Cheat To Win

The Oscars are often blasted for their lily-white lineups, but the presence of these three films — plus a wild card coming in the Steve McQueen–directed, Chiwetel Ejiofor–starring Twelve Years a Slave — could make this year’s Best Actor category rather unprecedented. It is obviously very early to be handicapping, and Weinstein demurred a bit when I asked him about that angle… Still, it’s an encouraging trend, even if all four of the aforementioned movies are biopics. If history is made in the Best Actor category this year, let’s hope it’ll eventually encourage Hollywood to cast black leads in roles that don’t even require them.

Fingers crossed (though my money is on Michael B. Jordan and Fruitvale Station).

Harry’s not quite as capable as Peggy, so his ambition seems silly. He’s not as manipulative as Pete, so his demands are easier to ignore. He’s not charismatic like Don, or charming like Roger, so no one has an urge to help him. (Except maybe Scarlett. Who he is maybe sleeping with.) He can’t dress people down like Joan can. He isn’t as decent as Ken or as determined as Ginsberg or as confident as Stan. He can’t wear a French maid costume like Megan. Harry doesn’t have athing. So when he complains loudly that Joan slept her way into a partners’ meeting, it’s not that he’s factually wrong. She did. But that’s a really narrow description of how Joan landed at the top; her institutional memory alone makes her incredibly valuable to the company. That’s Harry in a nutshell: not wrong, exactly, but definitely not right.

Margaret is better at discussing Mad Men than you are.

In response to this truly terrible Vulture post.

Mad Men often seems like an anti-marriage show; everyone will cheat, the concept of love was invented to sell nylons, and if you think you are special, you are wrong. But that kind of cynicism in the characters — and maybe in the show itself — is a by-product of distorted maternal love. (“Mommy issues,” if we’re being glib.) Given what we know about Betty’s own parents, can we really blame her for not wanting to — or really knowing how — to raise children? Pete’s a terrible husband, but his own parents basically hated him, and he hated them back, so what model exactly was he supposed to follow? Joan’s whole thing is that she isn’t maternal, and yet there she is, raising a son she’ll never be able to be honest with. Take those pills at the right time, Megan. And maybe get some backup contraception, too. You don’t want to bring a baby into this world.

Margaret Lyons, you’re the best.

This is so fucking important right now.

Compliment away, friends. Let’s compliment the shit out of each other. But let’s be really cognizant of what we compliment each other on, and what that says about what we expect from each other, and what we consider valuable and worth mentioning. It doesn’t matter what Salma Hayek says, because she’s so pretty!

I get the feeling LA casting directors may love Kyle Chandler almost as much as I do.

I’m so glad someone finally explained the episode the same way I saw it - you’re not supposed to assume it’s real.  And it’s not entirely clear that it’s a dream either.  It IS supposed to make you think, though…and if you were paying attention, it succeeded.

That’s “One Man’s Trash,” I think. I added that “I think” because being any more definitive than that would violate the spirit of the episode. You can’t “prove” what did or did not happen in “One Man’s Trash,” or say for certain how much of it occupies a place within the show’s established timeline of “real” characters and events. It does feel like an ellipse of some kind — or maybe a cul-de-sac from which Hannah emotionally escapes when the “relationship” goes to hell in a handbasket. (I love that mini-arc, by the way; it reminded me a little bit of that brilliant answering-machine sequence in Jon Favreau’s Swingers.) What’s happening in “One Man’s Trash” is “real” in the sense that it reflects Hannah’s personality, wants, needs, desires, and fears, and perhaps exposes an unpleasant part of herself that she’d otherwise deny. One “tell” that jumped out at me was Joshua’s vague account of the breakup of his marriage, which included what sounded like placeholder dialogue that Hannah would presumably fill in with real dialogue during revision (“ … real stuff that causes problems, and, uh, marriages to end”). Another is the scene where she makes him ask her to stay over and over and over, in different intonations, like an actor in a TV show produced by and starring Hannah Horvath. “I want you to stay” is one reading. “I don’t want to ever be without you” is another. They’re all so needy, and so fantastical, that they become a kind of verbal pornography, designed to give a secret princess an emotional orgasm.

The long-defunct Powerpuff Girls will be resurrected, Cartoon Network has announced. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, who’ve been off the air since 2005, will appear in a new special this year that gives them and the rest of the residents of Townsville a “redesigned and re-imagined” CG look and introduces a new character named Fibonacci Sequins, voiced by Ringo Starr. Yes, he is the town mathematician. Come for the adorable stories of empowerment and genre satire, stay for the math jokes!

The world could always use more Powerpuff Girls.

Lincoln could lose Best Picture.
But to whom? Only Best Picture nominees Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbookscored corresponding Best Director and Best Editing nods, indicating that they are Lincoln’s strongest competition. Life of Pi is pretty Spielbergian on its own, what with all those beatific faces and visual money shots, so I don’t see it as theLincoln alternative. Instead, that slot would go to Silver Linings Playbook. Too bad Silver Linings producer Harvey Weinstein has no experience going up against a war-era Steven Spielberg film and snatching away its Best Picture win with a smaller-but-beloved dramedy that features a star-coronating Best Actress performance. Oh, wait.

I’m not gonna lie - I really wouldn’t mind Silver Linings Playbook beating out Lincoln. Like at all.

I gotta agree with Joey on this one - the third season of Happy Endings has been thoroughly mediocre, and with just a few quality episodes and hemorrhaging ratings, I wouldn’t count on it coming back.  TBS can’t be counted on to snatch up the crumbs of networks, and the newest season of Cougar Town isn’t even coming back to rave reviews.

I may be the nerd who obsesses over ratings/TV schedules, but this article from Vulture is pretty spot on.  The two-nights-a-week move is NOT a good sign for either show, and fans may have to just accept the most likely scenario here - ABC just isn’t that invested in giving this show a happy ending.

SPOILER ALERT: You’re a twat if you haven’t seen it yet, but Homeland’s season finale changed everything.  Where do they go from here?

Poor Dana. If Brody’s not in D.C., we probably won’t see his family on an episode-to-episode basis. (What about Chris’s soccer games?!) But it’s time for Dana to join forces with Carrie, as some kind of junior agent in the family-name-clearing division. If we don’t see Jess or Mike again, whatever. But Dana’s going to have to channel her grief and rage into something. It might as well be as Teen Girl Detective. You’d be surprised how little teenage sneering terror suspects can tolerate before they break and spill all their secrets.

In the episode’s imagining, the plan is to sneak past MTV HQ security in New York to take back the airwaves in the name of music. In a largely improvised scene, Armisen quizzed the group as to how they could be best utilized in the takeover. “You are the brain trust of MTV.” Armisen told them, all of whom were holding their own, improv-wise. “Do you have any special skills?”

“I can be sardonic,” volunteered Loder.

“I can bullshit my way into the building,” Pinfield offered.

“I speak tween,” says Soren, who now has three kids.

I miss the 90s just as much as you do, Portlandia.  Trust me.

HBO is developing a sequel to Game Change (sadlynot entitled Game Change 2: More Games, Less Change) based on the 2012 election. Like Game Change, which eventually went on to win four Emmys, the movie will be based on a book by Mark Halperin and New York’s own John Heilemann. Halperin and Heilemann are currently working on Double Down: Game Change 2012 with the intention of a fall 2013 release. The film will follow after. In related news, Julianne Moore just bought a Paul Ryan wig.  

I cannot wait to breathlessly read this absurdly biased well-researched book and then host a party for the premiere on HBO.  I am not kidding in the slightest.