Hollywood Life
Oscar Watch: Robert Downey Jr.
When he was still the toast of Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr. received an Academy Award nomination for his work as Charlie Chaplin in 1992′s Chaplin. He didn’t win, and spent many of the years since then battling drug and alcohol addiction. But over the last few years Downey Jr. has resurrected his career– and his [...]
Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Executed correctly, Benjamin Button could have been as epic as the story it tries to tell. But under David Fincher’s plodding, emotionless direction, and at the behest of an episodic plot that inches along bit by bit, Benjamin Button is overly long and finishes flat. Hamstrung by the same sentimentality that soiled Forrest Gump (also [...]
Oscar Watch: Philip Seymour Hoffman
It would take an actor of Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman’s mettle to square off against the Queen of acting, Meryl Streep. In Doubt, for which he’s nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category, Hoffman’s affable, kind priest, Father Brendan Flynn, faces a dark demon in the form of Streep’s vicious, unrelenting nun, Sister [...]
Oscar Watch: Marisa Tomei
The words “Academy Award winner” have prefaced Marisa Tomei’s name for 15 years now, ever since she won the prize for Best Supporting Actress in the lamentably bad comedy My Cousin Vinnie. In the July 1994 edition of Movieline, for which Tomei was the cover girl, the actress spent the duration of the interview fending [...]
The Party Scene: I Held An Oscar!
I know what it’s like to hold an Oscar. I held one in my grubby paws last night at the Hollywood Museum located inside the Max Factor building for The Envelope’s Oscar week bash. As we made our way up the stairs, a publicist got us in the mood. “This is where Marilyn Monroe was [...]
Oscar Watch: Penelope Cruz
Somewhere in the middle of the latest Woody Allen movie, Vicky, Christina Barcelona, Penelope Cruz does the impossible: she makes us forget Scarlett Johansson even exists. Playing a stereotypical character -Maria Elena–with gusto, Cruz’s entrée hits the screen like a hurricane. She’s all piss and vinegar, a chain smoking, murderous, crazy, sexy hellcat. While the [...]
Oscar Watch: Taraji P. Henson
It’s not her fault that her character is sentimental, corny, and the female equivalent of every Morgan Freeman part every played, but Taraji P. Henson worked hard to outmaneuver her part’s flagrant stereotype in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: the kind, wise, sage black woman whose name, Queenie, is also an embarrassing cutout. Prior [...]
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
The first three-quarters of Danny Boyle’s latest pic Slumdog Millionaire are astonishing. Filled with scenes so unique and jarring, you can honestly say you’ve never witnessed a movie like Slumdog before. From the unorthodox structure–pairing the questions from Jamal Malik’s (played by Dev Patel as an adult) stint on “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire” [...]
Oscar Watch: Mickey Rourke
Mid-way through Mickey Rourke’s comeback vehicle, The Wrestler, his character Randy “The Ram” Robinson” –after learning he’s got to give up wrestling– attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood. Sitting on the pier of the Jersey boardwalk in the middle of a bleak winter day, he pleads with his daughter [...]
Favorite Oscar Moments: Adrien Brody’s Acceptance Speech