I missed yesterday because I was musing over the Academy Award nominations trying to figure out what to make of them and what and how much I should say . I finally realized late in the evening that there was not much TO say(caps are my own to add emphasis). I don't really have a big investment in the AAs. I thought David Oyelowo was robbed though (It took me a couple of days to learn how to say his name properly and committ it to memory which I did because I wanted to be able to talk intelligently about his stunning performance in in Selma). I know I will piss readers off when I say that it was head and shoulders above Chiwetel Ejiofor's one-note performance in 12 Years a Slave. Typical and not surprising for the Academy to nominate Eddy Redmayne's uninspiring performance as Steven Hawking in a film that would have been more comfortable on the small screen. I spent much of that movie wondering what was so special about Steven Hawking as to make those around him so loyal. It wasn't the science (My stepfather, a scientist, wouldn't even watch the screener I brought out over the holidays because he dismisses Hawking as a serious scientific mind). Selma is a far superior film to 12 years a Slave. It is quiet and small and thoughtful, near-perfect in every detail (o.k. I would have liked to see less of Oprah unnecessarily popping up in every scene but since her company financed the film I'll cut her and the director some slack). 12 Years was a big Hollywood film, a feel-bad but ultimately feel-good film for white people(because after all doesn't a white man, Brad Pitt, save the day?) and ultimately a throw-back to movies like Young Mr. Lincoln. That's the kind of Hollywood film that the mostly white, mostly male Academy voters can get behind. And in not nominating Ava Duvernay the Academy missed a chance to move into the present by nominating a black woman. Ticking some other boxes here, I was not enamored of Boyhood, which, the accomplishment of filming the same boy over a period of 12 years aside, I found pedestrian aside from Patricia Arquette's magnificent and important performance. I'll root for Birdman and Michael Keaton and everyone else involved in the film although I don't think Birdman should win. Which brings me back to Selma. In this time of racial unrest we need Selma to win to pack more people into the theatres to see it. Nuff said.
On the theatre front, I saw "Constellations" on Broadway on Thursday. Ruth Wilson who won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Affair on Showtime and was magnificent in Luther with Edris Alba (another underused and underrated actor because of his blackness but hopefully the next James Bond) gave a beautifully nuanced performance as a geeky gawky Cambridge scientist in this small, intimate play. Jake Gyllenhaal was the real suprise playing the equally gg beekeeper who is in love with her. I have have always found him forgettable in his film performances with the exception of Brokeback Mountain but he got to me in "Constellations." I think his element is the stage. The play explores the multiple actions and outcomes possible in a relationship in our complex universe. As Roger Ebert would say (whose posthumous documentary was also not nominated for an Academy Award), "I give it a thumbs up." I only wish that I had seen it in the intimate setting of the Royal Court Theatre where it was first staged. The large theatre and knuckle-cracking, hearing-aid equipped audience kept me from feeling the intimacy of the play that would have enveloped me in a smaller theatre.
P.S. I would prefer that you comment in response to my opinionated rantings here on the blog and not on Facebook. Thank you.
