Oscar Recap: Seth MacFarlane is a Huge Mysoginist, Les Mis is Delusional in How Good It Thinks It Is, and Jennifer Lawrence is Adorbs

And everyone say 'most awkward photo-op ever!'

Let's face it people, this Oscar ceremony was off. And if I didn't have a few beers in me, I would have noticed that better, but now in hindsight, I've become aware that yeah, not the best by a long shot. First of all, predictable as fuck! Was there any upset I mean seriouslaaaaay. Except for maybe Ang Lee, everything else was like 'called it!'.

But let's get to the bizarre bullcrap. What was with that tribute to movie musicals over the past 10 years...all 3 of them, starting with Chicago (2002) the producers of which coincidentally produced you guessed it, this years' Oscars. Fancy that! And John Travolta introducing that? Who let him into the party. And if he's the person we associate most with musicals, then I feel sorry for us. I mean Elizabeth Berkeley has more jazz hands cred than him. 

Thanks for reminding us that Russell Crowe sings sometimes.

 Now, let's get to the woman we all love to hate, no not Kristen Stewart who hobbled her sorry dishevled ass around the stage like a confused mental patient on her first day out, but weepy faux-emotional professional it-girl Anne Hathaway who whispered 'it came true' to her Oscar like she had done a voodoo ceremony on it earlier and it paid off. Then she went on some tangent about all the Fantine's in the world and some other such bullshit, like those are serious problems, or are problems that even exist. Take your stupid satin pink prom dress and get the fuck off the stage horseface. 

Moving on. Seth MacFarlane was 'toned down' but still managed to come off as kind of a prick. Not only did the boobs song stank of rampant misogyny, but he made many quips throughout his hosting gig that hinted at the fact that women aren't exactly his favorite species. And bringing out Ted? seriously? I mean can't we all just peacefully forget that that happened? Why ya gotta rub our noses into it's stinky crotch? 

One of the few sketches I actually enjoyed. The other was the recreation of Flight (2012) with sock puppets.

The in-memorium segment though accented by BABS was somewhat underwhelming, I mean usually my eyes are welling up as I look up at the TV and think; 'I don't know any of these fucking people'. And then somewhat Media obsessed First Lady (um, wha?) shows up to present Best Picture honors to Ben Affleck. I'm sorry, but doesn't Michelle Obama have other shit to do aside from broadcasting from the Oval Office to a bunch of pretentious douche-bags and doing mom dances with Jimmy Fallon? 

Just the best thing ever, embarrassing? sure, memorable? as hell! Either way who gives a shit, you won an Oscar!

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is it was just weird. It was like that awkward sex that you only realize is awkward in the middle of it, but you're so close to coming you just keep at it, and try to imagine you're in your happy place picking daisies with the Dixie Chicks in a meadow full of baby deer. The one glorious moment was J-Law's fall. I mean that was a serious fall, she didn't even go down gracefully it was basically eating curb for her, and she was just so adorbs about the whole thing, that we are all head over heels in love with her right now. SNL performance forgiven J-Law, you rule.

My Favorite Oscar Dresses

Amy Adams in my favorite designer (well of the moment) L'Wren Scott in 2011.

This is probably my favorite Oscar Dress ever and something that looks like it belongs on Tilda Swinton, this Avent-Garde Givenchy was the best look of 2012.

Cate Blanchette makes the list again when she wore this groundbreaking John Galliano in 1999.

Who can forget Charlize Theron in her I-know-I'm-going-to-win-so-I'm-really-going-all-out Gucci sparkly number that echoed Marilyn's infamous skin-and-beads dress. She looked flawless in 2003.

Freida Pinto paying tribute to her Indian heritage in this stunning blue John Galliano gown in 2008.

Grace Kelly in who else? Edith Head. There was never a better star-designer match since Joan Crawford and Adrian. This is 1954 for The Country Girl.

Although usually making serious fashion faux pas, Gwyneth Paltrow in this Tom Ford dress was freakin' flawless in 2012.

Hilary Swank channeled the 30's with this stunning backless Guy Laroche gown the year she won for Million Dollar Baby in 2005.

This is kind of a given, if you ask anyone which is their favorite Oscar dress, they will probably say 'that Julia Roberts one' in 2001 when she won for the titular role in Erin Brockovich. Nothing beats vintage Valentino.

This is another personal favorite of mine, unfortunately apparently the only good fashion choice Marion Cotillard has made as we've seen of late. This Jean-Paul Gaultier mermaid gown stunned in 2008 when she won for La Vie en Rose.

Before she started looking like some scared socially awkward 6th grader, Michelle Williams was flawless at the 2005 Oscars in this luscious yellow Vera Wang and bright red lipstick. The most like Marilyn she's ever looked ironically.

If I have three personal favorites on this list, this would definitely be the third one. Natalie Portman always looks stunning (except her pregnancy dress in 2011, yuckville) but this Lanvin grey Ancient Greece inspired number was just flawless in its simplicity.

Pre-botoxed Nicole Kidman in 1997 rarely looked awful in anything, but this lime-green silk Dior creation was practically built for her, in fact it was. John Galliano's handy work yet again.

Emma Stone tried to recreate this dress down to the letter and miserably failed last year because honey, nobody looks more statuesque in a red Valentino than Nicole Kidman, pre-botox or post-botox. This is her in 2007, and out of all the bright red dresses to clash with the red carpet of the Oscars, this is by far the best one, and there have been a lot of them.

And true to her bo-ho chic style, Sienna Miller looked fabulous in this Matthew Williamson dress in 2004. 

Well that's it folks, be sure to check my best and worst list after this year, you know how much of a mean bitch I can be!

Politics, Not Sex Rules at This Year’s Oscars

Look at the films in this slate, pretty depressing huh? The Iranian hostage crisis, Osama Bin Laden’s manhunt, a dude surviving in the Ocean with a tiger as his first mate. Wah wah. Just kidding, I’m all for serious films especially when they’re done artfully and in a non-pretentious way, and the only one I can say that that’s true of out of the politically charged films which are Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, and Beasts of the Southern Wild (arguably) is Argo. So therefore I hope it wins Best Picture.

Of the risqué in the bunch the only one we can remotely put in that category is Silver Linings Playbook. Remember when Moulin Rouge (2001) was nominated? Scratch that, remember when Midnight Cowboy (1969) WON?? Has the Academy totally gotten prude over the years, the answer is a big fat sticky yes.

If we look at the history of the Oscars, it’s usually sappy love stories and wildly inaccurate bio-pics of historical figures cases involved; Gladiator, Amadeus, Titanic, The Best Years of Our Lives…and snooze. When Midnight Cowboy won, it was a battle year. 1969, perhaps one of the most vibrant years of the 20^th century; one fraught with racial tension, sexual experimentation, and general aggression against social morays and reflections of which. Therefore, the Academy picked the most controversial film that challenged everything it used to stand for as it’s top prize winner and they were right. For once, sex lead the way, and a film about a prostitute cowboy and his Puerto-Rican drug addict friend trying to make it in New York City garnered top prizes. Since then we’ve lowered the bar a bit. Raunchy films get nominated but they don’t win. I think the one that showed most boob-grabbing of late was Chicago (2002). 

Promo still for Midnight Cowboy the most controversial film to garner Best Picture honors, 1969.

This is of course ignoring the big elephant in the room which is all of Tarantino films ever which will win for other awards (Screenplay, Supporting Actor, what have you) but will never get the lord of all knick knacks especially not after what happened in Sandy Hook. Hollywood would much rather condone sex than explicitly gratuitous violence. But even then, the sex is toned down, and has to be within a context of love, which is why I keep going back to Midnight Cowboy. That was a pure sex-movie, that’s why it was rated X when it was first released. There’s little more to it, except of course the touching bromance, but it’s explicitness worked in it’s favor back then, it’s completely the opposite now. If you look at Silver Linings Playbook, the most those two ever do is kiss, though both talk about sex endlessly like they know everything about it, and yet somehow you just don’t believe either of them. In a way Silver Linings Playbook is the most unsexy romance film there is. Amour is more sexy than it, Sorry David O. 

Jennifer Lawrence tried very hard to play Femme Fatale to Bradley Cooper's troubled soul, but too young for the part, somewhat missed the boat. Though a solid effort on her part.

So in conclusion, give it to Argo please. It’s well directed (way to really fuck up by snubbing Affleck, btw), it’s mostly historically accurate, and it’s most importantly, interesting. Hollywood loves nothing more than a history lesson they don’t have to read.

One Day Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Hollywood

Frances Farmer as a glamor girl. 

Last night I was feeling very shitty. One of those days you know, we've all been there. Instead of drowning headfirst in a tub of crappy no-real-strawberries-in-our-ice-cream strawberry ice cream, I decided to do something I think we all indulge in. Pick a movie in which the main character is in like a million times worse shape than you are. One such film is about one of my favorite actresses/hot messes Frances Farmer. The film is aptly titled Frances (1982) and stars a very young Jessica Lang who actually looks like the spitting image of Frances Farmer back in her heyday. Now she looks like someone left a plastic version of herself near the oven for too long. 

Frances in her fuck-it-all moment. Waiting in court to give a big finger to the judge.

Here's some background on Frances Farmer, the original. She was never a Hollywood player. She was a major bank draw and obsession of the studios for a while but never did she play by any of their bullshit rules. She drank, she smoked, and she never played the lady elegant. She talked to men like they were her equals; something pretty unheard of back in the 30's, and never shot the shit with anyone or kissed ass to get what she wanted. What she wanted was to be a serious actor, and in the middle of her height at the studio she made a midnight run to Broadway to be a 'serious actress' and fuck the shit out of her playwright Clifford Odettes (at that time, the darling of contraversial and relevant theater in New York). He dumped her so she was forced to come back and degrade herself for money, not as a hooker (which came later) but a different kind of prostitution; being the glamour girl to thousands of adoring horny Hollywood nuts. Eventually, she started going off her rocker, and was eventually institutionalized where she was sexually assaulted on a regular basis and then lobotomized. Her life was indeed a tragic one. Needless to say, it's one of those uplifting films where you can think to yourself 'hey I've got my problems, but I'm not that girl'. 

The late great.

The story of Frances Farmer is one of the most notorious and secretive in Hollywood because people don't want the world to know that sometimes this is what happens when you're reluctantly part of the machine. I think in a way, I love her. She took no shit, and she paid a very heavy price for it. We can all take lessons from it, and I hope one day we all will be able to. 

Below, Hollywood was patronizing enough to let Frances have her own This is Your Life moment, and she for some reason went along with it, though post-lobotomy was not exactly herself anymore. 

Below, trailer for the film based on her life, which is as accurate as I've ever seen a bio-pic be. 

Compliance: The Most Contraversial Film of this New Decade

Dreama Walker reduced to sitting naked in the backroom with nothing but an apron to cover herself up with, not even knowing how much worse it's about to get for her.

If you thought the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty (2012) were rough to swallow, once you turn on compliance make sure you have an air sickness bag nearby. Here are a few reasons why, and they may be double standards, but those exist for a reason too. 1, the torture occurring in this dark indie sleeper hit are occurring in your very own back yard and not in a black sight somewhere not on a map in the middle east. 2. They are occurring to a woman, basically a girl barely out of her teens rather than some nameless affiliate of the Taliban. Here's the plot and I'll try to avoid spoiler alerts when I can. 

In the beginning of the film Becky (Dreama Walker) was just another 19 year old girl working a part time job at a fast food restaurant.

based on more actual occurrences we would like to admit, the film takes place mostly in a low-level fast food restaurant where a mysterious caller phones in telling the easily manipulated manager that he's with the police and a woman who matches the description for a young thin blonde, which of course could be anybody was caught on surveillance stealing money from a customer. She is then subjected to increasingly degrading and dehumanizing tasks, most of which involve forced sexual activity on another. After the mysterious caller is realized to be a prankster, basically the manager who has forced this poor employee to such horrors is beside herself and can't ever recover for how she was manipulated into doing something like that to an innocent person.

Anne Dowd, the Fast food restaurant manager being asked not only to perform a strip search without a supervising witness but to comply with things much worse.

his film cuts immediately to the bone. It tugs at our most vulnerable heart strings, as do most things when we see innocent people punished and dehumanized in such cruel ways, and what's more difficult to believe is that this happens basically all the time all over rural America where people don't even think twice to ask proof of law enforcement such as a badge or a search and seizure warrant. It's cinema verite style makes it even more difficult to take in, but that much more relevant and important. Not only is Dreama Walker brilliant as the innocent victim in all of this, but the star is Anne Dowd, who is actually perhaps the bigger victim as she gets blindly conned into subjecting one of her employees to such horrors. This is a vital film for everyone to see, not only because of the daring exposé on something that has been rather glamorized in our culture, case and point 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. Sometimes it's good to take a deep breath and look at the darker side of sadomasochism, and this is just the film to do that. 

Trailer below: 

Some of my biggest Filth Influences

Gore Vidal. Playwright, social commentator, and general threat to polite society extraordinaire.

Elinor Glyn. One of the first female scenarists who never held back, and paved the way for the next two waves of feminists.

Adrian. One of the film industry's most prolific and daring costume designers.

Barbara Stanwyck. Always told it like it was, before it was even legal.

Alexander McQueen. His designs and contribution the the fashion world elevated sex into an art form.

David Bowie. Nuff said.

Sam Fuller. The man who said 'fuck you' to the Hollywood censors and got away with it.

Quentin Crisp. The Naked Civil Servant.

Otto Dix. Perhaps the most explicitly controversial painter of the 20th century.

Gus Van Sant. A master of sensuality and subtext.

Joan Crawford. Fucked everyone in her path to get to the top and never apologized. Why would she?

Marilyn Monroe. If she hasn't taught you a thing or two you're doing it all wrong.

The Marquis de Sade. Banned, condemned, imprisoned, institutionalized. His writing was that saucy.

Paul Verhoeven. Extremist is his middle name.

Vladimir Nabokov. His greatest novel 'Lolita', which was banned in most countries upon release, influenced my writing the most.

Edie Sedgwick. Warhol's most beautiful of superstars.

John Waters. The filthiest filmmaker of all time.

Anaïs Nin. Made biographical writing all about sex.

Tennessee Williams. The most controversial and brilliant scenarist of ours or any time.

Andy Warhol. The great voyeur.

And of course, Oscar Wilde. Who spent ten years in prison for his work, his beliefs, his loves, and his brilliance.

Least Romantic Love/Sex Scenes Ever

Dawn Weiner tries her 'hand' at finger fucking (Welcome to the Dollhouse, 1995)