MTV Movie Awards: The Force Is with TFA

The MTV Movie Awards delivered some major recognition to The Force Awakens over the weekend, bringing some eleventh-hour vindication for an otherwise disappointing awards season for Episode VII. JJ Abrams and Daisy Ridley were there to accept the award for Best Movie, which I previously thought was sort of a long shot given the very crowded field of nominees. As it turned out, the Best True Story category and the Generation Award gave fans an opportunity to express support for the high profile casualties of #OscarsSoWhite, Straight Outta Compton and Will Smith. And the other awards were nicely distributed without any one film making a total sweep (I'm looking at you, Ms. Furiosa), so the awards presentations felt much more democratic and diverse than the Oscars.

Adam Driver did not attend the boisterous MTV awards ceremony to accept his award for Best Villain. But Daisy Ridley was her charming, sincere self as she accepted her very well-deserved Best Breakthrough Performance award. Her acceptance speech was divine:

"It feels especially amazing to be part of a film that represents people of all genders--two genders--all races, and all ages in such a positive and aspirational way."

I love that she clarified with a wink that Ep. VII portrays only two genders, correcting herself to acknowledge that even such an inclusive cast of characters still has room to grow when it comes to gender identity.

Awards aside, Sunday's broadcast was otherwise a major event for geekdom. Jared Leto, Margot Robie, Will Smith, and Cara Delevingne introduced a premiere of the newest Suicide Squad trailer, which was eeppppicccccc.

If anything can justify the dark and gritty tone that DC has established for its film universe, this can. As a long-time fan of Super Friends: fingers crossed.

And--YAY!--Harley Quinn has her hammer!

We also were treated to exclusive footage from Captain America: Civil War, introduced by my other husband, Chris Evans. The Avengers have assembled and are kicking ass as a well-oiled machine in this clip. Looks like Black Widow's and Cap's training that began in the closing shots of Age of Ultron has borne some very explosive and telekinetic fruit: "Just like we practiced."

The evening was wrapped up with the world premiere of the teaser trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan, but with the glorious Eddie Redmayne starring, I might have to check it out.

Throw in a bunch of the Deadpool dancers, Chris Pratt being gracious and adorable accepting an award for the action sequence in Jurassic World, and a pantsless Alexander Skarsgard, and it was a spectacle that was right up my gay fanboy alley. The recognition for The Force Awakens as the fans' pick for the year's Best Movie was a crowning moment for this awards season.

Did I mention the pantsless Alexander Skarsgard? Because that definitely happened.

Poe-wning The MTV Movie Award Nominations

As announced on MTV.com today, The Force Awakens cleaned up with 11 nominations for MTV Movie Awards. Deadpool had the second most nominations with 8. These much more populist awards reflect achievements that are geared towards fan favorites from a younger demographic than the stuffier Academy Awards. Nevertheless, I'm glad that The Force Awakens is finally getting some bigger recognition this awards season.

TFA is up for Movie of the Year, but it is a crowded field with geek culture heavy-hitters (Deadpool, Age of Ultron, and the massively successful Jurassic World, but weirdly no Mad Max). And with Creed and Straight Outta Compton in the running too, it seems like the MTV awards might compensate for the Hollywood diversity crisis that dogged the Oscars. I would be (pleasantly) surprised if TFA took this category.

I see better odds for the many performances categories: Adam Driver (Best Villain), John Boyega (Breakthrough Performance and Best Action Performance), Daisy Ridley (Best Female, Best Hero, and Breakthrough Performance), and Andy Serkis and Lupita Nyong'o (Best Virtual Performance). With the sheer number of individual performance nominations, chances seem good. And come on, Daisy Ridley was basically the Best Hero ever, so...

No nominations for Oscar Isaac, but with so little screen time, not surprising. Although if Finn and Poe had greeted each other with more than just that leaping embrace, Best Kiss would've been theirs to lose!

At any rate, Isaac deserves a great deal of the credit for the infectious and extraordinary cast chemistry that earned TFA a best Ensemble Cast nomination. This will be the category where I really root for them.

Don't forget to vote and tune in on April 10!

Movie Poe-sters

Geek & Sundry posted some clever remade movie posters for TFA-inspired rip-offs of Oscar-nominated films. Of course, my favorite:

So. Perfect. 

I, Poe-bot

As previously mentioned, The Force Awakens is up against another Oscar Isaac feature, Ex Machina, for the Visual Effects Academy Award. Ex Machina, in terms of effects and composition, is basically the exact opposite of TFA: where the Star Wars effects are all majesty and scale, Ex Machina's visual effects are intricate and precise--tiny moving parts and glimmering spider-threads of lights that quietly whir and buzz beneath the transparent synthetic skin of Ava, the Clockwork Girl. The visual effects of Ex Machina are truly arresting, and while I don't necessarily expect it to get the award, it is definitely a memorable work of art.

You can tell by now that I love Ex Machina. It's a claustrophobic, paranoid, and contemplative film about artificial intelligence and human emotion and the uncharted tidal waters where the two bleed into each other. Alex Garland wrote and directed Ex Machina, and it had the same old-school classic sci-fi thriller feel of 2007's Sunshine, which he also wrote and which I also loved.

The tiny cast of Ex Machina is amazing. Alicia Vikander is so great as Ava, a cunning artificial intelligence who has a chilling agenda of her own--or maybe she just thinks it's her own? General Hux plays the hapless subject of a Turing test that is not at all what it seems.

Our boy Oscar Isaac stars as an odious and narcissistic tech bro demon-god... and manages to make casual sleaze, pathetic self-destruction, and pathological self-aggrandizement hopelessly sexy. I hate myself for finding the character so attractive, but just look at him:

More like SEX Machina, amirite?

THOSE MOVES. Not fair, Mr. Isaac, not fair at all.

Probably goes without saying that the film has no LGBT characters. But when you think about it, the entire plot is based upon the work of an LGBT icon, Alan Turing. As you'll recall, Turing basically invented computers and was the subject of the biopic The Imitation Game, which won last year's Academy Award for writing and was nominated in a slew of other categories. The story is a tragic one, ultimately, as Turing's reward for revolutionizing technology and human experience was chemical castration, his sentence for the crime of being gay. But through it all, Turing's unfailing devotion to the memory of a childhood crush, who he memorialized/deified as a computer, was beautifully played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

And Ex Machina examines the questions that Turing's own longing and creativity raised: What is it about creating thinking machines that we find so irresistible? Why are we so drawn to the idea of artificial constructs that we can love or lust after? Maybe it's the idea that we can love them while closely controlling them to eliminate the risk of heartbreak, rejection, disappointment, or loss? Why do we aspire so greedily to create an intelligence that can fool us into thinking it's human, but then not be willing to extend to the intelligence the humanity we so desperately want it to emulate?

Like all good sci-fi, Ex Machina is thought-provoking in addition to being fun to watch. Support this film--we need more like it.

Razzie Poe-minations

Remember when I went on and on about the Wachowskis and rhapsodized about how much their films mean to me as a gay science fiction fan?

Jupiter Ascending managed to sweep up a bunch of Razzie nominations last week: Worst Actor (Channing Tatum), Worst Supporting Actor (Eddie Redmayne), Worst Actress (Mila Kunis), Worst Directors, Worst Picture, and Worst Screenplay.

Holy Wach-OUCH-skis! That's pretty bad, although I submit that Kunis and Tatum should have also been nominated for Worst Screen Combo. Seriously, there's more chemistry involved in paint drying than between those two.

"A Razzie? Well fuck you very much."

I do take issue with Eddie Redmayne being a "worst" actor. In 1977, Sir Alec Guiness delivered with commitment, style, and charisma stultifying dialogue like "He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did," and "Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time... A long time." And he was nominated for an Oscar for BEST supporting actor in Star Wars. (Peter Cushing and other actors of that generation were the same: it didn't matter if they were in the cheesiest science fiction schlock acting on sets with paper mache boulders. Every line was delivered with the same care and drama as if it were Shakespeare.)

Redmayne did the same thing in Jupiter Ascending. Sure, he spent much of the movie flying into inexplicable rages, posing and hissing and sparkling like a drag queen who is just done with your bullshit. And maybe the reason so much of the final cut's set pieces were digital was because Redmayne chewed up and swallowed all of the original scenery. But I thought he did an amaaaaazing job with the material (and co-stars) he had to work with--he vogued and camped and shrieked his way right into my gay sci-fi fanboy heart. I was genuinely rooting for him by the end of the movie.

Ah well. The good news is that I may get to see Jupiter Ascending again during our annual Razzie viewing party... so, silver lining.

Academy Poe-ward Nominations

The Force Awakens received Academy Award nominations in the Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects categories. I know a lot of us, in our bias as fangirls and boys, were hoping for a Best Picture nomination, not to mention Production Design and Cinematography. Five nominations seems like a paltry number of awards for one of the top grossing feature films of all time. As of today, after just under a month in theaters, its box office is at $822M domestically, and $1.7B worldwide. It broke the domestic box office record earlier this month, and is currently sitting at #3 worldwide (behind Titanic--which will never let go, Jack--and Avatar).

"Thanks Princess. It's an honor just to be nominated."

Still, 5 nominations makes The Force Awakens the second most Oscar-nominated film of the Star Wars franchise. Episode IV received the most nominations, 10 total, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Alec Guiness), Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. It wound up winning 6 awards: Original Score (John Williams), Costume Design, Sound Mixing, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Visual Effects, plus a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing.

Episode V trails The Force Awakens with only 3 nominations, and won only for Best Sound with a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects. Episode VI won a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects, but did not win any of its other 3 Oscar races.

Let's not get into the prequels, which among them managed only 5 nominations, and 0 wins.

I really hope John Williams gets the award for the score--he's been nominated for numerous Star Wars films but won only once, in 1978. He's up against Thomas Newman and Ennio Morricone, who have both been nominated numerous times but (I was surprised to see) have never actually won an Oscar.

The nominations were pretty sci-fi and geek-culture focused this year, with huge recognition going to films like Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian, plus several technical nods to the excellent Ex Machina (I will obviously be rooting for TFA for Visual Effects, but would be completely happy if Ex Machina takes it). I love to see these kinds of films in theaters, so I'm always pleased to have a few horses in the race come February.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to start lobbying the Academy to create a Best Come-Hither Look category.

Poe-litics as Usual

Oscar Isaac as Poe-lish local politician, Nick Wasicsko.

I selected Show Me A Hero from the in flight entertainment options on a long post-holiday Virgin America flight last week, largely because of Oscar Isaac. I was fully prepared to just watch the first hour-long episode, get my fill of his 1980's pornstache, and then move on to other shows. But it turned out that Oscar Isaac got way more mileage out of that pornstache than one would ever expect, so I ended up watching all six hours.

The late 1980's. It was well after the Civil Rights Era, so everyone knew--or was supposed to know--that deliberate racial segregation was unlawful. The problem was that the people in power remembered a time when it wasn't, even in northern states like New York and cities like Yonkers. And those people were not going down without a fight.

That's the climate in which Nick Wasicsko tries to make his political mark. Elected as the youngest mayor of any U.S. city, he inherits a decades-old housing desegregation lawsuit that is threatening to destroy the social and financial fabric of Yonkers. Wasicsko is a new guard politician who sees the inevitability of desegregation and takes on the city's enduring leadership (played to greasy perfection by an unrecognizable Alfred Molina). He succeeds in getting the integrated housing construction off the ground, but almost in spite of himself and his ambition.

The show was really remarkable for several reasons. First, I expected that the conflict would be between white property owners and the racial minorities who would be the beneficiaries of the desegregation settlement. But in fact, virtually all of the tense confrontation scenes were about white people shouting at and attacking other white people.

Looking for a vulnerable exhaust port, maybe?

The explanation? There's a scene maybe midway through the series where Wasicsko observes how, by the late 1980's, racists had learned that society would no longer tolerate overt racism. But bigots had adapted, learning to speak in code and cloaking their prejudice in terms of "property values" and "personal autonomy." Instead of burning crosses, racists warned and punished minorities by letting their dogs defecate on the lawns of public housing. Racism had become (and largely remains, with alarming exceptions of seemingly increasing regularity) a matter of passive-aggressive suburban nuance and neighborly menace, which the miniseries portrayed with chilling accuracy.

The second thing that impressed me was, of course, Oscar Isaac. Wasicsko saw in the desegregation fracas an opportunity to make a name for himself. He certainly felt that he was also doing the right thing, but Isaac played that almost as secondary motivation. And in a later scene, as his career is in ruins, the camera lingers on his conflicted expression as he is left to ponder his own question, posed to an embattled resident of the new public housing: "Was it all worth it?"

You're pretty sure he thinks it wasn't.

The portrayal is nuanced and balanced between narcissism and sincerity. You rooted for him even though you can't help but question his motives and, ultimately, his tactics. It's not an easy thing to do for an actor to do, especially with the molester-y mustache and bad Cosby-era sweaters.

And you know who else is in it? Winona Ryder! She's just terrific, and ably proves that someone in my generation can have chemistry with Oscar Isaac, which somehow, some way proves that a Poe Dameron-focused Star Wars fan blog by a middle aged gay guy is not at all weird.

Damn it.

I definitely just made it weird.

Golden Poes

Oscar Isaac wins a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Yonkers local politician, Nick Wasicsko, in "Show Me a Hero." Very well deserved.

More importantly, Variety reported that during the press interview backstage, he offered his phone number for anyone with Star Wars questions. *waits with pen and paper handy*