Two recent trade editorials have driven us crazy enough to write long hair-pulling screeds in response. We're bald now! The first was a 'dishonorable' defense of our #1 gripe Category Fraud and we'll be quicker about this one which is about our second biggest pet peeve of Oscar season: 'the holiday glut' aka the ghettoization of adult movies into the final quarter of each year.
The Hollywood Reporter's "Everybody Cannibalized Each Other" - Harvey Weinstein Weinstein begins his guest editorial by calling the final quarter glut of awards-hopefuls a "pet peeve" which is fine if we say it... but him?!? He championed it for 20 years with his own actions!
someone wants an Oscar... someone wants an Oscar...
We say this in a sing-song teasing way but super-affectionately! For who beyond Jake Gyllenhaal among Hollywood's current leading men has earned more Oscar love than he's received? It's still virtually unthinkable that he missed the shortlist last year for Nightcrawler in which he burrowed into a character that proved far more indelible and challenging and even showy (and AMPAS loves that) than many of the actual nominees. And his work was better than almost all of theirs, too. (At least we gave him a prize right here)
Jake is in theaters right now climbing mountains in Everest but his headlining gig in the summer's modest boxing drama success Southpaw will get another go at theaters (and thus industry attention) this weekend courtesy of The Weinstein Company who just don't mess around when it comes to campaigning for gold. (Although, frankly, if they were going to do this at all, shouldn't they have y'know, announced it with more preliminary fanfare? And maybe not done it during Matt Damon's possibly record-busting weekend?)
Who is with me in missing Jason's Beauty vs. Beast column? He's been offline a lot this month. So here's a Beauty vs Beast in his honor, training our eyes on the one and only Jake Gyllenhaal. Or, rather, the Jake Gyllenhaals as he's versatile.
Therein lies the twist. It's All-Beautiful Jake (Brokeback Mountain & Love & Other Drugs) versus Beautiful & Beastly Jake (Donnie Darko & Jarhead) versus All-Beastly Jake (Southpaw & Nightcrawler). Who gets your vote? Ready? You're always ready for Jake. So go... Vote and Comment. Pound your keyboard so hard that you wake Jason up and he returns to us next week to resume his series.
JAKE vs. JAKE vs. JAKE
Previously on Beauty vs Beast...
Janet Leigh's Marion Crane beat Anthony Perkin's Norman Bates by a slim but still surprising 55% of your votes. Your love blindsided us. Jason and I both thought it would turn out differently given that Norma Bates is an immortal villain and Marion Crane is well, dead and buried (or, rather, submerged) but y'all are so predictable when there's an actress involved. Hence this week's all male challenge. There's no actress to win your automatic vote. However will it turn out?
We're spoiling you with two podcasts this week. Yesterday we talked 1995 (to tease the Smackdown). Now, conversations about Marvel's Phase Two ender Ant-Man with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, and Michael Peña, and the new boxing drama Southpaw starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams.
Contents (43 minutes) 00:01 Marvel's Ant-Man 27:55 Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw 40:00 Coming Attractions: Mistress America & The Finest Hours
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation!
Unfortunately it's fugly (not Carey. She pretty). Incidentally purple and green are my favorite colors but I never like them in combo unless I'm looking at The Joker.
Film/TV Pajiba marvels that 'Tom Cruise does his own stunts' is way more than just lip service Southpaw a Featurette as Jake Gyllenhaal trains for the movie Towleroad Rob Lowe dubsmashing The Sound of Music AV Club Oscar Isaac headlines Show Me a Hero for HBO, which now has a trailer AV Club hating on Teen Wolf's current season - I'm finding the show more and more incomprehensible every year. Considering quitting The Guardian in "current weirdest movie news" Mel Gibson is now a "Creative Adviser" on a Chinese WW II epic The Bombing
Off Arts I'm really struggling to be more well rounded as a person - i only think of the arts! - so every once in awhile i must share current and extremely random items of fascination New Yorker "The Really Big One" -- this article on the fault lines in the Pacific Northwest is more terrifying than any disaster movie Slate investigates the tails of seahorses -- they're actually square unlike the traditional round
Showtune to Go I saw On the Twentieth Century a couple of weeks ago starring Kristin Chenoweth (one-of-a-kind amazing as usual) and you only have a few more days to see it (it closes on the 19th). The show was a little too manically staged for me but Chenoweth as a movie star and Andy Karl as her coattails riding actor boyfriend were both delicious and sensational and more than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately there's precious little quality video of Andy Karl online so here's a promo for his turn in "Rocky The Musical" in 2014 which seemed to prophesy the revival of that franchise - Creed coming at you soon.
For whatever reason Karl barely ever does TV or film (unlike a lot of other stage stars) so his profile is weirdly low with the general public considering he's funny, sexy, good-looking, traditionally masculine, talented and all of that. I was enraged all over again watching his extremely funny work in "On the Twentieth Century" as a narcissistic actor that Christian Borle won a generous second Tony for "Something Rotten" when his category was filled with so many better and truly inspired performances from Tony-less men (one of them even in his own show). The Emmys tendency to love the same people over and over again is much documented and groused about online, but the Tony habit of the same is even more mystifying since they're dealing with different shows and characters altogether each time. With the exception of a few people as default nominees, I'm deeply grateful that Oscar voters have somehow not inherited this usually* awful and stingy gene!
* there are people who have deserved multiple Tonys of course (Cheno, McDonald, Foster, Bernadette, etcetera). But... generally spread the wealth is a wiser and more justified impulse.
Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 5:00PM 
