Going for the Oscar, with the nomination," and so on. On this day she was, in point of fact, neither "go for," nor "go for the Oscar," but "go for the nomination." And yet, that particular day was "Nomination Day" for best supporting actress, and she was there, very early, and just as ready for a little drama in a little room as most any one of the assembled nominees. And here is a picture of Ms. Huppert in a dress that looks like it must have been something "she wore on vacation in Bali and she had it dry cleaned before coming to work today." (You see? This woman is very professional.) She's probably right about the dress, though, and a far more flattering picture of her there can be found here. So, it's the best supporting actress category. The nominees, we will soon find out, are: Helen Hunt for The Sessions Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook Emma Stone for Easy A Maggie Smith for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Octavia Spencer for The Help Ms. Huppert's character in the movie is referred to only as "Madame" or "Mme." It's likely she won't have to wait until the final award show for that category, but in the meantime, I'm pretty sure that she's not quite as "cared for" as the characters in this movie. But I know that, come nighttime, she'll be able to say to herself: "You know, you don't know what you're missing." The 83rd Academy Awards will be telecast live on ABC this Sunday. Stay tuned for more Oscar speculation, including the potential for surprises in the major categories. Thursday, January 25, 2012 In the category of "Why haven't they nominated my friend and his film?""I'm not a big fan of the Golden Globes either, but I think the only thing stopping the Academy from nominating the films that won awards at that event was the fact that they didn't have anything left over from that crop of films to nominate." And then there's this: "For a film to earn an Oscar nomination it's got to get some notice from critics, from word-of-mouth and especially from audiences. The problem with 'The Artist' is that it didn't do any of that. It did fairly well in limited release but never found an audience." It is interesting, though, that another one of our friends has seen this movie. A few days before it premiered on our local channel, he and another couple watched it in our presence. And, from his response to the final scene, he doesn't think too much of this movie at all. So we were not exactly taken by surprise by his review of it when we read it. "I thought the last 40 minutes of the film could have been left out," he wrote. And, after going on a little bit more about the last 20 minutes, he also said that he "thought the first two hours were great. The third and fourth were pretty flat and uninteresting. I guess if it had been made in an era other than the early 1910s, it might have been a little more interesting. However, I wish I had stopped watching after it took off." We have read somewhere, though, that this film won't win any of the awards it is nominated for. This isn't our belief, though; it's another friend of ours who says: "It's just too long and doesn't really have enough punch to earn a nomination, though it might squeak by for some technical awards. I think its lack of recognition will have a lot to do with its length and the fact that it's all over the map in terms of quality. It's hard to say which is worse: its length, quality, or the way it was marketed. Just a terrible film. Just a waste of time." But some friends see things very differently. This is from someone who saw the film a couple of weeks after our other friend did and gave it a very favorable review. "I must admit I went into this film expecting the worst," he writes. "I have very little interest in silent movies, but the trailer had been rather intriguing and so I took a chance. What happened was far better than I expected. The picture is very well done. Not everything is perfect, but I think it stands up nicely and as far as quality goes, it compares with some recent (and recent not so recent) films that have received awards at this year's Oscar ceremony. The editing was excellent. Some scenes could have been shortened, but most, to me, were exactly as they should be. And, after the film was over, I found myself wishing that I could watch more of it. I liked the characters, I really did, and although the film did have some dark moments I could see how they could have happened in real life. Yes, there was a good deal of flatness and one could say that it's dull at times, but in the end this film was not boring and there were a few real laugh out loud moments for me. This is what I really liked about the film: it was different, and it gave me something to think about." And here is something that we hadn't seen before. This is a trailer for the movie, which shows us what the movie would have looked like had it come out in 1980. When you see this, keep in mind that no one was "trying" to make a silent movie in the year of Orson Welles. It is interesting to see how much film was used in order to complete some of the scenes we have seen in the trailers. But, when you see the film, as someone did a few weeks ago, it's also interesting to see just how little film was actually used in the making of it. Our friends don't agree about the length of the film or the number of awards it might win. They also don't agree on the fact that it's been overrated by critics and that it should be retired from general circulation. I'm still wondering if this film might be nominated for something else, but we haven't got our hopes up just yet. And, with that in mind, I think we should give a little more thought to this one. It's a fine film, a very interesting film, a daring and very original film, but it may not win the awards that it is nominated for. But that's alright, because I'll be able to tell everyone else in a few days that we have seen it and liked it, too. Wednesday, January 24, 2012 It's not as if he is unfamiliar with the concept of the "final girl" or if he needs to work a little harder on his vocabulary, but here's a guy who does the best he can with a very difficult concept. "This girl can't really do much," he said. "He takes his eye off her for a second and she's dead." And he was right; she was dead. Is the "final girl" genre an obvious cliché? Yes, we think so, but this sort of thing has worked before (perhaps most notably in the movie Misery), and so we're not going to tell the creative folks out there not to use the idea for the sake of safety. But we do wonder if more work could be done in terms of the genre. When the hero of the movie isn't in danger (unless he is just having a bad hair day), the "final girl" is really "just" a victim, one of many in this movie. In a sense, we were sorry when she died, but perhaps it's because we were only rooting for her. Our friend thought this movie was more or less in the same style as the movie "Dark Knight." That's always good, he said, but not always so. This movie is better than that one, though, even though it is also darker. The best thing about this film is that there are really no villains. There are people who are bad or bad-willed, but you might not consider them to be villains because they don't really have a master plan, unlike the bad guys in "Dark Knight," who are, in fact, working toward some kind of a master plan, only they don't know what it is. In fact, we were really surprised when the director of the movie said that this movie was not like "Dark Knight." He thought it was. But the most memorable scene for us happened in the opening moments, when we were introduced to our hero (well, the first time we met him was on a bus) and were told about the woman who would go on to be the "final girl." In fact, we felt it was a very effective scene; we could imagine the hero saying those same words about himself in a couple of years, though. And speaking of a couple of years, we have the feeling that this movie might have done better if the plot had been built around that idea. But, as we have said before, it is not necessary to have any kind of connection to the film to be engaged in what is going on. Perhaps if