Oscar Firsts: Hosting Duo & Female Director Win

Nobody one should ever do it alone—again.

That’s paraphrasing the Neil Patrick Harris song which opened up the 82^nd annual Academy Awards ceremony. But in the case of the Oscars broadcast, whomever helms the production yearly may want to consider letting duos host it for good.

After years of recalling some of the best hosts (Billy Crystal and Hugh Jackman) and scratching your head to scarcely remember some of the worst (Ellen DeGeneres and many more) the 2010 Oscar hosting team of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin was a hit. They injected a hilarious new energy into a nearly century old tradition; there was plenty self deprecating humor, barbs between them, funny taped segments and my favorite part of all— pokes at the Academy Award nominees themselves. Which, in all good fun, is always refreshing because so many actors can occasionally take themselves so seriously. Pointing the ego-deflating bow and arrow at those in attendance serves as reminder that’s it’s ‘just an awards show folks.’ And Martin and Baldwin proved that hosts can actually walk that fine line between gently ribbing and 'putting on a show' seemlessly without acrid overtones. The newly birthed comedy duo of Martin and Baldwin definitely deserves a return hosting engagement, and if the audience for this broadcast is any indication they just might get it. Viewership for the 82nd Academy Awards was up 14% from last year—the highest audience the show has enjoyed in five years.

Not only did this year pioneer how the Oscars could be hosted, it was also a year honoring wonderful first wins. The Hurt Locker’s six awards was topped by the Best Director win, helping director Kathryn Bigelow make history as the first female director ever bestowed with the honor. After decades in the industry veteran Best Actor winner Jeff Bridges (for Crazy Heart) and romantic comedy queen Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock (for The Blind Side) each got their first year in the winners circle. BET talk show host and Best Supporting Actress winner Mo’Nique (for Precious) paid homage to the first black Oscar winner, Hattie McDaniel, in her acceptance speech. And Geoffrey Fletcher became the first African American screenwriter in Oscar history to win the coveted trophy, for Best Adapted Screenplay also for Precious.

It was also a broadcast that sought to celebrate youth and bridge the gaps between young Hollywood and the established guard. The stirring tribute to late director John Hughes, the cinematic pied piper of teenage angst, was capped off by an onstage reunion of the various graduating classes of some of his most popular films. Despite their mostly fortysomething faces and physiques the assembled group, which included Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall were reminders that thanks to Hughes' body of work the group will forever be christened our eternal big screen, high school best friends forever.

In their own way the directors of this year Oscar broadcast, yet another duo, Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman sought to pass that torch from our perennial onscreen 80s teens to the actors who play them today. The new and young Hollywood including Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried and Taylor Lautner, were all represented and appeared on the broadcast for Oscar presenting duties. But then finally, nothing commemorates a celebratory night more than dance. And having Shankman, a So You Think You Can Dance judge, codirect the Oscars meant we got the eye dazzling The League of Extraordinary Dancers troupe to interpret the best song nominees. LXD were so unbelievably amazing—watching them was akin to having defibrillators placed on your chest just when you thought you were about to doze off. And that wasn't because the Oscar broadcast was boring; it even had it's own Kanye West moment when director Roger Ross Williams, winner for best documentary short got rushed on stage by his film's ostracized producer.

Yes as always, the 82nd annual Academy Awards broadcast was long. But overall this year, it was also exceptionally good.

Black or White The Oscar Telecast is Always Gold

In all honesty, I have loved each and every Academy Award broadcast I’ve watched faithfully since the age of 12. This includes the good years (too many to mention here) and bad years (uh, Rob Lowe duetting with a cartoon Snow White anyone?) and the usual marathon-lengthed Oscar broadcasts that sometimes feel like they’re going into the following week. But, even I have to admit there have been certain moments during this yearly viewing ritual, which have perked me up tremendously.

Those were years when they were one or two black actors sprinkled into the nominations. Over the last thirty years, whenever the Oscar show opening camera does that grand sweeping crowd shot of the audience, the African American presence was always akin to chocolate chips in a cookie. A little over here—look there’s Jada, a dab here—wow, Halle looks nice and a few big ones right up front—there's Denzel! And although it’s not an annual occurrence, the last decade has consistently seen a lot more chocolate chips added to the recipe.

I’m a hardcore fan of the traditional, ‘mainstream’ Hollywood royalty crew—from Meryl to Jessica to Jack and DeNiro plus 'youngbloods' like Sean. But something happens when someone who looks like you hits that stage. Oprah Winfrey has repeatedly discussed how life changingly affirming it was for her a youth to witness Sidney Poitier winning his Oscar in 1963. Seeing a black actor or actress glide across that huge, waxed floor at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater is akin to watching your aunt, uncle, cousin, brother or sister get the most important award in the biz on the industry’s biggest night. You innately beam pride and it simply cannot be helped, because that’s family up there.

The Oscar telecast is my Superbowl. Everything from the red carpet arrivals (the pre show) to the kick off (the host’s opening monologue) to half time (the in memoriam montage) and finally the best picture award announcement (final field goal) always delivers dramatic, suspenseful type fun. I love making predictions, being proven right and trying to figure out why I was wrong. And I live for the glamour, pageantry, tradition, good fashion sense and especially bad style of Hollywood’s version of a high school prom.

Every year the popular boys and girls change. And with each award winning graduating class, the newly-minted actors, writers, directors and their movies are forever belong to a lifelong, special group of historically, industry-standard ultimate gold seal of goodness—it’s both cute and very quaint.

But, if you love movies you should be watching too. See what films were awarded for being really amazing, or at least interesting. Witness what actors picked up the trophy for political or sympathetic reasons. Peep as the camera repeatedly 
pans over to losing actors painfully watching winning actors take ‘their 
Oscars’ away all night long through gangrene smiles. And check out the sour puss on that husband as his soon-to-be ex-wife picks up an Academy Award (Sorry Ryan and
 Reese!) There’s drama, brilliant and failed
 show openings and ‘what in the hell just happened?’ moments galore in them there Oscar telecast hills that just can’t be scripted. But in all seriousness, the Academy Award broadcast, seen annually by a billion people in 90 countries, serves as a huge barometer of where we as a people and the various contributions of our cultures fit into the greater pantheon of our historical recorded image and worldview. Never thought of it that way? I’m reminded of that weight and importance every time I discuss black actors and the entertainment industry with any of my 
first cousins in Nigeria. Yes, it’s just entertainment, but at the end of
 the day it’s also just that deep.

The Precious Problem: Folks Who ‘Didn’t’ Get It

Soon after it’s release, the film Precious, despite being a darling of critics, international film festivals and several award shows including the Oscars elicited a quagmire of controversy from the black community. The verbal lynch mob was actually an echo; it harkened back to rumblings that followed the 1985 release of The Color Purple.

Precious and The Color Purple, (which had more onscreen violence shown than latter) both suffered from the same deafening stop-bashing-the-black-man chorus. But since both these films were adapted from books written by black women maybe the bigger question should be; why do some black men continue to rape, physically and emotionally abuse their daughters, wives and girlfriends? These stories far from represent the black male race in its entirety—our modern heroes now stretch from Civil Rights icons like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, to trailblazing sports figures, groundbreaking actors, music innovators all the way the to The White House. Not to mention all our day-to-day heroes—the countless nameless and faceless amazing fathers, brothers and sons who reside in our communities around the world. But the horror stories starring the other kinds of black men do come from somewhere— they come from truth. Sapphire and Alice Walker didn’t just pull these male tales out of thin air.

The critics of Precious found a whole new cavalcade of complaints to pile on this latest brave, truthful work of art. They include but are not limited they having a problem with a scene featuring the protagonist, a dark-skinned black woman, eating a bucket of fried chicken, and also that this same dark skinned woman had a light skinned baby and that all light skinned characters were saviors in the film, while dark-skinned folks had problems. Then there was the issue that the film ‘still’ didn’t have a happy ending, paraded poor images of black men in film (see my The Color Purple/Precious comparisons above) and perhaps the worst offense of all— it had the stamp, endorsement and backing of executive producers Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. [Insert: horrific organ music here.]

I’d like to take my angel’s advocate fork, and punch a few holes into this criticism, because for me it’s done. Speaking as dark-skinned black woman who likes fried chicken (and I can’t be the only one) I say what’s the big deal? (And nonspoiler alert: that film moment is fully put into context because of the scene that precedes it.) And speaking as a dark-skinned Mom with a light-skinned son (again, I know I’m not the only one) I realize that because of genealogy our varied shades can and now will produce any hue under the rainbow in future generations of my family thanks to my son’s white Polish Jewish grandfather and his West African Nigerian grandfather. As for the angelic light-skinned folks v. the clueless darkies? Personally, I was more offended by this trend in all of Oscar Micheaux films and hate to say it as I might, one of my personal all-time favorites movies, Carmen Jones. Mo’Nique, Perry and Winfrey have another thing in common other than being in the entertainment industry—they are all sexual abuse survivors. So obviously, they were all strongly attracted to the material in Precious. And that ending was the happiest one that could exist for an HIV-positive, illiterate teenager with two children; she positively changed what she thought of herself and her place in the world, which is just the ammunition you need to ultimately change your life.

Films like Precious and The Color Purple are problematic for black folks. They are cinematic mirrors that force some of us to witness the parts of our blackness we don’t want to see. I too am guilty of harboring this same shame—I wasn’t a huge fan of the hues of the black experience spotlighted in Baby Boy or Hustle and Flow. But at the end of that downtrodden rainbow, even I had to admit their stories still deserved to be told.

The story of Precious, based on Sapphire’s Push, was a typical urban tragedy that was given the full art house, European cinema-style, indie treatment. With its innovative film stylings, strong ensemble cast and breakthrough lead performances (Gabourey Sidibe’s strong, suffering yet vulnerable turn as the title role and Mo’Nique’s scarily evil and nearly insane performance as Mary Jones) Precious felt more like a documentary than a work of fiction—it was the perfect trifecta of beauty, pain and poetry.

There was no difference between the protagonists Randy in The Wrestler (played to Best Actor Academy Award nominee perfection by comeback kid Mickey Rourke) and Clarice Precious Jones in Precious. They are the stories of downtrodden, forgotten outcasts and underdogs. The themes in Precious resonated so positively and strongly with international critics and audiences because the film’s themes of incest, sexual abuse, poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy—are universal ills that affect all cultures here and worldwide—they are not specific to the black experience. Anyone who thinks otherwise is buying into racist stereotypes. Case in point: following a screening of Precious, Mo’Nique came face-to-face with crying Asian man who confessed to her that, ‘he was Mary Jones’ in his family. Mo’Nique begged the man to get help by way of therapy.

Despite the bashing Precious took from a few in its own community, perhaps in the end its filmmakers and its stars have gotten some redemption from the entertainment industry. Director Lee Daniels has been tapped to helm the upcoming Martin Luther King biopic, Selma. Geoffrey Fletcher made Oscar history by becoming the first African American screenwriter to win the the award for his screenplay adaptation. And after building a career on the backs of mostly C and D list films, BET talk show host Mo’Nique, now an Academy Award winning actress will surely be on the short-list of actresses receiving A-list scripts. Thankfully, Hollywood has now earned itself another rare precious commodity in the industry: a twenty-something young actress of color in Ms. Sidibe, who will next star in the Showtime series, The C Word and the film, Yelling To The Sky.

The filmmakers of Precious and its stars created a work of art, made a truthful, entertaining statement and created a ‘show’ so there can be more and future ‘biz.’ And black, white or other creating inspiring, groundbreaking entertainment that has the capacity to make more green is the ultimate goal and game of Hollywood.

An Ode To Sean Pean Pt. II

Spanning the 1990s through late 2000s Sean Penn has continued to work regularly as an actor, but during this era audiences were also reintroduced to him as a director and sometime screenwriter. His four films, The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard, The Pledge and Into The Wild all further explored the personal, life conflicting stories he’s made the backbone of his career. The movie quartet, all Penn directed, is an organically creative extension of his performance work.

And it’s what Penn’s been able to do with each portrayal that has made him so arresting. Sean easily morphs into the flawed everyman, the lone outsider, the societal outcast, the flippant conscienceless badass, the perennial screw-up and the man-child from the wrong side of the tracks with easy aplomb. Each persona, gingerly cloaked in and bearing the paralyzing weight of their own sin-specific weighted bloody crown of thorns. But it’s their shared exposed nerve of vulnerability that makes you need them, love them, and empathize with them desperately each time they surface. Many of his various career characters collectively represent some of the shortcomings of the human race, but like a mirror Penn’s passionate performances regularly keep reflecting back to us that personally, we are all each a little bit of them. Compared to other leading man roles by the Toms: Cruise and Hanks (Penn’s Hollywood peers similar in clout, years in the business and popularity) Sean doesn’t care whether you ‘like’ his characters or not (and sometimes you shouldn’t) because as audiences, our attraction to them runs a little heavier, deeper and oft-times darker. We are hypnotically seduced by both their wrongs and charms and come back each time we are beckoned.

That’s what so fascinating about Penn’s performance as Harvey Milk. As the title character, Sean is the anti on-screen Penn. He’s sunshine personified with giggly eyes and a playful sense of humor. You not only love him, you like him a whole lot. The historical tale of the country’s first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk was the earnest and rare of politico. He was an equal parts combo of public servant—he rose to prominence eventually becoming an elected San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights activist—championing the mission personally and professionally to get homosexuals to live closet-free, equal lifestyles during the cause nomadic seventies.

Penn plays Milk quietly reflective, and earnestly loyal to his friends, lovers and colleagues united for his groundbreaking Mecca. His effeminate physical movements never betray homosexuals in stereotypical parody, but almost possess a dancer’s grace. And under director Gus Van Sant’s poetic tutelage, Penn all but freefalls from any heterosexual actor’s comfort zone to give the film’s gay love scenes a universal sensuality and purity. You’ve heard the legend that Denzel Washington warned Will Smith not to do any gay mouth kissing scenes in Six Degrees of Separation? Well, Sean never got that memo. His performance in Milk is the most valorous portrayal of a homosexual character by a straight actor in recent years. With each film he pushes boundaries, with each performance he outdoes his canvas of work and in the process he always reinvents himself. Milk earned Penn his second Oscar win because he was just that good. And that is why as long as Sean Penn is acting and directing, my eyes will continue to be cast upward, transfixed onto the big screen.

An Ode To Sean Pean Pt. I

It’s been unofficially announced that Sean Penn recently ended his self-imposed acting sabbatical. After originally pulling out of The Farrelly Brothers upcoming remake of the Three Stooges, Penn is now confirmed as back in the project as Larry. It was a brief break but the movies felt his absence. And personally, I'm looking forward to having my generation's original bad boy back on the big screen, and here’s why.

I first discovered Sean Penn in the 1983 film Bad Boys (over a decade before the 1995 Will Smith and Martin Lawrence action vehicle of the same name.) By this time Penn had already made his motion picture debut as the thinking man’s schoolboy cadet with a conscience in 1981’s Taps alongside Tom Cruise. And his dazzling follow-up was an ascension to instant movie icondom as surfer slacker Jeff Spicoli in the 1982 cult classic ensemble, Fast Times At Ridgemont High. But it was his powder keg performance as an incarcerated teen seeking revenge in Boys that really grabbed, shook and awakened me to what was happening in the movies at the time. Penn’s portrayal was pure, honest, raw and ragingly vulnerable. I had never seen a young actor explode that way on the screen before (or since) and while I was only 12 years old, I was old enough to know that in that movie Sean Penn completely blew my mind.

This was the dawn of a new age-the eighties; and MTV was about to pilot a televised music video revolution where style, looks and cool would prevail over substance. And in turn Hollywood spawned a new kind of young actor and brood that would later be christened the brat pack generation; the young, 20- something, cute boy toys and girls who not only looked the part, but had the acting chops necessary to carry and open a film. The list included Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, and Molly Ringwald. But actually, Sean Penn wasn’t ever really a part of that pack. Because instead of starring in a lot of cute and now considered guilty pleasure nostalgic fare that his contemporaries opted for, Penn was honing his acting chops on NYC theater stages. He decided early on to carve out his own niche cinematically, choosing the path of actor over that of the more alluring and well-worn road of movie star.

Throughout his career Penn has always and continues to deliver honest, truthful performances that ritualistically blaze across the big screen. Very early on and before the term indie became a household word the Santa Monica-born actor chose films rooted in these small story cinematic traditions (Racing With The Moon, Falcon and The Snowman, At Close Range) over The Big 80 flicks with juggernaut box office receipts and unforgettable catchphrases. Penn even managed to make shakier and more fragile film projects better, by simply gracing us with his presence (Crackers, Shanghai Surprise, We’re No Angels). And by the time the 1990s and 2000s rolled in and the term indie became a catchphrase itself, Penn got to flex his acting muscles with big roles in little films that were truly original (State of Grace, She’s so Lovely, Hurlyburly, Sweet and Lowdown, 21 Grams, The Assassination of Richard Nixon). And he got a chance to disappear completely into fascinating characters that injected flesh, blood and passion into bigger Hollywood-studio type sagas (Carlito’s Way, Dead Man Walking, I Am Sam, Mystic River-for which after three Oscar nominations, Penn finally won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 2004).

Next in Pt. II: Penn directs and later reconnects with acting and Oscar in his portrayal of Harvey Milk in Milk

Welcome to Tracking Shot

The business of Hollywood never bores me. Some try to down play it as insignificant fluff, but I believe it’s just as important as politics, packs the power of some religions, and is one of the most lucrative industries in the world. Also, how could you dump on a product that entertains, nourishes the imagination and, in these scary and uncertain times, provides an endless and joyous escape for so many millions?

It wasn’t always so mindless or fun for black folk. In the early 1900s the first images of African Americans were minstreled, lampooned and black faced in film and TV. Then, we mostly butlered and domesticated our way into the decades of the 30s and 40s. But then, like a shining black ray of promise rising from the west, Sidney Poitier emerged and single-handedly staged his own civil rights revolution in Hollywood. Poitier forced an industry to not judge him by the color of his skin, but by the content of his characters. He injected nobility and dignity into the portrait of the black man. And Poitier was living, walking, and celluloid proof that all men were created equal.

But let’s temporarily put the history lesson aside for now. Image, likeness, and depiction is everything that represents who we are. And while we can’t shake the hand of each individual person around the world, these larger than life images on the big and small screen break the fourth wall and do that for us with every sitcom in syndication, movie on cable, DVD sold or big box office release. These 30-minute to one hour to 90-minute to two-hour talkies, have become our ambassadors and calling cards. While early screen history— Birth of a Nation— showed what a detrimental tool this could be, the evolution since has been mostly dazzling. Consider just a sampling of the luminaries in the Genesis of Black Hollywood (and this is a very abridged Cliff’s notes version— several have been omitted for the sake of space) Poitier begat Denzel Washington, Redd Foxx begat Richard Pryor who begat Eddie Murphy who begat Chris Rock, Hattie McDaniel begat Moms Mabley who begat Whoopi Goldberg, Lena Horne begat Dorothy Dandridge who begat Halle Berry. Our family life depicted on the small screen quickly evolved as Good Times begat The Jeffersons which begat The Cosby Show. And only in La La land could a fairy godfather like Quincy Jones turn a rapper called The Fresh Prince into a television star named Will Smith, who would later metamorphisize into one of the most bankable, international movie stars ever. Smith now belongs to the two billion dollar club (total movie box office grosses) joining the ranks of longtime Hollywood players Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Robin Williams.

And the answer is no, we haven’t completely overcome yet. Black women are still the awkward stepchildren at the Hollywood family table who, despite the dearth of capable and talented working black actresses, are only allowed to eek into the A-list, It-Girl spotlight one lone female at a time (Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry… who’s up next? Hmm…only time will tell.)

It’s my hope this blog column will continue to provide a colorful, intelligent and insightful look at the industry as a whole. And it’s not going to be all heavy, because it is entertainment after all; they’ll be film reviews, award night commentary, casting news, trend spotting and more. It will be the place to examine and ponder bandy concepts, spray holes into stereotypes with the force of an uzi and see through all that frothy media manipulation and hype and more. Stay tuned.