This week:
- Prepping for Oscars night.
- Daniel Radcliffe is…perfect?
- The Super Bowl of Cooking Shows?
- Bozo of the week.
- Give Kelly Clarkson everything.
Your Oscars Night Pre-Game
Perhaps you are familiar with Gay Guy Music Video Night. It is the phenomenon where gay friends get together—sometimes before going out, sometimes after going out, and sometimes it is the going out—and watch endless playlists of music videos on YouTube while drinking and singing along. (Even Hillary Duff is hip to it.)
But allow me to introduce you to a subset of the genre: Gay Kevin Fallon Award Speeches Night. It’s a similar concept, except Kevin Fallon is alone, the YouTube videos are of actors accepting awards, and he’s probably crying.
So with the Academy Awards happening Sunday night, I thought it would be generous of me, as an expert, to tell you my five favorite Oscar speeches. Consider it a starter pack for your own night.
Sandra Bullock - Best Actress for The Blind Side
The beautiful thing about this speech is that you can tell how touched Bullock was to win it. It came after a season in which she kept being nominated for and winning awards as critics complained she didn’t deserve them, and as Meryl Streep was in contention to finally win her third Oscar. Her speech is full of grace and gratitude, especially when she gets choked up talking about “what the film is about”: mothers. Her tribute to her mom is so beautiful that when she says the words “Helga B.” at the beginning of it, I immediately get weepy.
Tom Hanks - Best Actor for Philadelphia
Hanks began his speech, for playing a gay man dying of AIDS, by saying, “Here’s what I know…” What followed is a remarkably profound and eloquent appreciation of the undying love in his life, the filmmakers he worked with, and, quite poignantly, his teacher and classmate, “two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men, that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age.” He then ends with an emotional explanation of his frustration that “the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels,” the gay men who lost their lives to AIDS. Crying just typing it.
Olivia Colman - Best Actress for The Favourite
The best speeches are when the winner is absolutely gobsmacked, which was the case when Colman scored her surprise win over the heavy favorite, Glenn Close. Her stammering is endearing and hilarious, especially because she manages to eke out meaningful thanks to her costars, director, husband, family, and Close—blowing a raspberry while doing it. Plus, an all-time great closing two words: “Lady Gaga!”
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon - Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting
Their youthful enthusiasm and exuberance is positively electric, something that’s rare for the stuffy Academy Awards. Especially now, there’s so much gravity and stress placed on Oscars night, the finish line of an endless road of campaigning, that even winning seems like a burden. So it’s refreshing to be reminded of Affleck and Damon’s sheer, unbridled happiness.
The Best Lines: This one’s a cheat: speeches that are worth it just for the great lines. Julie Andrews’ “I know you Americans are famous for your hospitality but this is really ridiculous.” Shirley MacLaine’s “I deserve this, thank you.” Marion Cotillard’s “thank you life, thank you love, and it is true there is some angels in this city.” Louise Fletcher signing to her deaf parents. Barbra Streisand’s “hello, gorgeous.” Julia Roberts addressing the conductor for being “so quick with that stick.” And, of course, Sally Field’s “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me.”
Daniel Radcliffe Is the Best We Have
I’m a broken record about how much I admire Daniel Radcliffe. He led one of the biggest film franchises there’s ever been with grace, came out on the other side of it with his head on straight, and could’ve easily bought an island to retire on, living in a house built of money.
Instead, he’s taken big, quirky swings when it comes to roles he’s chosen, emerged as one of our greatest comedic actors there is, become one of the most valued players on the Broadway stage in the last two decades, and found a way to do it while being protective of his fans’ connection to him.
All of those attributes culminate in an exuberant, emotional tour de force in his latest Broadway venture, the just-opened one-man show Every Brilliant Thing.
Owed to Radcliffe’s solar flare of charisma—a radiant power he somehow wields with careful intimacy—it is an exuberant piece of theater. Surely, it is the most feel-good work I’ve ever seen that is largely about depression and suicide.
That joy could emanate from such subject matter is a testament to Radcliffe understanding, appreciating, and then telegraphing to the audience the power of community to heal: the everyday brilliant things that we can give to ourselves, but, more importantly, give to each other. His character, you see, grew up with a suicidal mother, so he created a list of everything, grand and small, worth living for.
The audience is his collaborators in the endeavor. Some are recruited to play characters from his past. Everyone is provided with a card with a numbered “brilliant thing” from the list, and many people are asked by Radcliffe to shout theirs when their number is called: “Ice cream.” “Spaghetti bolognese.” “Making up after an argument.” “When idioms coincide with real-life occurrences, for instance: waking up, realizing something and simultaneously smelling coffee.”
Radcliffe’s one-man show, then, quickly transforms into group therapy. Meticulously—and charismatically—he forges a spiritual bond amongst the audience members over the 70-ish-minute running time, lifting us up to the point that we floated out of the theater. Inexplicably, we were on a high of hope and happiness, one that managed to stave off the harsh confrontation with the real world when the theater doors opened, we all flooded into the cacophony of Times Square, turned on our phones, and the symphony of bad news alerts, texts, and emails struck up again.
That’s the power of good theater. And most definitely the power of Daniel Radcliffe.
Is This the New Top Chef?
One of the most important things in the world to me is cooking shows. I do not, by any means, cook. Terrible at it. Don’t enjoy it. Don’t desire to do it. But do I know that it’s a terrible idea to do a risotto in a cooking competition because you gotta keep stirring it and you’ll never get the right consistency? I’m the Julia Child of cooking show viewers.
So I was obviously intrigued by CBS’ America’s Culinary Cup, a series that, one supposes, aims to transcend the twin pillars of cooking competitions—Bravo’s Top Chef and Food Network’s Tournament of Champions—by essentially combining the two into what the network is positioning as a Super Bowl, Olympics-level event for food TV.
The justification for such loftiness is the grand prize of $1 million, which supposedly attracts elite chefs who would ordinarily scoff at TV competitions, and the introduction of the “10 Culinary Commandments” that must be mastered—a cleverly pretentious rebranding of rudimentary elimination challenges.
Still, thus far, the show pretty much just seems like Top Chef meets Tournament of Champions. The comparisons are easy, as former Top Chef host and judge Padma Lakshmi serves as this show’s host and judge, and there’s the scoring system that ToC implements. It’s kind of why I wish I hadn’t read industry reports that boiled down to “this isn’t your mother’s cooking show” and could just enjoy the series on its merits.
I love Top Chef. I love ToC. Combining them both? Excellent! For that reason, I’ve been really enjoying America’s Culinary Cup, and I think you might, too.
This Bozo…
Pete Docter is one of the most important people in Hollywood and, as it would happen, foundational to most of our lives. He is the chief creative officer of Pixar and directed classics including Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out.
When asked about why the studio cut an LGBTQ storyline from the film Elio, he said, “We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.”
The reasoning behind his disappointingly glib comment is not wanting to expose young people to things they’re not ready to or don’t want to see. What a really encouraging point of view to read. Maybe he’d like the studio to pay for the therapy of the countless queer people who grew up in shame because of these kinds of perspectives. I’m not sure hundreds of millions of dollars will cut it, though.
Justice for Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson spilled about how her American Idol prize money was not all it was advertised to be, and that she never got a car, even though future runner-up Clay Aiken—not even a winner!—did. Thankfully, Clarkson got the greatest prize of all: my crazed admiration.
Opens in new windowMore From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
Ladies of London: The New Reign is the best Bravo show I’ve seen in years. Watch it immediately. Read more.
The winner of America’s Next Top Model Cycle 2 tells me all about her traumatic experience both on the show and after. Watch here.
I got all the secrets of the new season of Top Chef from the judges themselves. Read more.
What to watch this week:
Ladies of London: The New Reign: I’ve never felt more alive than when watching this. (Now on Bravo and Peacock)
Scarpetta: Nicole Kidman always stays winning. (Now on Prime Video)
Undertone: The tagline, “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear,” will forever amuse me. (Now in theaters)
What to skip this week:
The Madison: It is painful to speak against a Michelle Pfeiffer project. (Sat. on Paramount+)
