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Mad Men Finale Part 1

May 26, 2014

I still can’t believe last night’s “Mad Men” finale was all we’ll see until next year. It feels like such a tease to have the last season split into two years’ worth of episodes. But those are the vagaries of television, so we have no choice but to spend a year pondering last night’s show and what it might mean going into the last round of episodes before we say goodbye forever to Don Draper and the gang.

I, for one, think Don’s fortunes are looking up. Megan’s gone? Good riddance. Roger Sterling’s re-energized and re-focused on business? That can only work in Don’s favor. The question is what does Don really want now? Does he even lust for success in the ad business anymore? Judging by the starry look in his eye during his hallucination of Bert Cooper singing and dancing to “The best things in life are free,” it’s hard to tell.

Here’s what The Daily Beast made of last night’s show. Food for thought….

Mad Men’s Game-Changing Midseason Finale, “Waterloo”: One Door Closes, Another Opens
There was plenty of moving and shaking at SC&P during the final episode of the AMC series ’til 2015. [Warning: SPOILERS]
Before we do anything, let’s pour out a glass of Canadian Club for good ol’ Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse). The curmudgeonly co-founder of SC&P is no more.

Though he resembled a spooky plantation owner, with his Colonel Sanders facial hair and seemingly endless array of bowties, Bert was a gentle, eccentric soul whose cunning only bubbled to the surface when the future of the company was at stake. He was the man who, when Pete attempted to blackmail Don about his deserter past, brushed it away like a gnat—only to shove it back in Don’s face to close the Conrad Hilton deal. He was the man who, after Don impulsively wrote the post-Lucky Strike New York Times op-ed “Why I’m Quitting Tobacco,” told the macho ad man what everyone was thinking: “We’ve created a monster.” He was the man who, yes, had his testicles unnecessarily removed.
Bert, you’ll be missed.

Now let’s get down to business. The midseason finale of Mad Men, titled “Waterloo,” opened with Apollo 11 taking off toward the moon. Then we cut to Ted, mid-midlife crisis, who abruptly decides to cut the jets while piloting Sunkist clients over NorCal. Apparently, the marginalized SC&P partner, who’s been operating on an island in Los Angeles, still harbors resentment with the rest of the SC&P gang—Don Draper, in particular—for torpedoing his Ocean Spray deal in favor of an $8 million ad package from Sunkist. Ted wants out of the ad biz.

Things then transition to the women. One of the many fascinating things about the AMC series is the way the plights of Sally and Peggy mirror one another—two fighters who refuse to be restrained by the iniquities of the time. Here, both gals are momentarily sidetracked by a couple of hunks—Sean, an oft-shirtless meathead with a pending scholarship to Rutgers catches Sally’s eye (who begins dressing Valley of the Dolls-y to impress him), while Nick, a sweaty fill-in super, leaves Peggy fumbling for words. But both are set straight by Don. First, he calls out Sally for being “cynical” when she echoes Sean’s critique (“…it cost $25 billion!”) of the moon landing. She sees the error of her ways and plants a kiss on his nerdy, astronomy-obsessed brother, Neil (like Neil Armstrong, duh). Peggy’s intervention comes a bit later.

Don, meanwhile, has apparently hit rock bottom. He receives a letter alleging “breach of contract” over his sabotaging the Commander Cigarettes deal. Don confronts his bespectacled nemesis, Cutler, who issued the letter, and the latter makes clear what we’ve known all along: he hates Don. “You’re just a bully and a drunk,” he says to him. “A football player in a suit.” But Cutler jumped the gun, filing the breach paperwork without the other partners’ knowledge. Don convenes all the partners in the middle of the office to tell them the news, and Roger and Pete won’t have it. Neither will Bert, who was blindsided by the move. Joan, however, votes to oust Don. “I’m tired of him costing me money,” she tells Roger. Grudges don’t vanish easily in the cutthroat world of Mad Men, and Joan still has it out for Don over Jaguar, while Pete still worships him in part due to the time he “fronted” his $50,000 cut to the late Lane Pryce to keep the firm afloat.

And if things weren’t bad enough for Don, after he breaks the “breach” news to Megan, she decides to dump him by phone—while lounging in a bikini sipping white wine. “You don’t owe me anything. Goodbye, Don,” she says, teary-eyed.

Everyone gathers at their respective homes to watch Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon. It’s an interesting about-face since technology, which has long divided the firm (Cutler and the IBM), can also be a force for good, bringing people together. During the moon landing, Roger receives some sad news: Bert Cooper passed away. So, Roger, Joan, and Cutler convene at the agency—Roger to pay his respects at Bert’s office, Joan to draft an obituary, and Cutler to… bury Don once and for all.

“Well, as tragic as this is, I for one am happy that we have a chance to have a conversation with the clients about the future of this company, and to give Don Draper his send-off along with Burt,” says the callous Cutler, adding, “Roger, I know what this company should look like: computer services, media buys pinpointed with surgical accuracy… it’s the agency of the future.” Roger and Joan stare at each other in shock and disbelief, with the latter finally realizing just how heartless and Draper-obsessed Cutler is.

Realizing his days are numbered, Don pays a visit to Peggy’s hotel room the night before the gang’s Burger Chef presentation and tells her she’s going to take the lead. “You must have heard that they’re trying to get me out,” he says. “If I win this business and I go, you’ll be left with nothing… You win this business, and it will be yours.” Don has long served as Peggy’s Virgil, guiding her up the ranks of the patriarchal ad biz and here, when all is lost, the main thing on his mind is securing his mentee’s future, and assuring her that the glass ceiling doesn’t apply to her.

“Well, I can’t just say what you’ve been saying. I’m a woman. I’m the voice of ‘moms,’ remember?” says Peggy.

“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t know you could,” replies Don.

Taking her inspiration from Don—and poor Julio, her cute 10-year-old apartment-mate who’s leaving town—Peggy exploits the men’s excitement over the moon landing and uses it to her advantage, selling them on the idea that Burger Chef offers a respite from the “chaos” of the news, and dubbing the campaign: “Family Supper at Burger Chef.” She knocks it out of the park.

For weeks, Don has been mobilizing his troops—Harry, Pete, and Peggy—for a fight with Cutler. After all that maneuvering, however, it was sneaky ol’ Roger who saved the day, convincing the McCann Erickson exec he met at the NYAC steam room to purchase the company and insert Rog as el presidente:

“I think you should buy the whole company because I have a vision: all our accounts, our cutting-edge computer, and the employees I know to be worthy as an independent subsidiary of McCann. You just lost Burger Chef, we may win it, and you’d still have it—and I’d still have my company without Jim Cutler and all that baggage from CDC.”

They’ll also have Buick, which means Ted needs to join Team Roger/Don in order for the deal to work. It’s a tough position for Don, since Roger is essentially making him choose between his future and the future of SC&P, and Peggy’s happiness. But Roger convinces Don that Cutler is hell-bent on liquidating the company until there’s nothing left but “Harry and his computer,” so Don makes his final pitch to an over-it Ted:

“I know you. I know the man I walked into Chevy with. You don’t have to work for us, but you have to work. You don’t want to see what happens when it’s really gone.”

Ted takes the leap, and the future of SC&P—and Don Draper—is secure (for now).

“Waterloo” closes with a predictable ode to Robert Morse, the 83-year-old actor who played the late Bert Cooper. Don, exiting the office, hallucinates and sees Bert doing a song-and-dance, flanked by a gaggle of secretaries, to the tune “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”

The moon belongs to everyone

The best things in life they’re free

The stars belong to everyone

They cling there for you and for me

It may seem random, but in addition to the song referencing the moon landing, Roger also called Don earlier in the episode experiencing regret over the fact that the last words he said to Bert were the lines of an old song. The outro was a tribute to Morse, who’s best known as the lead in the Broadway and film versions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which won him the Tony in 1962, and contains the famous line: “So you are now a vice president… You have done beautifully. Unless you are vice president in charge of advertising. In that case, you are in terrible trouble.”

As for Don Draper, we’ll have to wait ’til 2015 to see if that’s the case. And as for poor Betty, well, she’ll be fine. She speaks Italian.

The Anne Hathaway Thing

March 4, 2013

Anne Hathaway - Batman — Photo: Vera Anderson/WireImage

What is wrong with people? Everywhere I look there’s another article, blog post or tweet about so-called “Hathaway Hate.” She’s an actress. She plays parts in movies. She wins awards sometimes and gives acceptance speeches that are more than a little grating. So what? She was terrific in “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Brokeback Mountain” and, most recently, “Les Mis” (I haven’t seen her other films), and there’s never a hint of meanness about her, so why all the negative energy directed her way? And why is this starting to feel like bullying? Are we in high school or what?

The Daily Beast attempted to answer the questions in yesterday’s piece about her (see below), but I’m wondering something even more basic: Why aren’t people reserving all this emotion for issues that really matter? And hate? Seriously? Disdain, I get. Envy, I get. Intense feelings of annoyance, I get. But hate is ridiculous. My guess is there will now be a backlash to the backlash, and legions of Hathaway Haters will now become adoring fans.

The Anne Hathaway Hatred Is Out of Control
by Kevin Fallon

Is it her face? Her personality? Is she too perfect? Everyone wants to know why we hate Anne Hathaway. We want to know why they care so much.

Last week Anne Hathaway gave an acceptance speech after she won the best-supporting-actress Oscar for her performance in Les Misérables. You’d think she committed mass murder.

What began as the “cult of Hathahaters” two months ago has simmered, bubbled over, and formed a zeitgeist-seizing, rage-fueled movement against the actress, peaking with a series of think pieces examining what Hathaway has done to trigger such a response. As if it’s some major social or political question that must be answered—like how to prevent the sequester or who should be the next pope—these essays explore every facet of Anne’s very Anne-ness in an attempt to get to the root of the problem.

People are stronger in their convictions on the issue than they are on most platforms that determine presidential elections. Now a hatred has arisen that’s typically reserved for celebrities who go on anti-Semitic rants (hello, Mr. Gibson) or hit their girlfriends (bonjour, Mr. Brown). Hathaway, by comparison, gave some speeches that were kind of annoying. Forget media frenzy. It’s a media pile-on, and it’s out of control.

So what are we supposed to think about her?

“She’s got this theater-kid thing where she adopts the mood of every situation she’s in … but wildly overcompensates every time,” writes The Atlantic Wire’s Richard Lawson. CNN quotes an oratory expert who tells us that Hathaway’s “just one of the people who just doesn’t come off as sincere.” The New Yorker’s Sasha Weiss posits that it’s because the actress appears too happy.

Salon brings in the scientists, who tell us we hate her because of her face. “When times are good, we prefer actresses with rounder faces,” psychology professor Terry Pettijohn says. “They convey these ideas of fun and youth.” But Hathaway’s face is bony and slender! “As the economy improves, Hathaway—whose peak of fame, post-boyfriend, pre–Oscar hosting, came amid the 2008 crash—may just be a reminder of bad times.” Science.

After a report came out that the star rehearsed her Oscar speech to sound less annoying, Rich Juzwiak at Gawker wrote: “It creates a new reason to be mad at Anne Hathaway. It’s one thing if she’s just being herself; it’s another if she’s trying to be likable and failing.”

Over at The Cut, Ann Friedman examines what we perceive to be Hathaway’s most egregious crime: she’s not Jennifer Lawrence.

What if Twitter had existed when Sally Field bragged about how we really like her?

The culturewide attack on the Hathaway is utterly bizarre—except that it isn’t. It is the rawest example yet of our 2013, Twitter-loving, insta-pundit, mountain-out-of-a-molehill media culture. It’s not that we judge stars more than we used to. It’s that we now have the platform to do it in real time and expect those being judged to care enough to respond and take action, again in real time.

It’s not only changed our relationship with celebrities but the notion of what we want celebrities to be. The picture of practiced perfection that Hathaway puts forth is becoming increasingly antiquated. Look at how celebrated stars like Lena Dunham and Jennifer Lawrence are, or how popular the Honey Boo Boos and Teen Moms have become, for proof that we now prefer to see our celebrities warts and all. It’s no longer unattainable perfection that our society is admiring. It’s relatability and fallibility we adore, and we adore it in 140 characters or less.

“Stars, they’re just like us” is no longer just a cute gossip-rag feature. It’s a societal demand. Even the word “diva,” once used as a respect-demanding label for female celebrities who have earned through fabulousness and talent the right to be fawned over and catered to, is now applied almost exclusively as an insult. If we can’t imagine ourselves being like a celebrity, at least we’d like to imagine they’re someone we could hang out with. Lawrence, for example, seems like the girl you could have a beer with. Hathaway seems like the girl who says she doesn’t drink beer.

And, yes, that is an absolutely ridiculous judgment. So why are so many people making it?

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic, puts it perfectly. “I recognize that there is an entire publicity industry designed to get us to ‘like’ people whom we essentially pay to see work,” he writes. “And perhaps it’s fair to judge whether or not that industry has been effective in making you think you know Hathaway in a way that you probably do not. But the fact remains that you don’t really know any of these people.”

“Anne Hathaway is an actor,” Coates continues. “This is not a synonym for ‘Homecoming Queen’ nor ‘special friend.’ She does her job better than most. That should be enough.”

But again, in the age of Twitter and a culture that fosters opining and encourages more than ever the sharing of opinions, that’s not enough, and the growing “Hathahate” movement is the best example of that yet. It used to be that stories like this had blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shelf lives. Now they explode into weeks-long debates on social media, then online media, and then news media. It’s not just a few people asking, “Isn’t Anne Hathaway just a little bit much?” It’s a few people asking that and starting a national conversation.

Hathaway has breathlessly thanked every member of her “team” during her countless awards-season acceptance speeches. (And we mean every member.) Have they failed her by not “fixing” whatever this likability problem is?

Perhaps. One thing is clear: Hathaway was superb in Les Misérables. She seems like a sweet lady. Maybe now, with our collective obsession over how much we hate her, we are the ones who are being just a little bit much.

Ashley Judd's "Puffy Face" Crusade

April 13, 2012

The other day, Judd wrote an emotional op-ed piece in The Daily Beast. She had been the object of feverish speculation having to do with her face – i.e. why it looked puffier than it had in previous years and whether she’d had “work done.” She explained that she’d been sick and was taking steroids and that it was disgusting how women’s bodies are picked over and spit out.

I have felt her anger and shared her outrage – both on my own behalf and on Michael’s.

My husband takes steroids on and off and has for years. Prednisone is a wonder drug in its ability to reduce inflammation, but one of its dreaded side effects is what’s called “moon face.” When he’s on “Pred,” he blows up like the Incredible Hulk. It’s not fun, but as soon as he gets off the evil stuff, he goes back to his normal size.

People don’t remark about his moon face; they’re just glad if he’s feeling better. Most people, that is. There’s an anecdote in my forthcoming book, YOU’D BETTER NOT DIE OR I’LL KILL YOU: A Caregiver’s Survival Guide to Keeping You in Good Health and Good Spirits (Chronicle/October), in the chapter on friendship. He and I were at a wedding reception during a period when he was on high doses of steroids prior to surgery. His face was indeed puffy. Suddenly, a man we thought was a friend, although someone we didn’t see on a regular basis, walked up to Michael, pointed at him and said, “Wow. Michael. You got SO FAT!”

I was stunned by this man’s insensitivity. I mean, what kind of jerk says that right to a person’s face?

Michael was just as stunned, I could tell, but he reacted much more diplomatically than I would have and replied calmly, “I’m not fat. I’m on steroids. I’m about to have surgery.”

Not only did the man not apologize, but he didn’t even ask about the surgery or say, “I hope it goes well.” He is so off our list now.

I’m the opposite of fat – “the size of a pencil,” I once wrote about myself – and, Michael’s story aside, I have always been amazed how people who are careful to avoid insulting a fat person have no compunction about insulting a thin one.

“You’re so scrawny,” a woman once told me. “You’re nothing but bones,” said another. “Do you ever EAT?” many of them have had the nerve to ask.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at Saks looking for a top to wear to a dressy event when a saleswoman approached.

“I’m going to a fancy dinner tonight,” I told her, “and I need something great to wear under my suit jacket.”

“Have you seen the new tops from Theory?” she asked, referring to one of my favorite designers.

“Yes,” I said. “I tried them on and they were all too big.”

She literally rolled her eyes and said, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “Oh, my heart bleeds for you.”

Seriously? Not only was this said without humor or sisterly understanding or even good salespersonship, but it was downright rude.

I stammered and said, “Well, I’m small, I guess.”

She said, “Honey, women would kill for your body, so I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, gathering myself after what felt like a punch in the gut. “Have a nice day.”

I left the store wondering why it is that people feel so comfortable picking on thin people. I have small bones. I was built that way. And yes, I eat – plenty.

So I agree with Ashley Judd in her message to all the finger pointers out there: buzz the hell off.

A Few Surprises Among The Oscar Nominations

January 24, 2012

I think I’ll let the Daily Beast have the floor. They nailed all the surprises and snubs after today’s nominations were announced. I still have a few films to see (“Extremely Loud,” “Dragon Tattoo,” “Shame,” “A Better Life” and “The Separation”), but I agree with all the comments in the article. Here we go…

The Oscars are a yearly event in which Hollywood marries itself, and this time around the two biggest recipients of Academy love are Hugo (with 11 nominations) and The Artist (with 10). This shouldn’t be such a surprise: both are movies about how great the movies are, and at least one of them actually is.

Of course, as is usually the case with the Academy, most of the films that have been nominated are bigger with critics than moviegoers. Among the nine contenders for Best Picture, only one (The Help) crossed the $100 million mark at the box office

Several of the others were polarizing in the extreme.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life tells the story of a family tragedy, and brings in all sorts of deep ontological themes (as well as a curious sequence involving a dying dinosaur). It alienated and inspired its way to a Best Picture nomination, as well as earning nods for its director and cinematographer. Heidegger, at least, would be proud.

The Descendants (which scored six nominations) was a surer thing, but it, too, has been divisive.

And then there’s Moneyball. Given the reviews and its quality (we’re just going to dispense with objectivity and admit that we thought it was superb), it’s not exactly a surprise that the film was nominated for Best Picture. Nevertheless, it was by no means a lock. For one thing, it came out in September and is no longer in theaters. For another, it’s almost too smart for its own good—a big, ambitious baseball pic in which the home team (the Oakland Athletics) doesn’t win in the end. Not exactly cathartic.

So few would have expected it to get six nominations, as it did.

But before we get to the meat of this piece, we’re going to give a shout to an actress whose absence in the Supporting category was entirely expected, but disappointing nevertheless: Demi Moore in Margin Call.

“WTF?” you’re probably thinking. DE-MI Moore?

To which we can only say: you should have seen it. In the film she plays a ruthless corporate executive at a company that resembles Lehman Brothers. And she’s astonishingly good. Unfortunately, the film had a tiny budget and little money for an Oscar campaign, and Moore was going through a divorce at the time of its release, which made promoting it a nightmare. Which is too bad. It is the best thing she has ever done. (Thankfully, it got a screenplay nomination.) Someone should at least send her a box of chocolates.

Without further ado, the biggest snubs and surprises …

1. SURPRISE: Gary Oldman

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy scored terrific reviews when it was released in December, but the movie and its stellar leading man, Gary Oldman, seemed to be nearly forgotten in the run-up to the Oscars. He didn’t get a Golden Globe nomination or earn a nod from the Screen Actors Guild, many of whose members nominate for the Academy as well.

2. SNUB: Leonardo DiCaprio

Leo scored both a Golden Globe nomination and a SAG nod for the title role in J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood’s biopic of the late FBI honcho, but critics savaged the film. Clearly, it wasn’t just them rooting against it. Though the Academy loves Eastwood and has nominated DiCaprio four times in the past (most recently for 2006’s Blood Diamond), it just doesn’t love this one.

3. SURPRISE: Rooney Mara

Though the American adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been an undeniable critical success, it stalled as it came out of the gate, not quite delivering at the box office in initial weeks and—because of its late release—missing the boat with a number of pre-Oscar awards shows. Moreover, the unbelievable violence and tough sexual imagery did not make a natural fit with the Academy, a relatively old voting bloc. Still, members have shown over and over again that they like to give career awards in the Best Actor category and prefer ingénues for Best Actress. So while it’s a surprise that Mara got nominated, it’s by no means worthy of an exclamation point.

4. SNUB: Tilda Swinton

She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress back in 2007 (for Michael Clayton) and is beloved by virtually everyone in Hollywood—despite her Grace Jones–esque penchant for kooky designer clothes. No wonder she managed to score Golden Globe and SAG nods for her role in We Need to Talk About Kevin, playing a frigid mother whose son massacres his school. It would seem to be the kind of tough, transformative role the Academy loves, but there’s also a sense that the movie itself was a little pretentious and overdirected. Also, when a movie is that tough, not everyone sees it. Add in the Rooney Mara factor and it’s understandable (though disappointing) that Tilda got shut out.

5. SURPRISE: Melissa McCarthy

Her scene-stealing performance in Bridesmaids captured the hearts of moviegoers (to the tune of $180 million), but Melissa McCarthy did not exactly seem to have it made with the members of the Academy. Time and again, this group of voters has shown that they don’t place much of a premium on comedies, particularly the kind in which women are vomiting all over the screen. So the fact that she sneaked in there is pretty surprising.

6. SNUB: Albert Brooks

As we’ve already said, the Academy loves to give a little gold man to an older gent who dramatically reinvents himself onscreen, and it tends to like it even better if he’s a bloke who usually played likable guys and then transforms himself into a monster. Which is part of why Albert Brooks was expected by so many people to score a nod for his role as a gangster in Drive, the neo-noir about a race-car driver (Ryan Gosling) who gets caught up in a criminal enterprise.

In fact, many thought it was a two-man race between him and Christopher Plummer, whose role as a gay septuagenarian in Beginners is another “transformative” role. (Plus, the Academy loves a straight guy who goes gay.)

Still, Brooks’s failure to capture a SAG-award nomination was probably an indication the campaign wasn’t going well. And without any other major nominations for the film, it’s safe to say the older voters in the Academy just didn’t quite get the film.

Color us devastated.

7. SURPRISE: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

This adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s bestselling novel would seem to have it made with members of the Academy. It’s a post-9/11 tearjerker featuring terrific performances by Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Unfortunately, the film has also been criticized as being overdirected (by Stephen Daldry), and Thomas Horn’s performance as the boy at the center of the story is not exactly what you would call “relatable.” First, it got savaged by critics. Then it failed to pick up steam in the pre-Oscar derby. So its sneaking in there is a testament to producer Scott Rudin, and perhaps its subject matter, which is just the sort the Academy loves to reward.

8. SNUB: Steven Spielberg

Spielberg almost always cleans up come Oscar time, so his failure to earn a slot among the directors will no doubt raise a certain number of eyebrows. Still, this was actually a fairly crowded category (David Fincher also got snubbed), and War Horse’s nom for Best Picture (nine films were nominated in that category, compared with five people for director) is a way for the Academy to acknowledge his work without having to go over the moon for him for two movies of his (the other was The Adventures of Tintin) that it didn’t quite love.

With Tintin, it may not solely be a question of quality: apparently, the animators are somewhat conservative, and don’t get behind movies that blend live action with animation. Nevertheless, The Adventures of Tintin … directed by Steven Spielberg … in a year with virtually no competition for animated films? Snubbed? Beaten out of a nomination by little-heard-of movies like A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita? Wow.

9. SURPRISE: Demián Bichir

A Better Life was a well-reviewed but little-seen movie that came out back in June, starring a little-known actor named Demián Bichir. Thankfully, its subject matter—a Mexican immigrant fighting to keep his son away from gang life—is the sort of fare the Academy loves.

10. SNUB: Michael Fassbender

Fassbender won plaudits for his frank portrayal of a sex addict in Steve McQueen’s Shame. He even took all his clothes off. A slew of awards buzz followed, but not a nomination, a sign that the academy may have felt both a little uneasy and manipulated by the movie’s subject matter.

11. SNUB: Young Adult

A terrific performance from Charlize Theron. A hilarious script from Diablo Cody. Reviews that were practically over the moon. But Young Adult, the story of a single woman in her late 30s who goes back to her hometown with the intention of stealing her high-school boyfriend from his wife, is also dark, dark, dark, and uncomfortable to watch in much the way that 2010’s Greenberg was. Moreover, the Academy’s older voting bloc is never all that generous to young filmmakers, particularly ones who are extremely confident of their own abilities. In 2009, director Jason Reitman made a comment about how “good” his movie Up in the Air was while working the Oscar circuit, and that was more or less the end of its chances on the big night. So the Academy may still be holding it against him. Plus, Young Adult is a comedy, and we all know how the Academy feels about comedies.

More Oscar Countdown

February 22, 2011

OK, we talked about Natalie Portman and Christian Bale in yesterday’s post. Now it’s time to focus on Melissa Leo, who wowed everybody in “The Fighter” as Mark Wahlberg’s kick-ass mom (even though she’s not that much older than he is).

I thought Leo was sensational in “Frozen River,” the indie film for which she received a Best Actress nom, but she was equally good in “The Fighter.” Will she win this time? Apparently, she turned off members of the Academy by taking out her own “For Your Consideration” ads in the Hollywood trades. I thought the move was pretty gutsy myself.

Melissa Leo campaign — (Courtesy: nymag.com)

Want to know why she did it? Check out this interview with The Daily Beast’s Jacob Bernstein . Here’s an excerpt about the ad campaign.

“I’ve been busting my ass, trying to get the movie sold and seen, and now I show up where they ask, get put into hair and makeup that they pay for, so I can promote this thing [and campaign]. So I’m a little confused. I thought this is what we’re doing. This is what all the girls are doing.”

I love her for not playing the game. Or for playing it her way. She’s unique in Hollywood – an actress who finally achieved stardom in middle age, which is usually Death Valley for women – and I’m rooting for her to win. She’s in a tough category, but I think she’s plenty tough enough to take home the little man in gold.

Mad Men Finale Part 1

The Anne Hathaway Thing

Ashley Judd's "Puffy Face" Crusade

A Few Surprises Among The Oscar Nominations

More Oscar Countdown

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