ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE
Copyright © 2001 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
|
|
The Golden Goobers: The Second Annual Peanut Awards
|
It's
that time of year again. Limos and diamonds are in short supply, as everyone who
is anyone lets the champagne pour freely (but not over their keyboards, we hope)
to celebrate the best that Hollywood has to offer, even at the end of a year
which many people say was far from Hollywood's best.
But,
enough sour grapes. Your friends at
Peanut.org are bringing you this presentation of the
second Annual Peanut Awards, affectionately known as the
Golden Goobers, for outstanding performances and films of the year 2000.
No commercials, no long-winded acceptance speeches, just a celebration of the
most moving moments from moving pictures in the past year.
There
are no categories, no also-rans (with a few significant exceptions), and the
films are listed in alphabetical order. The Annual Peanut Awards are simply an
excuse to think about the ten films that we have roved and raved about that made
the strongest impression upon me as a viewer and reviewer. If you want to know
more about any of these films, you can, of course, click on the hyperlinks.
Now,
to present the Golden Goobers for the best performers of the year, with no pomp
and ceremony, just with a great deal of appreciation for jobs very well done.... The year 2000 was a landmark year for outstanding
performances, that just seemed to get better and better.
For a number of films, the only redeeming aspect was the quality of
performances.
For
best performance by a supporting actor, the
Peanut Award goes to Albert Finney in Erin
Brockovich. Many times,
the term "supporting actor" is a euphemism for small part, but Finney
in every sense of the word support Julia Roberts, enhancing the film and her
performance without calling attention to himself.
And, sentiment is going to get the best of your esteemed panel of judge
to bestow a posthumous award upon Oliver Reed for his complex, tragicomic performance
in Gladiator.
For
best
performance by a supporting actress, the
Peanut Award goes to
Kate Hudson for
her performance of the groupie in
Almost Famous.
After this characterization of a young woman in love with being in love,
she can drop almost.
For
best performance by an actor, the Peanut Award
goes to Michael Douglas, for making Grady Tripp's
rumpled weary self in Wonder
Boys so believable that
now, months after I saw that rather overlooked film, I find myself thinking of
Grady more as a real person than as a fictional character.
Now,
everyone stand up, for we are in the presence of greatness.
For best performance by an actress, there was some serious competition.
Julia Roberts did some great work (her best ever) in Erin
Brockovich, and I still get goose bumps thinking of Renée
Zellweger's performance in Nurse Betty,
another film which I feel could have been more popular than it was, if it had
been marketed better. But, there is
one performance that is far and away beyond any other performance by a man or
woman this year. As I humbly
present the Peanut Award for best performance by an
actress to Ellen Burstyn for her role in
Requiem for a Dream, I will say
watching her is the most memorable, even terrifying experience I have ever had
with a film. Her performance...
well, I’ll shut up. Just
see it.
Two
performers distinguished themselves with two remarkable characterizations each.
For best performances by an actress in two
supporting roles, the Peanut Award goes to Frances
McDormand for her work in Almost Famous and Wonder Boys,
in both of which she played a college faculty member. Coincidentally, Phillip Seymour
Hoffman, who picks up the Peanut Award for best
performance by an actor in two supporting roles, played a writer in
Almost Famous and in State
and Main.
And
now, in alphabetical order, the ten films receiving Peanut Awards as the
best films of the year 2000. Was
this really such a bad year for films? Well,
as I look at this list, I have to say that it was a year full of variety.
This
nicely made film about nice people being nice to each other gets tangled in the
fine lines of goodness, decency, even innocence, not the qualities you expect in
a film about rock musicians and journalists. While the film acknowledges the sex
and drugs of the equation, it never catches the
indulgence and irrationality that make rock the music we love to love or
love to hate--or maybe even love to make love to.
At times, it seems to be the cinematic
equivalent of Muzak, but, if we must be nice, then this is very nice Muzak
indeed.
This
little fable of dreams and freedom, of cooperation and perseverance, is, I hope,
going to be around for a long time. It is so rich in detail and characterization
that it holds up to many viewings and reviewings. The hens are all such distinct
characters, with various glasses, caps, scarves, quirks, and interests (from
knitting to physics), that this is one of the most heavily peopled films of the
year. They are never just birds of a feather. To use the adjective that is the
highest praise I can give a film, this is one of the movie-est things I’ve
ever seen.
The
script gets a little weak in some scenes, as Erin starts to take on the patina
of a saint, the only person to whom the lower-middle-class residents of the town
will share their doubts, denial, fears, and bitterness. But, I always remember
the scene in which she takes her kids out to a hamburger dinner and can only
afford coffee for herself. Erin is
the only one who will (perhaps can) listen.
We watch a person growing in relationship to herself as well as to
others, and we see how much we are all alike, now how much we differ.
In
just under ninety minutes this film takes us to a world in which stories of love
and hope, hate and despair unfold with an innocence and simplicity.
For George and his young friends, unless you take on the heroic quest to
do something, your life is made up of things being done to you.
We are privileged to take on the lives of these characters, as innocent,
even sweet, as the gang in Peanuts.
This little jewel of an independent film certainly deserves all the attention
and circulation it can get.
This
film is technically splendid, with breathtaking computer graphics, including
thousands of virtual extras, smoothly integrated into its flow. It's a
rip-roaring good yarn with so much character development and memorable
performance in a grand old-fashioned, even outdated, blood-drenched
sword-and-sandal extravaganza that at the same time is so much more. It
surprised me the first time I saw it, and the second time around, it was even
better.
For
all its screwiness and for all its violence, this film is about the sweet
sadness of lonely people seeking love. Betty’s search for the fictitious
doctor is reflected in hit-man Charlie’s pursuit of the idealized Betty. (Don
Quixote and his Dulcinea must be lurking in some little roadside honky-tonk
nearby.) In one of the goose-bumpiest moments of the film, and one of the
riskiest little bits of film-making I’ve ever seen, Charlie imagines that he
and Betty are dancing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. That would be a long way
to fall, if the scene didn’t work. But, it does, and we all get back to earth
without anybody getting hurt.
This
is a real popcorn film, celebrating popular culture and music, with enough hints
of its classical source or analog (the Odyssey) to keep the footnote-hunters happy. But if you are
Homerically disadvantaged, don’t worry, and please don’t stay away from this
most awkwardly named, least depressed Depression-era tale. None of the
characters in this film ever read Homer either. And, if you’re not into
footnotes, surely you can get into foot-tapping, because this film’s great
anthology of folk music makes this a film not just to hum but also to dance.
This
hard, mean, ugly film about the hard, mean, ugly realities of addiction, the
defining condition of our times, has a script that never loses its drive and a
world-shaking performance by Ellen Burstyn. In the world of this film—our
world—to be is to be addicted. Before
the horrors set in, Harry complains that by chaining her television set, his
mother may be responsible for his breaking it.
In those few moments, the film captures the whole crazy conundrum of
addiction, codependency, and denial that make it so much more than just an
anti-drug rave.
This
tale of a group of Hollywood folk descending upon a bucolic Vermont village
takes a lot of chances, as writer/director aims his satire in both directions.
The whole enterprise ends up not as bitter as it seems destined to be,
certainly not in the world of David Mamet.
Like O Brother this film has a rich texture made up of a wide range of
characters meeting, almost by chance, it seems. Both films ramble, but in the
end, both of them kept my attention for all their minutes on the screen.
Mamet’s ensemble moves briskly. Some of the actors give some of their best
performances ever, and Hoffman’s romantic side is an unexpected joy.
This
film is full of wonders, beginning with a wonderfully evocative and raspy ballad
performed by Bob Dylan that reminds me of his performances with Roy Orbison.
This almost seems to be a kinder, gentler American Beauty. It
is a film of such depth and passion that it makes me want to play the name game
and drop so many references to other works that it reminds me of, even so many
months after I saw it. The name you
need to remember is Wonder Boys.
Finally,
the most important Peanut Award of all—my acknowledgement of the Internet site
that meant the most to me as a viewer and reviewer of films this year...
And so, the Peanut Award, the most golden of Golden Goobers, for the most
significant Internet site devoted to film... the URL is...
This brassy, sassy, but always
classy site began with the question, "Why are there 'no' nationally-known
Black [movie] reviewers...?" So, what is One White Guy (one southern
white guy) doing here? My experience with this site is that this is
not the place to hear The Voice of Blacks, The Voice of Women, or even The Voice
of Black Women. You do hear
the voices of Kamal “The Diva” Larsuel, a
“movie nut," and Rose “Bams” Cooper
"a curmudgeonly sort who—prior to July 1999—had rarely met a movie I
ever liked." The third
"chick" is “LaLa”,
who is largely "tucked away in a Quiet Little Corner working on internal
3BC stuff."
Among
so much that I appreciate about this trio is that they know who they are and
where they are coming from, and so, they have a pretty good grip on where they
are headed. Check this site out,
and you will very soon figure out where they are headed: toward writing some of
the most insightful prose on the subject of films being written today.
They have become my mentors, and their site has become the one
movie-review site that is essential for me.
Frankly, the name might scare you off, but if so, then that would be your
loss.
While
not wanting to take away anything from this year’s winners of the Goober for
outstanding Internet site, but instead to emphasize to them in whose august HTML
they are walking in, I want to acknowledge once again those previous recipients
of this most sought after Goober:
[2004: Former About Guide Brad Lang
now hosts his own Classic Movies site.]
Michael
Elliott, Christian Critic
The
cleaning crews are already starting to sweep up the confetti and haul out the
empty bottles (nothing but mineral water here at the judge’s table, of
course—at least, until later), so these proceedings must come to a close for
another year. As I bestow the final Peanut Award, the last Golden Goober,
upon you, gentle reader (bribing you to come back?), I hope that you’ll
continue to join me in my roves and raves through another year of movies and
other topics. Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your
eyes open for all the gold that the movies, the Internet, and life itself give
us.
~
~ ~
Log
on to film history by returning to the presentation of the
First Golden Goobers.
And
if you are still keeping up with the “other” awards, check out the
nominations for the Screen
Actors Guild Awards.