Dejana

Another American here, black, from the South, very religious upbringing but grew up on hip hop. Casual, entrenched homophobia is hardly a thing of antiquity, in some circles. Going to work, the day after Frank Ocean performed at the Grammys that time...not fun. I know a couple of people who are out to some people in their lives but not others, more casual acquaintances from work than BFFs and they both happen to be black men, late twenties, early thirties. I don't know their families and I'm not one to post too many real names on the web anyway, so it's not a huge issue for me personally, having to edit myself as not to out them. Still, these guys aren't remotely famous, so that makes much easier for them to contain information. With respect to Jamal, I could buy that the most mainstream of mainstream media wouldn't say a word about his sexuality, and once he made his announcement, it would be a surprise for people who only casually paid attention to celebrity on that level. Given that Jamal was the son of a supposed hip-hop legend and a recording artist of some celebrity in his own right, the show presenting it like no one outside of Empire knew about him being gay at all, rang false. It would be all over the hip hop blogs and black pop culture forums, that Jamal had a live-in boyfriend and maybe some photos of them in social settings would have leaked. So it would be one of those things that some people "knew" but others who paid less attention, or didn't know where to look, or are generally oblivious to things like that, would have no idea, until his move at the white party. Kind of like what you saw after Anderson Cooper, Matt Bomer or Jodie Foster went public, and some people were very surprised by their news, and others were surprised that anyone was surprised, since they weren't exactly in hiding before. He's Australian? I don't know the actor and was thinking, maybe British (don't they also say "arse"?). I've been having trouble understanding his dialogue in general. I know that some issues can cut across cultural/national lines, like colorism, but with respect to homosexuality, I did find myself wondering if the cultural attitudes toward homosexuality among British blacks were the same or worse than they were historically, among black Americans (not that they are great among all white Americans, either). If he's really supposed to be Australian, and not just a Australian actor using an iffy accent, then it would be very odd, coming from him.

March 6–8, 2015 Estimates: 1 (N) Chappie $13,300,000 | 3,201 Theaters | $4,155 Avg. | $13,300,000 2 (1) Focus $10,020,000 | 3,323 Theaters | $3,015 Avg. | $34,573,000 3 (N) The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel $8,600,000 | 1,573 Theaters | $5,467 Avg. | $8,600,000 4 (2) Kingsman: The Secret Service $8,300,000 | 3,101 Theaters | $2,677 Avg. | $98,028,000 5 (3) The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water $7,000,000 | 3,097 Theaters | $2,260 Avg. | $148,993,000 6 (4) Fifty Shades of Grey 5,604,000 | 2,788 Theaters | $2,010 Avg. | $156,448,000 7 (6) McFarland, USA $5,318,000 | 2,792 Theaters | $1,905 Avg. | $29,426,000 8 (5) The Lazarus Effect $5,100,000 | 2,666 Theaters | $1,913 Avg. | $17,400,000 9 (8) The DUFF $4,850,000 | 2,559 Theaters | $1,895 Avg. | $26,116,000 10 (N) Unfinished Business $4,800,000 | 2,777 Theaters | $1,728 Avg. | $4,800,000 Top Movies Released In 2014 (Domestic): 1. American Sniper $337,209,000 (First R-rated movie to win the year since Saving Private Ryan in 1998) 2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 $336,962,000 3. Guardians of the Galaxy $333,176,600 4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier $259,766,572 5. The LEGO Movie $257,760,692 6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies $254,456,608 7. Transformers: Age of Extinction $245,439,076 8. Maleficent $241,410,378 9. X-Men: Days of Future Past $233,921,534 10. Big Hero 6 $221,312,000 11. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes $208,545,589 12. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 $202,853,933 13. Godzilla $200,676,069 14. 22 Jump Street $191,719,337 15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles $191,204,754 16. Interstellar $187,892,000 17. How to Train Your Dragon 2 $177,002,924 18. Gone Girl $167,767,189 19. Divergent $150,947,895 20. Neighbors $150,157,400

The slippery slope is hardly ever as perilous as envisioned by worst-case hypothetical scenarios, and I don't think not bothering to start is the best answer to the question of "Where does it end?" Hollywood already has shifted its casting practices throughout its history in a number of areas. Before there were movies, men played female roles on stage. Blackface and yellowface were once engaged in without a second thought, but time marches on and practices change. No, you don't need doctors to play characters who are doctors, but with an athlete character, for example, it can take viewers out of the story if the actor displays poor athletic form or has an unlikely body type for the role. Disney figured the target audience of the High School Musical movies probably didn't care that Zac Efron wasn't believable as a heavily recruited basketball player, but for a movie hoping to appeal to a more sports-savvy audience, the director probably would try to make the athletic scenes reasonably plausible and fill the minor/background players with people with significant athletic experience. For musicals, they used to get the biggest stars they could find and not publicize it too much about their voices being dubbed. This fell out of favor and for the last decade or so, the push has been to get famous actors with singing ability. Musical purists aren't always fans, because for them, the actors don't measure up vocally. Yet movie stars can draw attention and interest on a much larger, global scale than Broadway stars, though it can undercut the film itself if the singing isn't up to par. Even with musical biopics, some will have the stars lip sync while others have cast an actor who sings, but that can annoy fans of the musician. The Live! TV musicals seem to take the "surround a stage neophyte with Broadway veterans" approach. Is there one perfect answer for how to cast musicals, with respect to singing ability vs. star power, now that the days of anonymous dubbing are past? Probably not, but moving on from the old status quo isn't always so horrible. During an Oscar discussion on Grantland, one of the participants commented that the bloodless pallor of the English actor starring in Unbroken made it hard for him to suspend his disbelief and buy Jack O'Connell as the son of Italian immigrants who grew up facing scorn and prejudice on sight, for his heritage. I don't think the actors have to have the exact parentage/background of the character they are playing, but I find the way of thinking that says any British/American actor with a dye job and a put-on accent (as necessary) is perfectly believable as any variation of European, a bit outdated and not particularly accurate. That's not even getting into the lazy thinking that permeates Hollywood when it comes to casting other minorities. There will always be people who will just roll with whatever is presented to them. During a TV discussion I was involved in last year, one poster posited that in all of his/her viewing, he/she never noticed an actor being bad, and therefore came to the conclusion that "bad acting", as a concept, didn't really exist. People who criticized certain stars as "bad actors" were simply letting their dislike of a character spill over into real life and blaming the actor for it. Many others came along very quickly to shut down that notion, basically saying that, even though it's subjective, and everyone won't always agree on who is or isn't talented, bad acting is definitely a thing, even if you aren't picky enough to care. Matt Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, used to make it a rule that if an actor hadn't smoked in real life, their character on the show wouldn't smoke either, because he'd been distracted too many times by watching nonsmokers trying to light up. A good number of viewers, especially those who'd never smoked, probably wouldn't have noticed the difference, and there were probably some nonsmoking actors who could've faked it well enough. But he would and he was in charge, so he got to make that call. Yes, some movie watchers and actors believe it should be all about is getting "the best actor for the role". Hollywood has many years and examples of that casting practice in action, and it has a way of working out markedly better for some groups than others. I can't blame the trans community if they're not just going to sit on their hands and wait, politely hoping that Hollywood bothers to consider involving them, when telling the stories of their world.

Passes $500 million globally at the box office Secrets of the sex scenes: "So, how was work today?"

After Eddie Redmayne won the SAG Award, he called the founder of GoldDerby.com to thank him for continuing to predict him for the Best Actor win, in the face of other Oscar experts "ditching" him. During awards season, these sites are awash in online ads for the various contenders. Many who run/contribute to these blogs don't just write about the awards race in the winter, but do interviews with actors and filmmakers year-round, and some have votes in things like the Critics Choice Awards or with other critics' groups. Because they get wooed by a lot of stars and studios looking for positive press for their contender, some get colossal egos and see themselves as very important (and some are equally laid back about the scene and their place in it). A handful of Hollywood/awards reporters who were just galled by the fact that Mo'Nique skipped an NY critics' circle dinner to tape her talk show fanned the flames of the whole "Mo'Nique refuses to promote Precious unless she gets paid!" controversy. I know for a fact that at least one (Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere) just plain didn't want her to win and coincidentally had all these negative stories about the issue. If you watched the more mainstream entertainment media that year, you would've seen Mo'Nique at the Golden Globes, the SAGs and all the big televised shows, working the red carpet no different than what's typical for a nominee. When she referenced the controversy in the Oscar acceptance speech, stating that awards should be about the performance, many viewers didn't have any idea what she was talking about and the concept that she wasn't promoting the movie would've seemed strange to them. It was just that she didn't do enough scraping and bowing at Q&As and critics' society dinners for someone so "new" to the Oscar scene that was just outrageous (to awards obsessives) and had to be punished. For better or worse, the awards bloggers do shape the race throughout the year. They can start/build narratives about actors and films, which get picked up by the more mainstream media. Some egoists like to think they can kill a nomination/win with their editorials, but I don't think they have quite that much power.

The switch to Daylight Savings Time can have an impact on primetime ratings, usually negative. Empire's ratings are anything but usual, so we'll see if it can buck yet another trend.

I want to say that at one point, years ago, The Danish Girl was supposed to star Nicole Kidman and...Gwyneth, as the wife? Acting is playing pretend, but some in the trans community view Jared Leto and Redmayne playing these roles as tantamount to blackface. Just putting the POV out there...

Movies like Gravity, American Sniper, Avatar—I think they would have made a field of five. If they really expected things like Marvel or Hunger Games movies to be in the Best Picture lineup, then they needed to change who's voting on the awards, rather than the number of movies that can be nominated. Sure, Star Wars made it in 1976, but it was perceived as innovative at the time, whereas now, the big-budget fantasy/sci-fi adventure movie is more likely than not part of a franchise that is or is soon to be long-running, with its own TV series/spinoffs/theme parks. Now, it's the kind of movie that is supposedly killing the mid-budget adult drama, or relegated it to awards season/VOD releases, so it probably causes resentment among the voters. If they were just starting to make the Lord of the Rings movies now, IMO they'd have trouble making the Best Picture race, because the studio would have split each book into two or three parts and big shock that Oscar isn't rushing to nominate half a movie. When Oscar moved their show up, all the other shows followed, so they would just move their nominations and awards back as well. Oscar can't really control the fact that there are a lot of other awards given out. I would be really surprised if Oscar pushes the ceremony date back to the end of March; it would just give the naysayers another month to complain about how irrelevant and out of touch and possibly racist they are, in any given year. A big point of releasing your awards bait movie around the holidays and in January is to use the buzz and hype from nominations and wins (at lesser shows) to get people to see the movies as a result (in theaters during their first run). They love listing all the nominations in the TV ads during award season. If, one year, everything nominated for Best Picture had been released by November, you would get tons of complaints (especially from writers on the awards show beat, who follow the race all year) about being "bored" with movies that "everyone has seen already". You might get more "controversies" and awards bloggers second-guessing the races and trying to predict upsets and start whisper campaigns, simply because there is more time to fill, not based on the quality of any given performance/movie. I saw a writeup about the central problem with Oscar being that it's trying to please very different factions of the audience who want diametrically opposed things from it. Some people like the spectacle, some hate musical numbers, some think the tech categories should be relegated to another night, others think the "below-the-line" winners usually give the best speeches. Some want movies like Guardians of the Galaxy to win Best Picture and others love Oscar season because they are fans of "real", "adult dramas" and think Marvel movies like that are a joke. Some like naturalistic acting while others say, "they're not doing anything!" and prefer the histrionics. You can't really please everyone, but AMPAS keeps thinking the right host will do it.

PETA has a Christian Outreach Department? You learn something new every day. I wonder what sort of talks Jim Bob has had with Derick behind closed doors.

Best Picture, the year before they expanded the lineup...the "public" liked Slumdog Millionaire well enough, but it's not a favorite among awards snobs. The Reader, Milk, Frost/Nixon? Even Benjamin Button hit a wall with garnering broad audience appeal, after getting off to a huge start. There will be discontent with the lineup, whether it's 5 or 15 nominees.

FWIW, Shonda says the VIP line was from someone she really met (per Twitter):

Ichabod has considered himself married for both seasons of SH so far; he doesn't seem the type to have a wandering eye. I think he took a second look at the web chat woman in S1, but that seemed more out of shock than genuine interest. Even the re-enactor, who was a similar physical type to Katrina, seemed deferential to him and could appreciate his love of all things Revolutionary War (even if she wasn't a fellow person "out of time"), didn't seem to spark his interest that way. Now that Katrina is dead, I think Ichabod's reserve will drop when it comes to appreciating other women. SH's big Katrina push has reminded me of Megan's rise to prominence on Mad Men. Auditioned for a "bit part" that became greatly expanded, headwriter gushed about the character and actress was a "muse" of sorts. Yet Jon Hamm (Golden Globe winner, multi-Emmy nominee) seemed to have almost anti-chemistry with her. Luckily, there were four seasons of the show in the tank before she came along (and other TV/film work) to recognize that Jon Hamm was perfectly capable of selling a romance with a co-star, just not the one he was stuck with, unfortunately. I would say Hamm tried a bit harder than Mison did with Winter, but after a certain point, the well is empty. I haven't seen Mison in many things, but I think the chemistry he has with Nicole Beharie is exactly the type that would a romantic comedy director would be thrilled to have between their two co-stars. I have to agree with the opinion that all that's missing between Ichabbie to make them a couple is that they don't already kiss/sleep together. But really, the passcode to Abbie's phone is Ichabod's birthday? How intimate. Whether Ichabbie happens or not, I want to see and hear Ichabod's opinions on modern dating conventions ("third dates", grooming, sexting).

How Well Do Ben & Jessa Know Each Other? Ben not helping his case with the accusations that he's...not so bright, with his answer to the "Who has more siblings?" question. The house tour is also on Youtube:

Bath salts? Everyone who takes them doesn't have such a bad reaction from just one hit, but they are not good: I think Rebecca was just hoping to make Rudy an unreliable witness at the worst, not do permanent damage to him. For all the guilt she felt, it didn't stop her from stealing the money from his Christmas card (someone asked a few weeks ago who sends cash in the mail anymore; some of us still have old-school relatives). I guess if Frank knew he was going to kill Lila, it didn't matter if she saw his face or not.

February 27–March 1, 2015 Estimates: 1 (N) Focus $19,100,000 | 3,323 Theaters | $5,748 Avg. | $19,100,000 2 (2) Kingsman: The Secret Service $11,750,000 | 3,282 Theaters | $3,580 Avg. | $85,696,000 3 (3) The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water $11,200,000 | 3,467 Theaters | $3,230 Avg. | $140,322,000 4 (1) Fifty Shades of Grey $10,927,000 | 3,383 Theaters | $3,230 Avg. | $147,764,000 5 (N) The Lazarus Effect $10,600,000 | 2,666 Theaters | $3,976 Avg. | $10,600,000 6 (4) McFarland, USA $7,797,000 | 2,765 Theaters | $2,820 Avg. | $21,981,000 7 (6) American Sniper $7,700,000 | 2,914 Theaters | $2,642 Avg. | $331,108,000 8 (5) The DUFF $7,150,000 | 2,622 Theaters | $2,727 Avg. | $20,053,000 9 (11) Still Alice $2,695,000 | 1,318 Theaters | $2,045 Avg. | $11,984,000 10 (7) Hot Tub Time Machine 2 $2,400,000 | 2,901 Avg. | $827 Avg. | $10,268,000 Birdman $1,975,000 | 1,213 Theaters | $1,628 Avg. | $40,279,000 The Imitation Game $1,927,000 | 1,103 Theaters | $1,747 Avg. | $86,829,000 A La Mala $1,440,000 | 384 Theaters | $3,750 Avg. | $1,440,000 Whiplash $677,000 | 538 Theaters | $1,258 Avg. | $12,265,000 The Theory of Everything $649,000 | 611 Theaters | $1,062 Avg. | $35,050,000 Selma $450,000 | 283 Theaters | $1,590 Avg. | $50,408,000 Maps to the Stars $139,000 | 66 Theaters | $2,106 Avg. | $139,000 '71 $60,100 | 4 Theaters | $15,025 Avg. | $60,100 Global Totals: BIG HERO 6: $351.3M Overseas Total | $572.1M Global Total FIFTY SHADES OF GREY: $338.4M Overseas Total | $486.2M Global Total AMERICAN SNIPER: $139.1M Overseas Total | $470.2M Global Total THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER: $96.3M Overseas Total | $236.6M Global Total KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE: $124.6M Overseas Total | $210.2M Global JUPITER ASCENDING: $81.1M Overseas Total | $124.2M Global Total THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING: $75.1M Overseas Total | $110.2M Global Total BIRDMAN: $46M Overseas Total | $86.2M Global Total FOCUS: $12.2M Overseas Total | $31.3M Global Total

I was just theorizing that maybe Twilight is a fan fiction of another story, but not in a way that could be easily traced (i.e. it was never posted online first as fanfic), and Stephenie Meyer kept mum about it. Fanfic roots are still looked down upon, and certainly it looks better if, say, Divergent is an original story and not an old "Hufflepuff Harriet Potter thrown into The Hunger Games" fanfic with the names changed. For the record, neither Twilight nor Divergent were fanfics first, as far as anyone knows. On the Sleepy Hollow boards, someone posted what I've felt for a while, that there's almost this disdain that's developed toward shipping and shippers, with the "no romance" side being viewed as so much more sensible and worthy. My feeling is that, sure, romance isn't everything, but love and relationships are a huge part of life for many people. If a sci-fi/fantasy show or detective/crime series turns into a Harlequin romance, it's not because two characters developed feelings, but because the writers just aren't very skilled. Also, story developments a viewer doesn't like are magnified that much more. I remember huge complaints about Grissom and Sara on CSI...you'd think they had stopped solving murders, from all the disgust about their relationship supposedly "taking over the show". When, compared to an actual soap, the ship elements were very mild.

Stephenie Meyer is tremendously magnanimous? Figures she has enough money, so why waste time in court? Is secretly impressed that her ode to chastity before marriage inspired a phenomenon that took BDSM erotica mainstream? Twilight itself is actually, secretly glorified fanfic of another book, so Meyer feels she can't condemn what EL James did? Snowqueens Icedragon is secretly giving Meyer a cut of everything? It's one of the great mysteries of our times. People ship actors who play onscreen couples because it has been known to happen in Hollywood, a lot, so why not with their couple? Some fans do take it too far, but that's the internet for you. And when it turns out that the costars are involved offscreen, the "How dare you speculate about celebrity private lives!", "Can't you separate fact from fiction?" crowd never comes back around to say, welp, you were right. But that's the internet for you, too.

Originally, Blair was biracial: her mother was white and IIRC (it happened before I started watching), raped in a mental institution by a janitor who was Asian. The story was that being a biracial child back then (born in the late 1960s, roughly, Blair was introduced in the early 1990s as a twentysomething) made it difficult for her to be adopted, so she never was. Her character was a something of a schemer, married a much older, richer man and his family didn't like that, but that's pretty well worn territory for a soap opera, regardless of race. The original actress left, and by the mid-1990s, the character was recast with a white, blonde actress and all the references to Blair being biracial were obviously dropped. The recast was more of a soap veteran, so I guess TPTB thought the racelift wasn't that big of a deal. One nod to it happened years later, during a special episode. There was a scene with a flashback to the Biracial Blair days, and in the present, White Blair kept looking in a mirror to check her face.

The Oscars have honored the anniversaries of "all-time Oscar greats" before. They did a little something for The Wizard of Oz a couple of years ago.

She would probably be considered more of a TV person.

Ellen went over fine last year in the room; maybe the crowd just doesn't like NPH. His turn at Emmys wasn't that well regarded and the Oscars are a much tougher audience. I don't like when they don't use movie clips for the In Memoriam segment.

Hollywood gender pay disparities were revealed in the Sony hack just last fall, so commenting about equal pay in an awards speech seems perfectly relevant to me. Superhero and action movies probably have to go above and beyond being well executed to get major Oscar nominations, while a competently done biopic does have an easier time of it during awards season. But most times, the superhero movie makes far more money and has sequel, merchandising and theme park potential. It's rare in life that you get to have everything; those are the breaks.

Yay, a bit of "The Hanging Tree"! Too bad it couldn't get nominated for Best Original Song (the lyrics were from the book). Actors get dissed for being shallow narcissists and then when they speak out about issues, how dare they! The Sony hack revealed that actresses still have to fight for equal pay, which is probably why that part went over so well with the women in the audience.

A lot of gift bag goodies get passed on to family members, friends and assistants.The Oscars are what they are. They're not going to be streamlined or serve booze inside the ceremony, especially since the Globes already do that. The montages are demanded by the studios to promote their back catalogues. The hosts that would go over well with the audience inside the room and "middle America" seem to be frowned upon by the "cool kids".

The E! crew is cracking on Gwyneth's dress, it was kind of great, actually (their critiques, not the dress).