A little Silver Fox

to get you through the day. Blue hoodie!

The boy who lived

Watch from 3:40 to the end to see what doing something "with heart" really looks like.

Observe

the genius that is Bill Hader. He just, you know, worked for Iron Chef America for a little while, did a Tony Blair impression, and joined the cast of SNL.

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Good news: American Pie original cast reunion! Lots of Jane Eyre press for Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska! Rob Lowe isn't leaving Parks & Rec to take over the trainwreck that is Two and a Half Men! (The preternaturally handsome John Stamos isn't taking over either!)

Bad news: American Idiot is shutting down. That's about it. I guess this is bad news too, because it's hilarious but didn't get traction during Oscar season. Everything that needed to be said about the ridiculousness of Black Swan is said in this video...but it's two weeks too late. Natalie Portman already has her Oscar (we will avenge you, Annette Bening, I promise), and people continue to think Black Swan was some groundbreaking work of art. Kill yourself? It's ballet! Ballet!

Showbituary: Greek

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late post – I had exams last week, so that’s a valid enough excuse, right?

Here we are, though – the moment I’ve been dreading. (Kidding. But not really.) There are few shows I have watched from the very beginning – as in, watched the Pilot on the day it aired and continued all the way through – but Greek is one of them. Greek started when I was a junior in high school and ended last Monday, exactly a week ago, as I am ending my junior year of college. Without sounding too dramatic, it is sort of like the end of an era.

Most people didn’t watch Greek; it did get cancelled, after all -- but my friends and I watched it religiously, which is why it feels so very much like something is really ending for us. Greek was about Casey, Rusty, Cappie, Evan, Ashleigh…it was about their lives. But somehow, it was about ours, too. And isn’t that what makes a TV show good? That while Mad Men is about the 60s, Don and Betty’s broken marriage could mirror any today? Or while Walter White cooks meth, he eerily reminds you of your high school science teacher? A good TV show has to be about the human experience, no matter what character or situation it chooses to focus on. They need to feel the things we feel. So while Greek was about Greek life at college (all main characters were in fraternities or sororities), it was really just about being young. I am not nor have I ever been involved in Greek life, but the creators were smart enough to make it just one factor of the show. In fact, Greek was probably the only show for young people over the past few years that was about things we experience because we are young. No saving Bass Industries or attending galas every week like Gossip Girl, no murder mystery like Pretty Little Liars, not even the ridiculous music video director storyline on 90210. (I still love you, 90210.) Being young, yes, you do have to make some big decisions.  But mostly, it’s about feeling like 1) the world revolves around you and 2) everything that happens is either the best thing that ever happened or the worst thing that ever happened. “It’s not the end of the world,” Dale has to hilariously remind Rusty one episode. “Don’t you read the scriptures I leave on your pillow? There will be signs!” But I have to give the show credit for showing the non-dramatic, purely optimistic part of youth, too. For showing what it means to have so much hope for the future, to have faith that things can be better, that things can be as good as you had dreamed. 

Speaking of Bass Industries, do you think you’ll ever see Chuck have enough depth to give up his trust fund so he can be independent from his parents and their ideals? Because that’s what Evan did, the show’s resident golden boy. Yes, like most shows on TV, Greek is a cast of beautiful kids with white-people-problems, but not one of them is one-dimensional, and together, they’re something of a rag-tag bunch. They go to a school in Ohio, and much like my high school experience, they spend a lot of time trying to find things to do. But there are always hijinks and they are always peppered with generation-appropriate pop culture references. (“Can we all be mature and just say what we're really feeling? How the hell could they cancel Gilmore Girls?”) But perhaps my favorite part of the show is that of the relationship between Casey and Rusty – sister and brother.  In the very first episode of Greek, she pretended not to know him.  Her two-year boyfriend wasn’t even aware she had a brother. But his one request? “I just wanna be part of your life.” And eventually, he is. Rusty ended the series on Monday by telling Casey that thanks to her, he has “a whole universe.” And Cappie tells Casey in one of the last scenes, “You should’ve seen Rusty today. You would have been proud.” Her response? “I already am.”  Creator Sean Smith explains it as such: “The focus of the series, to me, was always about this brother and sister coming together. If he hadn’t gone to Cyprus Rhodes, they might not have this good relationship. And they’ve now gone through this adventure together and are always going to be there for each other. And that’s what I always thought was so winning about that relationship; for Rusty, part of him wanting to be in the greek system was him wanting to be closer to his sister.” 

“Coming together” is what I see as the overall theme of Greek. The best episodes are when all of these sworn enemies because of their house loyalties come together because they are really all each other has. Last season, all of the kids spent Thanksgiving together at the KT house, and just a few episodes before the finale, they spent the night at Dobler’s during a snowstorm. Whether you love or hate the people you meet in school, they know you. You have a history. And that is what outweighs everything.

What else is there to say about the last episode? The writers blew me away one last time. I like shows that have scenes in their series finales that echo their early episodes, because it’s a wink to the viewers and a sort of thank-you-for-sticking-with-us-through-everything – think Sorkin watching Jimmy Smits get sworn in the West Wing finale and Claire getting a new car in Six Feet Under. Greek had a bunch of those moments. Casey drives away with Cappie instead of Rusty, Casey kisses Cappie at the bar instead of Evan, the reappearance of Jen K and Wade, the Casey and Rusty staircase conversations, and so on. The most gorgeous (albeit painful) scene was probably the tearing down of the KT house. From the shots of the heartbreakingly empty main room to Cappie’s look of relief and gratefulness when Evan joins him in the protest, everything was so on point. Katherine was brilliant as usual, and is perfect paired with Beav. Rebecca and Dale’s friendship was very sweet. Seeing Cappie with the loudspeaker, the leader of his house, was surprisingly emotional. Even Evan looked proud of him. And I was even more emotional when Cappie told Rusty, “you are my legacy,” and Evan and Cappie finally made up. Side note: Scott Michael Foster was really the heart of this series. Any way, when Evan sees Cappie and Casey kissing as I mentioned earlier, Evan tells them that it’s “as it should be.” Which is what the finale was representative of as a whole. Those who should have ended up together did, and those who were still growing and didn’t really deserve happy endings yet didn’t have them. The KT house still got torn down, but Dale got a girlfriend.

Greek was one of the most underrated shows I have ever watched, and a show that helped ABC Family get to the place it’s in now, with a larger audience and an identity as an up-and-coming cable TV network.  A commenter on Entertainment Weekly a few weeks ago mentioned that they began to watch Greek as a guilty pleasure, but the more they watched it, the more it turned into something real. I couldn’t agree more. I started watching it as a guilty pleasure as well, but the show grew and so did the characters. It was quite a run, and I am incredibly sad to see it go. It was time, I suppose, but it is never really time.

The end of an era

Eulogy to come.

Community tackles another classic

Looks like it's time to re-watch Pulp Fiction!

Fun tidbits from the media’s Oscar coverage

Pre-show:

Just saw Jesse Eisenberg kiss Hailee Steinfeld on the cheek.

-Tumblr Blogger

"I kind of like being an underdog. Even if we come away and don't win, some people will say we were snubbed, and that's enough for me."

-Armie Hammer of The Social Network

Aaww, Andrew Garfield is carrying his invitation. Does he think he won't get in without it?

-Susan, Twitter

During the ceremony, things I didn’t catch:

"It feels like that top is still spinning…but I don't care anymore."

-Paul Franklin, Inception cinematographer, in his acceptance speech

5:25 p.m.: […] Andrew Garfield from The Social Network is fidgeting with his bow tie. Then Garfield sees someone he knows several rows back and playfully gives him the finger.

-Inside the Oscars: Moments you didn’t see on TV (AP)

The likeable Franco seems a bit overwhelmed by the gig.

-Deadline.com (Note: found this interesting! Calling him "overwhelmed" is suprising. General consensus is Franco was just over it.)

And from the after-parties (mostly Tarantino misbehaving):

"I think I'm gonna have to," Quentin Tarantino says, reaching for one from a passing burger lady. He turns to Adrien Brody in the carpeted breezeway between the terrace and the oak-paneled lounge. "On three, ready?" the motormouth director directs. "One...two... three!" Tarantino and Brody take enormous bites of their burgers.

-Washington Post

Kevin Spacey was seen sharing a joke with Sacha Baron Cohen, and Charlize Theron gave Jeremy Renner a hug after he missed out on the best supporting actor award. Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield mingled with Jake Gyllenhaal.

-The Telegraph

Mark Wahlberg and weary-looking Amy Adams dined at table No. 410 — brightening up a bit when a smiling Christian Bale played waiter and refreshed everyone’s Champagne.

-New York Daily News

Memo to the Winklevi: Stay single. When actor Armie Hammer arrived to the Vanity Fair party with his beautiful wife, Elizabeth Chambers, we got a big groan out of him by asking, "Where's your brother?" Hammer, who via the magic of CGI plays twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in The Social Network gave us a playful punch in the gut, then one-upped us: "Vanity Fair would only give two tickets and I wanted to bring my wife. So I killed him."

-Chicago Sun Times

Colin Firth remained admirably modest. He was experiencing the most euphoric moment any actor ever can, but despite all the razzmatazz he remains the least "starry" of stars. "You know, we take risks and sometimes we get it wrong," he said. Smiling, he added: "And sometimes, mysteriously, we get it right, and it's a wonderful thing."

-The Telegraph

From any point in the throng the bouffante hair of Luke Matheny, who won the live action short film Oscar for God of Love, could be seen bouncing around. "Watch him, he's going to be a star," said one party veteran sagely.

-The Telegraph

Russell Brand is now friends with Danny Boyle.

-Washington Post

Spotted at the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party: gregarious Napster founder Sean Parker.

-New York Daily News

Walt Disney Studios Chairman Rich Ross was happy for his four wins -- 2 for Alice In Wonderland, and 2 for Toy Story 3 -- but admitted to me he had been holding out hope for Pixar's big grossing and well reviewed toon to win Best Picture. His mantra all season had been, 'If not this year, and not this picture, when?'

-Deadline.com

Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal, recently broken up, huddle in a nook by the bathrooms, under the forlorn gaze of a portrait of Greta Garbo. Gyllenhaal is using words like "care" and "feel." It is not a good spot to linger.

-Washington Post

Helena Bonham Carter looked upbeat, despite losing out in the best supporting actress category, and had a drink at the bar with her husband, director Tim Burton, and her mother. "I have a little dip but then you get over it," she said. "I do think people like you more if you lose, that's my theory." The glittery baubles Helena Bonham Carter wore in her hair at the Oscars were charms from flip-flops.

-The Telegraph, Page Six

The entrance to the Governors Ball was even more jam-packed with arriving stars than in past years. When a Chicago reporter (Yes, me!) accidentally bumped into Hugh Jackman, the cheerful Aussie joked, “Hey! Don’t let me spill this drink! I’ve waited all night for it — and I need it!”

-Chicago Sun Times

"Listen to your mother, and you'll be fine," a woman advises True Grit nominee Hailee Steinfeld, all of 14 years old and looking like a princess.

-Washington Post

Madonna, Mick Jagger’s got your number. We spotted Madge and an entourage, including daughter Lourdes, high-tailing it back to the valet at the Vanity Fair party before 11 p.m., and word is she posed on the red carpet – ensuring her attendance was recorded by the media masses – did a single lap inside, then bolted. We also hear Madonna's every calculated move on the red carpet was brilliantly deconstructed by Jagger – who wrote the bible on calculated moves – as he and a group watched via a closed-circuit TV feed that carried the action.

-Chicago Sun Times

"I don't want Best Picture," says one suit, presumably a producer. "Too much pressure." "[Expletive] Best Picture," agrees a friend.

-Washington Post

Sony Pictures chairman Amy Pascal, who really invested herself in Oscar season this year, hugged Best Picture presenter Steven Spielberg and thanked him profusely for the consoling words he said before announcing The King’s Speech as the winner. (“If you are one of the other nine movies that don’t win, you will be in the company of The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, and Raging Bull”, Spielberg reminded everyone.)

-Deadline.com

Now the tykes from Glee are swarming like gnats. There's the bossy belter at the bar. There's the pregnant cheerleader fussing with her shoulder straps. And by the front door, sitting on a padded pew, are the gay kid and the heavy girl, wallflowering, perfectly happy to gab and watch, as if this were an actual high school cafeteria instead of a dolled-up version of one.

-Washington Post

A director whom Hooper beat, The Fighter’s David O. Russell, was so ebullient you'd have thought he won. “Joel Coen just told me my movie was the best of the year. He can be a curmudgeon, too. That’s my prize,” he beamed.

-Deadline.com

One thing about four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening – she’s a class act. Often, after the Oscars, losing nominees hightail it right out of the Kodak Theatre, skip the post-parties and go home to lick their wounds in the company of family and close pals. But one of the first nominees to sashay into the Governors Ball was Bening and her husband, Warren Beatty, himself a past Oscar winner. “It just wasn’t my year,” said Bening. While her mouth expressed all the proper and gracious words, the actress’ eyes told a different story. You could just see her disappointment — even though Natalie Portman’s win was a foregone conclusion in many minds. Under his breath, Beatty whispered. “There will be another chance … another year. She’ll get her Oscar someday,” as a friend walked up to say, “I was so pulling for her!”

-Chicago Sun Times

As I traversed the Grand Ballroom of the Governor's Ball, I kept hearing that precise phrase -- “You were robbed” -- said a few times to everyone involved [with The Social Network].

-Deadline.com

"Yes, I am very disappointed about Best Picture. But I am just stunned that David Fincher didn't win, just absolutely stunned. This just proves it is all about campaigning and nothing else."

-Kevin Spacey

Ah, there's a real person. Luke Matheny, the shaggy young director of the Best Live Action Short who took the stage and joked that he shoulda got a haircut…Around the room, important people spot that mop of hair and flag him down. He's one of them now. For now.

-Washington Post

We catch Sarah Silverman's eye as she tries to sneak behind the bar to grab a bottle of water, as we patiently wait in line. She grins conspiratorially.

-Washington Post

We did read that New Yorker story about Paul Haggis's defection from Scientology - the whole thing! - so naturally we have much to discuss with him after he orders a tequila on the rocks with pineapple and a vodka soda with cranberry. Yes, he said, he liked the story. "And you are?" A reporter, we confess. The writer-director is civil and discreet and quickly moves to greet a woman we don't recognize a few feet to our left. Dismissed.

-Washington Post

Asked where his Oscar will reside, [Christian] Bale said his little daughter will “no doubt immediately grab it, make it hers and put it in her room with her dolls...and that’s fine by me.”

-Chicago Sun Times

Kevin Spacey is making a run for it. "I'm going to Franco's," he says as swells of velvet and chiffon heave him through the breezeway of the Sunset Tower. "What about Madonna's?" asks a tuxedo who's being towed the other way. "Nooo," Spacey says, twisting in the eddy of bodies. "No, that's all the way up Mulholland. It'll be a nightmare." "Life is a nightmare," the guy says, and they both cackle.

-Washington Post

At one end of the bar Donald Trump held court, while Tarantino did so at the other. The director could be heard shouting: "I'm a badass m------------ artist." Looking a bit star-struck Hailee Steinfeld, the 14-year-old star of True Grit, who wasn't born when Tarantino's Pulp Fiction came out, approached him and asked for a photo. Tarantino graciously suggested it should be the other way round.

-The Telegraph

In a room where everybody is somebody - Colin Firth swarmed by women demanding photos, Anne Hathaway giddy as a gazelle after hosting the show - is it possible that everyone's just nobody? The scene calls to mind Plato’s Cave, and questions about the durability of reality at 2 a.m. on Sunset Boulevard. The paparazzi are taking photos of one another. By 2:30 a.m., there are no famous people on the premises. The thing is: Only a tiny portion of Oscar winners are recognizable faces. The rest are tradesmen and off-screen talent. These unsung but awarded survivors huddle around their glinting statuettes like they're campfires. The clusters talk in hushed tones, waiting for the end.

-Washington Post

The final word, from a critic, on The Social Network Best Picture snub...

[The Academy’s] choice looks odd today.  And it will look odder still in the years to come.  This is no diss on Hooper (poor Tom Hooper, the fall guy) – it’s just the way of the thing.  Look over Oscar and film awards history and you will never see anyone snubbed, not even Martin Scorsese, to the degree Fincher was. …The critics chose The Social Network, inexplicably.  In a year that brought so many great films like Inception, Black Swan, True Grit, Winter’s Bone, Shutter Island, The Ghost Writer – The Social Network stood apart from them because it was and is perfect.  No, it doesn’t make you care about its characters, particularly.  It doesn’t spit you back out on the street seeing humanity as good and great and able to conquer speech and Nazis with the help of a wily speech therapist, but my god – what a movie.  All of these – great great films wildly, bravely, courageously directed - directed with hard core balls dangling between them legs - kicking down the door of convention, story above all else. 

-Sasha Stone, Awards Daily

...and this, perhaps the most important thing to remember about awards season: the spirit it began in.

"When the Academy Awards began in 1939, they were conducted in a spirit of irreverence, something that has practically disappeared from the event itself. 'They used to have it down at the old Coconut Grove,' Jimmy Stewart told me in the late 70s. 'You’d have dinner and alawta drinks - the whole thing was...it was just...it was a party. Nobody took it all that seriously. I mean, it was swell if ya won because your friends were givin’ it to you, but it didn’t mean anything at the bawx office or anything. It was just alawta friends gettin’ together and tellin’ some jokes and gettin’ loaded and givin’ out some little prizes. My gawsh, it was...there was no pressure or anything like that.' Cary Grant corroborated this to me: "It was a private affair, you see - no television, no radio, even - just a group of friends giving each other a party. Because, you know, there is something a little embarrassing about all these wealthy people publicly congratulating each other. When it began, we kidded ourselves: 'All right, Freddie March,' we’d say, 'we know you’re making a million dollars - now come up and get your little medal for it!'"

-Excerpted from Peter Bogdanovich’s "Who the Hell’s In It"

A plague on your house, HBO

I was so looking forward to this!