And the Nominees Are....

It's nearly time for the Gay SuperBowl aka "Oscar Night" and today we had the preliminaries, the announcement of the nominees. Note that this year the rules have been modified to accomodate the plethora of fine motion pictures that came out this past year, and,7 therefore the number of nominees for Best Picture stands now at 10.

[drumroll please]

And the nominees are:

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart *big surprise
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo'nique, Precious

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Best Director
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, & Thomas McCarthy, Up

Adapted Screenplay
Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Ianucci, & Tony Roche, In the Loop *big surprise
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Foreign Language Film
Ajami (Israel)
El secreto de sus ojos (Argentina)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
Un Prophete (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)

Animated Film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side *big surprise
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Best Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Best Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Best Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Best Documentary
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Best Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Best Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Best Score
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Best Song
"Almost There," The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
"Down in New Orleans," The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
"Loin de Paname," Paris 36, Reinhardt Wagner & Frank Thomas
"Take It All," Nine, Maury Weston
"The Weary Kind," Crazy Heart, T-Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham

Best Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Best Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Documentary Short
China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin

Best Animated Short
French Roast
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Live-Action Short
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

And the Oscar Goes to...

I think it's fair to say that this was the year when the Oscar finally went to the Industry. The category? Queer History, of course, but also in the category of "Fuck the Base."

Lance Black's speech managed to sneak out onto the airwaves before the homophobic christianist parents of Amerika had time to switch their sets off and before their precious, innocent, 30 year old offspring heard the good news that it's "okay to be gay in God's eyes." That infuriated the Freepers. Heh.

Then came Sean's lovely speech. Which wasn't bad for a straight guy with a bad-boy reputation.

The internets are atwitter (and afacebooked) with apoplectic Westboro Baptist Wannabe's all bemoaning the end of civilization now that the Queers have hijacked Hollywood! (Who'll show up next? Teh Jews?)

Before the awards, I jabbed my friend Steve Schalchlin in the internetual ribs by stating that the Oscars were "not the gayest award night of the year", that, in fact, the annual Tony Award broadcast was far gayer.

Well, I stand corrected. This year's Oscar broadcast was screamingly, deliciously, fabulously Queer!

And now, the endless thanks.

Thanks to the gayest straight man in show biz.... Hugh Jackman!!!!

Thanks also to the music producer of the show. I was entranced by the lush, symphonic background music lifted straight out of the great movie scores of decades past, including pieces from "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Magnificent Seven." Enthralling.

And finally, Oscar producers take note: next year's co-hosts should DEFINITELY be Steve Martin and Tina Fey and you're total idiots if you don't start planning for that right now.

The Tony's are gonna seem pretty tame this year... if, indeed, they even bother to have 'em.

Gay News Thursday

But first, a quick follow-up to yesterday's post. My 12-Step recovery home group gave me what I'd been looking for my entire life. To wit, a group of loving adults who may not have always had the right answer, but their hearts were always in the right place, who cared for and fretted over me when I was barely capable of taking care of myself. From them I learned how to be a grown-up, how to face my fears, how to accept the unchangeable past and how to move past it. From them I learned to be responsible for my own failures (and successes), and to stop trying to fix blame (and credit) somewhere else.

In short, they are the loving parents I always knew I was missing as a child. And it is that abundance of unconditional love I received from them which it's my duty to pass along to the "youngsters" I come across in recovery.

And that is how it works.

Moving right along....

My buddy Jake over at NoFo wrote a letter responding to a sort of op-ed essay that appeared in the February 9th Newsweek by an evangelical Christian named Robert Mouw who defended his vote in favor of Prop 8 in California last November. The piece, as you might expect, is full of self-pity and outright lies. Jake takes Mouw apart in his response. Needless to say, Newsweek (wimps that they are), didn't run it, but Jake has posted most of it (along with parts of Mouw's original essay) HERE.

In other gay news, in case you didn't know it (or else forgot), it's Oscar weekend. The weekend begins with the Independent Spirit Awards live from a circus tent on the beach in Santa Monica or Venice or someplace -- with lots of drunk movie stars, wannabes, moochers and hangers-on. the Indies'll be broadcast Saturday on IFC (live) at 5:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. PT and again that night on AMC (edited) starting at 10:00 p.m. ET & PT.

Sunday, of course, is the most sacred night of the year for Hollywood. It's Oscar night. And this years guest host is (be still my beating, girlish, heart) HUGH JACKMAN (SCREECHING)!!!!!!

I'd pay good money just to watch the man disrobe. And have. I saw "The Boy From Oz" on B'way a couple of years back. Hugh's not only hunky, but the boy can sing and dance, too. A fact which the viewing public will find out for themselves on Sunday night, when they get a load of the big opening number starring Hugh and being staged by his fellow Aussie, the new King of Movie Musicals, Baz Luhrmann.

I suspect that most of the fanboys of Wolverine and X-Men out there will be losing their shit when they see all 6 feet 4 inches of HJ strutting his shit all over the stage of the Kodak Theater in a great, big musical tribute to Gawd-Only-Knows-What.

So, if you're in the mood to recharge your gay batteries, go read Jake's piece to get your self-righteous self all fired up (and then DO something about it, fer Chrissakes), then be sure to tune in this weekend for hour upon hour of pure Gollywood Fun & Glam!

p.s. I'm posting this a little early to give you time to run out and see both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" tomorrow because, if you don't, you're gonna feel like a fool come Sunday evening.

The Glam Factor

Didja watch the SAGgies last night? I did because a) I'm a member and b) there wasn't anything else on.

I was going to try to catch up with my "For Your Consideration" viewing of all the contending films, but I got hopelessly behind and gave up for the time being. Since I don't have to return the "screeners" I can view them at my leisure. They are somewhat annoying, though. Every few minutes you get a superimposed message that this dvd is "for your consideration" and remains the property of whatever production company happens to own the film.

Still, the price is right. Free. It saves me from plunking down real money to see some films ("Hairspray") I really don't want to waste money on seeing. Oh, and don't get me wrong about Hairspray. But I saw the original John Waters' film, way back when and I saw the Broadway show a few years back. I have zero interest in seeing it (again) on film.

But it didn't matter if I'd seen the films or not. What I really wanted was my mid-winter dose of glamour, something that's been sorely missing from my steady diet of cold and darkness this winter. I needed glitz, tinsel, red carpets and bad fashion decisions to brighten up a Sunday evening. And the SAG awards did not disappoint.

I love Charles Durning but would it have killed them to put a ramp up to the stage to save the poor old SOB from having to climb up the stairs? Jeebus, I thought he would fall and kill himself.

Everybody else were either modest to the point of self-effacement (Javier Bardem) or over-the-top in love with themselves (Josh Brolin). Mostly, though, the winners were damn glad they were the winners and too bad for the losers.

The best part of last night? it was mercifully brief and unusually lacking in the sort of self-aggrandizing bullshit that the Oscars indulge in ("Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the most self-important night of the year in Hollyweird... Oscar Night.")

I love my parent union and my fellow 119,999 members.

My name is JoyZeeBoy and I am an actor (SAG member since 1981).

The Morning After The Most Self-Important Night of the Year

Not bad. I only missed on Eddie Murphy instead of Alan Arkin (who, by the way, was fabulous as the grandfather "get all the pussy you can!") in "Little Miss Sunshine" and also deserved to win.

I have to admit it, I was starting to nod a little by 11:15 p.m. (eastern). Oscar night is one of the few nights of the year that I envy my left-coast friends for whom the Oscar broadcast begins practically in the middle of supper and ends at a decent hour.

I felt sorry for Peter O'Toole who, most likely, will now never win a "real" Oscar (I'm pretty sure they gave him some sort of "Lifetime Achievement" consolation prize a few years back).

The women all looked lovely. There were no real "fashion-don'ts" last night a la the famous "Dead Goose" that hung around Bjork's neck a few years back, or the "Ballerina on Crack" look that somebody else showed up in the year after that.

And beaucoups HUZZAHHS to Jennifer Hudson, a girl who obviously enjoys a good meal now and then and isn't ashamed of it thankyewverymuch, who looked DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS in her lovely size 12 Oscar de la Renta, "Golden Globe Winning, Best Supporting Actress So Go Totally Fuck Yourselves American Idol and especially you, Simon Cowell, You Rat Fink Bastard" gown!

Ellen (Degeneres) was suitably cute and uncontroversial for the evening. The closest she came was some mild crack about how there would be "no movies" without the contributions of blacks, Jews and homosexuals. But I guess that was okay. After all, this wasn't the Golden Globe Awards, this was, ahem, the Oscars, Hollywoods Most Self-Important and Totally Taking Ourselves too Seriously Night of the Year.

I am SOOOOO GLAD that Marty Scorcese FINALLY got his Oscar (don't feel too sorry for George Lucas, who never got one... he got something a helluva lot better, a cash machine in Marin called ILM).

This was one of the few years in the last 10 that I actually "saw" most of what it was that was vying for prizes last night. And not just the "big productions", either. I saw "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Volver" (don't ever miss an Almodovar film, they are simply divine). I saw "Babel", "The Queen", "Little Miss Sunshine", "The Departed" and "Letters from Iwo Jima." Not one of them was a real "toe-tapper" (as opposed to "Dream Girls", which was,), as they say. But they were all good films, and full of good work by all the crafts involved, from writing to cinematography, to acting.

I love the movies. I've been fascinated by them ever since I was a kid. I used to drool over deMille epics. The longer, the better. I would've sat through "Ben-Hur" twice if I hadn't had to have been home for dinner.

But the movie that made me a real movie lover was, as someone else mentioned last night, "Lawrence of Arabia." I saw it in a movie theater on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, in August of 1962. I had just turned 14. As I sat in that air-conditioned theater, far from the broiling heat of the beach outside, I relished every single frame of that beautiful motion picture. I have never forgotten that experience.

If I had anything to "do over" in my life, it would be that I would've pursued a career in motion pictures. I hate the phoniness of the business, the deal-making and ass-kissing and plastic surgery and closeted lives of "married for public consumption" stars. I hate all that, yet I would put up with it, if I could make movies. In some capacity or another. But, alas, that wasn't meant to be.

In which case, I can at least strive to be the best movie fan I can be. So that's what I'm doing.