I knew before Seth MacFarlane was announced as the host of this year’s Academy Awards that I would not be watching the ceremony. If Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two incredibly talented women whose shows 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation rank among my favorite of all time, couldn’t convince me to watch the Golden Globes, there’s no way MacFarlane, the creator of several shows I hate almost instinctually, could get me to tune in for the Globes’ stuffier, more overbearing sibling. But then a curious thing happened: a grinning, self-satisfied MacFarlane took to the stage and started singing about how great it was to be in a crowd with so many women whose breasts he’s seen, and the Academy Awards became more noticeably sexist than ever before. There’s been so much talk about these Academy Awards that one could be intimate with them without having watched, but, like a good cultural critic, I did. The end results were, to be kind, less than impressive. (more…)
Tag: Anne Hathaway
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The Problem With the Oscars Is the Oscars
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Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The word “ambitious” has been used to describe Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises, almost as an apologia. In a summer containing superhero epics that’ve conquered the globe through a combination of charm, polish, and weightless fun, a glum, glowing Batman film can’t help but feel like a party-crasher, a mirthless rebuttal to the joyful hedonism proffered by Marvel Studios. It just so happens that Nolan’s third and final Batman film is ambitious. Functioning as a third act, it introduces a slew of new characters, expounds upon ideas Nolan subtly presented behind the smokescreen of Heath Ledger‘s mesmerizing performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, and brings his massive, decade-spanning and character-defining story to a close while leaving the door slightly ajar, suggesting both a Gotham without Batman, and a Gotham that can’t survive without one. It’s an audacious juggling act that’d succeed on the merit of sheer scale were it not for the fact that The Dark Knight Rises is just as successful as its predecessors in painting an only slightly-warped representation of our society, gently nudged to its extremes. If The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man were long on great power, trading in narrative subtly for titanic struggles between Good and Evil, The Dark Knight Rises is a sobering reminder that any struggle, no matter how titanic, is a grey affair, that the people who fight with the greatest power also have the greatest responsibilities and, ultimately, should make the greatest sacrifices. Its ambition is to hold its characters up to the audience as a mirror. (more…)