Best Picture
In 2010, frequently tasteless and irritating filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky and the Coen Brothers delivered fully-achieved entertainments with Black Swan and True Grit. Toy Story 3 was also unexpectedly, extravagantly moving for a ten-years-coming sequel to a mega-franchise. It’s the best of the nominees. Academy attention has been focused, though, on The Social Network and The King’s Speech. The latter teeters on the edge of being perceived as too small and too stagey (despite being an original screenplay!) to take home the ultimate honor–a problem most certainly not addling The Social Network. King’s chances hinge on whether its stirrings about democracy trumping class destiny sufficiently enlarge its canvas. Network is a fast-paced, suffocatingly relevant film primed to alienate older voters. Recent winners, though, have been edgier and hipper, so don’t be surprised by a narrow win for The Social Network. Snubbed: The Ghost Writer, the best film of the year, an angry, caustic cry of exile and political despair–and an absolutely masterful thriller.

Best Actor
Colin Firth’s stammering, staccato performance in The King’s Speech will easily best the deliberately inscrutable efforts of Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, not least because the British film is about the art of acting and floats the flattering idea that radio (and, by extension, all modern media) can humble kings. An unbeatable tangle of self-congratulation. It’s a shame that Jeff Bridges won last year, because his grizzly, unpretentious performance in True Grit is both better than it should be and better than his competition. Bardem should receive some sort of consolation prize for his Biutiful suffering, though. Snubbed: Stephen Dorff (Somewhere), Jim Carrey (I Love You Phillip Morris)

Best Actress
Once again, Julianne Moore is the most unappreciated actress in Hollywood. Despite her performance being altogether more complex, shaded, and demanding than Annette Benning’s, the less-than-better-half of The Kids Are All Right received Academy plaudits for a mediocre retread of her American Beauty harpy. By contrast, Natalie Portman totally inhabits her Black Swan character in every respect–resolve, vapidity, terror, technical perfection over reckless emotion. I mean the foregoing as a compliment. Plus, the Academy always prefers a pretty young body to a soulful performance. Snubbed: Moore, Elle Fanning (Somewhere)

Best Supporting Actor
Mark Ruffalo’s affable performance in The Kids Are All Right was a dead-on rendition of Southern California aimlessness. It should win, but Ruffalo’s recessive accuracy works against him here. Christian Bale’s embarrassing and hateful showboating in The Fighter is a more Academy-friendly performance but wide support for The King’s Speech will give the win to Geoffrey Rush for his altogether more effortless and enjoyable turn. Snubbed: Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Justin Timberlake (The Social Network)

Best Supporting Actress
Melissa Leo seemed a sure thing before Hollywood declared her attempt at self promotion in the trades gauche and desperate. That, combined with vote-splitting with The Fighter’s altogether more talented Amy Adams and the fact that her performance is a horrific, one-note white trash caricature, militates against Leo’s chances. For once, the Academy will award the best performance, Hailee Steinfeld, whose turn is transparently central (despite being shunted to the Supporting category) to the power of the genuinely popular True Grit. Snubbed: Rosario Dawson (Unstoppable), Rooney Mara (The Social Network)

Best Foreign Language Film
As usual, only two entries have received theatrical distribution in the US as yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that either Biutiful or Dogtooth (which had a one-night run at the Dryden last summer) is favored to win. Unlike all the other categories, voters in this contest must certify that they’ve seen all five nominees at special Academy screenings, which means the winner usually skews closer to the fuzzy taste of retirees than the the broader zeitgeist. Honoring the absurd and beguiling Dogtooth (replete with graphic incest scenes) would be the most radical act in the history of the Academy Awards. Better bet: the Canadian Incendies, which has the backing of juggernaut Sony Pictures Classics and heart-rending themes of transcontinental, panreligious understanding. Snubbed: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand)

Best Documentary
If Dogtooth is this year’s most heartening nomination, then the absence of the pro-privatization, anti-union Waiting for “Superman” from the Best Documentary Feature category is the year’s most unexpected and satisfying exclusion. Without “Superman” in the running, Charles Ferguson’s financial implosion éxposé Inside Job emerges as the heavy favorite. It’s timely and tackles a big subject–more than enough when there isn’t a Holocaust docu in competition. Snubbed: Last Train Home (Lixin Fan)

Best Costume Design
The omission of Black Swan in this category on a technicality has been one of the minor scandals of the season. Without the ballerinas in competition, this contest is something of a toss-up. I haven’t seen The Tempest and neither, I’d wager, have most of the Academy membership–a fact that in no way diminishes its chances. Voters tend toward the film that sounds like it has the most elaborate, exotic, and expensive costumes–and in that respect, the latest Taymor project must be a shoo-in.

Originally posted on the Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Young Professionals blog page.

The producers of this year’s Academy Awards® ceremony have come up with a brilliant strategy.  In addition to reaching out to a younger audience, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer want to include moms more.   After all, who doesn’t think of moms in the midst of all that Oscar® cleavage and tomfoolery?  And it’s not just the cutesy mom-as-date role.  They are inviting mothers of nominees, who they call “mominees” (yes, “mominees;” it’s so bad I shuttered to repeat it), to participate in the 90 minute pre-show festivities. They’ll be asked to share stories about their sons and daughters.   And – here’s the kicker – they announced Monday during the Oscar® nominees’ luncheon that they are asking moms to tweet.  Helena Bonham Carter’s mom already volunteered: “Yes, of course I will do it if they tell me what a tweet is.”

Oh, lordy. Moms tweeting. I don’t know how savvy your mom’s social networking skills are, but if my and Bonham Carter’s moms are any indication, this will be a real treat.  (Notice I passed on the “real tweet” pun. I thought “mominees” was more than enough pun for one blog post.)  My mom, who recently joined Facebook, writes the longest comments ever. And she signs them. I’m surprised there aren’t stops in there like a telegram.  I love my mom, but there is no way I would give her unfettered access to tweet away about me now, let alone if I was famous and nominated for an Oscar®.

Join us February 27 to celebrate the 83rd Academy Awards® at the annual George Eastman House Academy Awards® Party and tweet yourself to a mother lode of entertainment.

• @portmanmom at #Oscars. Very fancy. Kidman looks way too skinny. She should have eaten something before the ceremony.
• @momtobonhamcarter Annette Benning is gay?
• @firthmum Loved my son’s performance. He must have been nervous because he stuttered a little.
• @Balemummy That hiker lad’s arm is back!

Editor’s Note: Read Renee’s other entries leading up to this year’s celebration:

Let Hathaway and Franco Entertain You at Eastman House

Celebrate an Awkberg Moment at the Eastman House Academy Awards® Party

Originally posted on the Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Young Professionals blog page.

In case you still haven’t heard, James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be hosting this year’s Academy Awards® ceremony.  Holy hotness, Batman. The Oscars® are known for some interesting host choices; some better than others.  Last year they seemed to step-up the host entertainment value by having Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin share the emcee responsibilities.  Safe, yet entertaining for the typical traditional ceremony viewer.  But never have they handed the host duties to such young Hollywood hot commodities.  Franco and Hathaway are two of the most sought-after A list celebrities.  The pair are among the young in-demand actors gracing the cover of Vanity Fair’s 2011 Hollywood issue.  I already blogged about films like “The Social Network” and accessible actors like Jesse Eisenberg (who is also on that Vanity Fair cover) bringing the Academy Awards® ceremony to an audience that typically has not tuned in. The choice of Hathaway and Franco was a brilliant one that will widen the appeal of the traditional awards show.  Some people may watch with the sound off hoping that Hathaway will do something nude, but they’ll be tuning in.

Hathaway isn’t an Oscar® ceremony newbie.  She did a kitschy song-and-dance bit with Hugh Jackman when he was the host in 2009.   It was well-received, which can be a hard thing to achieve at a ceremony.  Hathaway is pretty entertaining and self-deprecatingly funny when hosting Saturday Night Live.  She can be dorky.  She doesn’t seem to take herself too seriously and people like to see beautiful people who can be funny and dorky.   And female Oscar® hosts have been few and far between, so I’m happy to see another woman step up to the plate.

Franco is known for being incredibly smart, handsome and quirky all in the same breath.  His announcement that he will teach a course for editing students at Columbia College Hollywood based on his own career is proof enough. (Yes, I said “based on his own career.”)  I love Franco and think his unique weirdness will be a good counterbalance to all the hubbub surrounding Hathaway’s decision to participate in all the über nakedness of “Love and Other Drugs.”

Join us next Sunday February 27 to celebrate the 83rd Academy Awards® at the annual George Eastman House Academy Awards® Party.  The awards show will be broadcast (with the sound on) in the Dryden Theater.  It will be a little chilly to pay homage to Anne Hathaway by wearing only your birthday suit, so clothing is required.

About twenty years ago I was looking though a pile of faded 19th century
photographs at an antique shop and I realized that there were a certain type
that were always in perfect condition. I had discovered collodion chloride
prints. Ten years later I was searching for information about collodion
papers in the 19th century journals at Eastman House and I discovered the
process was introduced by G. Wharton Simpson in the 1860s. Best of all, it
was the most archival silver based photographic paper ever manufactured. By
the 1890s, the collodion papers, then called “Aristotypes,” were extremely
popular with commercial portrait photographers who made the prints I had
originally found. Made in both glossy and matte surfaces, the paper was made
well into the 1930s in Germany and Russia.

‘Nelson Camp’, collodion-chloride print from an 8×10″  wet collodion negative by Mark Osterman

This isn’t wet collodion — collodion chloride is an emulsion process. There
isn’t any silver bath. Both the silver and chloride are mixed together and
the emulsion can be kept for years in a well sealed black bottle. When you
need to make a print, you just pour it onto the paper and let it dry in the
dark. It’s contact printed with the negative just like salt or albumen
paper. Actually, if you were disappointed when Centennial Gelatin Chloride
Printing Out Paper was discontinued a few years ago, collodion paper prints,
tones and looks the same….only it doesn’t ever fade!

For the past nine years I’ve been teaching photo conservators how this
process was made and now I’m getting ready to teach the first public
workshop on the collodion chloride printing process this March. I think
it’ll be a real revelation for the group. It’s really easy to mix the
emulsion and even easier to coat the paper. I suspect that the people we
send out there with this process under their belt will be the seed of a
whole new movement in alternative processes.

Editor’s note: Mark will be teaching a rarely-offered Collodion Chloride process class in our upcoming Photography Workshop next month.

Originally posted on the Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Young Professionals blog page.

When Jesse Eisenberg hosted Saturday Night Live, he delivered his monologue in his typical likable slightly nervous style. He, of course, has been bestowed with a best actor nomination for his role playing Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network.” In a hilarious SNL twist, both Andy Samberg (as Mark Zuckerberg) and the real Mark Zuckerberg jumped in on the monologue. “C’mon. I invented poking.” If you haven’t seen it, yet, it’s well worth a peek at the totally (as Samberg put it) awkberg moment.

I love when films like “The Social Network” get nominated for best picture. It seems to infuse a little quirkiness and pop culture into the whole event. Kind-of like when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the Oscar® for Best Original Screenplay® back in 1998. The host will makes jokes about liking, poking and friending. And some in the audience will have no idea what he is talking about, but laugh anyway. When films like The Social Network and likeable accessible actors like Eisenberg are nominated, it makes the Academy Awards® relevant for an audience that sometimes tunes out to the traditional side of the whole event. Not to mention what a sign of the times a film like this being included in the Oscars® is. Most of us live by social networking now. Even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tweets now.

Join us February 27th to celebrate the 83rd Academy Awards® at the annual George Eastman House Academy Awards® Party. Walk the red carpet, blow a kiss to the paparazzi, bid on some fabulous silent auction items, get your picture taken with an Oscar®, dance in George Eastman’s own ballroom, dine on all sorts of goodies and raise a glass to your favorite nominees. The awards show will be broadcast in the Dryden Theater. You can wander in and out as you mingle at the party, or sit down and watch the whole thing. You can even come dressed as Mark Zuckerberg.