Hear Me Now: Big Up To Ali G!

Hey, if you still haven't checked out Da Ali G Show on HBO, you've got another chance tonight at 12:30am. Though I didn't think last week's episode was as good as previous ones, tonight's could be great; Ali's tackling Science, a perfect match for his rattled and hilarious knowledge base. Reminds me of one great bit from the last show, when during a chat with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Ali drew upon his skewed info and tried to get to the bottom of the great conspiracy theory -- Is there a Moon? Even Aldrin tried to help him out by offering that the conspiracy was about whether they walked on the moon, not if it existed at all. Trust me, it was pretty damned funny -- funnier than trying to explain the joke, that's for sure! Just check him out. He grows on ya, I swear.

It might be a good opportunity to check out Real Time with Bill Maher, which precedes Ali on Fridays on HBO. I'm not exactly sure whether I like the show; I tend to agree with a lot of Maher's dyspeptic opinions, but if you're not on his side I would imagine he'd seem like the biggest asshole on TV. Even if you agree with him he's pretty still much an asshole, but he wears it well. Tonight's show could be extremely volatile, as the War will no doubt be front and center and it's bound to be a real verbal joust. More on his show at a later date.

Real Time With Bill Maher, tonight at 11:30pm on HBO.
Da Ali G Show, tonight at 12:30am on HBO.
Check out the HBO website for more information on both shows, and the complete encore schedule.

 
More on Awards: To Be or Not To Be

Everybody wonders if the Awards will go on this Sunday as scheduled. Though the official word is that things will be toned down, with less celebrity access and red carpet hoo-ha – of course a real plus if it manages to shut up Joan Rivers even a little bit – Sunday still seems to be the day. With the Iraq War in full swing and the country on high alert, you can make arguments either way as to the wisdom of sticking to the schedule.

Is it decorum that would necessitate a delay, or is it the idea that the Awards would be a terror target? I just read something wondering if the festivities could create an occasion which might mushroom into a big anti-war rally, creating the kind of chaos they had in San Francisco and other cities, with huge traffic jams and police involvement. Wouldn’t that be a fine mess? At that point you couldn’t blame the celebs for staying put and watching the fiasco in TV, just like us.

Certainly a pall has already been cast over the Awards, and if anybody tries to throw out the patronizing argument that the show must go on so the little people can have a some enjoyment in their lives, or to get their minds off the war – and if, god forbid, it were true -- well, even a stiff dose of Joan Rivers isn’t nearly enough punishment for a public like that.

 
More Academy Award Picks

Actress in a Leading Role
Salma Hayek in Frida
Nicole Kidman in The Hours
Diane Lane in Unfaithful
Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven
Renee Zellweger in Chicago


My choice: Nicole Kidman. Yes, I know it’s kind of a trick performance because she donned a faux schnozzola to play the anguished and weary writer Virginia Woolf, but her performance was a touching and perfectly delineated jewel. Creating a woman who was both despondent yet radiant, Kidman truly disappeared into her character and showed that she’s much, much more than just a pretty face. Her quiet grace was but a part of The Hours strength, but she was definitely the centerpiece.

Salma Hayek was vibrant and feisty as mono-browed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (even managing to play a schoolgirl pretty convincingly, which isn’t easy at 36), but I don’t think her bravado and flash trump Kidman’s achievement. Diane Lane gave her role as a contemporary straying housewife a daring and breathless sense of reality, and it sure would be nice for a long-time trouper like herself to get the award, yet this doesn’t feel like her year. Julianne Moore’s performance in Todd Hayne’s Far from Heaven has been honored with several film critics groups’ awards; besides looking gorgeous in that saturated 1950s color palette, her Cathy Whitaker was sweet, honest and hopeful, a really lovely performance, and one that with any luck will win it if Kidman doesn’t. As for Renee Z, I’m all for the “let’s put on a show” trouper-ism she demonstrated tackling that all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza, but the performance isn’t anything new and different, although she’s fairly charming in the role. Please, don’t let her win over the luminous Nicole; it would be a real crime.

Actress in a Supporting Role
Kathy Bates in About Schmidt
Julianne Moore in The Hours
Queen Latifah in Chicago
Meryl Streep in Adaptation
Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago

My choice: Julianne Moore. Assuming she doesn’t get Best Actress for Far from Heaven – or even if she does – the quiet perfection of her performance here is unbeatable. She’s so controlled and so incredibly sad, and though it seems this year like Moore is making 1950s homemakers her specialty, the impressive thing is that she makes them real.

Kathy Bates was certainly game in her role, generating unwarranted audience mockery (at least when I saw it) for taking her clothes off during her cheeky portrayal of an older woman in the full bloom of sensuality. Bravo to her for being fearless, but that’s not enough reason to get an Oscar. Queen Latifah’s sassy presence was, for me, the only standout performance in Chicago, though of course nothing new again (like all the performances in the movie), just a really, really good version of the Red Hot Mama archetype. Her Matron Morton was the kind of star turn that gets a standing ovation on the stage and would deserve it, but I don’t think it has the depth or impact to triumph here. Meryl Streep’s terrific in Adaptation, and her wild ride into orchid country was a joy to watch, but it doesn’t take the cake. Kudos to Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago for being attractive, oomph-y in a kind of synthetic way, and for getting the opportunity to use her pipes again, but sheesh, if she wins over the delicate and damaged Julianne Moore, that will be a shame.

Stay tuned for more!

 
Going Hollywood

Maybe it’s time to talk a little bit about movies, and with the Oscars coming up – barring Iraqi war developments – it’s a good opportunity to play catch up. I’ve seen all the nominees in the major categories, and a spotting of others, so here goes with my take. Of course, the caveat is that awards are nonsense and have possibly nothing to do with any lasting merit the movies may or may not possess.

The categories, in the alphabetical order they’re listed on the Academy website:

Actor in a Leading Role
Adrien Brody in The Pianist
Nicholas Cage in Adaptation
Michael Caine in The Quiet American
Daniel Day-Lewis in The Gangs of New York
Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt

My choice: Daniel Day-Lewis. In a movie that fell some distance short of being a bonafide classic but is nonetheless an amazing achievement, one of the most striking elements was Day-Lewis’ utterly distinctive portrayal of Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. Alternately fierce, genteel, barbaric, witty, driven, munificent and brutal, Day-Lewis created an absolutely authentic characterization of a bold and memorable personality. You had no doubt that plopped down into 19th century New York this man would fit right in and brawl his way to the top of the heap. What a vibrant achievement!

Adrien Brody’s role in The Pianist is largely reactive – that is, things mostly happen to him, and he’s undeniably effective playing a man of culture who is a hapless victim of horrendous times. Compared to the vigorous performance by Day-Lewis, though, Brody’s Szpilman just doesn’t have enough oomph to prevail. I loved Nicholas Cage in Adaptation but it’s somewhat of a trick performance – neurotic twins – and compared to what Day-Lewis created in Gangs it’s loads of fun but not what should win the gold. It was a treat to see Michael Caine in The Quiet American, and his role as the British journalist Fowler is thoughtful, intelligent and moving, but again, put next to Day-Lewis it takes a back seat. I thought Jack Nicholson’s performance in About Schmidt was about as subtle as a baggy pants vaudevillian, and at this point he’s so good at mugging that it’s just too easy for him to walk through a movie without reaching. In a movie that didn’t quite know whether it wanted to be a comedy or a drama, Nicholson went for the laughs, a good choice in terms of audience acceptance but not worthy of an Oscar.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Chris Cooper in Adaptation
Ed Harris in The Hours
Paul Newman in The Road to Perdition
John C. Reilly in Chicago
Christopher Walken in Catch Me If You Can

My choice: Chris Cooper. Cooper’s absolutely unique work as John Laroche, the absolutely unique rogue orchid hunter, was technically impressive, superbly audacious and completely genuine. He imbued this untamed, unconventional fringe personality with true charisma and intelligence, and compared to the other worthy performances in the category he just plain blew them out of the water.

Ed Harris had an important part in the somber The Hours but it didn’t feel particularly unforgettable. If Paul Newman wins it’s a sentimental nod; John C. Reilly was fine, as always, in Chicago (and probably the best thing in that overrated movie), but doesn’t top Cooper. Christopher Walken gave a rare emotion-heavy performance in Catch Me… and was quite poignant, but again, in a role he himself might have played ten years earlier, Walken can’t touch Cooper’s bravura turn.

More to come....

 
Gender Bender: HBO’s Normal

If seeing good acting by mature and gifted performers is still of value to you, then be sure to catch HBO's latest TV movie Normal, which premiered Sunday and will encore the rest of this month. Tom Wilkinson – In The Bedroom (which is running all over Starz Theatre channel starting this Friday), The Gathering Storm – and Jessica Lange, luminous and intelligent as ever, star as a Midwestern married couple facing a deep crisis in their relationship. He’s finally admitted, first to himself and then to his wife, that he wants have a sex change operation to become a woman, a decision reached not lightly but perhaps inevitably, after a whole lifetime of sublimating his uncommon plight as a man uncomfortable in his own skin.

The only problem I have with this well-done movie is that I can’t believe HBO or writer Jane Anderson actually thought they were dealing with something controversial or groundbreaking in tackling this subject. On the movie's HBO website, Ms. Anderson says that she starting working on this in the early nineties when transgender issues were more exotic; granted they’ve never exactly been commonplace, but geez, you’d need to have been hiding under a huge rock not to have been exposed to the plight of such gender pioneers as Christine Jorgensen and Jan Morris. Ms. Anderson is my age – born in 1954 – and by that time Jorgensen was already a notorious celebrity for her Danish sex-change operation back in 1952 and would remain so until her death in 1989, including being the subject of a better-than-you-might-imagine biopic The Christine Jorgensen Story in 1970 (currently playing around pay-TV including the Starz True Stories channel this Friday late-night).

And then there was Jan Morris, who as James began a career as a much-in-demand travel writer, and in 1972 had the surgery that effected his transformation into Jan. Her autobiography Conundrum, from 1974, is probably the best-written literature on this unusual subject, and of course she continues to be the gold standard in travel reportage. Jorgensen and Morris were major celebrities, and if there was ground to be broken, these folks were the ones with the pickaxes, and more than a quarter of a century ago.

Last but not least, we must give a nod to the poppest of pop culture, namely primetime U.S. television, for truly having the balls – at least pre-op – to tackle the transgender subject on a most memorable two-part episode of the series Medical Center. Laugh if you must, but think about it: it’s September 1975, and actor Robert Reed, just coming off his ultra-popular Brady Bunch stint, stars in the 7th season opener as a famous surgeon who scandalizes coworkers and family with his decision to undergo a sex-change operation. This is as mainstream a forum as it gets, and anybody who saw this pair of episodes, then or in reruns – and especially the stunning end shot as Reed, in full drag, walks away from the hospital – will never forget the genuine impact, however Hollywoodized, that it made. That’s breaking even more ground, kids, and it happened 27 years ago.

But enough quibbling. Even if it isn’t exactly revolutionary, Normal is thoughtful entertainment with the kind of fractious family dynamics that are so in vogue. Tell me again why anybody would want to have kids if they all grow up to hate you and think you’re horrible, let alone if you have an issue like wanting to change your sex? Include me out! I was also very impressed by Richard Bull’s portrayal of Roy’s elderly father, physically frail and dependent yet still brutal enough to sling some last fatherly derision at his only son. The scene where Roy finally visits his mother and father dressed as a woman is a marvel of familial devotion, inevitably sad endings, and the righting of wrongs. Bull hasn’t done much acting since he made TV history playing Mr. Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, and it was great to see him creating this authentic little gem of a portrayal. Clancy Brown also did a great job as Roy's boss and friend (and a bit more) to Irma.

But the main theme in Normal is the enduring and evolving relationship between Wilkinson’s Roy and Lange’s Irma, though it does stretch credibility a bit when she protests something to the effect that she’s not beautiful. Lange is and ever will be classically lovely, and it’s to her credit as an actress that an inescapably glamorous woman like herself can totally inhabit the Midwestern persona without a whiff of condescension or mockery. Wilkinson is, of course, utterly sympathetic and credible at all times. The chance to see these two in action is reason enough to watch; you won’t be disappointed.

Normal encores on HBO this Tuesday, 3/18 and throughout the month. Check the complete schedule for details. and the Normal website for more information about the film.