While You Were Sleeping: Westboro Stoops To New Low, Falls On Its Face

Posted by Brian Fairbanks

Dolly Parton has come to rescue Jessica Simpson, although we think it's a bit late for that now.

Mike Myers and Paris Hilton won several insulting awards over the weekend.

Ladies, don't despair: your best sex comes in your forties.

Thanks to this kid, the porn thief has been captured.

Is it better to be unemployed than to have a job in your 20s as an obit writer? In Florida?

Three Westboro Wackos were routed from protesting the Flight 3407 disaster-- and they didn't even need to use violence.

Nicole Richie is pregnant again.

Here's your idiot Republican of the day: a Senator who offhandedly predicted Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be dead within the year.

Although it was snubbed for Best Song (why? why? there were only three song nominees this year!) and, ultimately, a Best Actor statue, The Wrestler won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. More about the event here.

One of the worst-ever Academy Awards ended last night with Slumdog Millionaire moseying up the podium with its main cast in tow. The big upset was Sean Penn's win for Best Actor, which some are already calling an apology for their Prop 8 votes. (If they wanted to do that, why didn't they vote for Milk for Best Picture? That would have been a much better judgment call, plus Mickey Rourke has never won an Oscar and was almost equally deserving.) To read the complete list of winners, click here.

Related:

Scanner Predicts the 2009 Academy Award Winners

While You Were Sleeping: Oscar Upsets?

Leo's Girlfriend is a Sports Illustrated Cover Girl

AskMen's Top 99 Women

+ DIGG

+ DEL.ICIO.US

+ REDDIT

Posted Feb 23 2009, 09:08 AM

Comments

profrobert said:

I actually agree with the Penn award this time. He really acted in his movie; Mickey Rourke basically played himself, no great stretch. Amusingly, this was the same criticism I had when Penn won for Mystic River -- he was just playing a violent thug just like he is -- instead of Bill Murray for Lost in Translation.

February 23, 2009 9:22 AM

Wyatt said:

I get your point - it was a role specifically written for Mickey Rourke, while Penn was playing someone nothing like himself. Still, the depth Rourke bought to the role was awe-inspiring. I would have been fine with either one of them winning.

Saw Che finally. Brian, you and Sean Penn couldn't be more wrong about Del Toro in that movie. For some strange reason, Soderbergh decided to show only the mechanics of Guevara's greatest victory and his greatest defeat. Nowhere does the movie show him making a life-altering choice about anything, or changing his mind, aside from a few short scenes at a dinner where he meets Fidel Castro for the first time. In short, there is no inner conflict at all, just the character running around the forest a lot. Why Soderbergh made that choice I have no idea, but Del Toro doesn't really get to act at all, much less is he deserving of Oscar recognition.

February 23, 2009 10:57 AM

Brian Fairbanks said:

Wyatt, I completely understand where you're coming from, but Sean and I both agree that you can't bring the director's choices into whether a performance is worthy of awards. Del Toro does have very little to work with, yes, but for me, it's the subtlety of a performance that can be profound... the sort of "not-acting" acting, where you forget that it's a performance.

A great example from last year of this naturalism would be Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy. It's no wonder the Academy overlooked both performances in favor of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in their respective categories-- both eventual nominees can be seen trying really hard to give a good performance on screen, whereas Benicio and Williams just inhabited the character and went where the director told their characters to.

Benicio is brilliant in all of these small moments-- for example, his reaction to the woman who has come for a checkup, only to tell him there is nothing wrong with her and when Che is dealing with the two young guys who want to volunteer. It may look to us like there's nothing going on in this moments for an actor like Del Toro, but watch carefully: his eyes are extremely expressive, the way his shoulders sink, he tells you what the character is thinking with almost no dialogue and without ever overdoing it.

February 23, 2009 11:32 AM

Wyatt said:

Reading my own comment, I'm kind of embarrassed that I wrote "you couldn't be more wrong . . . " It's very rude. I should have written "I couldn't disagree more . . . ", sorry about that.

Still, if all of the character's internal conflict is in the backstory, there's not enough being asked of the actor for him or her to warrant recognition of this kind (not that the Oscars are the paragon of virtue and integrity, but the principle is what counts). I'm not against naturalism, but conflict is the essence of drama, and Che, the character, has none whatsoever.

February 23, 2009 12:27 PM

About Brian Fairbanks

Brian Fairbanks, the Senior National Political Correspondent for Nerve, is a filmmaker living in Brooklyn or New Orleans, depending on the season. He is a heavily-armed advocate of gun control.