MONDAY

Hello, and welcome to your Monday. I hope today finds you filled with optimism and joy as you look forward to all sorts of exciting things to come.  It's a new year, and it may be a short one at that, if the Mayans knew what they were talking about.  Dec. 21 isn't that far away, y'know, so live it up.

What you need to know about this week's Water Cooler Chit-Chat:

As you probably already know, the Golden Globe Awards were last night. If you watched it, as I did, I offer my sympathetic condolences for suffering through it; if you did not do so, fret not because you didn't miss much. It was Hollywood star after Hollywood star apologizing for winning an award when there so many worthy performances by such talented actors, blah blah blah.  People, just thank God and your parents for your wonderful life and then thank your agent for not dropping you when your only work was as a "demon of the day" on "Charmed."

Yes, Meryl Streep won for (somewhat historically inaccurate) "The Iron Lady." Yes, lots of people wanted Viola Davis to win for "The Help."  (Yes, I knew this would happen, even though I thought Rooney Mara deserved it for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.")  But "The Help" still fared alright, thanks to the Best Supporting Actress win by Octavia Davis, which was an award everyone knew she was going to get.  She'll get the Oscar too.

But the real story is the French guy, Jean Dujardin, who won Best Actor for his part in "The Artist" (the silent movie that also won Best Comedy).  Dujardin hit it big playing OSS 117,  more-or-less the French James Bond; he has played the part twice, but the films stretch back to the 1960's.  You should watch them, they are great.  French cinema is notorious for being melodramatic, poorly-written, and basicaly...um...terrible--don't get mad at me for saying the truth ("The Artist," which is French, is a SILENT FILM!  Please!) but the OSS series is fun.

I bet Jean Dujardin will be in a major American film by 2014.  That is, if we all live that long.  And no, the Golden Globe wins do not mean you actually have to see "The Artist." The only silent film I can handle is The Red Balloon, and that's all of 37 minutes long.  Enough.

~

2) This is coming and I could not be more excited.

 

 

Comments

[darryll]

Dan the best picture of 1991 in my opinion was Delicatessen. Check it out.

[Spongey]

"The Artist" is not French Per Se but the lead actor and director are French. I never thought I would be able to watch a silent film, but Jean Dujardin is so charismatic and has such an expressive face, he totally won me over. I walked out of the theater thinking, I just sat through a silent B/W movie and liked it! BTW, it rated 91% on the tomatometer. If you can sit through "Shame" you can watch this. Don't be a film snob!