The 2025 (but actually the 2024) Academy Awards

 

I know that there are many of you out there asking the question: "Hey, Grandstander, how come we haven't heard any of your thoughts on this years Oscar nomination, not to mention your always insightful Oscars predictions?"

Well.  We have not been able to see all of the nominated films this year, due to circumstances that have involved us being out of town at an Undisclosed Location for an extended period of time (more on that in a future post).  So allow me some scattershot comments.

Best Picture

Have seen five of the nominated movies.  Anora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Nickel Boys, and Wicked.  Of these, I would be delighted if either A Complete Unknown or Conclave won.  Both good movies, both movies that I would willingly watch regularly (ie, at least once a year).  Anora has won Best Picture awards from some Critics Associations, and the Producers Guild.  Sorry, it was an entertaining movie, but not even close to being the Best Picture of the Year.

Of the other five nominees, the only one remaining that I have any interest in seeing is The Brutalist, which I understand to be a good movie, but it ain't gonna be a barrel of laughs.  Based on what I've heard, I have no interest in Dune: Part Two, Emilia Perez, I'm Still Here.   I understand that The Substance is just a hodge-podge of shit, but I might see it just to see Demi Moore's Oscar nominated (and probably winning) performance.

SAG-AFTRA gave its Best Ensemble award to Conclave. That is sometimes a precursor for the Oscars, and as I said above, I'd be fine with that.

Best Actor

I've seen Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave).  SAG-AFTRA gave its Best Actor award to Chalamet, so it wouldn't be surprising if he follows that up with an Oscar.  I'd have no problem if either Chalamet or Fiennes won, and Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) seemed to be a heavy favorite headed into awards season.  I believe he won a Golden Globe for this part.  So none of these guys would be a surprise if they won.

Best Actress

I've seen Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) and Mikey Madison (Anora).  Erivo was favored going into Awards Season, but both the Golden Globe and SAG Award went to Demi Moore, so it looks like she may take home the statuette this year.  Brat-Packers, rejoice!

Best Supporting Actor

Have seen three of the performances: Yuri Borisov (Anora), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), and Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown).  Culkin has won both the Golden Globe and the SAG Award, so no surprise if he wins on Sunday night.  In his acceptance speeches for those awards, he came across to me as real tool, so who wants to hear him talk again?  My vote, if I had one, would go to Norton.

Best Supporting Actress

Have seen Monica Barbara (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked), and Isabella Rossellini (Conclave).  I'm gonna predict a win for Barbaro for this one, and that would make me happy.  Although, a part of me would like to see Rossellini win it simply because she is Ingrid Bergman's daughter.

And Some Out of My Butt Predictions

• Best Director - Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
• Best Adapted Screenplay - Peter Straughan, Conclave
• Best Original Screenplay - Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
• Also, each year, one movie comes to Oscars night with a shitload of nominations, and goes home getting shut out, or with some minor technical award.  This year, I predict that this dubious distinction will go to Wicked.

So there you have it:  The Grandstander's thoughts on this year's Academy Awards.  Like millions of others, I will be tuned in on Sunday night to watch how it all turns out.  Also, as I have done in the past, I will be giving Grandstander Awards for the Most Spectacular Gown and the Ugliest Gown of the evening.

Hoo-ray for Hollywood.

To Absent Friends - Gene Hackman

 

It can't be said that the news that actor Gene Hackman died yesterday at the age of 95 was a surprise.  The circumstances of his death - he was found dead in his home along with his 65 year old wife of thirty-one years and their dog - may raise some eyebrows, but that is not what is of concern in this space.  Rather it is the loss of an actor of extraordinary ability who was terrific in everything he ever did.  He was a two time Oscar winner and a five time nominee, and when he was on screen, he dominated just about every scene he was in.

IMDB lists 101 acting credits dating back to 1961 for a movie called "Mad Dog Coll", and, no, I've never heard of it either.  His last credit came in a 2004 movie "Welcome to Mooseport", a comedy that I vaguely remember seeing.  In between those two gems was a career that would make Hackman, were he a baseball player, a first ballot Hall of Famer.

The first time that I remember seeing Hackman came when he played Buck Barrow, Clyde's brother, in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967).

Then there was, of course, his Oscar winning role as Popeye Doyle in "The French Connection" (1971).

In 1986, he appeared as high school basketball coach Norman Dale in "Hoosiers", which just may be the greatest sports movie ever.

Twenty-one years later, he won Oscar number two in Clint Eastwood's western "Unforgiven" (1992).

He could do comedy, too, as he showed when he played the blind hermit in Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" (1974).

Just last week I saw an ad for Netflix announcing that on March 1, they would add the movie "Runaway Jury" (2003) to their streaming library.  This was Hackman's second to last film.  It is a legal thriller based on a John Grisham novel wherein Hackman plays a high powered NYC attorney defending an Evil Corporation in a civil suit.  The attorney for the plaintiff is a folksy country bumpkin attorney played by Dustin Hoffman.  It is not an all-time great movie, but it is an above average thriller worth seeing if only to watch two heavyweights like Hackman and Hoffman go up against each other.

(Fun Fact:  when the filming of this movie was completed, the filmmakers realized that there was not one scene where Hackman and Hoffman were together in a one-on-one situation.  So, a scene was quickly written wherein the two would confront each other alone in a courthouse washroom, and the two actors were called back to work to film the scene pictured above, and it turned to to be the best scene in the entire movie.  You can watch that scene HERE.)

Of course, when you look at the list of Gene Hackman's entire filmography, you see so many movies that are absolute classics.  I won't try to list them all.  I'd run out of space, and I would probably leave out one of YOUR favorite Hackman movies. Looking for something to while away the evenings as winter turns not spring?  Check out you DVD library or go to your various streaming services and have yourself a "Gene Hackman Film Festival" right there in your living room.  It will be time well spent.  

RIP Gene Hackman, a true giant.

To Absent Friends - Clinton Hill

No doubt many of you reading this are asking "Just who is Clinton Hill?"  If you are in your late sixtes or older, you might be saying "The name rings a distant bell, but I just can't place it."

Clint Hill, who died this week at the age of 93, is pictured below in two of the most iconic news photographs of the 1960's, specifically, from November 22, 1963:

Hill was the Secret Service Agent, whose main assignment was to provide protection the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, who leapt upon the back of the Presidential limousine seconds after the shots were fired at President Kennedy that day in an effort to save and protect the President and the First Lady.

Hill's obituary in the Washington Post outlines how Hill spent most of the rest of his life racked by guilt over his "failure" on that day.  He retired from the Secret Service in 1975 at age 43, serving through the Ford Administration.  He remained friends with Mrs. Kennedy, but his experiences from that day in Dallas drove him to a suicide attempt and psychiatric care.  He became reclusive for much of the rest of his life.

It wasn't until 1990 that Hill came to some sense of closure.  He revisited Dallas for the first time since the assassination, walked through Dealey Plaza, and visited the Texas School Book Depository, now a museum, and stood in the spot where Lee Harvey Oswald fired his deadly shots.  

From the Post's obituary:

"That really helped me understand that I had done everything that day that I could have done," he said. "There wasn't anything else that I could have done.  And so that gave me some sense of relief.  Even so, I still had that sense of guilt for failing to fulfill my responsibility."

RIP Agent Clinton Hill.

Book Review - "Bluff" by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

 

"Bluff" was one of the books that pop up in my emails from either Book Bub or Amazon's "Kindle Recommendations for You", can't remember which one, that you can download not your Kindle for $1.99. This one seemed interesting, so I let the moths fly out of my wallet and spent the buck ninety-nine.

The story begins when a woman walks into a swanky New York City restaurant, one frequented by NYC power brokers and the high society Ladies Who Lunch crowd, proceeds to shoot a guy, walks out of the restaurant, and goes on the lam.

What follows is a story about high society mores in NYC, and high-level swindling scheme, and how three ladies plot to gain revenge upon the swindler.  One of the protagonists - part of the book is told in her first person viewpoint - is a high level poker player, and she tells the story using the analogy of a high stakes poker game.  Don't worry, though, you don't have to be a poker player to follow along.

After finishing the book, I went to the Google Machine to learn a little more about the author.  Jane Stanton Hitchcock comes from the high society milieu that she writes about in "Bluff", and her family was bilked out of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme run by a guy named Ken Starr (not the Ken Starr who headed the investigation that went after Bill Clinton in the 1990's; this guy eventually went to prison for his deeds) whose victims included celebrities like Sly Stallone, Carly Simon, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, and others, and she is a serious poker player.  So, as Stanton has been quoted, the story of "Bluff" is very much like her own story, minus the murder, of course.  I kind of wish that I had known all of this before I read the book.

Jane Stanton Hitchcock

In 2019, Santon and "Bluff" were named winner of the Dashiell Hammett Award by the International Association of Crime Writers. I enjoyed this book, and will be looking to read some of the other mystery novels that she has written.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

To Absent Friends - Mike Lange

 

Legendary Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play guy Mike Lange died yesterday at the of 76.  Yes, I said "legendary" and for once this is not an exaggeration.   A case can be made that the popularity of the Penguins as a sports franchise in Pittsburgh can be attributed to Lange every bit as much s it can be assigned to Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby. 

As my friend Fred put it on a text last night, "Lange was the last of a dying breed of announcers, in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, who's allowed to be as much of an attraction to the fans as the team was. It is why people organized a parade for Bob Prince when he was fired.  Today the teams and the media outlets will not allow that - they want guys (and they are pretty much all the same guys)who will just say what the producers whisper in their earpieces."

Lange's was famous for his catchphrases, such as.....

• "It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh".  Said at the beginning of each broadcast and still played over the PA system just before face-offs at PPG Paints Arena.
• "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building."  Said as the final buzzer sounded after a Pens win.
• And, of course, all of the ones after a notable play or a Penguins goal: "Oh scratch my back with a hacksaw", "You'd have to be here to believe it". "He beat him like a rented mule", "He's smiling like a butcher's dog", "Oh, he wants to sell my monkey", "Get in the fast lane, Grandma, the bingo game is about to begin", "Shave my face with a rusty razor."

I could go on, but it would be selling Mike Lange short to say that he was guy with nothing but funny taglines.  He was as good a play-by-play guy as we have ever seen in The Burgh, and he did it describing the most difficult game of all to broadcast.

I myself never had an encounter with Mike Lange, but well before I knew Linda - who we all know is a Hockey Fan Supreme and a former season ticket holder - she would often see Lange at the Civic Arena's Igloo Club during post games, and had this encounter with him at Monte Cello's Restaurant on Babcock Boulevard, sometime in the mid-2010's, which she noted on her Instagram page yesterday:

As she noted, there will never be another like him, and for Pens fans everywhere Elvis has now truly left the building.

RIP Mike Lange.

Super Bow; LIX - Eagles XL - Chiefs XXII

Let me begin my commentary on this past Sunday's Super Bowl by flashing back to what I wrote two years ago in this space, February 15, 2023 to be exact, after the Kansas City defeated Philadelphia 39-35:

• Equally magnificent in defeat was Eagles QB Jalen Hurts.  Three rushing TD's and a bomb of a TD pass.  He led the Eagles on a drive in the fourth quarter to tie the game after KayCee took a 35-27 lead, by making an "octopus" (more on that later).  It was gutty performance, and perhaps the best and most heroic performance in defeat in Super Bowl history.  Hurts has proven himself beyond all doubt, and Philly is set at QB for the next decade or so.

As the old saying goes, I believe I had that.

The highly anticipated matchup between the  two Number 1 and Number 2 seeds in their respective conferences turned into pretty much a non-game.  The Eagles led 24-0 at half time and extended that lead to 34-0 in the third quarter before KayCee finally got on the board.  Patrick Mahomes had perhaps the worst game of his career with two interceptions, one of which was returned for an Eagles TD and the other was deep inside Chiefs territory that led to another Philly score.  He was also pressured relentlessly by the Philly defense and was sacked 6 times.

Hurts, on the other hand was terrific.   He went 17 for 22 passing for 221 yards and two TD, and rushed for 72 yards on 11 carries and scored a TD of his own.  He fully deserved that MVP Award and those trips to Disney World.

A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith 

each caught a TD pass from Hurts

It sure wasn't the thrilling game that America's football fans wanted to see, and Mahomes and the Chiefs sure picked a bad day to have a Bad Day, but it happens.  As I often say, no sporting event comes with a guarantee.

Halftime Show

I am going to take the position of my favorite podcaster, Tony Kornheiser, on this one.  I am certain that Kendrick Lamar is very good, and perhaps among the very best at what he does (the guy has actually won a Pulitzer Prize for his work), but what he does is not aimed at me, although I truly did enjoy the choreography and dancing of the seeming hundreds of people on stage with Mr. Lamar..  I am not going to rage and criticize.  If you enjoyed it, great.  If you didn't, I hope that you used your time to go to the bathroom and get something to eat, and didn't give yourself an ulcer by griping and moaning about the performance.

Commercials

What we liked:

• Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal
• David Beckham and Dave Beckham.  "Are you like Matt Damon-famous?"
• Harrison Ford for Jeep "even though my last name is Ford."
• Ben and Casey Affleck for Dunkin' featuring Bill Belichick and his girlfriend.
• Anything with the Manning Brothers.

Didn't like:

• Those Tubi commercials with the people with the cowboy hat heads.  THAT was totally creepy.
• Seal as a seal.  Also kind of creepy.

To Absent Friends - Tony Roberts

Tony Roberts

1939-2025

The news arrived yesterday that actor Tony Roberts had died at the age of 85.  As his New York Times obituary pointed out, Roberts is best known for his roles in six Woody Allen films, usually playing Allen's best friend who tries to keep all of Woody's characters' various neuroses in check.  He also had an accomplished career on stage in New York, which is how he met Allen in the first place.  The two became fast friends well beyond their professional relationship.  Roberts' IMDB profile lists 68 acting credits in both feature films and television.

Perhaps his most notable role came in "Annie Hall" when he played the best friend of Allen's Alvy Singer.  He played an actor who moved on to Hollywood and was constantly trying to get Alvy to abandon New York City and come to California.  Alvy, of course, resisted, and it led to this great piece of dialog:

ALVY:  You're an actor.  You should be doing Shakespeare in the Park.

ROB: I did Shakespeare in the Park, Max.  I got mugged.  I was playing Richard the Second and two guys in leather jackets stole my leotard.

( I tried to find a clip of that scene on YouTube, but was unsuccessful.)

And it was Roberts' character in that movie who also introduced the acronym "VPL" when observing certain facets of how women were dressed at at Hollywood party.

I can also remember Roberts playing the Deputy Mayor of New York City in the original version of "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three".  He was terrific in the part.

I always hate to it see when someone like this leaves us.

RIP Tony Roberts

Roberts, Allen, and Diane Keaton

"Annie Hall"

"The Sequel" by Jean Hanff Korelitz

 

Back in July, 2021 (was it really that one ago?) I wrote THIS REVIEW of Jean Hanff Korelitz' novel "The Plot".  As you may remember, or will see if you click on the link, I thought it was terrific book, and I gave it a full Four Star Grandstander rating.  Three years later, Ms Korelitz has cranked out a follow-up to that great book, and it is called, fittingly, "The Sequel".

This in indeed a sequel, although it includes a whole new cast of characters. It takes place several years after the time setting of "The Plot", and the main character from that novel, Jake Bonner, is now dead, a suicide victim, and the protagonist in this one is his widow, Anna Williams-Bonner.   

Living the good life off of the earnings from Jake's blockbuster best-seller, Anna decides to write a novel of her own, and THAT novel becomes a best-seller, but not just a best-seller.  It is a literary best-seller.  And guess what happens, Anna starts receiving threatening anonymous messages just like Jake did.  Could it involve something about the story Jake used to pen his best-seller, and could Anna herself have played a part in the events surrounding that story?  How could she?  She didn't even know Jake back then, right?

I wish that I could say that I liked "The Sequel" as much as I did "The Plot", but, alas, I cannot.  I thought this one was a bit too convoluted as Korelitz wound through the stories within the stories of this particular Story.   The notes on the dust jacket of the book tells us that Korelitz "gives the readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing."  As to the first part of that, I am not sure that Anna is someone that you want to "root for"; you can draw your own conclusions if you read this.

As to the second part, as I read this, I wondered of the main point of the novel was to skewer the world of book publishing, and taking shots at the snobbery among writers and publishers concerning works of so-called "literary fiction" versus "genre fiction", and I'm still not totally sure upon which side Korelitz sits.

A disappointing Two Stars from The Grandstander.