MTV News compiles our guesses for who will win — and our opinions on who should win. By MTV News staff Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Will “The Artist” dominate the 2012 Oscars ? Should “The Artist” dominate the 2012 Oscars? Might wonderful films like “Hugo” get shut out in the major categories? Can the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honestly not bestow a single statuette on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2”? These are the sorts of questions that have been preoccupying the MTV Movies team as of late. For the last two weeks, we’ve been doing our best to predict the Oscar winners — and oftentimes pointing out that the one that will win isn’t always the one that should win. Below, we’ve gathered together all our predictions. With just hours to go until show time, take a look at our picks and see how they stack up against your own: Best Music (Original Score) Who will win : “The Artist” Who should win : “The Artist” Best Animated Feature Film Who will win : “Rango” Who should win : “The Adventures of Tintin” (even though it’s not nominated) Best Visual Effects Who will win : “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” Who should win : “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Who will win : Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, “The Descendants” Who should win : Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” Best Writing (Original Screenplay) Who will win : Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris” Who should win : Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation” Best Supporting Actress Who will win : Octavia Spencer, “The Help” Who should win : Octavia Spencer, “The Help” Best Supporting Actor Who will win : Christopher Plummer, “Beginnings” Who should win : Christopher Plummer, “Beginnings” Best Actor Who will win : Jean Dujardin, “The Artist” Who should win : Gary Oldman, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” Best Actress Who will win : Viola Davis, “The Help” Who should win : Viola Davis, “The Help” Best Director Who will win : Martin Scorsese, “Hugo” Who should win : Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris” Best Picture Who will win : “The Artist” Who should win : “Tree of Life” The MTV Movies team has the 2012 Oscars covered! Stick with us for everything you need to know leading up to the awards show, and head to Next Movie for a printable Oscar ballot . On Sunday, tune into MTV.com at 5 p.m. ET for our two-and-a-half-hour red-carpet live stream and updates on the night’s big winners. To join the live conversation, tweet @MTVNews with the hashtag #Oscars. Related Videos 2012 Oscar Nominees
In his ninth time hosting the Academy Awards, Crystal isn’t planning to ‘go after people’ like some recent awards-show emcees. By Kara Warner 2012 Oscar host Billy Crystal Photo: FilmMagic Although Billy Crystal wasn’t the Academy’s first pick to host the Oscars this year, the veteran emcee is a breath of familiar air to Hollywood’s main event. This year marks Crystal’s ninth time hosting the show, and at age 63, he will be the oldest solo host of the event since Bob Hope in 1978 (Steve Martin was 64 when he co-hosted with Alec Baldwin in 2010). Coincidentally, the “When Harry Met Sally” star received a standing ovation from the Oscar audience last year when he appeared onstage briefly to honor Hope. While some awards-show hosts of late have ventured into taboo and risky territory (see: Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais ), Crystal has always carried out his duties with class and his own special brand of charisma, charm and wit. “It’s important that the show be good, and I take it really seriously,” Crystal told Entertainment Weekly about the pressures and importance of the job. “That whole concept of ‘I want to really go after people’ — I don’t understand that. Is it a roast or is it an awards show? Do you dislike these people? I have a different bar. If there’s a good target and they deserve it, you can kid them in the right way. But it’s not the place to go out there and hammer people, because who am I? There’s many times we’ve kicked out jokes because they were too personal.” It is very clear that Crystal will not be going for the jugular, which is more than fine by us, since the Oscars have a decidedly more serious and regal tone. This year’s ceremony will be helmed by a man who respects the industry and appreciates the pomp and circumstance of it all. And while we likely won’t witness any gasp-worthy jokes or quips, we can expect to feel warm and welcome via another one of Crystal’s lively movie montages at the start of the show, along with a few lighthearted tongue-in-cheek remarks that make us all feel like we’re in on the joke and invited to the party. The MTV Movies team has the 2012 Oscars covered! Stick with us for everything you need to know leading up to the awards show, and head to Next Movie for a printable Oscar ballot . On Sunday, tune into MTV.com at 5 p.m. ET for our two-and-a-half-hour red-carpet live stream and updates on the night’s big winners. To join the live conversation, tweet @MTVNews with the hashtag #Oscars. Related Videos 2012 Oscar Nominees
“Nothing will come from this if you win!” joked Seth Rogen as he opened his hosting gig at the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards . “Absolutely nothing. This won’t help you get paid anymore — if anything, it proves you’ll work for nothing.” That may be painfully true for many of the indie film nominees honored today at the annual Spirit Awards, held in a tent on the beach in balmy Santa Monica. But what does it mean that the night’s big winner was the Harvey Weinstein-backed awards season juggernaut The Artist ? The Oscar frontrunner swept the Spirit Awards Saturday in a precursor to what most pundits expect will transpire Sunday night at the Academy Awards ; the black and white silent film took home four awards, including Best Feature, Best Director ( Michel Hazanavicius ), Best Actor ( Jean Dujardin ), and Best Cinematography, further sealing its grip on the 2012 awards race. Along the road to Spirit Awards victory, the $15 million The Artist went up against the likes of more conventional indies. (Rules of eligibility includes films made for no more than $20 million.) In the Best Cinematography category, the Weinstein-backed favorite competed against, for example, Evan Glodell’s Bellflower , a film shot on a production budget of $17,000; for Best Feature it vied with 50/50 , Beginners , Drive , Take Shelter , and The Descendants . Additional winners on the night included Dee Rees’ Pariah , Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (which won Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Shailene Woodley), Asgar Farhadi’s A Separation , Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn , and Christopher Plummer for Beginners . (Full winners list here .) In other words – on the whole, not quite so different from the field competing tomorrow at the mainstream Oscars. Maybe that’s why, after Rogen’s fantastic Hollywood-skewering opening monologue, the Spirit Awards started to flag a bit in, well, spirit. By the time the absent Jean Dujardin won Best Actor about halfway through (co-star Penelope Ann Miller, the film’s mascot for the night, accepted on his behalf) the certainty of Artist domination seemed to loom in the air. Once Michel Hazanavicius arrived, fresh from the LAX runway with a police escort minutes before his name was called as Best Director, the sweep was sealed. Would any non-Oscar frontrunning independent filmmaker honorees have gotten the VIP treatment all the way down the 10? Were these the Oscar rehearsals, or the preeminent celebration of American independent film? Well, at least the show had its moments. Highlights included Rogen’s monologue; John Waters acting as MC for the night; Michelle Williams accepting her trophy with a nod to the very first Spirit Awards she ever attended, back when she wore her own clothes and cut her own hair and felt at home in the “room full of misfits, outcast, loners, dreamers, mumblers, delinquents, dropouts – just like me.” Backstage, winners trickled in throughout the night, sharing their own perspectives on craft and the awards show mania. Christopher Plummer , Best Supporting Actor: The jovial Plummer kicked off the winners’ room. “[Michael’s father, his character] was a true character and was written with such affection, such a lack of self-pity. It was fun to do, it made me so relaxed. His marvelous humor against all odds [is] a marvelous lesson to everyone who goes through cancer and dying. He treated it with a sort of carefree sense of humor, no self-pity at all.” Hinting at his next gig on an HBO project, Plummer addressed his continuing career at age 82. “I have to [keep acting] because I may croak at any moment – I have to keep going!” How did he keep from being upstaged by Cosmo the dog on the set of Beginners ? “We had a little private talk, and now that you mention it Cosmo and Uggie , I think our Cosmo was much more human than Uggie . Uggie was just a trickster – our dog had soul .” Shailene Woodley , Best Supporting Actress: “I’m so grateful,” Woodley began. “I don’t know if ‘surprised’ is the right word. I think gratitude kind of fills it all. It’s been such a beautiful experience for me in my life and totally transformed me as a human being, so I’m grateful to have been a part of the film and to have learned so many valuable amazing lessons.” “Every single person involved in the film was incredibly positive and had such gentle, kind, graceful souls. Being on the film as an 18-year-old and experiencing that right as I was about to start my life on my own, it was kind of the catalyst for me coming into my own. I don’t think there are words for me to express my gratitude for that.” As for the Oscars, Woodley has love for the Help star she went up against during the Golden Globes. “I am so stoked for Octavia [Spencer] – she is so awesome! She’s such a nice human being. [Pause] This is crazy. I was not expecting it and I got up there and said um a lot, I’m sure I’m going to be mortified when I watch it.” The Artist crew, Best Feature/Best Actor/Best Cinematography/Best Director: What did producer Harvey Weinstein bring to the film? “His weight,” joked producer Thomas Langmann, who credited Weinstein with taking a chance on The Artist when most backers balked. “We kept going to try to finance this meeting and we had very short meetings… nobody wanted to hear about this one. People told me this is against conventional wisdom. We managed to find the money and wanted to shoot here in Hollywood…” “This movie was made to be a tribute to Hollywood and cinema and especially American cinema. So to come back… and be rewarded by the Hollywood community, is a dream come true.” How’s life treating director Hazanavicius, who’s been on a nonstop tour through the home stretch of his award tour? “It’s not the worst job you can find,” he answered. “You come, you receive awards, everyone is smiling at you and is nice and they tell you you’re talented and have a very funny, charming French accent. [The police escort from LAX] was great. That was the best part.” “It’s physically tiring but the energy is so good that you don’t really feel it,” he said. “We’re really excited and are enjoying every moment we can enjoy.” Looking back to the beginning of their journey, did Weinstein promise the Artist crew he could get them to the Oscars? “Harvey knows how to promise things like that, yes. Sometimes he’s right.” Michelle Williams, Best Actress: “My friend was joking that until now I have been the Susan Lucci of the Indie Spirit Awards!” Williams said, beaming. “I have been luckier and luckier to be working with better and better people.” On how she found her way into Marilyn Monroe: “In a way you had to remove the fact that she was an icon, because that was too daunting… and think of her as an ordinary girl. There wasn’t a direct path in to her, I found. The only way in was time, so much time, and in a way letting her dictate, letting her take shape — letting all this information take shape instead of me trying to control it.” “I just do some work. I just sort of keep my head down, which is a very sort of Montana attitude. There’s this Amish thing, this Quaker thing I like – ‘Eyes to the ground and heart to the skies.’ I just keep focused.” Steve James, dir. The Interrupters , Best Documentary: “It means a lot for a film like this because this is a film about urban violence in Chicago, and when we were making it we never would have anticipated the reaction the film has gotten in the past year. It means a lot for what the film’s about and for us as independent filmmakers – I’ve been doing this now for 27 years, so it means a lot.” Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
MTV News looks back on the most moving speeches and those that left us cringing. By John Mitchell Jennifer Hudson at the 2007 Oscars Photo: Vince Bucci/Getty Images Delivering a good Oscar acceptance speech is not easy. If you over prepare, you seem arrogant, like you knew you were going to win all along, and if you aren’t ready for your name to be called, you’re almost certain to forget to thank your significant other or your film’s director. Some Oscar winners suffer from a serious case of the sniffles and leave audiences unsure what they even said, while others go off on tangents that have nothing to do with movies at all. In the end, though, it mostly just comes down to having that special something, that je ne sais quoi . And let’s face it, you’ve either got it or you don’t. Below are five stars we think nailed it when they were called onstage and five who, well, didn’t exactly charm viewers’ pants off on movies’ biggest night. Best Cuba Gooding Jr., Best Supporting Actor, “Jerry Maguire” (1998) Gooding’s acceptance speech is basically an exercise in pure joy. The actor leapt to the stage and earnestly thanked just about everyone he’s ever met, starting with his mother and God, and issued “I love you’s” to “Maguire” co-star Tom Cruise, director Cameron Crowe and pretty much everyone else who worked on the film. His genuine enthusiasm captured the crowd and earned him a standing ovation. Halle Berry, Best Actress, “Monsters Ball” (2002) History was made when Berry won the Best Actress statue — she was the first African American woman to claim the lead actress prize — and she honored the moment with an emotional speech that she dedicated to “every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance after tonight because this door has been opened.” She thanked the actors and actresses of color who came before her and declared the moment “so much bigger” than herself. Her speech was an exercise in humility and surprise — two things most Oscar acceptance speeches could benefit from. Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress, “Dreamgirls” (2007) Hudson’s took home the Oscar for her very first film performance and delivered a simple acceptance speech that was probably most notable for how humble and truly surprised she seemed to hear her name called. Though she’d been a favorite throughout awards season that year, she seemed shocked when George Clooney announced that she’d won and stuttered and stumbled her way through her speech, but was sure to thank all those she needed to, from “Dreamgirls” director Bill Condon and her co-stars to her family, friends and Jennifer Holliday, who originated the role of Effie White on Broadway. Tom Hanks, Best Actor, “Philadelphia” (1994) Hank’s Oscar acceptance speech may well be the only one to have inspired a movie itself. His lengthy speech was marked by some traits we don’t always love — it certainly felt rehearsed — but the actor’s gratitude seemed genuine when he thanked his high school drama teacher, Rawley Farnsworth, as well as a former classmate, who he called “two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men.” There was only one problem: Farnsworth was still in the closet about his sexuality. The slip of the lip inspired the 1997 film “In & Out,” in which Kevin Kline plays a high school drama teacher outed when his former student (played by Matt Dillon) wins an Oscar. In a nice turn of events, the always lovely Joan Cusack earned an Oscar nomination herself playing Kline’s jilted fianc
Each Wednesday for the past five months, my colleague S.T. VanAirsdale has fearlessly navigated the ever-shifting Academy Awards tides with his weekly Oscar Index , a gig that’s enough to make even the most intrepid seafaring mortal long for dry land. It’s in sight, Stu! By this coming Monday morning, all of our meticulously calibrated predictions, as well as our wayward hopes for our own personal favorites, will amount to little more than scraps of speared whale blubber, receding in the distance as we move toward next year’s Oscar broadcast. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s still time to savor the last-minute glitter wave. To that end, here are my own Oscar predictions for each category, followed by the candidates I wish would win. BEST PICTURE I loved The Artist when I first saw it last May, and I’ve seen it twice since. It has, of course, become de rigueur to adopt the “It’s not so great” stance when talking about the picture. But that’s not where my heart lies, and I’ve already spent ample time, both publicly (over at Slate Movie Club ) and privately, defending the movie from the “Meh” Brigade. So, yeah, I hope it wins. But I also have a great deal of fondness for both Moneyball and Midnight in Paris , as well as for War Horse , whose old-school movie grandness appears to be sorely out of fashion, and more’s the pity. Will win : The Artist Should win : The Artist BEST DIRECTOR I still don’t understand how you can have nine Best Picture nominees and only five Best Director nominees. What, does the Academy think these pictures direct themselves? Of course, in the case of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close , you’d be forgiven for thinking so, but never mind. Woody Allen has given us his best movie in years – many years – with Midnight in Paris, so I would probably quaff an extra dose of Champagne if he were to win. But my Best Director choice nearly always aligns with my Best Picture choice, which leads us to Hazanavicius. Will win : Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist Should win : Michel Hazanvicius, The Artist BEST ACTOR As I voted in numerous critics’ groups at the end of 2011, I put the same three names on every Best Actor ballot: Jean Dujardin, Gary Oldman and Brad Pitt (the latter for Moneyball only, though I concede that in The Tree of Life, he works his ass off for a director who cares little for actors). I would be thrilled if any of the three were to win, with perhaps a slight edge – about the width of a pencil mustache – going to Dujardin. Will win : Jean Dujardin Should win : Jean Dujardin or Brad Pitt or Gary Oldman – please don’t make me choose! BEST ACTRESS Although Michelle Williams gave my favorite female performance of the year, in My Week with Marilyn, for so many years now I’ve been watching Viola Davis doing superb work – always the quiet, unflashy kind – that I would be thrilled to see her win for The Help. Poor Glenn Close – I don’t want to look at Albert’s or anyone else’s nobbs, thanks very much. And while I greatly dislike Meryl Streep’s high-toned mimicry in The Iron Lady , the one thing that would really drive me ‘round the bend is another trilling, faux-gracious acceptance speech from La Streep. Oh God, no, please. Will win : Viola Davis, The Help Should win : Viola Davis, The Help BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR This is the category for which I have the least enthusiasm: These performances are all fine, but I don’t see any sparks of mad genius in them. (Not even Branagh’s amusing channeling of Olivier qualifies.) I can live with a Christopher Plummer win, if only because it’s about time for Old Mr. Grouchypants. Will win : Christopher Plummer, Beginners Should win : Christopher Plummer, Beginners BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Octavia Spencer is the real charmer in this category, and she has the benefit of being both an unknown and the underdog. Jessica Chastain is lovely in The Help, but she’s even better in a little-seen movie from a few years back called Jolene, in which she played a forerunner of the same character. Bérénice Bejo is extremely winning in The Artist , but I’d still prefer to see Spencer win. While it’s laudatory that the Academy should nominate a comedic actress for this award, I’d prefer it not to be the brassy McCarthy. And while McTeer is quite moving in Albert Nobbs, I truly am looking forward, as I said earlier, to a nobb-free Sunday evening. Will win : Octavia Spencer, The Help Should win : Octavia Spencer, The Help BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY I have my fingers crossed for either Guillame Schiffman for The Artist or Janusz Kaminski for the unfairly maligned – and gorgeous — War Horse. (I wish Kaminski could follow me around with a key light every moment of my life – I’d kill to look as luminous as that horse does.) But I fear the winner will be Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life. I love Lubezski, but not The Tree of Life ‘s brand of sterile, calculated beauty. Will win : Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life Should win : Guillame Schiffman for The Artist or Janusz Kaminski for War Horse. BEST ANIMATED PICTURE Generally, I’m with Mark Harris : I don’t much care about this category. Except when I do. And this year, I found what I thought was a firm favorite in Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s lovely, mostly hand-drawn Latin jazz romance Chico & Rita. . Then I saw Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli’s A Cat in Paris – another hand-drawn adventure, this one about a winsome and mysterious cat burglar padding his way through the world’s most mysterious and beautiful city – and I fell even more deeply in love. I would be thrilled to see either picture win, though I suspect the honor will go to Gore Verbinski’s Rango, which is at least clever and lively. Will win : Rango Should win : A Cat in Paris or Chico & Rita Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The Academy Awards telecast stopped being a one-screen experience years ago. An Oscar viewing party is all well and good, but with a computer or phone nearby, a virtual theater full of people will enhance the experience from the first red-carpet arrivals to the music playing over the Best Picture winner’s speech. Yes, your friends are witty and can also fetch you a beer, but the best jokes about the winners, losers and everything in between are on Twitter. Some professionals make watching the Oscars simply worth the hours (and hours) spent. Doug Benson is one of them. A stand-up comedian and writer — including penning jokes for award shows — Benson began recording a weekly podcast called Doug Loves Movies in 2006. Movieline talked with the devoted movie fan about the fleeting art of live-tweeting cinema’s greatest night, who the best hosts are and whether the Oscars ever really pull off comedy. Are you live-tweeting the Oscars this year? How many ceremonies (Oscars, Golden Globes) have you done? I’m planning on it. As long as I can get Internet access wherever I’m watching the show. … I live-tweet every show that I can, as long as everyone is seeing it live at the same time. The Grammys are on a tape delay on the West Coast, so it’s not fun live-tweeting that when the East Coast saw it all hours before. What’s been the entertainment value of the Oscar ceremonies of the past few years? There is very little entertainment value. That’s why I live-tweet during it. To entertain myself and anyone else who might find the whole thing boring. I love movies, and I love that the Oscars honor filmmakers that do great work, but the whole thing is usually a fucking slog. The Golden Globes were so boring this year, I lost interest in live-tweeting it halfway through. Do you think the Twitter/comedian commentariat builds up the mythology of the Oscars? It makes the Oscars more tolerable, for sure. Which is good for the Oscars, I guess. When the jokes are lacking on the show, people can turn to Twitter for some laughs, instead of turning the show off and finding something of value to do with their night. What do you think about the relationship between comedy and the Oscars? Having written for several award shows, I know that banter is tough to pull off, even by performers known for their comedic chops. Because the whole setup is so artificial, and the audience in the auditorium really doesn’t give a shit about hearing jokes. They just want to win or lose and go to a party. Should most presenters stick to non-comedic intros? That can be even more deadly than trying to be funny. When the Oscars trot out an actor to tell us how sound editing works, the home audience trots to the kitchen or the bathroom. My favorite intro I ever wrote for someone, which was actually approved and said by Jennifer Jason Leigh on the Independent Spirit Awards: “Without screenwriting, movies would be plays.” Is there anything you’re looking forward to at the Oscars this year? Billy Crystal singing about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It’s always weird to me that he sings a medley about nominated movies, even if it’s serious shit like Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan . Where would you rank Billy Crystal among the past Oscar hosts? Definitely up there with Johnny Carson and Bob Hope as the best. Those guys know how to say something funny after something silly just happened, and in a self-deprecating way. I liked when Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted together. I even liked the David Letterman year. A comedian is always going to be the best choice. Follow Doug Benson’s Academy Awards live-tweeting at @DougBenson . [Photo: Robyn Von Swank]
You know this movie, and chances are that you loved this movie — except for that one role that almost ruined it all. Miscast Roles is where Movieline and its readers swap out those roles to make it right. One of last year’s surprise critical and commercial darlings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes , wowed audiences, stoked many an awards-season debate and revitalized an important science fiction franchise — all while still managing to appeal to moviegoers unfamiliar with the original 1968 film (or that film’s 1963 source novel). As chief chimp Caesar, Andy Serkis’s performative collaboration with the motion capture geniuses from WETA was a great spectacle, presenting viewers with a gorgeously rendered CGI-animated character. Yet one consistent flaw in Rise left me scratching my head: James Franco’s weirdly aloof performance as scientist Will Rodman. The film presents Rodman as an Alzheimer’s disease researcher who claims to have found a cure that necessitates extensive animal testing and, subsequently, brings about a race of intelligent, self-aware chimpanzees, as well as the titular “rise” of the primate-centered culture in which the rest of the series is based. Imagining Franco as a brilliant researcher even in the best of performances would be, let’s face it, a bit of stretch. But add the fact that this character is motivated by a desire to cure his own father of the debilitating effects of the disease in question — not to mention Rodman’s somewhat unhealthy attachment to the first subject of his animal tests — and you’ve got a complex emotional palette that seemed to flat-out confuse Franco. A much better choice for this role would have been the expressive Mark Ruffalo, an actor capable of communicating exactly what was needed of the Rodman character in this story. This is not to say that Franco is a bad actor, far from it. His talents are just misplaced here: Franco is best at lengthening the emotional distance between character and audience, arresting viewers’ attention through enigma and idiosyncrasy, rather than connecting through direct emotional appeal. He rarely lets the viewer into his head space, and this role really needed someone with whom the audience could immediately connect. Ruffalo, meanwhile, has acted powerfully in two films in particular — You Can Count on Me and Shutter Island — that required exactly the two traits most vital to the Rodman character: a palpable sense of sympathy and an ability to play a straight-man to a more eye-catching lead. Rodman’s psychology, hovering between helplessness and an ambitious determination to set things right, was meant to parallel the emotional instability of his primate pal Caesar, as the latter scales from animal behavior up the rungs of human cognitive development. Franco consistently hit the wrong notes in his interaction with Serkis’s Caesar, and often left John Lithgow, who played the dementia-stricken father, adrift in scenery chewing overtures. The scenes between father and son didn’t work like they could’ve, and the potential to cast the conflicting motivations vying for Rodman’s attention in terms of Caesar’s own dual nature went unrealized. In Ruffalo’s breakthrough role in You Can Count On Me , he showed huge emotional range as the wayward brother to Laura Linney’s maternally protective big sister character. You Can Count On Me highlights a young man’s floundering crisis of identity, as played out within a family drama. [Clip NSFW] The film is one long assurance by Ruffalo’s character that, wherever he might wander in the greater world, the bonds of family holding him and his sister together still remain. Sound familiar? Rise of the Planet of the Apes features a strikingly similar theme, though its identity crisis and negotiation of familial loyalty covers an inter-species bond. In You Can Count On Me , Ruffalo plays the “Caesar role” to Linney’s big sister; he is the one breaking out into new territory of self-determination, while it’s Linney who plays the concerned, yet ultimately quiescent guardian. But Ruffalo reverses that relationship in his mentorship of Linney’s young son, played by Kieran Culkin, and there he shows some very strong Rodman-type characteristics. Meanwhile, Ruffalo’s pensive second fiddle to Leonardo DiCaprio’s go-for-broke investigator in Shutter Island also fulfills the required qualifications for stepping into the Rodman part. Ruffalo stays in the background of the drama for most of Shutter Island , allowing DiCaprio to serve as a fixed center to the film’s horrifically shifting sense of reality. The fact that the audience isn’t supposed to be looking too closely at Ruffalo ends up being important, given plot developments. Yet when all is revealed, and Ruffalo is finally able to communicate what his watchful, subdued presence in the film actually entails, he shines. Watch Ruffalo’s eyes in the final scene of Shutter Island in the clip below, and imagine how applying that level of character layering to Will Rodman in Rise of the Planet of the Apes would have benefited the whole production. Nathan Pensky is an associate editor at PopMatters and a contributor at Forbes , among various other outlets. He can be found on Tumblr and Twitter as well.
Admiral Gen. Shabazz Aladeen (NBC) Proving that they take themselves way more seriously than the MTV Movie Awards, the Academy of Motion Pictures warned prankster Sasha Baron Cohen this week that he could not attend the Oscars in character from his latest film. According to an official statement from an Academy spokesperson, “The red carpet is not about stunting.” As everyone knows, the red carpet… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The New York Observer Discovery Date : 24/02/2012 16:45 Number of articles : 2
Critics are a bit grossed out by the raunchy comedy but still charmed by leading man Paul Rudd. By Kara Warner Paul Rud and Jennifer Aniston in “Wanderlust” Photo: Universal Fans of the big-screen pairing of Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd have likely been waiting for the two likable actors to reunite since their 1998 romantic dramedy “The Object of My Affection.” At long last, that wait is over with the release of “Wanderlust,” a comedy in which Aniston and Rudd play a stressed-out Manhattan couple who end up traveling through a hippie-ish community that teaches them a lesson or two about what’s really important in life. The critical response is at 55 percent “Fresh” over at Rotten Tomatoes , with some folks enjoying the awkward humor and unflappable charm of Paul Rudd and others having issues with Rudd and Aniston’s schtick. Read on as we frolic through the “Wanderlust” reviews! The Irresistible Charm of Paul Rudd “Paul Rudd is the best friend a movie comedy can have. He always delivers the goods and something extra, usually something wild and weirdly wonderful. In ‘Wanderlust,’ Rudd lets the funny fly. Like the movie he’s in, Rudd only seems normal. Inside, it’s all deliriously unhinged. Rudd plays George, an uptight Wall Street suit squeezed into a Manhattan micro-loft with his documentarian wife Linda (Jennifer Aniston) until the recession shuts them both down. Off they go to Georgia where his idiot brother (Ken Marino, the film’s co-writer) offers him a job in his porta-potty business. Unacceptable. So George and Linda take shelter in Elysium, a commune where craziness reigns along with pot, acid, dodgy hygiene and free love. When the luscious Eva (Malin Akerman) offers to get it on with him, George unravels his straight laces. Here comes the Rudd time capsule moment: In a mirror, George rehearses talking dirty to Eva, taking the word ‘dick’ and stretching it into syllables of near-pornographic hilarity. It helps that Rudd is once again working with director and co-writer David Wain, as he did in ‘Role Models’ and the immortal 2001 indie ‘Wet Hot American Summer.’ ” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone The Comedy and Quirk Factors “In sophisticated comedy, what’s funny is the tension between proper manners and the nasty or sexy subtext. Whereas in low comedy, there are no manners, and the nasty or sexy subtext is right there on the surface. And then there’s ‘Wanderlust,’ in which the subtext is blasted through megaphones — the characters say so insanely much you want to scream. The satire is as broad as a battleship and equally bombarding. But it takes guts to do a comedy this big without gross-out slapstick, and the writers and the actors are all in. … You say it sounds like a bunch of stereotypes — and 40-year-old stereotypes? The defense concedes the point. It’s not fresh terrain. But this tribe of hippies is also a tribe of marvelously inventive comic actors doing a fair amount of inspired improvisation and grooving on the mindset.” — David Edelstein, NPR The Final Word, Pro-Con-Pro Style “The role of an uptight fish out of water is what Rudd was born for, and he plays George with the congeniality and improvisatorial brio for which he’s become deservedly famous. He and Theroux, who’s barely recognizable beneath a thatch of long hair and a beard, deliver the most well-earned laughs in ‘Wanderlust,’ which otherwise traffics in tired jokes about menstrual cycles, placenta soup and rubbing your fingers together instead of clapping. … Between this film and last summer’s ‘Horrible Bosses,’ Aniston’s coyness — starring in explicit movies without having to be explicit herself — seems to be becoming her stock in trade. It’s not a particularly commendable one, and ‘Wanderlust’ does little to disprove that she’s still a star more suited to TV rather than the big screen. As for Rudd, he still has charm to burn, even playing a type he’s long since outgrown. Like George observing the overgrown children of Elysium, it might be time for Rudd to move on.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post “The production has all the style and subtlety — and, admittedly, the exuberance — of TV sketch material. A psychedelic sequence makes Madonna’s halftime show look like high art. Both the straight and hippie realms are populated by parallel groups of fevered eccentrics; the cast includes Mr. Marino, Justin Theroux, Malin Akerman, Joe Lo Truglio, Kathryn Hahn, Kerri Kenney, Lauren Ambrose and Linda Lavin. Alan Alda is the commune’s venerable founder, Carvin, whose brain long ago failed the acid test. ‘Wanderlust’ is nothing if not strenuous, strident and gross, and most of it fails the comedy test.” — Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal “There are so many things to feel guilty about liking in the pure and prurient guilty pleasure that is ‘Wanderlust.’ Starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, this is a comedy of no manners about finding your bliss and escaping the modern grind. The laughter is served up naughty and nice, and frequently au naturel, earning it an R rating when perhaps RR (really raunchy) would have been more appropriate. Appropriateness, however, has pretty much been jettisoned by the filmmakers, who have opted instead for the good-fun-found-in-bad-taste tradition of ‘The Hangover.’ Directed by David Wain and co-written with his frequent comic collaborator, Ken Marino, the film is, overall, a very wobbly affair starting with all the dangling naked body parts that greet George (Rudd) and Linda (Aniston) when the couple pulls into a free-love commune they mistake for a B&B.” — Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Check out everything we’ve got on “Wanderlust.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV First: Paul Rudd & Jennifer Aniston Related Photos ‘Wanderlust’
