exhilarating and terrifying

danny boyle's 127 hours. cannot. wait.

"We need some delusions to keep us going."

"And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can’t."

despite what some feel are questionable choices in his personal life, woody allen remains one of my heroes. a couple of weeks ago i had what felt like the quintessential new york experience: watching allen's manhattan on a big outdoor screen in central park with about 200 other new yorkers. sitting on the lawn, eating cold fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies, watching isaac davis tromp around to places in the city that have become familiar to me (including the now-gutted metro theatre, just a few blocks from my home.)

we've been on a kick lately: manhattan, purple rose of cairo, bananas, hannah and her sisters. somehow, over time, i forget how great some of them are (especially hannah and cairo.)

allen's newest, you will meet a tall dark stranger, opens next wednesday. in today's times, he talks with dave itzkoff about the film, the concept of faith, and the aging process – "i'm against it."

the movie you don't want to be good

you can't possibly be excited to see a movie about facebook, can you? no, you can't be. no, stop. you can't be. but you should be, says rolling stone's peter travers:

This is the first film I've seen so far in 2010 that deserves my highest rating, 4 stars. It's better than the movie of the year. The Social Network also defines the decade.

How so?

Director David Fincher, working brilliantly from a dazzlingly complex script by Aaron Sorkin, uses the rise and rise of Facebook to examine a generation that can't communicate despite its obsession with social networking.

The performances are award caliber, led by Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who conceived the idea as a Harvard student. The squabbling between Zuckerberg and his friends who want a piece of the site, including Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield is outstanding) and Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, an acting revelation), makes for a fierce and funny powerhouse, a modern Rashomon that will pin you to your seat.

the social network arrives in theatres october 1st. the trailer is below.

skip the movie, read the review

please. save yourself 146 minutes, read lindy west's review of "sex and the city 2," and be done with it.

leave oz alone.

aren't movies like this always a bad idea?

the king of cool

never before seen images from a 1963 photo shoot with steve mcqueen.

as good today as it's always been

roger ebert calls this new television ad for the uk's hovis bread "simply a great two-minute film, even if it is a commercial."

thinking...thinking...

i guess only barbra streisand knows what barbra streisand might have said had kathryn bigelow not won the best director oscar.

the oscar's "kanye moment"

the strangest moment of the night, besides that opening number.

why my oscar picks (and the oscars) sucked

i didn't go with my gut. my gut said hurt locker and kathryn bigelow. always listen to your gut.

gripes about the show:

a) marc shaiman, everyone knows you can pull a mediocre showtune out of your ass in, like, 5 minutes. but usually they don't stink as bad as this one did.

b) charming and out-of-the-closet as he is, we've all seen neil patrick harris not able to sing very well more than enough times to realize he really cannot sing very well.

and

c) while some of the moves in that bizarre best original score dance-a-thon were amazing, it told us absolutely nothing about either moviemaking or the nominees.

this was one of the first times in my life i watched the oscars and thought, "ugh, what a bunch of self-important jerk-offs." and in all honesty, i don't really think many of those people are self-important jerk-offs. in fact, i know some of them aren't.

but then, thankfully, there was sandra bullock, whose grace and humor at first made me tear up a bit, and then made me laugh out loud for a good minute and a half. if her performance in the blind side is as good as her acceptance speech, she deserved that oscar.

tuesdays' oscar picks

my hastily thrown together oscar picks, should wins and will wins. my best actress, best actor and best picture choices are somewhat handicapped because i have yet to see the blind side, the last station, invictus or up. if i had to pick best actress from the other nominees i'd choose gabby sidibe. along that line, i'd be happy for any precious or inglourious basterds win, but ultimately i think the hurt locker is a better film.

jeff bridges was great in crazy heart, as was christoph waltz in inglourious basterds. and any other year i might have given a supporting actress award to maggie gyllenhaal in crazy heart, but there was nothing, and i mean nothing like mo'nique in precious – this year or many other years for that matter. if you haven't seen it, you're really missing an amazing performance.

PICTURE:

should win - the hurt locker
will will - avatar

ACTOR:

should and will win - jeff bridges

ACTRESS:

will win - sandra bullock

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

should and will win - christoph waltz

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

should and will win - mo'nique

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

should and will win - inglourious basterds

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

should and will win - jason reitman / up in the air

DIRECTOR:

should win - kathryn bigelow
will win - james cameron

it's roger ebert day

first, read this:

Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can't remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn't happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn't as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz's ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren't they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

then, follow this. finally, watch this:

and the oscar (hopefully) goes to...

i've now seen nearly every acadamy award best picture nominee (still up and the blind side to go.) i'm hoping once i do we can have a great discussion of who should win.

the season's biggest snub

roger ebert says there is one major "criminal omission" from this year's list of oscar nominees.

when fate hands you a lemmon

born in an elevator, his father the president of a doughnut company, he once said, "I won't quit until I get run over by a truck, a producer or a critic."

jack lemmon died in 2001. he would have been 85 today.

a win for the basterds

"You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin'."

seven times in the last 14 years, the film that's won the screen actor's guild award for best film ensemble has gone on to win the oscar for best picture.

last night that award went to "inglourious basterds".

the cast of "basterds" dedicated their award to the film's director quentin tarantino:

“A year ago we all sat down in Berlin and we read through the script ...and we saw that Quentin had pulled together actors from Ireland and from Austria and from France, and from Newton, Massachusetts, and from Germany and from New York, and from the Fangoria Convention... and pulled together such a wonderful, wonderful cast. We all felt it was really something special. So, it was an honor to be a part of it, Quentin.

For every actor out there, we just want you to know that whether you are Brad Pitt, one of the biggest stars in the world, or someone who has never acted in a motion picture, your vote is a vote for director Quentin Tarantino, who, if he feels you are right for the part, he will give it to you.

And, Quentin, your belief in us lets us rise to the occasion and brings out the best in all of us. It was an honor to be a part of this. We love you.”

one of the worst ideas ever

if this turns out to be funny, i'll spit.

and the oscar goes to...

...inglourious basterds?

the l.a. times' tom o'neill:

Breaking with recent tradition, a weighted ballot will be used to pick the winner this year. Thus, pundits must size up this race in new ways. I don't think "Basterds" would win under the old system, but I think it's the fave under this new one that offers 10 alternatives, thus widely splitting votes, giving the edge to the film with the most consensus support.

avatar? sci-fi rarely wins, says o'niell. the hurt locker? no stars. precious? too gritty. up in the air? not enough gravitas. (last year o'neill correctly predicted 21 of the 24 oscar races.)

that leaves tarrantino, pitt, and a bunch of nazi-killing basterds to take home gold on oscar night.

grey matter

the hbo film grey gardens premiered tonight. it stars jessica lange and drew barrymore as big edie and little edie bouvier beale, the aunt and first cousin of jacqueline bouvier kennedy onassis, who ended up living in squalor and isolation in an 14-room mansion in east hampton, ny.

jessica lange has always been on the top of my list (something i was lucky enough to tell her in person a few years back, as she was nuzzling my dog reggie, in salt lake city, utah.) from francis to men don't leave to rob roy to big fish, i think she's one of the best there is. and in this film she is nothing short of remarkable.

which is why no one is more surprised than me to say i could not take my eyes off of drew barrymore.

hbo's grey gardens runs until may 29, and is available on demand as of monday – don't miss it. and put the original 1975 albert and david maysles documentary in your netflix cue a.s.a.p. or get it from the tuesdays amazon store.

sasha is fierce

another two hours of being incredibly uncomfortable, coming in july: