Golden Boy
My award show has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R!
There’s no greater American tradition than the Academy Awards. Well, there’s plenty. Who cares? The stars! The speeches! The five-second delay because everyone is running scared from the FCC!
What a night. Host Billy Crystal did a fair job, bringing back some of his trademark original songs about the evening’s films (but looking like he took a Botox tip from Joan Rivers).
Lord of the Rings swept up the floor with other nominees, taking the statue for every category in which it was nominated. There were 11 total, among them was Best Picture.
And let’s not forget the queen of Oscar this year, Charlize Theron. There’s something to be said for the Best Actress trophy, something in the magic it brings. For 30 seconds one woman gets to be the sun, moon and stars and who wouldn’t want to witness it?
Theron dazzled as she breathlessly thanked her writer/director Patty Jenkins for the role of serial killer Aileen Wournos in Monster, her boyfriend Stewart Townsend and, of course, her mother.
Other awards included a touching Tim Robbins for his work in Mystic River; co-star Sean Penn taking a long-deserved Best Actor trophy; Renee Zellweger scooped up Best Supporting Actress for Cold Mountain and indie princess Sofia Coppola nabbed Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation.
Actress in a bottle
The April issue of Premiere magazine reports that Christina Aguilera has been tapped by gritty film director David Fincher (Fight Club) to star in his upcoming movie, The Box.
The tale about mental patients in a Virginia hospital, is rumored to be headlined by Miss Nicole Kidman, with Albert Finey and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Allison Hannigan to support.
News of casting comes as no surprise given the rave reviews for Aguilera’s hosting turn on SNL last month. The diva parodied Kim Cattrall’s Samantha from Sex and the City flawlessly, inciting praise from Cattrall herself on the red carpet at the SAG awards.
Box will mark Aguilera’s film debut and should fare nicely for her, considering her SNL gig brought more than 9 million viewers and won NBC the 18-34 demographic for the evening.
Aguilera is currently penning tracks for a forthcoming junior album and releases Stripped: Live in the UK, a DVD of her international tour, on Apr. 6.
Talk About…
Jennifer Lopez in Jersey Girl. Or better yet, the lack of Jennifer Lopez in Jersey Girl, the upcoming Kevin Smith film starring Ben Affleck as a heartthrob single dad.
Affleck and Lopez, now broken up, filmed the flick in Philadelphia during the peak of their media-drenched romance, and apparently it’s all over but the premiering.
Movie distributor Miramax has cut Lopez from theatrical trailers as well as TV spots.
On top of that, Smith announced last week that he cut a wedding scene between Affleck and Lopez’s characters (playing husband and wife in the first 10 minutes of the movie -Lopez’s character dies during childbirth, leaving Ben to raise the baby) as to not “confuse” fans.
No confusion here. It’s quite clear that this is Smith’s love letter to Affleck. One he’ll do anything to keep untainted by bad press and dead romance.
Keep your head up, Jenny.
Matt Donnelly can be reached at mattdonn@temple.edu
Be the first to comment