Oscar Snubs Part 2: Best Supporting Actress—Samantha Morton

09 Feb 2010, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in Awards, Film, Playground, 0 Comments

A small, independent film often has to choose what bait is best to dangle in front of Academy voters. Time and resources are slim and must be employed as efficiently as possible. Oscar campaigning is a reality—a reprehensible one sometimes, yes—but, as my preferred Oscar blogger Sasha Stone points out fairly often, winning an Oscar is “all about the story”. And there is no story without a campaign.

The Messenger, a quietly powerful but equally lost home-based Iraq war drama, did fairly well this Oscar season, but its strongest aspect went sorely overlooked. Samantha Morton plays Olivia Pitterson, a widowed, single mother who becomes romantically linked to the soldier who broke the news of her husband’s death. Morton can recite poetry with her eyes, emote heartbreak with a mere glance. When Olivia first hears the news of her husband’s death, she is uncannily calm and receptive. In a mostly silent scene in her kitchen, as Ben Foster’s Will does his best to woo her, Olivia heartbreakingly straddles her own emotional wall. Morton expresses the pain of this temptation perfectly, all while maintaing the scene’s palpable eroticism.

Morton, at least, has been nominated before, in 2000 for Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and in 2004 for Jim Sheridan’s magical, unforgettable In America. Perhaps her past success propelled the producers to put Woody Harrelson at the forefront of their campaign for his role as Captain Tony Stone. And they succeeded for Harrelson, and even picked up an Original Screenplay nod to boot.

At least Morton has deserving companions.  A Single Man’s breathtaking and boozy Julianne Moore, as well as the ravishing women of Inglourious Basterds Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger, all went nominee-less.

That’s not to say that the nominees weren’t well deserved. Up in the Air’s Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick played two of the most realistic, nuanced female roles of recently memory; Maggie Gyllenhaal more than held her own against Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart; and Mo’Nique gave the most shell-shocking performance of the year, one destined for Oscar history. (OK, fine Penelope Cruz’s fiery turn in Nine wasn’t all that necessary).

But don’t fret, Morton. No one realized it would be such a year for the supporting ladies.

Alum pens Brat Pack book

08 Feb 2010, Posted by Andrew Hibbard in Film, Literature, Playground, 0 Comments

Susannah Gora, a Duke alumna, former editor for Premiere and cousin of Joe Ashby Porter, is releasing a book about the Brat Pack. Titled You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation, the book was featured in today’s USA Today.

Gora’s book focuses on the work of John Hughes and the rise and fall of the group named by NY Mag, a dubbing she calls the “beginning of the end.”

It will be interesting to see what new info Gora has on the book, especially in light of John Hughes’ death last summer. But it should also be noted that Gora isn’t the only alum connected to the Brat Pack: see St. Elmo’s Fire screenwriter Carl Kurlander (though some might contest said film as tied to the Brat Pack given Hughes and teen queen Molly Ringwald were not involved in the project).

You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried is out tomorrow on Crown.

Oscar Snubs Part 1: Best Original Screenplay—(500) Days of Summer

08 Feb 2010, Posted by Kevin Lincoln in Awards, Film, Playground, 1 Comments

Every day this week, recess will be correcting the Academy with our own list of shouldabeen-nominees. These are films that, for whatever reasons—probably none of them good—were stiffed out of rightful recognition, and they deserve to be seen and appreciated in their own right. We’ll run through the major categories day-by-day, starting today with Best Original Screenplay.

Film: (500) Days of Summer

Courtesy of Music Meets Girl

Falling in love is hard on the knees. Steven Tyler sang it, He’s Just Not That Into You beat it over our heads with beautiful faces last February, and Valentine’s Day is here to do it again this year with twice the Botox and Taylor Swift. But a film like 500 Days of Summer didn’t need a hot mess of intertwining faux-lationships to send the message. It had the power of pure emotion and an utterly seamless script.

Co-writer Scott Neustadter teamed up with Michael H. Weber to unchronologically chronicle Neustadter’s real-life disenchantment with love. Neustadter had had his heart broken by “the one,” and like the majority of the planet, he thought he was the first. Lucky for him, friend and intern Weber was intrigued by his ill fortune and encouraged Neustadter to channel his heartache into a screenplay.

The skeleton is a boy-meets-girl story. The boy is Tom Hansen  (Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing piteous to perfection) and the girl is Summer Finn (an irresistibly icy Zooey Deschanel.) Tom tries not to fall in love with Summer, who isn’t looking for anything serious, fails, and has his take on love tweaked. And there is no way the Oscar is going to…

What sets this rom-com apart is its patchwork exploration of the fantastical journey of love. As the title notes, we watch Tom and Summer through the 500 days it takes them to meet, date and fall victim to fate. But invested with the power of time, Neustadter and Weber take advantage of this creative privilege, letting the script leap from day four to 58, in a fashion that invigorates the milestones in a relationship. An unforgettable instance is when a love-drunk Tom skips down the street to Hall & Oates “You Make My Dreams” as a cartoon bluebird lands on his shoulder and a marching band trumpets behind him. This sequence is immediately cut with a disconsolate Tom, who has hit rock bottom post-Summer. This temporal conceit renders the boy/girl blueprint airtight and exhilarating.

With ten slots to fill, this diamond-in-the-rough rom-com deserved a Best Picture nomination and was completely robbed in the Original Screenplay category. Yes, war stories are relevant, and Pixar is Uplifting, but 500 Days was the refreshing breath of modern romance its tired genre needed. Either way, I’ll still be keeping my fingers crossed for Quentin.  The only thing better than a good love story is a Bear-Jew.

—Emily Ackerman

Male seeking female? Go west (to UNC), young man.

08 Feb 2010, Posted by Eugene Wang in Culture, Durham, Playground, 0 Comments

When Beyonce wrote her Grammy-winning single “Single Ladies,” she probably didn’t produce it with Chapel Hill in mind.

But according to The New York Times, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a dating scene that has become difficult for all those ladies who put their hands up when Beyonce asks them to in the song’s characteristic hook. With an approximately 60 percent female student body, UNC’s social scene skews female and gives many single men looking for love a distinct advantage.

This trend toward more women than men in college is not restricted to UNC. In 2000, women comprised 57 percent of college enrollment, according to data from the American Council on Eduction. Although large public universities have had majority-female student bodies – aside from UNC, the article states that large public universities like California, Florida and Georgia skew toward the fairer sex – some private schools like New York University also have more women.

According to the Times, Stephen Farmer, UNC director of undergraduate admissions, attributes UNC’s gender imbalance to the university’s lack of an engineering school, which disproportionately attracts male students.

But such a gender imbalance is not present at some top schools, including Duke. In fact, Duke’s undergraduate population has fairly equal numbers of men and women – if anything the population skews slightly male. Such parity in the male-female ratio is also more common among Ivy League schools, the article states.

Toro Y Moi to play Coffeehouse tonight

05 Feb 2010, Posted by Andrew Hibbard in Music, Playground, 1 Comments

Toro Y Moi, whose much anticipated Causers of This was released Tuesday on Car Park Records, will play the Duke Coffeehouse tonight. We did this interview with TYM’s Chaz Bundick, who has some ties to Duke and the Triangle, in October, prior to his opening slot with Islands and Jemina Pearl.

Obviously, things have changed a bit since then. But check out the interview and the show with Dogbite.

Doors are at 9, the show is at 9:30 and tickets are $5.