Attention Academy voters: Wedged into your mailbox this weekend, behind delayed greeting cards and year-end charity appeals, is your ballot for the 78th annual Academy Awards nominations.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (do you really want your accounting and tabulation done by a firm that doesn't believe in the space bar?) today dispatched precisely addressed and numbered (and probably self-destructing) ballots to 5,798 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Voters will be weighing in on 311 features that have been declared eligible for Best Picture. 311! That's a 16.5 percent increase from 2004 and the first time in 32 years that the field has surpassed 300, for those of you not with PricewaterhouseCoopers who are keeping track of such details.
Academy officials attribute the jump to an upsurge in feature-length documentaries getting theatrical distribution -- for which documentarians should face Flint, Mich., and bow to Michael Moore -- and corporate reorganizations that led to the release of a large number of long-delayed films.
Whatever the reason, that's a whole lot of films to view before ballots are due Jan. 21. And that's 306 teams of filmmakers who will be out of the crown race when nominations are announced Jan. 31.

Posted by Valerie Kuklenski at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Queen Latifah -- former host of The Independent Spirit Awards, celebrating cutting-edge, low-budget filmmaking (not to mention, although I'm about to, a former Grammy host) and onetime political firebrand -- is now the spokeswoman for big-box discounters Wal-Mart, whose public-relations woes are fairly well documented at this point (which is why Inglewood voted a while back to keep it out). In one spot, she fairly bullies a "friend" into using the Wal-Mart gift-card she gave said friend to buy one of her crummy movies on DVD (probably "Taxi," though I must confess to not paying great gobs of attention to TV commercials). Now that's the Independent Spirit. Wal-Mart declines to sell even mainstream books, DVDs and CDs it deems controversial. Wonder how many Independent Spirit winners (not to mention nominees) are available in Wal-Mart's DVD bins?

Posted by David Kronke at 1:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom O'Neil is the guy who almost single-handedly transformed awards season from a glowing consideration of artistic merit into nothing more than a crass horserace, sort of the way network news steamrollered issues in favor of mere polling during Presidential elections (O’Neil was ably assisted by the folks at the Golden Globes, though). His breathless website (camping over on the competition’s bandwidth) virtually hyperventilates after each and every screening he attends, and he handicaps all the major races again and again, after every little twitch that signifies a potential sea change, and then he thoughtfully spams you with his impressive insights -- I wonder, even if you're not in or covering the entertainment industry, does he track down your Email and send his every prediction to you, too? Anyway, congrats to Tom for a sterling array of predictions this year -- he's guaranteed to be right somewhere, because by my (admittedly addled at this point) estimations, he's predicted that practically every film will win some award. Another guy who's annoying like this is Roger Ebert (whose 2005 Top-10 list features, no fooling, a whopping SIXTY-THREE MOVIES, one of which he calls “one of the most delightful films EVER MADE� and yet it’s not even in his Top, Top-10). Ebert trolls the red carpet on Oscar night and tells anyone he can get within spittle-flinging distance of that he KNEW the very SECOND he saw their film that they would get nominated. (Pretty safe bet to mention it at that point, no?) His Channel-7 red-carpet co-hort, George Puppethead or whatever his name might be, is even worse, his tiny little over-caffeinated noggin unfettered by any actual useful knowledge about film history or aesthetics. Others who cover awards season at least admit they’re there simply for the glamour and the gowns – these three pretend they’re bringing hefty discourse to the proceedings, but all they’re really doing is perpetuating the giddy idiocy.

See Ebert’s Top-63 list:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/COMMENTARY/512180302

Posted by David Kronke at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There was a short-lived TV series a few years back called "City of Angels," about an inner-city hospital. As such, the show was far more earnest than it needed to be (and, given the talent assembled -- Paris Barclay was an EP, as, I believe, was Steven Bochco, and Blair Underwood starred -- it wasn't quite good enough) -- apparently on TV if you have a predominantly white hospital like on "House" you can just mouth off all day long but if your hospital is in the inner-city you have to be all serious. Except for this one episode -- this one scene, really -- in which a guy is admitted to the hospital and he has something stuck where the sun refuses to shine and it just happens to be his Golden Globe and someone cracks, "Good a place as any for it."

You will be unsurprised to hear that "City of Angels" received zero Golden Globe nominations during its brief run on CBS.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No sooner do I kvetch about one overpraised movie ("A History of Violence," below) than another comes along -- Woody Allen's "Match Point," or, as I like to call it, "Woody Allen Thinks About Scarlett Johansson in That Way -- Ewww."

"Match Point's" OK if minor, the sort of thing over which a non-auteur wouldn't get nearly as praised. Johansson does clingy-crazy just fine, and Emily Mortimer does cutesy/unexamined-life exquisitely.

But the movie gets awfully expository toward the end (spoilers forthcoming, in this very sentence, in fact), as if Woody just got too tired to be anything but obvious -- one speech by a cop investigating the murder actually goes, I believe, "I certainly would like to investigate this crime further, but to do so would require some effort and might possibly inconvenience the very people who might actually be guilty of this crime. What a quandary!"

And here's a question someone might be able to clarify for me (contingent upon, yes, another major spoiler):

Scarlett's character was allegedly pregnant when she was murdered. Yet there's apparently no mention of this in her diary, though there's other evidence damaging to prickly young Mr. Rhys-Myers. And the police don't say anything about it when it seems an autopsy might bring it to light and further point the finger at prickly young Mr. Rhys-Myers. Which means: A) Scarlett lied to prickly young Mr. Rhys-Myers, and he cared so little he didn't even reflect on it afterwards, or B) Woody and everyone else just forgot that plot thread and let it drop. Sloppy, sloppy.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time was, the Razzies were the only "worst of" list jumping on the awards season bandwagon in any notable fashion. Now you can't turn around without getting blindsided by newfangled institutions such as The Notable People of 2005 That Miu von Furstenberg Would Love To Bitch Slap and the Biggest Turkeys of 2005. The latter trophy-fest, drummed up by LoveFilm (England's answer to Netflix), bestows gobbles upon "XXX2: Another Level," "Fantastic Four" and "Dukes of Hazzard." Blockbusters weren't the only targets; Indies "Revolver," Ma Mere" and "Crash" were also raked over the (roasting) coals.

One of the cluckers clunkers from the list. Don't you just love leftovers?

Posted by at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I generally get where critics are coming from, even if I disagree with their assessments. But there was one movie this year whose reviews still having me scratching my head, and now that it's figuring into the Awards picture, I'll let my lone-voice-in-the-wilderness (or my revealing-my-ignorance) riff out into the ether and see if anyone else agrees or can at least explain what I apparently missed. The movie: David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," AKA "A History in Which the 62-Year-Old Auteur Proves He's All Grown Up Because He Doesn't Display Any Disfigured Sexual Organs For Once, but He Does Display William Hurt, Which Arguably is Worse."

The movie opens with these two really wicked evil bad guys who just kind of kill people because that's their gig. They wind up in a small Indiana town where Viggo Mortensen runs a kindly diner -- it has even installed a couple sharing a sundae for what seems in perpetuity. The people-killers are nonetheless unmoved, ready to go all Tarantino in the diner -- again, that's just how they roll -- but Viggo goes pre-emptively Jedi-Knight on them and their larynxes are left all over the floor. Can't say they didn't have it coming.

So, he's a local hero, but before something like this would've seemed to have had the chance to enter the national news cycle (and then, only on a minor level), Ed Harris comes tooling into town, having driven from Pennsylvania to small-town Indiana curious to have a word with Viggo (maybe Ed read about it on what our leaders call the Internets; maybe that's how Ed spends all his time, but looking at him, I'm guessing not). (Maybe this is being picky, but if Cronenberg's going into gritty realism mode, I'm going to wear my gritty realism cap while watching.)

So Ed's enjoying making everyone at the diner really uncomfortable by suggesting that Viggo is someone other than who he says he is -- specifically, a Phillie gangsta that, back in the day, transformed Ed Harris's mug into the Picasso it is today. Viggo, laconic with everything but his fists, drawls that he don't know what Ed Harris is talkin' about. This nonetheless piques the curiosity of Viggo's wife, Maria Bello, who it's been established got married later than most small-town Hoosiers do.

Ed messes with Viggo & family's minds a little longer -- at one point, Viggo sees Ed's limo shimmy through town and then runs all the way to his home. (We don't know how far it is, but we know it's far enough that running was kind of a dumb, movie-style thing to do rather than just hopping in his truck and high-tailing it on home.) The mind games Ed's playing with Viggo would be really intimidating -- if Viggo weren't who Ed says he is -- but, let's face it (SPOILER ALERT RIGHT NOW!), there's no way that's how this thing is going to shake out. Viggo's a guy with secrets, that should be apparent to everyone. So Ed really shouldn't be doing this cock-of-the-walk act, especially since he knows just what happened to the last guys who tried to get rough with Viggo.

And then comes the scene where Ed REALLY shouldn't have been doing the cock-of-the-walk act, and there are bodies everywhere, and more larynxes displaced, and even Viggo's wussy son has taken a guy out. And here, apparently, comes the movie's big statement about violence begetting violence or somehow, inside we're all just feral weasles just itching to tear each other up or something: Viggo's wussy son gives what-for to a longtime bully; Viggo and Bello get all hot and bothered on the staircase.

(Aside: There's just some intrinsic quality about Viggo and Bello that, you don't even have to be in the room with them, you can just see it (or sniff it) on screen, but you get the sense that, well, their approach to hygiene may be, shall-we-say, European. So their sex scenes together have a certain, um, pungency to them that gets you to worrying about how the crew members shot them without air filters.)

So anyway, Viggo's got to go resolve something (and you've probably figured out what that means in this movie) with his big-time Phillie mobster brother, who is played by William Hurt. About 15 years ago, I came up with a William Hurt impression: It basically involves lifting your head up off your shoulders and letting it fly back, as if it were suddenly unmoored from the laws of gravity. Raised eyebrows, dully popping eyes and muttering accompany the gesture. I haven't really had to alter this impression in the years since. So Viggo's visiting brother Bill and they've got issues and suddenly, this grim little meditation on the enduring legacy of violence has become this Grand Guignol comedy with Hurt overacting as if he's getting paid by the gesture. And while I was grateful the film had sort of slipped out of self-important mode, I was equally distressed to watch it slip into pulpy, self-parody mode. Tonal shifts in movies are preciously tricky things, and this one just made me laugh and not in what I felt was a good way.

More mayhem, and then Viggo goes home. And the whole family has adopted that laconic thing. The end.

Like I said, I don't know exactly what I missed, or maybe people took the whole legacy-of-larynx-ripping thing more seriously than I did, or maybe it's just that Cronenberg's an auteur, dammit, so critics like his movies. (OK, if it's that, I get it. I've been guilty of that in the past.) I'm not saying the film's bad (although I kinda thought it was), just that the praise was way out of line with its virtues.

So prove me wrong.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new book posits that there are about 9,000 movie awards given out in a given year. That’s more than the number of actual movies that come out, according to The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards and the Circulation of Cultural Value, by James English. The exponential growth in kudo-fests began in the 1970s and continues unabated, he writes, and there’s an intriguing paradox to it all. New Yorker critic Louis Menaud says in a review of the book that scandals over who gets awarded what, and brouhaha over whether the awards mean anything in the first place actually underscore the importance of such institutions:

His theory is that when people make these objections they are helping to sustain a collective belief that true art has nothing to do with things like politics, money, in-group tastes, and beating out the other guy. As long as we want to believe that creative achievement is special, that a work of art is not just one more commodity seeking to aggrandize itself in the marketplace at the expense of other works of art, we need prizes so that we can complain about how stupid they are.

The entertainment industry is certainly satisfying that need.

Posted by at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why do you suppose studios campaign hopelessly for yet bury small films in the middle of awards season? Yes, one imagines it’s to stoke the egos of the films’ participants, but by all but ensuring that these movies never emerge out from under an avalanche of other bigger-noisier-often-crummier movies, you’d think those egos would be pulverized under all that detritus by the idea of their work not being seen by anyone. I’m thinking specifically of a handful of films that were allowed to die in limited release, never given even the chance to strike out with a larger audience: ``Shopgirl,’’ ``Bee Season’’ and ``The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.’’ I’m not saying any of these films are particularly accomplished – I’m suggesting they’re probably not good enough to earn significant awards support but good enough to find larger audiences than they were allowed to. I wonder at what point did the studios behind these movies decide/realize they were going to dump these things, that they weren’t really even going to try to find them audiences?

Of the three, ``Shopgirl’’ got the biggest push. But it never opened wide, which is puzzling – why not open a Steve Martin movie wide? Particularly one based on a Steve Martin bestseller? By the time filmgoers realize this is a more understated film than they might’ve expected from the guy who’s spending much of his time appearing in junk franchises like ``Cheaper by the Dozen,’’ the film would’ve basically made its money back.

``Bee Season’’ was also a bestseller, and stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, who have been in films that have figured in year-end awards in the past, even scoring a nomination or minor win themselves (anything other than an Oscar I’m calling minor – sorry, but you know that’s everyone’s Grail, not a Globe). But again, a quiet movie, a dithering limited run and a box office of less than $2 million. ``Prize Winner’’ – which was also based on a bestseller, and starred Julianne Moore, who likewise gets nominated for much of her recent work – fared even worse, dropping from sight before it made even half a million. Meaning that it was probably seen by fewer people in the whole country than who live in your neighborhood. That’s just sloppy, or lazy, or stupid. The executives knew when they greenlit these things that they didn't have any car chases or shoot-outs, so why did they make them if only to dump them? To punish people with aspirations more precious than crass commercialism?

When actors of this caliber put effort into a project, why can’t the marketing department respond in kind? Wouldn’t it make sense to forgo awards hopes for such movies and give them wider releases in the spring, before the onslaught of summer tentpole junk? If they can market Vin Diesel to teenagers, why can’t they market Julianne Moore to adults?

And by the way, do you think Usher cares that no one cared about his pop-junk film ``In the Mix?’’ See, you’ve forgotten it already: It came out less than a month ago, and got a bigger push than any of the aforementioned movies. Do people working long hours on these things really accept the notion that their efforts are that dispensable? Just asking.

Posted by David Kronke at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So now they're going to have an Emmy for material you can watch on your phone. Which means some bit of flash animation a kid cooks up in his bedroom could share televsion's most prestigious award alongside David Chase or Steven Bochco. This democracy-in-action is all very nice, but what's next? A Grammy for Outstanding Ring Tone? A Writers Guild award for best idea cooked up in someone's head but never subsequently pursued?

How about the Phone Awards? Category: Best Use of Phone. The nominees are: Calling up a busy spouse when you're stuck in traffic and bored; Alerting the authorities about a serious accident; B.S.ing with your friends in the mall; Watching stupid little ads for stupid little products; Alerting Triple A about a serious accident. Triple A and the authorities cancel each other out, as do the actual phone calls, so, ladies and gentlemen, 2006's Best Use of Phone: Watching Stupid Little Ads.

Don't the Emmys have enough categories as it is? Is it possible that some form of human endeavor be conducted without the spectre of awards looming over it?

BTW, they give out awards for blogs. I'm sure THIS is the entry -- insightful, pithy, blinkered and reactionary! -- that'll win me my lightly laminated certificate.

Posted by David Kronke at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Syriana" is an urgent movie about highly charged subject matter unafraid of challenging its viewers, but who wants to bet that the DVD will feature "Bonus Extra: The Entire Actual Film That Fills In All Those Things You Were Unclear On During Your First (or Second, or Third) Viewings"?

Posted by David Kronke at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Brokeback Mountain" is undeniably a beautiful film whose laconicism somehow makes its love story all the more affecting. What I wonder about is how the seemingly endless parade of stories (Frank Rich weighed in nicely today in The New York Times) about whether the allegedly close-minded heartland will open up enough to make this a hit and/or its significance as an artistic and cultural bellwether might not be obfuscating to those who have yet to see it. "Brokeback" has become an "important" film, when, in fact, every bone in its metaphorical body strains against that very thing.

All it is, is a really nice film -- which is not meant to be demeaning; produce a half-dozen more films this "really nice" a year and our culture would be infinitely richer -- but "Brokeback" has no agenda; it doesn't want to instruct viewers the way a lot of the pundits commenting on it do. For that, you'd have to see "Philadelphia," in which Tom Hanks has a couple of those Really Big Scenes That Explain It All For You. Those behind "Brokeback" have moved so far beyond that whole gays-are-people-too trope that I suspect merely bringing it up and talking about "acceptance" on the behalves of filmgoers or Americans in general may be a little embarrassing to them. Most of those who the media has found to criticize the film are people who otherwise wouldn't be allowed to voice their opinions in sane public forums.

The fact that "Brokeback Mountain" is being hailed as "ground-breaking" says more about the country and the eager-for-controversy media than it does about the film.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

American awards-showering bodies have so far overlooked "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," the darkly comic, exquisitely shot, modern Western morality tale starring and directed by Tommy Lee Jones.
But the French, as they often do before us, got it back in May, when Jones won the best actor prize and Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga ("21 Grams") took screenplay honors at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jones, who plays a Texas ranch foreman determined to return his illegal best friend's corpse to his south-of-the-border homeland, says that he not only got to direct himself to an award-winning performance, but helped create his character from scratch.
"I knew the role very well before we started shooting because I'd spent two years creating it with Arriaga," the "Fugitive" Oscar-winner says. "Sometimes actors get two weeks to prepare a role, sometimes a month. So it was a real advantage for me to have two years."
An Acadeny Awards-qualifying run of "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" plays at the ArcLight Hollywood and Pacific's Galleria Stadium 16 in Sherman Oaks through Tuesday, December 20.

Posted by Bob Strauss at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

His Golden Globe nomination secure, "My Name is Earl" star Jason Lee was at work in the SFV Friday outside a car wash at the corner of Reseda boulevard and Saticoy.

Home Plate Burgers -- former home of the foot long doggie -- had been ignominiously redecked out as Winky Dinky Dogs. And yet another 'dog vendor, Pops Weiners had been erected...er...inflated, a few feet away from HPB/WDD. Reseda-ens, myself among them, stood across the street in front of Dennys and watched as Lee was filmed handing out a bunch of fliers.

Not sure as of this writing what the plot of the upcoming "Earl" episode concerned. "Basically, it's about a hot dog stand," a production assistant informed me, adding he wasn't authorized to divulge anything further.

"It's about a hot dog stand."

Duh!

Posted by at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's an old saw that comedies and comic actors tend to get short shrift when it comes to awards, but with this year's Golden Globes nominees, comedies and comic performers can't even get nominated in their own categories.

OK, there's "The Producers" and "Mrs. Henderson Presents," which are at least supposed to be funny. "Walk the Line" qualifies in someone's mind as a musical because it's about Johnny Cash, but it strikes me as standard-issue docudrama and there aren't many laughs in it. Many were surprised that the dark family saga "The Squid and the Whale" was nominated in this category. And "Pride and Prejudice," while filled with crisp, witty lines, seems too elegant to call a comedy. And many of the nominees in the comedy/musical acting categories didn't exactly give what you'd call comic performances.

What's up here? Really funny comedies are desperately few and far between, and this year, we had two that were not only genuinely hilarious, but were massive hits besides (another rarity for comedies): "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Isn't the measure of a comedy how much it makes you laugh, not whether it has elegant costumes or Oscar-calibre actors? Shouldn't that be the same measure when nominating films and actors for comedy awards?

And it seems to me that one of the most inventive acting jobs of the year -- which just happened to entail some inspired comedy -- was Isla Fisher's work as Vince Vaughn's restraining-order-waiting-to-happen in "Wedding Crashers." It's probably heresy to say it, but I'd put the commitment and imagination Fisher brought to that role up against Michelle Williams' performance in "Brokeback Mountain" any day. Vaughn was no doubt funnier than anyone else in the acting category, and if you want to talk suffering for your art, look no further than Steve Carrell, who subjected himself to a chest waxing in "40-Year-Old Virgin." So what DOES define excellence in a comedy performance, anyway?

Posted by David Kronke at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the most interminable awards ceremonies I ever had to sit (slump, lie down) through – and trust me, this is saying something – was the Writers Guild Awards, which is curious, since you’d think a group of writers just might be able to cook up a clever evening of breezy repartee and bon mots. What was most astounding about this event was its sheer, exhausting length, longer than any Oscar show (at the time, anyway) – and they didn’t even give out that many awards.

Part of the problem, as I recall, is that they, wishing to give as many otherwise uncelebrated folks a moment in the sun as possible, read the names of everyone nominated in every category, and in the case of afternoon soap operas (yeah, they actually reward that kind of writing; I think the actual category title is Best of the Worst), that number can run into the hundreds. Well, dozens. (Maybe they didn’t literally read every name. But all 30 winners gave acceptance speeches, or that’s the way it seemed.)

At any rate, you get the idea: An evening waaay too long for what it accomplishes. So imagine my delight to hear that the WGA has actually added three more categories.

The new categories honor individual episodes in the drama and comedy genres, as well as the best new series, comedy or drama, to have debuted in the past year (this is a great category, because it pits the sweet bumpkin antics of “My Name is Earl� against the chilly, decadent hauteur of “Rome� – that’s not just apples and oranges, that’s apples and Buicks).
“Earl� helped NBC – as poorly as it’s doing in the ratings this year – to an impressive showing in the WGA Awards. Both it and NBC’s “The Office� will compete against one another in the the Comedy Series, New Series and Episodic Comedy categories. No other shows earned as many nominations. “Grey’s Anatomy,� the dearly departed “Six Feet Under� and the likely-to-soon-depart “West Wing� all received two nominations.

In a general sense, the nominees’ list is a staid, usual-suspects assortment, a group you might expect out of really hip grandparents. “West Wing� still? Really? There’s not much cutting-edge TV being honored here, which is odd, because the writing categories at the Oscars or Emmys are generally the ones acknowledging the most progressive work.

There’s a vague sense that the voters watch nothing but the broadcast networks and HBO – there’s only an occasional bone tossed to Showtime or FX, the latter of which is criminally underrepresented here (as, it must be pointed out, it was at the Emmys and the Golden Globes, as well, but then, it took HBO years to earn trophy love from the assorted groups, too). Comedy Central is completely snubbed.

Nominee laziness reaches its apotheosis in the animation category, where apparently voters only watch “Simpsons� episodes (six nominations, zilch for everything else). And if you have a category where the only nominees are other awards shows – and even then, there are only two – perhaps you needn’t be giving out that award in the first place. (I’m looking at you, Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials, a category so lame even its name is clunkily awkward.)

The other thing I remember about the WGA ceremony is the faint undercurrent of self-pity in the jokes and short films – these guys may be fabulously well-paid, but they just can’t get over the fact that they don’t get the respect they think they merit from the rest of the industry. But if this is how they opt to honor themselves, feting a bland hodgepodge shows ranging from inspired to merely competent and ignoring more deserving work, perhaps they get all the respect they deserve.

Posted by David Kronke at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most years, the Golden Globes are all about allowing members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to rub elbows with the likes of Eva Longoria or Madonna or whoever the It Girl of the moment may be. This year, the HFPA -- representing publications in all the foreign countries that currently fear or loathe America -- is all about sending us Americans a stern political message. Or two, or three.

A timid press refuses to challenge the President before going to war in Iraq? Here's "Good Night, and Good Luck.", which reminds us of a time when the media had a set of cajones and confronted bullying politicians, receiving four Globe nominations.

Red states vote down gay marriage in a display of homophobia disguised as piety? "Brokeback Mountain," a gay love story, leads all comers with seven nominations, and other actors playing characters whose sexual preferences would be frowned upon by the religious right -- Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote," Felicity Huffman in "Transamerica," Cillian Murphy in "Breakfast on Pluto" (Johnny Depp in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?") -- also receive nominations.

American exploitation of and addiction to overseas oil sources and the ties to terrorism? "Syriana" earns a couple of nods.

Pharmaceutical corporations run amok with little regulation, coupled with global complacence toward Africa's dire plight? "The Constant Gardener" gets three nominations. (Yes, the bad guys in this are actualy British, but do those phenomena not sound like part of the American landscape, as well?)

Prudity, as exemplified by the FCC's draconian fines over Janet Jackson, and ongoing Senate hand-wringing about cable-TV naughtiness (which is actually outside the purview of the FCC)? Honor "Mrs. Henderson Presents," about a nude revue run by the sort of woman who is supposed to be scandalized by this sort of thing.

Spoiled, neurotic American blondes seducing then pestering uptight Brits? "Match Point" -- OK, forget that one.

Even the relative snub of Steven Spielberg's "Munich," which was projected to dominate year-end awards talk, could be seen as a repudiation of its politics (or lack of same?).

Apparently, our political situation has grown so desperate that even our bubble-headed, glamour-first awards spectacles are getting serious. If the Hollywood Foreign Press is getting concerned, maybe we should be, too.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm also thinking, "How very ironic."

Because if this were the other coast and you had that distintive voiced, occasionally chubby actor up for any award, the competition wouldn't have a chance. Lane'd take Depp, Pacino, De Niro, whoever to the cleaners.

Where stage comedy is concerned, Nathan Lane is basically Tom Cruise. The guy agrees to perform in a show, and that show sells out. "The Producers?" Just try to get a ticket. A revival of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple?" Break out the AmEx, and ready the second mortgage, Irma, we're going in.

Whatever else it achieves, the film version of "The Producers" gives everybody who missed Lane's much ballyhooed turn as Max Bialystock on Broadway (myself among them) a chance to see what all that fuss was about. Asked what Lane _ afforded his first real leading role star turn on film _ delivers, "Producers" director Susan Stroman replied, "He lets you see so many different dimensions of Max. Because of the closeup, you'll be able to see not only the passion of Max Bialystock, but also some of his vulnerability later in the film."

Yeah, I guess Timon the meercat of Disney's "The Lion King" wasnt' much in the vulnerability department. But I digress...

Fellow stagehounds will recall that we did get the stage "Producers" here in 2003, for eight highly hyped and largely underwhelming months. That production's Bialy was former "Seinfeld-ian" Jason Alexander, who, during Bialystock's showstopper "Betrayed" poked fun at himself: "He's OK. He's no Nathan Lane..."

Lane's performed live on our shores as well, although you'll have to go back more than a decade to find when. He was in the Mark Taper Forum productions of Terrence McNally's plays "The Lisbon Traviata" (in 1990) and "Lips Together, Teeth Apart" (1993). Both productions were staged before Nathan Lane became BROADWAY'S OWN NATHAN LANE. Were he ever to come back to perform live, tickets would be scarce because L.A. theater audiences tend to go ape over 1. movie stars going legit and 2. performers and shows who have already scored on Broadway. And if you don't believe me, try to get a decent seat for Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays" next month at the Wilshire.

And while it would make for a nice upset win to see a not so tall, non romantic 49-year-old comic actor from Jersey beat out the former James Bond, Depp et al, something tells me it ain't gonna happen.

My money _ sorry Bialy _ is on Jeff Daniels.

Posted by at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

10. "Your saddle is Versace."
9. "Instead of 'Home On The Range', you sing 'It's Raining Men.'"
8. "You enjoy ridin', ropin', and redecoratin.'"
7. "Sold your livestock to buy tickets to 'Mamma Mia.'"
6. "After watching reruns of 'Gunsmoke', you have to take a cold shower."
5. "Native Americans refer to you as 'Dances With Men.'"
4. "You've been lassoed more times than most steers."
3. "You're wearing chaps, yet your 'ranch' is in Chelsea."
2. "Instead of a saloon you prefer a salon."
1. "You love riding, but you don't have a horse."

Posted by at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the promotional items sent out by the folks at "Good Night, and Good Luck." was a bottle of 12-year-old Glenlivet Scotch. So one wonders, precisely, about the state of mind of Hollywood Foreign Press members when they were casting their ballots. I'm just saying.
No truth to the rumor, we think, that the makers of "Syriana" were considering sending out a barrel of crude and a home refinery kit to all Academy members who own Lincoln Navigators.

Posted by David Kronke at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The nominations have touched off all the prep and planning. Who will be the actress designers are itching most to dress? Reese? Keira? Ziyi? Charlize?
Which brings me to something that crossed my mind last January while watching Golden Globe arrivals from a seat backstage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. A small group of entertainment reporters from around the world for one night control millions of dollars.

Think about it: This micro-economy of gowns, jewels, limos, publicity, catering, flowers, TV rights, production costs, media expenses, travel and more is set into motion by 80-90 individuals -- some of whom hold other jobs because the ones that got them into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association don't pay a decent living. Is this part of what's great about Hollywood or part of what's wrong with it?

Posted by Valerie Kuklenski at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the just-out Dec. 19 issue of In Touch Weekly, awards guru Tom O'Neil predicted a disastrous run-in -- or a tabloid jackpot, depending on your point of view -- at the Golden Globes. "You can count on both Jen (Aniston) and Brad (Pitt) getting nominated,'' he wrote, thinking Aniston was a sure thing for "Rumor Has It," while Pitt would contend with "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." Oops. Not even their respective squeezes -- Vince Vaughn and Angelina Jolie -- made the cut when nominations were announced today. Looks like we may have to wait a while longer for that crash-and-burn moment.

Posted by Valerie Kuklenski at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dec. 5, 2005: Oscar winner and awards favorite Dame Judi Dench on the buzz surrounding potential accolades for her role in "Mrs. Henderson Presents."
"It is speculation and speculation goes on about lots and lots of people. I think it's rather dangerous to have it said about you. I don't want it to distance anything and nothing actually could add to the fantastic time we had doing this film. We really did have the most extraordinarily infectiously terrific time."

Dec. 13, 2005: Newly Golden Globe nominated Dame Judi Dench
"I am absolutely thrilled, delighted and terribly honoured."

Note the "u" in honored. Veddy British, that.

Posted by at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, so Oscar winner Frances McDormand apparently needed some persuasion to join the cast of "North Country." Director Niki Caro already had Charlize Theron and was closing in on Sissy Spacek and Woody Harrelson.

McDormand, on the other hand, was decidedly undecided. Caro even got vibes that F.M. was leaning toward never doing another film.

So with the studio urging her to start casting around for a second choice to play union leader Glory, Caro asked for the weekend to play her last remaining ace.

"I live in New Zealand, and there's this wild and remote beach where there happened to be a raging storm that weekend," says Caro. "However, I got my husband and my friends to write in letters 50 feet high, "Say Yes, Fran" like a big marriage proposal."

The tides were not always cooperative and the storm made things extra tricky. Apparently, there were casualties. Caro's husband broke his toe and their two children got ear infections. However, Caro filmed the beach message with a digital camera from a nearby mountain and e-mailed the footage off to McDormand.

"I figured if that doesn't do it, it can't be done," said Caro.

The next morning, Caro found an e-mail reply from the actress: "Jesus Christ. I surrender!"

Which makes you wonder what it would take to get McDormand _ who just got a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress _ to do Caro's next film. Skywriting anyone?

Posted by at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. threw a couple of bones to Steven Spielberg's "Munich." But no best picture nomination? "Munich"'s Oscar chances aren't as dead as those of "Memoirs of a Geisha." Yet. But no one is calling "Munich" the front-runner any longer, either. Including Spielberg among the group's list of six directors is hilarious. HFPA members don't like "Munich" enough to put it among its 10 nominated pictures, but Spielberg is Spielberg and his mug on TV will boost viewership more than David Cronenberg's. It's all about the ratings isn't it?

Posted by at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll leave the ritual bashing of the Golden Globes nominations to my able colleagues today. Me, I think it's time to mention a few positive things about the much-made-fun-of Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
For example, I personally know two people in that group who understand film as an art form as well as any of my fellow Los Angeles Film Critics Association members. They'll remain nameless, though, just in case that's a breach of some HFPA bylaw.
No kidding, now: The nonprofit HFPA donates significant portions of its TV show earnings to film preservation and similar worthy efforts. All movie lovers, even hardcore cineaste snobs, owe the group gratitude for that.
But a nomination for Will Ferrell and none for Vince Vaughn? That's just pathetic. Not bashing the Globes, just stating fact.

Posted by Bob Strauss at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Surprisingly serious batch of small, smart films in the Golden Globes drama category. Which leads me to worry: will anyone watch the TV show? I mean, c'mon; the Globes are about ratings, not recognizing quality. What's happening to the world? Oh wait; they also nominated some pretty actresses (Charlize Theron, Ziyi Zhang, Gwyneth Paltrow) from bad movies. Whew! That ought to draw some eyeballs next Martin Luther King Day. Thank heavens the HFPA hasn't entirely misplaced its priorities.

Posted by Bob Strauss at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This year, it seems, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has inverted its usual pattern: Films receiving top Golden Globe nominations are more of the independent and/or cutting-edge sensibility, while the TV nominees fall more squarely in the realm of highly commercial, good-old-fashioned entertainment.
Best TV drama nominees are “Commander In Chief,� “Grey’s Anatomy,� “Lost� (all ABC) “Prison Break� (Fox) and “Rome� (HBO). TV Comedy nominees are “Curb Your Enthusiasm,� “Entourage� (HBO), “Desperate Housewives� (ABC), “Everybody Hates Chris� (UPN), “My Name is Earl� (NBC) and “Weeds� (Showtime).

Though recipients of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globes in movie categories often seem a lame compromise of glamour over artistry, winners in the TV categories are a lot less embarrassing than those named by, say, the TV Academy itself during the Emmys.

Which is kind of curious, since the HFPA’s emphasis is clearly on film. But the Globes tend to champion largely deserving cutting-edge if underseen programming (last year’s “Nip/Tuck,� and the Globes honored the British “Office� two years ago, before almost anyone in America had heard of it) – of course, if it did the same thing in movie categories, it would lose its cachet as an Oscar bellwether, the reason Hollywood kowtows to the HFPA so much. The Globes honored HBO shows (“The Sopranos,� “Six Feet Under,� “Sex and the City�) in major categories long before the Emmys managed to. And, of course, the Globes is more willing serve as the official coronation of a new hit than the Emmys, who tend to wait a year or so before upsetting the status quo (Emmys snubbed “Desperate Housewives,� while the Globes were more in tune with the Zeitgest nine months prior, though last year more viewers wanted to watch the show itself than to see it win awards – hence, this year’s Global retreat to Mondays).

Imagine the disappointment in discovering that rather than advancing the Emmy race, as the Globes often do, this year they seemed content to follow last September’s ceremony.

Given all the small films that earned nominations – “Brokeback Mountain,� “Good Night, and Good Luck.�, “The Squid and the Whale,� for starters – it seems a bit odd that popular but hardly brilliant programs like “Commander in Chief� and “Grey’s Anatomy� took top TV nominations. “Rome,� for all its button-pushing decadence, may be HBO’s most conventional drama to date. “Lost� is a holdover nominee from last year (which is not to say undeserving), so only “Prison Break’s� nomination seems inspired or really noteworthy, as is star Wentworth Miller's acting nomination.

The comedy nominees seem more representative of what one tends to get from the Globes: Two HBO shows, the requisite huge hit (though ask anyone – “Desperate Housewives� has lost a lot of spin off its fastball this season), and some new sensations. “My Name is Earl’s� nomination was a foregone conclusion (as was star Jason Lee's Best Actor nod), but to see UPN – UPN! – get a nomination for a major award (for “Everybody Hates Chris�) both gratifying and apocalyptic. And while I found “Weeds� underwhelming, it’s nice to see that the HFPA were watching something besides the networks and HBO.

Mary Louise Parker is genuinely charming on “Weeds,� so she might just win the Best Actress in a TV Comedy Globe if the other nominees – all from “Desperate Housewives,� naturally – cancel each other out. (Such a theory has proved inoperative in the past, however, as Teri Hatcher won the Globe and Felicity Huffman -- a two-time Globe nominee this year -- won the Emmy.) Kyra Sedgwick's nomination for TNT's "The Closer" was another nice example of someone, somewhere in the HFPA paying attention.

The telefilm/miniseries category essentially cherry-picked September's Emmys, with the notable and heartening additions of BBC America's "Viva Blackpool" and Showtime's "Sleeper Cell." Outside of the Lead Series acting categories, the TV nominations seemed to ape the Emmys' practice of filling the ranks with big-name movie stars.

Posted by David Kronke at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If the Oscar voters were the least bit adventurous, then Andy Serkis would get a best supporting actor nod for playing the big ape in ``King Kong.'' Even his Oscar-winning co-star Adrien Brody told
our film critic Bob Strauss that he thinks ``Kong may be one of the best leading men this year''
Serkis even did double duty, first acting opposite his co-stars during the filming -- creating a touching relationship with Naomi Watts' Ann Darrow -- then doing it again wearing motion-capture sensors to create the animated ape. Brody doesn't know how getting a nomination for Serkis would work _ and neither do I _ but it's time for the Academy to take some chances. When's the last time you saw that much love on the screen?

Posted by at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... if you're talking true quality, anyway. Three of the more legitimate critics organizations have named "Brokeback Mountain" the best picture of 2005. Not that that means we're going to be spared two-and-a-half months of the most desperate, unseemly campaigning to convince everybody that a gay cowboy movie just can't be the best that cinema could do this year. But with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle and the Boston Society of Film Critics all anointing Ang Lee's deeply touching tale tops, any other entries will just be running to win popularity contests, not any claim to artistic superiority.

Posted by Bob Strauss at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's the question everyone's asking after the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. gave her the best actress award for her haunting performance in the drug-addiction drama "Down To the Bone."
It's a legitimate question since "Down To the Bone" played for only two weeks in Los Angeles after opening Thanksgiving weekend.

It's a question I doubt too many people will be asking a year from now since Farmiga has the lead actress role in Martin Scorsese's next movie, "The Departed" and will also be prominently featured in Anthony Minghella's heist drama "Breaking and Entering."

For "Down to the Bone," Farmiga won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 (that's how long it has taken this stark, truthful film to find distribution). She was also nominated for a lead actress Independent Spirit Award in 2005.
Those accolades stick in your mind. So when "Down To the Bone" finally made it to L.A., almost two years after its Sundance triumphs, members of LAFCA made sure to clear some time and give it a look.

If you want to do the same, "Down To the Bone" will more than likely reopen in Los Angeles on Friday at the Laemmle Monica in Santa Monica. (The uncertainty is over whether a print can be struck in time ... no one from the distributor counted on Farmiga's win. Now they see a way to rightfully capitalize on the attention.)

The movie also opens Friday in San Fransico and will play in the nation's top 20 markets early next year. And it is continuing to do good business in New York, where it has now played for four weeks.

Posted by at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, everybody! Want to hang out with, say, Lindsay Lohan for an evening? Then throw together a group of friends and call yourselves the Consortium for Aesthetic Appreciation or some such and rent out a nice hall and hire a caterer (it doesn't even have to be a good one) and contact Lindsay's people and tell them you want to give her your prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. You might even be able to score Michael Keaton or Jamie Lee Curtis or Hilary Duff (well, probably not her) to give appreciative speeches.
That's pretty much how these other awards groups, particularly the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, did it.

For further info, check out (if you can find it) "The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret," a bitchy but fairly accurate history of the HFPA that aired on Trio, a cable network so good that of course Jeff Zucker had to kill it off. The HFPA's Globes had little clout and rarely attracted A-list celebrities until they moved their ceremony to January, where it became an influential benchmark for Motion Picture Academy members who wanted to vote but were too lazy to actually sit through all those movies. It was a genius move, and they've been reaping the benefits ever since -- celebrities faun over them until the night of the Globes, when it's vice versa.
Everyone else in Hollywood kind of smacked their foreheads in that 'Wow -- I could've had a V-8' way and has recently scrambled to try to replicate the Globes' success, to little or no avail -- have you even HEARD of the Silver Satellites? (They gave their best picture award to Pleasantville a few years back after being assured someone'd show up.) AFI and the Broadcast Critics tried airing their awards ceremonies, to monumental yawns from the rest of America (it didn't help that virtually none of the winners showed up for AFI's kudocast).
Let's face it -- as much as Hollywood celebrities love to receive awards, the rest of the country generally has better things to do. They've already decided which awards shows merit their time -- Oscars, Globes, Emmys, Grammys -- so all these upstarts trying to hop on the bandwagon today shouldn't waste their breath. If you want to meet a celebrity, spring for a drink at the Standard.

Posted by David Kronke at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you want to know who'll win in the r&b categories at the Grammys, take note of the music playing at Laker games.
Honest -- it worked last year for the Black Eyed Peas and Usher, who were multiple winners.

Posted by David Kronke at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For those obsessed with the Oscars, the Los Angeles Film Critics vote carries some (small) meaning. Will Vera Farmiga's best actress win result in an Oscar nod? Of course not. Will Phillip Seymour Hoffman's LAFCA win for Capote result in an Oscar nod? He was going to get one anyway.

But what about the best picture win for "Brokeback Mountain"?

Sifting through the tea leaves, it's hard not to see Ang Lee's gay love story as the clear best picture favorite for the Oscar. Critics love it; LAFCA won't be the only group to honor the film. Audiences' tear ducts -- at least those on the coasts who have seen it -- seem to be in heavy faucet mode. It has everything Oscar voters love -- beautiful landscapes, epic storytelling and the appearance at least of being Important. (And it some respects, it truly is.) Its acting is impeccable. (The Oscar best actor race will come down to Brokeback's Heath Ledger against Hoffman, just like it did with LAFCA).

And really, what movie will beat Brokeback?

King Kong? It's great. But too much. And Peter Jackson already got his.

Capote? It's great. But too small. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and a screenwriting award and maybe Catherine Keener for supporting actress. (Though she was better in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.)

Munich? It's Important. But too obvious. You can't disagree with its ideas -- violence bad, perpetrating it will destroy your soul -- but Spielberg doesn't shut up about it.

Memoirs of a Geisha? Dead.

Walk the Line? Too similar to Ray, an undeserving best pic nominee from last year. Settles for acting nods.

Constant Gardener? Was this released in 2005?

The New World? Not as good as "The World." (Not a prequel, the Zhang Ke Jia film.)

So there you have it. Start engraving the statue now.

Posted by at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some awards groups -- the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and HFPA wannabe Broadcast Film Critics Assn. (now there's an oxymoron if ever there was) take some pleasure in proclaiming themselves Oscar barometers. As if that's a good thing.

I'm not setting up the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as a pure-as-snow alternative, but I would say the group doesn't give much thought whether Oscar voters are going to agree with us. (It should be noted that I'm a member of LAFCA, as is my colleague, Bob Strauss.)

The idea is to vote for the year's best. And if some of our winners -- say, best actress winner Vera Farmiga -- don't stand a snowball's chance in hell in being nominated by the Academy ... well, really, who cares? She gave a fearless performance in the addiction drama "Down to the Bone." And maybe by recognizing her, the film -- and the performance -- will be seen by people outside of New York and Los Angeles.

Likewise, voting Werner Herzog's masterful "Grizzly Man" as best documentary is a middle finger to the short-sighted nimrods who didn't deign to include the film among the 15 finalists for the documentary Oscar. But that's not why we gave "Grizzly Man" the award. It just happens to the best doc of the year, maybe even the best picture, even if dilligent family-values groups couldn't find a way to love its unpredictable bears as they did the seasonally monogamous birds in "March of the Penguins."

Posted by at 9:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Even if you don't read the entertainment trade magazines, you know that movie studios spend scads of cash in them buying "for your consideration" ads, campaigning for Oscar gold. And even if you're not in the biz, you know that playing a disadvantaged or minority character ups an actor's chances of getting nominated. Hence the creative Photoshop action at the blog World of Wonder for ads we'll never see. Well, not in the trades.

Posted by at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

British designer Paul Smith may have just opened a giant, upscale boutique in Hollywood, but don’t expect him to roll out the red carpet for celebrities. “No, thank you!� he exclaimed when LA.COMfidential asked if he had a team to woo stars gearing up for awards season. Though his tailored suits, with surprising touches like striped linings, are perfect for offbeat-yet-elegant Oscar style, Smith has eschewed the celebrity factor when it comes to promoting his brand. “We’ve never invited celebrities to front rows of shows. A 14-year-old student and a famous celebrity and a 70-year-old businessman are all equally important to me.� So don't expect any statue-winner to thank him from the podium.

Posted by at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wouldn't want many of the nominees in my backyard, either. So, in the interests of truth, justice and the Iraqi-American way ...

here's a list of the only music that mattered in '05. Btw, release dates aren't important (some of these originally came out decades ago). What matters is, this is the music that affected me in the past year. Not in any order. All equally brilliant.
Don't settle for what THEY want you to listen to.

-Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, "At Carnegie Hall"
-Sutherland Brothers and Quiver, "Dream Kid"
-Various, "Children of Nuggets" box set
-Aretha and King Curtis "At Fillmore East" box set
-Flatt & Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Gospel"
-Deniece Williams, "This is Niecy"
-Gang of Four, "Return the Gift"
-Wynton Marsalis, "Live at the House of Blues"
-Delroy Wilson, "Better Must Come: Anthology"
-Noel Coward, "The Songs of Noel Coward"
-John Coltrane Quartet, "One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note"
-Bill Withers, "Just As I Am"
-Betty Wright, "My First Time Around"
-Prince Far I, "Silver & Gold"
-Various, "Son Cubano NYC: Cuban Roots and New York Spices"

Posted by at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A category for musical wind-up toys, a lifetime achievement award for Tookie Williams, best bribe, best lapdance soundtrack ...

and the nominees for album of the year: Paris Hilton, Kimberly Stewart, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson. Presented by Anna Nicole Smith.

Posted by at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woohoo! Yeah! Way to go!

OK, so most people have probably never heard of the indie rock foursome from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The band has opened for David Bowie, Coldplay and U2. Oh, and it also contributed the song ``Cold Wind'' to the soundtrack for the final season of HBO's ``Six Feet Under.''

That song has just earned the band a nod for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. More importantly is that Arcade Fire's 2004 debut, ``Funeral,'' is up for Best Alternative Rock Album against offerings by big shots like Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Franz Ferdinand and The White Stripes.

I know who I'll be rooting for.

Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every single one of the 300,000 categories got something badly wrong. If the record academy were doctors they'd have more malpractice suits than King/Drew.

Yet, in the midst of the bling-bling celebration of earning power, across the tracks where music's wage slaves live, notice was giving to a few worthies.

Down in the dumps of the contemporary world music album list, a place few dare to visit without armed guards and an NPR-sanctioned guide, genuine music is found.

Albums from Amadou & Mariam, Gilberto Gil, and the Kronos Quartet & Asha Bhosle belong in everyone's diet. These records didn't get the big payola push this year because no amount of clean cocaine could persuade a commercial radio station to play any of it.

Posted by at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It may say something about the state of affairs of the Democratic Party that in order to win the Best Spoken Word album at the Grammys, Sen. Barack Obama will have to beat out a bunch of comedians and a movie star.

But it may say more about the voters that the contenders are charming LIBERAL wag Garrison Keilor, funny LIBERAL radio host Al Franken and angry LIBERAL actor Sean Penn. And then there's George Carlin, whose political bent is probably liberal. But who knows?

Posted by at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "top categories" - the dozen or so that get any attention from civilians - reflect which names got the biggest push at radio, on MTV and at retail. Big pushes have big budgets.

Now, the major labels recently announced they promise - really, really promise this time, mommy - to stop bribing everyone in sight to play their records.

That only happened during the summer. So, you have to wonder how many nominations of the mediocre albums and songs in the big categories were the direct result of "gifts" of plasma TVs, European vacations, clean coke, and all-expenses visits to amateur night at the Frisky Kitty.

Or maybe you don't have to wonder.

Posted by at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BeBe Winans and his kid sister, CeCe, will go toe to toe at the Grammys. Both received nominations in the category of Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album for their respective solo efforts. But there's no sibling rivalry here.

Born into the gospel-singing Winans family, they've been recording as a duo off and on since the '80s. In 1995, CeCe put out ``Alone in His Presence.'' BeBe followed by releasing his first solo album in 1997.

Posted by at 7:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zzzz...

Posted by at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some nods make some sense on a nominees list longer than the gas line at the Baghdad Costco.

No complaints about the pop instrumental category. That means no singing, kids. No cooing off-the-shoulder grifters or white-hat frauds droning on about the new baby they just sired with their fourth wife.

Instrumental music by Daniel Lanois, Les Paul, Herbie Hancock and Burt Bacharach made the cut. Now, none of these guys have done anything vaguely exciting in a long, long, long time, and we've heard only a little of their nominated fare.

But any pop music that does away with an egomaniac singer is fine with us.

Posted by at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How many nominations? 10,000? Who's ever heard some of these things? Mario's "Turning Point,", T.I.'s "You Don't Know Me" ...

Rascal Flatts (stupidest name of the year), R. Carlos Nakai, SugarLand - there's not one person in the entire 818 area code who can sing, hum or otherwise suggest one second of any of this music.

I now realize how the record academy fills those 10,000 slots - they gather up all those people sitting in front of the supermarkets all day and night and nominate them.

Ridiculous.

Posted by at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, we're just happy some people are sick of the stupid idiocy of rap's thug mentality and have embraced someone like John Legend, who got eight noddys from the Grannys.

Legend is a one-man Gap band - polo shirts, clean sneakers and nice slacks, and his music sounds like it. Yay!
He sings about love, but not that nasty kind we see at amateur night at the Frisky Kitty and on billboards.
He sings about working out problems between people, not the gunplay celebrated on billboards.
He sings about getting a handle on things, not morning radio's Bill Handel, whose handle we'd rather not blog about.
John Legend's public persona is OK even if his music is only mildly interesting.

Posted by at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, no. Fiona Apple's ``Extraordinary Machine'' got a Grammy nod. Let's hope it doesn't lead to a repeat of her famous MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech. You remember, don't you?

When her 1996 album, ``Tidal,'' landed Apple an MTV VMA, she likened the world to cow dung and quoted Maya Angelou in the same breath.

Posted by at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four noms to a band that doesn't even exist - way to go, record academy! Next year, how about a category for musical wind-up toys?

Gorillaz makes radio-friendly dance music created chiefly by the pretty boy from Blur whose name I can never remember. The group sells itself by way of animated images on the record covers, in the videos, probably even in performance where these krazy kids play behind a screen.
Whatever it is, they do have a few good songs.
But so did the house band on "The Flintstones."

Posted by at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was upsetting, hideous and completely needless - oh, sorry, that was the passenger being shot by the Air Marshal - but it also applies to today's Grammy nods handed out to a predictable pantheon of earners.

The prize for the turnaround of Mariah Carey career should go the faceless suit - probably an entertainment lawyer in a Century City highrise _ who engineered it.
Whoever he is.
But anyway, eight nods went to the record which was pieced together like a tile bathroom. But has anyone ever heard Carey sing? Seriously. Because for years there's been so much made out of this songbird's alleged 12-octave coo that each time she emits an album, I can't wait to hear something amazing. Then, it's the usual meaningless treacle that sounds like all the other meaningless treacle.

Posted by at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mariah Carey's comeback continues. Big surprise? Not really. Everybody was betting on pop's golden girl to come away with top nominations _ she got eight, tying her with John Legend and Kanye West _ at this morning's announcements for the 48th Annual Grammy Awards. And it's all on the strength of her album, ``The Emancipation of Mimi.''

The album has sold more than four million copies. Not that sales have anything to do with Grammy nominations.

Posted by at 5:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Let the pre-Oscar hype begin! The designs (yes, plural) are out for the posters promoting the 78th annual Academy Awards, and it's nice to see the motion picture academy redeem its tacky color mish-mash of last year with two elegant options that celebrate the award's history. It may be "such a thrill to be nominated," but let's not kid ourselves -- it's all about getting your hands on the naked golden boy, right? That's the message (conveyed tastefully) in his-and-hers posters on view at www.oscars.org. They're closely cropped photos of past winners holding their precious prizes. Can you guess who?

I'm waaaaay too busy to do that research, but I think it would be swell if the academy were to award a free pair of posters ($25 each or $40 for the set) to anyone who can correctly identify the subjects. The woman may be easy to identify, with her early '60s style gown and elbow-length gloves and a distinctively chunky necklace. But if you can guess who the man is, my top hat's off to you. All we know is he's a performer (as is the woman), he's a white guy (duh!), he has french cuffs and what looks like a shawl-collar jacket, and he doesn't wear a wedding band. Get busy trawling the photo archives, folks.

Posted by Valerie Kuklenski at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)