son, Kirsten Dunst - The Virgin Suicides, Goya Toledo - Amores perros, Anthony LaPaglia - Lantana, William H. Macy - Panic, Ray Winstone - Sexy Beast, Brian Cox - L.I.E., Will Ferrell - Zoolander, Kerry Armstrong - Lantana, Uma Thurman - Tape, Tom Cruise - Minority Report, Sam Rockwell - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Greg Kinnear - Auto Focus, Samantha Morton - Morvern Callar, Jodie Foster - Panic Room, Catherine Keener - Lovely and Amazing, Maura Tierney - Scotland, PA, Philip Seymour Hoffman - Punch-Drunk Love, Ray Liotta - Narc, Brian Cox - 25th Hour, Edie Falco - Sunshine State, Emily Mortimer - Lovely and Amazing, Bebe Neuwirth - Tadpole, Kathleen McDermott - Morvern Callar, Hayden Christensen - Shattered Glass (never have I seen a great performance so dismissed by the "he can't act!" belief), Kevin Spacey - The Life of David Gale, Chiwetel Ejiofor - Dirty Pretty Things, Robert Downey Jr. - The Singing Detective, Paul Giamatti - American Splendor, Jack Black - School of Rock, Peter Dinklage - The Station Agent, Patty Considine - In America, Zooey Deschanel - All the Real Girls, Sarah Polley - My Life Without Me, Renee Zellweger - Down with Love, Hugh Grant - Love Actually, Laura Linney - The Life of David Gale, Laura Linney - Love Actually, Sean Penn - The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man 2, Will Ferrell - Anchorman, Tom Hanks - The Terminal, Laura Linney - P.S..., Abbie Cornish - Somersault, Jennifer Garner - 13 Going on 30, Lindsay Lohan - Mean Girls, Kim Basinger - The Door in the Floor, Reese Witherspoon - Vanity Fair, Laura Dern - We Don't Live Here Anymore, Steve Carell - Anchorman, Liev Schreiber - The Manchurian Candidate, Topher Grace - In Good Company, Kyra Sedgwick - The Woodsman, Lacey Chabert - Mean Girls, Amanda Seyfried - Mean Girls, Marion Cotillard - A Very Long Engagement, Sandra Oh - Sideways, Tony Leung - 2046, Yeong-ae Lee - Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Embeth Davidtz - Junebug, Lisa Kudrow - Happy Endings, Joan Allen - Yes, Nathalie Press - My Summer of Love, Vince Vaughn - Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jeffrey Wright - Broken Flowers, Paul Rudd - The 40-Year-Old Virgin, George Clooney - Good Night, and Good Luck., Edward Norton - Kingdom of Heaven, Liam Neeson - Breakfast on Pluto, Maggie Gyllenhaal - Happy Endings, Isla Fisher - Wedding Crashers, Emily Mortimer - Match Point, Patricia Clarkson - The Dying Gaul, Heath Ledger - Candy, Edward Norton - The Painted Veil, William H. Macy - Edmond, Joe Cross - Running with Scissors, Cate Blanchett - The Good German, Melinda Page Hamilton - Sleeping Dogs Lie, Scarlett Johansson - Scoop, Doug Jones - Pan's Labyrinth, Paul Giamatti - The Illusionist, Ian McKellen - The Da Vinci Code, Kevin Spacey - Superman Returns, Woody Allen - Scoop, Jodie Foster - Inside Man, Jessica Biel - The Illusionist, Edie Falco - Freedomland, Jill Clayburgh - Running with Scissors, Blythe Danner - The Last Kiss, Don Cheadle - Talk to Me, Steve Buscemi - Interview, Gabriel Bryne - Jindabyne, Russell Crowe - American Gangster, Michael Shannon - Bug, Sienna Miller - Interview, Belen Rueda - The Orphanage, Dakota Blue Richards - The Golden Compass, Dylan Freasier - There Will Be Blood, Morgan Freeman - Gone Baby Gone, Kerry Washington - I Think I Love My Wife, Martha MacIssac - Superbad. WHEWWWWWWW.

Of course, I am sure there are many I am forgetting. Ah, bitching. You are wonderful.

Daniel Day-Lewis to Johnny Depp at the Oscars.

"Did you think your song and dance would help you get you an Oscar?!"

Goddamn, it would be freaking awesome if DDL started chucking bowling balls at Johnny Depp.

Analyzing: Best Actor

Last acting category, yay.

5. Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd.

I haven't really been too nice to Mr. Depp in the past, but being in Spain for like four months made me kind of get over it because I was separated from IMDb and all the scary Johnny Depp fans. That said, this is by far the least of the Actor nominees. Johnny isn't bad at all, but he's been given one of the greatest characters in history and he just could have done so much more with it. He strikes a mean, terribly intimidating figure, and has a few moments where he's great, but half the time he's just glowering. Helena Bonham Carter completely steals the movie away from him, and she's not even that great. Hey, it's better than his last two nominations, though...
Why he might win: Everyone loves Johnny Depp and wants to see him get an Oscar sooner or later (everyone except me =/). Globe winner.
Why he might not: Not Daniel Day-Lewis. No precursors. Oscar clearly didn't like his film very much.

4. George Clooney, Michael Clayton.

George gets a lot of badmouthing for "always playing George Clooney," and I don't think that's accurate. What I do think is accurate is that he has this amazing screen presence that feels the same in every movie. At any rate, Clooney's performance in Michael Clayton isn't just "Clooney being Clooney," though he undoubtedly taps into his movie star mojo and incredible charisma for effect at times. The man is magnetic, but he's also unbelievably layered; look at his eyes when he sees the horses. And it might be obvious, but that taxi ride at the end - damn. He also just perfectly captures a man who is absolutely tired of the shit the law profession puts him through. Oh, how I love the Cloons.
Why he might win: He's George Clooney and they love him. The couple of awards Daniel Day-Lewis didn't get, he did. Title character in a Best Picture nominee.
Why he might not: Not Daniel Day-Lewis. He just won.

3. Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises.

Well, let's get one thing out of the way first: Viggo Mortensen is almost unbearably sexy in this movie, quite frankly. And no, it ain't cuz of the nude scene. Viggo's character choices in Eastern Promises are so specific and he absolutely transforms what could have been a stock "gangster" role (but is anything "stock" in a Cronenberg movie?) into a true character. And yet - here is another great thing about his performance - Mortensen doesn't hide the mystery of this character. Up until that steam bath scene, Mortensen seems to do nothing but wait. He's clearly dangerous and involved in the Russian Mafia... but what attracts us, and Anna? It's some humanity bubbling under the surface, beneath those sunglasses in those reptilian eyes. I don't even know how Viggo gets that all across, but he does. I've read that the steam bath scene in Eastern Promises has no point, and it's just spectacular filmmaking without any real point in the story, but this isn't true; it's needed to release all the near-unbearable tension the movie's been moving toward, which Viggo's tightly coiled performance absolutely contributes to, and well, he rips loose in that scene (naked! killing people!). At the end of the movie, Viggo's secret gets revealed, and yet he still feels like some kind of unknowable mystery. Somehow, this isn't a "OMG what was up with that character Viggo had no idea what he was doing" mystery. No idea how he pulled that off either, but yeah. It's Viggo. He's amazing. I love how I changed in that description from "Mortensen" to "Viggo" very suddenly and abruptly...
Why he might win: Raving fans.
Why he might not: Not Daniel Day-Lewis. No precursors. The movie had no other Academy support besides him.

2. Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah.

As I've said before, Oscar loves big. It loves loud. It loves showy. And that, my friends, is why this performance has absolutely no chance of winning. THINK of all the screaming and huffing and puffing Tommy Lee Jones could have done to show his hurt! But...here's the thing. He never does. Jones* manages to get across oceans of tragedy without even shedding a tear. Hank Deerfield has so many layers (partially thanks to Paul Haggis. SUCK IT, HATERS.), and somehow - again, these top three really just leave me in awe at how they do it, but they do it - Jones manages to accomplish getting across these many layers in, often, just a glance. I was never really impressed by Tommy Lee Jones before. I'd seen a lot of his movies, but I always kind of thought of him as a. the non-Will Smith character in Men in Black or b. the robber of Ralph Fiennes' Oscar. Thanks to 2007, though, with this and No Country for Old Men, I have a completely new respect for him. He can be absolutely amazing indeed, like he is here.
Why he might win: Respected veteran. PAUL HAGGIS MANIA. He was considered the frontrunner...in like, September.
Why he might not: Not Daniel Day-Lewis. Film was teeeeeny. The surprise nominee almost never wins. The movie has no other Academy support.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood.

What can I say? What can I possibly, possibly say about this performance that hasn't been said already a million times by people more eloquent than I am? So, one more time for the seats in the back - "DRAAAAAAIIIIIINAAAAAGEEEE!!! ... Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There is is, that's a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches acroooossss the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I...drink...your...milkshake. SLUUUUURRRRPPPP!!! I DRINK IT UP!!!!!"
Why he might win: HE. DRINKS. YOUR. MILKSHAKE. Oh, and he's the frontrunner and has won virtually every critics' award in existence. And he's been ludicrously raved (and for good reason). And he's Daniel Day-Lewis. And a Best Picture nominee is all about him.
Why he might not: Honestly, I can't think of any reason.

Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis.
Might win: If Sweeney Todd was a little bigger and Depp hadn't missed the SAGs and stuff, I'd be a little more worried about Depp's chance at upsetting but...no.
Dark horse: Never underestimate the power of the Clooney Star Mojo. But...yeah it's probably not going to lead to a win here.
Snubbed: The top four here is pretty tremendous, but as far as the three youngins that got snubbed (MacAvoy, Hirsch, and Gosling), I would definitely have preferred MacAvoy and Hirsch over Depp (sorry, Ryan, I thought you were mostly rubbish, as was Lars and the Real Girl. Oh well, you've got your Pulpy from last year to make you feel better, plus if you need some personal comfort you can always call me ;) ) Also, how did Julie Christie get all the attention in Away from Her? Gordon Pinsent more than held his own marvelously. It also confuses me how Josh Brolin was snubbed absolutely everywhere for No Country for Old Men, as the other three main members of the cast got nominated at least somewhere (Bardem, Jones, and MacDonald). He was excellent, too.

*Lee Jones? I never know

This is fucking awesome.

Please, please, please, please don't suck...

Actors and Actresses I Don't Care For.

...and why. Because what's better than bitching?

Warren Beatty - Comes across as incredibly arrogant on screen, even in his good performances. Plus, his wife. Ew.
Gael Garcia Bernal - Incredibly overrated, both in terms of looks and talent. I'm sick of people calling him The Next Big Thing or The Best Actor of the New Millennium or whatever.
Orlando Bloom - Sure, he's good-looking. Tons of actors are. Most actors, however, can, you know, act. Orlando Bloom, for the most part, can't. I hate the cry of the fans: "he's been given bad roles!!!" Plenty ofactors, in history, have been given bad or poorly-written roles and they've managed to still be awesome. It's not likely that Orlando ever will be.
Adrien Brody - Pretty much sucks in everything that's not The Pianist, and even in that he was the least of the nominees.
Jim Carrey - His brand of manic comedy just really gets on my nerves. Even in his very good stuff, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he turns me off.
Johnny Depp - I just talked about this. He has talent, but he hasn't used it since a brief role in Before Night Falls and before that, the last time was 1995 (Dead Man). I cannot stand Pirates (or his performance in those movies), I cannot stand his outfits at award shows (yeah, we get that you're oh so much better than all of us. Now put on a normal suit like everyone else there.), and I REALLY CANNOT STAND the fact that he's playing Sweeney Todd.
Vincent Gallo - He's just a repulsive human being. No, I've never met him, but he made a film that basically consisted of him being adored and fellated by women. He auctioned off his sperm on E-Bay along with some pretty repulsive remarks on who could buy it. I think I can assume that he's disgusting.
Richard Gere - Creepy, and not very talented.
Mel Gibson - He never was a very talented actor (and I really don't like the movies he directed), but now, let's face it, the whole Jew thing really isn't helping at all.
Anthony Hopkins - Sometimes utterly fantastic (uh...Silence of the Lambs much?!?!?). Most of the time, especially lately, utterly crap.
Buster Keaton - Meh. Silent comedy does nothing for me.
Harvey Keitel - You creep me out. And I need to stop seeing your penis. It's weird.
Ben Kingsley - Great in most things, but he really isn't challenging himself too terribly much lately (Bloodrayne??!!??!!). And, I despise his big Oscar-winning film, Gandhi, and think he's overrated in it (though indeed good).
Kevin Kline - Actually, I have no idea why I don't like him. I'm really into theater, but...I don't know. He just rubs me the wrong way.
Jared Leto - Usually a bad actor, and he comes off as creepy and greasy.
Cillian Murphy - Creepy, and he's never really been great in anything I've seen him in.
Gary Oldman - Creepy. His choice of characters often does not help this.
Sean Penn - Good actor, but an obnoxious blowhard. And I think comparing him to Brando is ridiculous.
Keanu Reeves - Yeah, pretty much what everyone else says. He just isn't a very good actor. I mean, when you watch him on screen, he shows that he's trying really, really hard. It just doesn't work.
Jason Schwartzman - He was great in Rushmore. But beyond that, I really need proof that he can actually act and isn't getting by because he's...you know...a Coppola. He was absolutely terrible in Marie-Antoinette, I Heart Huckabees, and Shopgirl.
Peter Sellers - A fantastic actor. He just makes me go eh?
Christian Slater - He is the definition of creepy. Heathers proved this fact.
David Spade - Hate his voice and smugness (you've got nothing to be smug about, you're talentless) and "acting."
James Spader - So creepy, and not that great an actor.
Donald Sutherland - He is a really really great actor. But...have you ever looked at pictures of him? I THINK HE'S GOING TO EAT MY SOUL. I'M REALLY SERIOUS.
Quentin Tarantino - He is a great director, but he is a horrible actor. He's the only thing I even come close to disliking in the divine Pulp Fiction.
Luke Wilson - Blandy McBlandster.
Owen Wilson - Pretty talentless, but notably better than his brother.

Joan Allen - She scares me a little. I think she's a good actress, but very overrated. Oh, and she was totally Razzie-worthy in The Upside of Anger.
Patricia Arquette - I don't know, she just seems very bland. I know she was going to take over Uma's role in Kill Bill when Uma became pregnant, but thank God that didn't happen.
Annette Bening - I just can't stand her acting. Yeah, I liked her in American Beauty but she REALLY HAS been doing that performance her entire life. And it's not like godly Kate Winslet, who plays many variations on the same character (bohemian free spirit) in many different ways. Every performance of hers is like, basically the same - and unbearable. Cannot stand The Bening.
Thora Birch - For God's sake, play a character that smiles every now and then! She's bearable in supporting roles (like American Beauty, but even then the praise for her work is odd to me), but when she had to carry the movie in Ghost World...no.
Cate Blanchett - Meh. She is a great actress, even though I think most of her Oscar nominations come from her lesser performances (Elizabeth aside). But...she's just...so cold. So studied. She needs to stop being in every movie. She was great in Babel (I know people were saying otherwise, but I thought she was indeed actually very good), but come on. Many actresses would have loved to have that role. For Cate it was probably just like, "whatever. Something else to do." And yes, I know, Meryl Streep could be accused of the same thing. It's just their...presence or something. Don't you want to hang out with Meryl? You would never want to hang out with Cate.
Emily Blunt - What are you, new? I recently went to her message board on IMDb - no, I wasn't going to bash her, I have better things to do with my time. But I found something incredibly horrifying. There was some topic discussing peoples' favorite actresses. And almost everyone had Emily as their #1, above, like, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet and Glenn Close. Someone had Julianne Moore as their #1 (Emily was #2, of course) and actually apologized for it. More than that, someone bashed that person for it. Okay, it's an Emily Blunt board. I get that people are going to be fans. But...she's been in like 2 movies! How does that in any way, shape, or form make her more talented than Meryl, Kate, Julianne, Glenn... I can't stand her stupid smug face any more.
Helena Bonham-Carter - I usually don't find her impressive, and add to that the fact that she's married/engaged to/dating (for years and years and years) Tim Burton...
Laura Dern - She creeps me out. A lot.
Sally Field - Abrasive, but I loooove her in Norma Rae.
Eva Green - I think she's scary-looking, but guys find her attractive. Fine. Naked does not equal good actress (PS - She's said she's never getting naked again guys, so haha. Good luck pretending she's a good actress now). her performance in The Dreamers was heralded as the "best ever!!!" or "best of the new millennium!!!" by many people on various forums. To say the least, it isn't. Plus, bitch doesn't know how to dress herself.
Anne Hathaway - She seems very sweet, and she always looks very put-together. I don't dislike her as much as I used to. But, she's talentless. She usually isn't given very much to go with, I'll give her that. Even when she's given great parts, though, she's terrible. It brought me giggles of delight when the ensembles of The Devil Wears Prada and Brokeback Mountain all got lauded and awarded...EXCEPT FOR ANNE. It was kind of amazing.
Kate Hudson - I'm not the biggest fan of her Almost Famous work, but I'm not going to pretend she was bad in it. She just wasn't great. However, since then, she's been trying to prove, really hard, that even one good performance was a fluke.
Angelina Jolie - She's really bland now, and she's never been a particularly good actress (she was very, very, very obvious in Girl, Interrupted). That said, she is absolutely astounding in Gia.
Keira Knightley - She was just great in Pride and Prejudice but, Bend it Like Beckham and Love Actually aside (and the latter might just be an extension of my loo-hooove for the film), she's never even been good. It's kind of insulting that she has an Oscar nomination and Scarlett Johansson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, and other young actresses who are far far far more talented don't. Plus, anyone that thinks she's hot frightens me.
Jessica Lange - Blonde. Boring.
Juliette Lewis - She just rubs me the wrong way. Meh.
Madonna - We've all stopped pretending Madonna can act now, right?
Anna Paquin - She was indeed great in the performance that got her the Oscar...when she was what, 11, 12? She hasn't been great in anything since then. I'm really hoping Margaret is good and she doesn't kill it.
Meg Ryan - She used to be great, and wonderful to watch. However, she just stopped trying.
Winona Ryder - Boring, and rarely ever good. And just to reiterate: holy sweet Jesus I hate Heathers.
Susan Sarandon - She's a good actress, but she has yet to blow me away in any role like I probably should be by someone considered one of the greatest actresses ever. She isn't worthy of the legendary status she enjoys.
Chloe Sevigny - She's been really good, in Boys Don't Cry and The Last Days of Disco. But she can be really terrible too, and I can't stand the smug attitude and sense of superiority she seems to have. And not for anything, but I can't believe she'd do that on screen.
Jessica Simpson - Does she even count? I read it somewhere else (I think Go Fug Yourself) that in The Dukes of Hazzard (which I saw...sadly enough...), she had the worst Southern accent the person watching it had ever heard; said viewer then pointed out that Jessica was from the South and just needed to talk. I am 100% in accordance with whoever this person is. Plus, let's face it: her being all over the news was annoying. To be fair, though, she seems to be at least trying to stay out of the tabloids now, so I'm not as annoyed by her as I used to be.
Barbara Streisand - Oh please. Like her ego doesn't come through in every performance she's ever given.
Tilda Swinton - Cold, cold, cold, and needs to be in non-horrible movies. Plus, did you ever read her "The State of Cinema" address or whatever it was? Holy shit. Get over yourself!
Audrey Tautou - Ooh, she's got giant eyes. That doesn't mean she's a good actress.
Naomi Watts - She's incredibly overrated. She's only ever been good four times: Mulholland Dr. (I'll admit it, though: easily one of the best performances ever), The Ring (and even then, it was more just-above-serviceable), I Heart Huckabees, and The Painted Veil. The rest of the time, she tends to veer toward the terrible. Her performance in 21 Grams is bleeeghhhh. Possibly one of, if not the, worst female Oscar nominees of the 2000s. I worry about her health though.
Ziyi Zhang - Ziyi gets great, great work. But the quality of her work in her films varies greatly. Great: Crouching Tiger and 2046. Meh: Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Ewwww: Memoirs of a Geisha.


Oh my God, that was so... negative. I really need to go hug a kitten or something.

Happy birthday, lovely lady.

...and the man in this picture is pretty lovely too.

1. Cold Mountain (easily one of the best cameos ever)
2. Leon: The Professional
3. Garden State
4. Closer (at its best, this performance would probably be #2 on this list, but let's play it safe)
5. Beautiful Girls
6. V for Vendetta
7. needless to say, in last place, the Star Wars series

Can't wait for My Blueberry Nights and Paris je t'aime and Goya's Ghosts and The Other Boleyn Girl and the other 150000 movies she's going to be in over the next year or so.

Also, it's some weird guy who likes to dress like a pirate's birthday. Like I care.

And we thought the Oscars were bad

I watched the MTV Movie Awards. Ugh, I know. Sarah Silverman isn't funny at all. I hate Paris Hilton, but if she made that joke about anyone else, I'd be going "ugh, SHUT UP, you unfunny, full-of-yourself hack." Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest won Best Picture and Johnny Depp's performance in that won Best Performance, please excuse me while I throw up. All the movie parodies were totally awful. And, finally, what the fuck was Jack Nicholson on? Goddamn. I think, at 20, I'm too old for MTV. Or...too mature.

That said, uh, the musical performances were actually really good (UMBRELLA ELLA ELLA ELLA AY AY AY!), though Amy Winehouse's legs are so skinny it actually frightens me. Oh and Emily Blunt didn't win either of her nominations, YAY!!!

So some movie opens today, or something.

I think it involves Pirates? And some guy named John, I think.

I am ohhhhh so interested in seeing it... (/sarcasm)

Ed Wood

So I saw this movie for the first time in a while, and it allowed me to confirm, even as a Burton and Depp hater: AWESOME. Plus! Bill Murray is in it! I forgot that!

However, I still maintain that Martin Landau, though fantastic, did not deserve his Oscar over Samuel L. Jackson.

Globes?

I can never decide whether I like the Globes or not. On one hand, they really do seem to vote what they like. On the other hand, they're basically starfuckers and will nominate those they love for either terrible work or work that is so obscure nobody else recognizes it (Kidman, Zellwegger, Johansson, Depp) rather than those who deserve it. Aaaanyway.

Best Picture - Drama
Babel
Bobby
The Departed
Little Children
The Queen
Will win: The Departed
Should win: The Departed
Ew: Nothing, this lineup is pretty good. I'm not the biggest fan of Babel or Bobby but neither was terrible.
WTF?: Bobby. It seemed so dead, but again, the starfucking Globes probably nominated it just to get all those celebrities there. Strange, though, considering they didn't nominate Crash last year.

Best Picture - Musical/Comedy
Borat
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
Thank You For Smoking
Will win: Dreamgirls
Should win: ...I haven't seen Dreamgirls yet but I'm sure it deserves it. For now, let's go with Prada (it's between that and Sunshine, and though I gave them both the same grade, a B+, I like Prada a little bit more, probably because I was expecting a lot less from it. On the other hand, Sunshine would make the love of my life happy [don't ask]. Hmm)
Ew: None. This lineup's pretty good.
WTF?: I can't complain. But I think Dreamgirls has far less support than many think :(

Best Actor - Drama
DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
DiCaprio, The Departed
O'Toole, Venus
Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Will win: Ooh...tricky. For here, I'll go with Whitaker. The Globes don't feel the need to reward him for past snubs. The Oscars, on the other hand...
Should win: I've only seen Departed DiCaprio and Whitaker so far, and I'll go for DiCaprio. Both are fantastic, though.
Ew: None. Happyness is apparently getting lambasted by critics but Smith generally manages to shine... but I'll have to see.
WTF?: No Ryan Gosling. Matt Damon got snubbed for both The Departed (where he was almost as good as Leo but has a much, much, much less flashy part so he's getting way less attention) and The Good Shepherd (haven't seen it).

Best Actress - Drama
Cruz, Volver
Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby
Mirren, The Queen
Winslet, Little Children
Will win: Mirren, Mirren, Mirren.
Should win: Uhh...Winslet.
Ew: None. I haven't seen Notes on a Scandal but I'll trust what everyone's saying about Judi Dench (namely, that she's amazing). This lineup is actually flawless and would probably be my very own in this category (maybe Li over Gyllenhaal).
WTF?: Nothing, really, except Mol over Gyllenhaal. I'd think she had more of a chance.

Best Actor - Musical/Comedy
Cohen, Borat
Depp, Pirates 2
Eckhart, Thank You For Smoking
Ejiofor, Kinky Boots
Ferrell, Stranger than Fiction
Will win: Cohen
Should win: Cohen, Ferrell and Eckhart were good too (I haven't seen Ejiofor but looking at his past work, he was probably good. The man's an acting genius)
Ew: JOHNNY DEPP. Ugh! If he gets an Oscar nomination...
WTF?: Ejiofor. Where did that come from? Depp is pretty WTF-y too.

Best Actress - Musical/Comedy
Bening, Running with Scissors
Collette, Little Miss Sunshine
Knowles (...Beyonce.), Dreamgirls
Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Zellweger, Miss Potter
Will win: Streep
Should win: Streep!
Ew: Bening...I loved her in American Beauty and then I realized that's really the only way she ever acts in films and now I kind of hate her. She was wildly uneven in Running with Scissors and wasn't anywhere near the best performance in the film (that'd be the ridiculously underappreciated Cross, thanks). I haven't seen Miss Potter but I've heard Renee is comically bad in it. I actually loved her in Cold Mountain (don't kill me) but she was just...meh in Bridget 2, and they nominated her for that, so yeah...
WTF?: Collette. She's great in everything (including Sunshine), but let's face it, Breslin was better. Most people weren't picking Zellweger or Bening, either (I thought Zellweger would get in, but not Bening...but that might have been wishful thinking). I would have absolutely loved to see O'Hara here, or even Dunst or Johansson (was I the only one that liked her in Scoop? And the Globes did nominate her for Bobby Long...).

Best Supporting Actor
Affleck, Hollywoodland
Murphy, Dreamgirls
Nicholson, The Departed
Pitt, Babel
Wahlberg, The Departed
Will win: Uh, probably Nicholson...but if Pitt wins this, he can easily ride it all the way to Oscar, just like Clooney last year.
Should win: Nicholson. So-o-o-o friggin' nuts in The Departed and I love it. These are great nominees though (I haven't seen Murphy).
Ew: None. Like I said, it's a great lineup. I know a lot of people don't like Affleck but really, the criticism toward him seems kinda...petty (like the criticism toward Little Miss Sunshine, which is actually really mean-spirited).
WTF?: None. It's a typical Globes starfuckery lineup. It's good though, so yeah.

Best Supporting Actress
Barazza, Babel
Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada
Hudson, Dreamgirls
Kikuchi, Babel
Will win: Hudson.
Should win: Uh, I haven't seen Dreamgirls, but I'm sure the answer to this should be Hudson... but I can only go with what I've seen. Kikuchi.
Ew: I've heard Blanchett is not at all right for the part in Notes on a Scandal and I generally don't like her, so... and Blunt. I like her in this movie, but not as much as many (a lot thought she was better than Streep?! Come onnnnn...), and there could have been better choices here. Then again, not that many have been taking traction, so meh.
WTF: Poor Mia Kirshner has not and will not get any awards for the best female supporting performance this year (so far...still need to see Hudson among others) in The Black Dahlia.

Best Director
Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers
Eastwood, Letters from Two Jima
Frears, The Queen
Iñárritu, Babel
Scorsese, The Departed
Will win: Scorsese (please, please, please...)
Should win: Scorsese
Ew: WHERE. IS. CONDON?!?!?!?! And Greengrass. Eastwood 2x? The Queen is a good movie but Frears' direction there is kinda...overrated? It doesn't have that stamp of distinction like other, more flawed movies here, do (Babel).
WTF: No Condon. :( Major, major snub.

Best Screenplay
Babel
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
The Queen
Will win: Uh...this is the hardest category to call. Let's go with... The Queen?
Should win: No contest, The Departed
Ew: This category seems pretty good.
WTF: Uh...no Little Miss Sunshine I guess.

And I don't really want to do the rest except to say that Best Foreign Language Film might be the most exciting race of the night (all five nominees have quite a good chance of winning), and Helen Mirren is winning two Golden Globes.

The longest post yet? I think so!