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Stepping in briefly from vacation to celebrate Love, Simon. This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad.
Vanilla is a delicious flavor. Especially if you’re in the right mood for it. Loving vanilla doesn’t mean you can’t love more daring or less common flavors. But you deserve a good scoop of vanilla on occasion. The best thing that can be said of Love, Simon — and this is stronger praise than it sounds — is that it’s very vanilla. Imagine a cross between classic rom-coms like Sleepless in Seattle and Never Been Kissed and then just flip it a teensy-tiny bit until it’s gay. Not queer, mind you; we’re going for vanilla.
Love, Simon, the new film directed by gay TV power-producer Greg Berlanti (Flash, Riverdale, Brothers & Sisters, etcetera), is based on the novel “Simon vs. The Homo-Sapiens Agenda”. Though the novel’s title (I haven’t read it) suggests something less pro-heteronormativity, the film version is quite happy with assimilation. The only thing about Simon (Jurassic World’s Nick Robinson) that “reads” as gay or at all discomfited by his suburban nuclear family life is his inner monologue in which he tells us about his “huge-ass secret”...
A lot of folks are dissing this trailer spoof whatsit heralding the oncoming Oscar but I think that's just a sympton of "you can't please everyone anyone" on the internet / when it comes to Oscar. I'm sorry but I ♥ the moment that they open the briefcase and the golden glow emerges. That shiny naked gold man brings me joy every damn year. It's true! Even when I hate him I love him.
Sure the ad is meaningless / not hilarious but it's kind of fun in a stupid ha-HA way. You were expecting cutting edge comedy with Billy Crystal?
That said I will readily admit that it is a bit odd to have former co-stars of Transformers as your key actors. Nothing against Josh and Megan but no A listers were available? (Remember when Robin Williams was A list? That's as dusty a notion as Billy Crystal hosting the Os--- uh, never mind.)
In much more euphoric Oscar news... I am planning to marry Entertainment Weekly's new Oscar cover. It was love at first sight. It's my favorite Oscar cover since, oh, ever. I considered actually buying it and writing it up like a live-blog magazine read but I couldn't find it anywhere in my neighborhood. Supposedly it hit newsstands yesterday.
Clooney and Viola Davis are both such class acts and if that's who were celebrating, can it be February 24th tonight, please?
She’s amazed at how the Best Actress race is shaping up this year. “Can you wrap your mind around someone throwing you into the ring with Meryl Streep?” she marvels. “I just don’t understand the competition thing. How can you compare two actors’ performances? How do you say one is better than the other?”
“I know how you do it,” Clooney says to Davis. “You have to play Margaret Thatcher and she has to play the maid.”
And yet... In regards to the frontrunner for Best Actor. The only thing that could make this cover better was if it was Brad Pitt in the tux.
While I love Clooney as a celebrity as much as anyone does, he already has an Oscar and I think if we're in the mood for one of those Movie Star Appreciation Nights come late February, we've got a more deserving idol right next door in Brad Pitt! He gave not one but two career best performances this year! And though that blurb might not mean much coming from many loudmouth journos, it means a lot coming from me since Brad Pitt is one of my all time favorite actors. Thus I am able to say "career best" without any of the not so subtle "I was never impressed before" connotations that "career best" citations arrive with. I think he's been sorely undervalued (as an actor) his entire career.
Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 12:01PM 
