Lunch Break - Oscar surprise.

To my moderate shock the Oscars were actually good TV. Except for the "tribute to musicals" Baz Lurman mess, the numbers were fun and engaging. The self congratulation was - FINALLY - overwhelmed by a little class. I only winced once or twice. Oscar night tends to be the tackiest night in Hollywood. It actually wasn't tacky. The 2 best actor awards actually went to - in my opinion - the Best Actors. Like him or not, Sean Penn's Harvey Milk is a masterful embodiment. The Reader lost me half way through (I stopped suspending my disbelief) but Kate Winslet was worth double the price of admission. Ben Button, a truly rotten movie, was nearly shut out. The academy finally realized that being bored while watching pretty things float by for 3 hours is not ART. (Yes, I did just bite the hands that feed. Pray no one over there is looking - or cares what I think.)
Heath Ledger's family accepting his award was moving and compelling. I was glad to see Jerry Lewis get some love, too. One of the best kept secrets in this weird town is just how important Lewis is. While writing, directing and starring in The Bellboy, Lewis adds a small television monitor to the camera so he can watch instant playback of his own performances. The invention, called video-assist, revolutionizes how movies are made.

All in all, the reach around masturbatory nonsense was at an all time low.

Penn's acceptance speech in which he interjected his thoughts about equal rights was of value. He then called Obama "elegant" - which, oddly, I agree with. He is sort of an elegant man, at least with a crowd and a TelePrompTer handy. Unfortunately, the job he holds is not Commander in Chief of evening gowns. Though, a friend mentioned last night that he seems to think it is.

Elegant. What an strange word. I wonder if his elegance will stop Mexico from collapsing, force him to show us a birth certificate, or save the economy?

Milk

Writing a blog often causes a Napoleonic complex. Or rather - a Moulitsas Complex - no, I take that back, Napoleon was significant. Ducky is not.

At any rate, I try to avoid cocksuredness with words like "seems" and try only to go ultra definitive with the obvious like "Obama was sold to us by a compliant media" or "Shakespeare is a genius" - or when I'm really pissed - which is too much of the time.

That said, let me also say this: Ignore whatever reservations you may have about Sean Penn and go see Milk. His performance is masterful. The film itself may well end up being Gus Van Sant's masterpiece.

Sometimes the exact right director, gets the exact right material, the exact right cast, at the exact right time to make a perfect or near perfect film. It rarely happens. Coppola and first 2 Godfather films come to mind ( and the third is underrated in my book.). Sam Mendes and American Beauty as well. And, of course, Network.

I won't say if this film will end up being considered a masterpiece. Only the passage of time can create a masterpiece. Still, everything that Van Sant does with this material - all his quirks - that have kept him an interesting director but not a great one - come together in Milk and vibrate perfectly with his cast, and the subject.

And Sean Penn...The friend I went with said "That was not a performance. It was a possession."

Excepting Meryl Streep doing anything - it is as precisely lived and nuanced as anything I've seen an actor do in a decade.

So go. Learn something.

Below the trailer and the moment that made Diane Feinstien a national political figure: