Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien in F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise"

Here's an idea that would fulfill Oscar's mission to boost its sagging television ratings and honor cinematic art: Separate categories for Best Picture and Most Artistic Picture.

Interestingly, those two separate categories were in force at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929 (honoring the films of 1927 and 1928) where Wings, William Wellman's soaring aviation action flick, was named outstanding picture and Sunrise, F. W. Murnau's atmospheric portrait of an apparently doomed couple who reconcile, was named most unique and artistic.

Good idea, or what? And how would Oscar history be re-written if these two categories had been observed? My guess is that in 1982, E.T. would have been named best picture and Gandhi most artistic.

Why no Oscar love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Zooey Deschanel in "500 Days of Summer"?

Once again, in its nominations for the best films of 2008, Academy voters show they they don't get the joke. At Oscar time, comedies such as Julie & Julia, 500 Days of Summer and The Hangover are inevitably passed over because at Hollywood's annual throwdown serious movies get taken more seriously.

And not only in the best picture and screenplay categories: In the acting categories you'd have to go back to 1977 when Richard Dreyfuss won for The Goodbye Girl and Diane Keaton for Annie Hall and 1987 when Cher won for Moonstruck and 1997 when Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson won statuettes for As Good as It Gets to see lead actors awarded for a movie comedy.

Nancy Meyers, who writes movie comedies such as Something's Gotta Give and It's Complicated observed the unfairness of this bias a few years back when she told me that considering the degree of difficulty involved, the bias against comedy is a raw deal: "In drama, you have a big target. In comedy, you have to hit the bullseye." To put it another way: Oscar rewards the tears of a clown, but not the clown himself: Robin Williams didn't win an Oscar till he wept in Good Will Hunting. Tom Hanks gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance in Big, but gets Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.

Classicists tell us that the bias against comedy is ancient. Plato held a low opinion of the comic form. At their theater festivals, Athenians devoted three days to tragedy and only one to comedy.

Shakespeare was criticized for "mixing kings and clowns." But should the Academy likewise be critical?  What Shakespeare knew that Academy voters seem not to is that while the king rules the people, the jester rules the king.

Which comedy films/screenplays/performances got overlooked this year? The most egregious omission for me is Stanley Tucci, brilliant in Julie & Julia and pretty dull as the serial killer in The Lovely Bones, a role that nabbed him a nomination. Your thoughts?

Kissing Adversaries: Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock suck face at an awards show.

To the extent that the Oscars are symbolic of professional acceptance of women outside the acting ranks, today's announcement of Academy Award nominations are gratifying on several fronts.

Kathryn Bigelow became the fourth woman to get a best director nod. Here's what I said today about what her win might represent.

Two of the 10 best picture nominees, Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and Lone Scherfig's An Education, are directed by female helmers.

The indefatigable Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren were nominated for the umpteenth times for Julie & Julia and The Last Station, joined by first-time nominees Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious).

Female art directors were involved in four of the five nominated films; female designers were nominated four four of the five best costume bids; for of the documentary nominees were directed or co-directed by women.

The music and technical nominations were dominated by men, although Sally Menke (Inglourious Basterds) got a nomination for editing and Gwendolyn Whittle is part of the nominated sound editing duo for Avatar.

In the screenwriting categories, usually areas where there are multiple nominees, only Terri Tatchell, who co-wrote District 9, scored a nomination. Nora Ephron's witty Julie & Julia was undeservedly shut out.

Besides the "battle of the exes" race between Bigelow (nine nominations for Hurt Locker) and her former spouse James Cameron (nine for Avatar), the most interesting races are in the acting categories. Will beloved Hollywood veteran Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) edge out beloved Hollywood glamorpuss George Clooney (Up in the Air)? Can first-time nominee Sandra Bullock beat 16-time nominee Meryl Streep, who hasn't won an Oscar in 25 years? I like all four performances. At Oscar time, though, seriousness (Bridges, Bullock) usually trumps lightness (Clooney, Streep).

Your thoughts?

Meryl Streep (l) and Mo'Nique (r), two women of a certain age surfing the awards tsunami.

Here are some numbers. Can you guess what they represent?

64, 60, 45, 42 and 36.

They are the ages of the most-nominated actresses of this awards season. In descending order: Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Mo'Nique (Precious) and Vera Farmiga, (Up in the Air), all women of a certain age.

This is news because 20 years ago the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) found, to its horror, that actresses over 30 were underemployed and underpaid compared to their actor colleagues. In 1990, females constituted only 29 per cent of the lead roles in movies. The SAG report also noted that "after the age of 10, men consistently make higher average earnings...than women do." That state of affairs prompted Streep, then 40 and hitting a cinderblock ceiling in Hollywood, to quip, "From birth through age 9, actresses can make a pretty fair living." She advised, "Little girls, hold out for the big money, invest wisely and investigate other carers, because after fourth grade, it's all downhill." Good for Mirren, Mo'Nique et al for showing that women of a certain age have box office viability and vitality.

Here are some other numbers. Can you guess what they represent?

$379 million, $315 million, $150 million, $118 million and $16 million. They are the world-wide box-office grosses for some of the most comercially successful and acclaimed films of 2009 -- all directed by women. In descending order, they are: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (directed by Betty Thomas, 61), The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 33), It's Complicated (Nancy Meyers, 60), Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron, 68) and The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 58).

This is business news, testament to the viability and vitality of women filmmakers, who in 2008 represented only 9 per cent of directors. This is artistic news because Bigelow stands a strong chance of being the first woman director ever to win an Oscar. (Only three have previously been nominated: Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties),  Jane Campion (The Piano) and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation).

You go, ladies. Your thoughts?

Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides

In October Jeff Bridges fans (and who is not?) were stoked. Looked like Hollywood's most reliable character (and character actor) would nab a supporting-actor bid for his role as the space-cadet Col. Bill Django in Men Who Stare at Goats. Then came Crazy Heart,  starring Bridges as a Kris Kristofersson-lookalike country singer "Bad Blake" battling his demons and alcohol, which so far has earned the previously awardless (zero-for-four at the Oscars) actor a Golden Globe and a Screen Actor's Guild prize, making him odds-on favorite for an Academy Award. (Oscar nominations are announced next Tuesday).

As Bad, Bridges gives one of those lived-in, self-effacing, subdued (sub-Dude?) performances that draw you in because it's behavior, not acting. It's a very good performance from a behavioralist who has never been less than good. But is it his greatest. Probably not: I'd go for The Last Picture Show, Fearless or The Fabulous Baker Boys. Still, in  the happy event he wins the Oscar, Bridges won't be the first to be given what I call the "Oops!" award -- recognition for a performer who should have been recognized already.

The most famous recipients of "Oops!" Oscars are Paul Newman (not for The Hustler or Hud or The Verdict, but for The Color of Money), Al Pacino (not for The Godfathers or Scarface but for, heaven help us, Scent of a Woman) and Denzel Washington (not for Malcolm X or The Hurricane, but for Training Day).

Watching Crazy Heart, I kept thinking how much Bridges sang and moved and smiled like a beefier version of Kristofersson, his co-star in Heaven's Gate, the notorious failure where Bridges also met music songwriter/producer T Bone Burnett, who likewise worked on Crazy Heart. While Bridges, like his Thunderbolt and Lightfoot co-star Clint Eastwood, is unassuming as an actor, his performances (also like Eastwood's) define an embattled, hard-won masculinity.

What do you think of Bridges' chances? His only real competition this year is George Clooney, very good in Up in the Air, and Christopher Plummer, sublime in The Last Station. And what would you choose as the Bridges performance that had the greatest degree of difficulty? Much as I love his signature role in The Big Lebowski, as the air-crash survivor in Fearless, the disc jockey in The Fisher King and the failed auto-maker in Tucker, Bridges had greater acting challenges. The Dude abides.

Harrison Ford as a research scientist and Brendan Fraser as a father racing against time in "Extraordinary Measures"

Extraordinary Measures, the true-life medical thriller out in theaters today, focuses on a heroic father seeking treatment for a fatal neurological disorder that affects two of his children. I have mixed feelings about the movie. While I was caught up in the story of the successful pharmaceutical exec who strategizes a way to develop a treatment, I was distracted by the film's assumption that if you're sick and need healthcare, it helps to have rich parents. I wasn't the only observer troubled by this.

Roger Ebert concludes his (likewise mixed) review with: "[The movie] also sidesteps the point that the U.S. health-care system makes the cure unavailable to many dying children; they are being saved in nations with universal health coverage. " And in his review, Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips likens Measures with another film popular in theaters now: "The movie is being sold as The Blind Side without the football, or without everything else “The Blind Side” is actually about. The one thing these two pictures have in common is their slickly packaged belief in what the well-to-do can do, if they put their money where their heart is."

The Blind Side (which I like, but have reservations about, because it does not develop Michael Oher's character) is an interesting comparison. For if the assumption of Extraordinary Measures is that U.S. healthcare works if you have rich parents, then the  assumption of The Blind Side is that the educational system works if your parents can afford to send you to private school and get you tutors.

With the exception of Precious, which says that education is the key to self-worth, few recent movies have added to the national conversation on health-care reform or educational reform. This was not always the case. There was a month in late 1997 and early 1998 when movies diverse as As Good as It Gets, Bulworth and The Rainmaker vividly criticized the stranglehold the insurance industry has on health care. And last year's fascinating French film The Class illustrated the challenges of teaching and attending a diverse public school in Paris.

Thoughts on The Blind Side and Extraordinary Measures? Consider this an open thread to discuss how movies contribute to the national dialogue.

Mark Wahlberg as Vince Papale in "Invincible," one of the many films shot in Philadelphia.

 In its annual survey of the best places to make films in the United States, Moviemaker Magazine once again ranked Philadelphia among the Top 10,. Editors placed the city at #9, after a busy 2009 production schedule when Jamie Foxx, Dev Patel and Reese Witherspoon came to shoot movies with F. Gary Gray (Law Abiding Citizen), M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender)  and James L. Brooks (Untitled James L. Brooks Project) . (Last year, Philly ranked #15, in 2007 it was #5).

According to the magazine's editor Jennifer Wood, "The criteria for the list included a swarm of factors: Cost of living, employment opportunities, housing costs, crime rates and quality of life, state and city financial incentives, access to talent, size and closeness of the local moviemaking community, ease of shooting (i.e. amount of red tape), local production resources and movie-related vendors." Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, was on her way to the Sundance Film Festival and could not be reached for comment. But Flickgrrl is reasonably sure that Pinkenson would have thanked state legislators for keeping the endangered Film Tax Credit in the state budget. That's the financial incentive that gets productions to do business here.

Your favorite film shot in Philly? I'm going to declare a three-way tie between Rocky, Blow Out and The Sixth Sense, though I also like Philadelphia and Invincible.

Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in "Legally Blonde" delivers the keynote at her Harvard Law School graduation.

While fishing on the internet for other great movie speeches, I found  that AmericanRhetoric.com -- on its blogroll below "Plato on Rhetoric" and "Christian Rhetoric" and "Obama Speeches" -- has a link to Great Movie Speeches, with audio from the usual suspects (passages from Gandhi,  Malcolm X and  Gladiator as well as dozens of unusual ones. Check it out. Your nomination for best movie speech?

Though both Mo'Nique and Jeff Bridges delivered deeply emotional speeches at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday night in accepting (respectively) supporting actress honors (for  Precious) and the prize for best actor in a drama (Crazy Heart), the evening was otherwise thin on what my speech teacher called passionate rhetoric.

My thoughts naturally turned to Great Movie Speeches -- and not only Gandhi's, and Malcolm X's and Jefferson Smith's, but also:

Kevin Costner  in Bull Durham: "I believe in the soul... the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."
 

Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: "On our very first day at Harvard a very wise professor quoted Aristotle... "the law is reason free from passion." Well...no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law...and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world. Remembering that first impressions are not always correct, you must always have faith in people, and most importantly...you must always have faith in yourself."

Queen Latifah in Hairspray (after learning that her son is dating a white girl): "Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid."

Your favorite movie speech?

Channing Tatum: Guilty of Oversharing?

Every starlet (and strumpet) knows that the quickest way of getting attention is by making her privates public. But that attention tends to be of very short span.

Ordinarily I would  not draw attention to such naked attention-grabbers. But really, in a week where Channing Tatum has shared details about the scalding of his schwanstucke and Jennifer Love Hewitt has blinged her Delta of Venus,  and Warren Beatty's biographer has catalogued the actor's conquests and erotic tastes, someone has to sound like your grandmother and it may as well be Flickgrrl.

To Tatum and Hewitt and Beatty biographer Biskind I say, "Wouldn't you rather be unique than common?" And to Flickgrrl readers I ask, "They're called privates because they should be private. Agreed?" Where do we draw the line between sharing and oversharing?