A commenter noted that the woman next to Ethan Hawke seems to have a nip-slip at 02:10. I think that is his wife, Ryan.
What happened:
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which was nominated for 13 awards, dominated the show with six awards, including the grand prize. PTA also won as the best director.
Michael B. Jordan won his first Oscar for his dual role as twin brothers. I was happy to see that. I like him a lot more than I like Chalamet. Oh, hell, I like Stephen Miller more than I like that twerp Chalamet.
Spicoli won his award as the best supporting actor, but didn’t bother to show up. He is apparently overseas, fighting for some cause or another, doing something he thinks is more significant than picking up a trinket. I have guilty feelings about disliking this, because I know he is actually right. Award shows are merely swanky bullshit with arbitrary winners and losers. They distract us from genuine crises in the world. I know I should respect his willingness to walk the walk when others only talk the talk. After all, this is a guy who rents a boat and rescues flood victims. I should admire that. And yet I dislike the fact that he’s right, and I still think he’s a total douche.
Was that a nip slip at the 2:10 mark?
Good eye. You seem to be correct.
That’s a shadow…
That’s clearly a shadow. There are alot of shadows seen across her face and neck. And that’s no place for the beginning of a nipple, areola, whatever.
I see it as a slip myself – it is the wrong colouring for a shadow. But I wonder how in the world people even spot these things in a broadcast. It is just a very brief, small glimpse on the side of the screen. Who is examining the broadcast that closely?
Yup..
The wrong color for a shadow.
I thought Conan did a good job – loved the opening gag with him as Aunt Gladys (foreshadowing the biggest surprise of the evening).
But is it just me or did the crowd seem subdued? Maybe it was just the mix?
Conan did do a good job, but some of the other presenters’ comedy gags fell flat, either from bad writing or bad delivery or both. I was frustrated that One Battle After Another won best picture and so many other awards as well, as it is a film whose qualities were entirely lost on me. But my favourite, Sinners, also did pretty well, so there is that.
I can’t help but wonder what it must smell like in a room full of Hollywood elite? Like, surely it’s terrible, right? Perfume, cologne, presumably alcohol, the sweat of a thousand production staff…etc.
does Ozempic give off an odor?
Good question. LOL
Two things can be true. Spicoli is right and a doiche. The first amplifies the latter even. His righteousness is so much worse given he is right. All these award shows were created specifically to distract, primarily as a strategic move to prevent labor unionization among actors, directors, and writers.
Not sure I understand your last sentence. Isn’t Hollywood about the mos-unionized industry on the planet?
Yea, now. The point is the awards are a distraction. Were then, are now
Did Spicoli really rescue anyone on that boat? I thought there was no room because of the camera crew and their gear.
I can’t imagine watching that pile of reeking crap, despite that Conan is usually funny and in fact Penn is one of the very few people I would’ve rooted for (though I find out now he didn’t attend.) Derisively calling him Spicoli is a disguised compliment, as he brought some zesty life to that otherwise mediocre movie. HE is the one people remember, not Judge Reinhold or anyone else unless you count Phoebe’s tits.
I really can’t jump on a mini-bandwagon of dissing a guy because he has depth and social concerns and hates being involved in shallow Hollywood events and socialites. I even give him credit for being a clone of Jason Derek Brown, even though Brown is a top 10 fugitive. I just like it that he has a pinched-up scowly face and seldom smiles, because he doesn’t care to be anyone other than who he is. He does get points off for marrying Madonna, and beating up press guys, but that was years ago.
He’s not a hero of mine and I don’t bother with most of his films; he just deserves better than a dismissive “Spicoli” in a similar way as you’d refer to some talentless, empty shitbag who portrayed a stoned bonehead in a movie, like Jim Breuer or Pauly Shore. Penn elevated that stereotype to an artistic level and has never been topped – nor did he ever try to repeat it, which is admirable. He didn’t even do Spicoli in the 2021 table reading of Fast Times, giving that role to a REAL stoner bonehead instead, Shia LaBeouf, who predictably mangled it.
He’s lived a large life, he has talent, even had a role in which he perfectly simulated playing jazz guitar, note for note, which is brutally hard to do. Winning an Oscar and not showing up is Brando and De Niro-like, which is creditable antihero behavior. Had he showed up, he surely would’ve had a cig dangling from his mouth, which would’ve been even better. The rest of those fucking phonies can disappear from the planet and the world would be a better place. Timothy Shallowmay and whoever the fuck. As Steely Dan said, “Show business kids makin’ movies of themselves, you know they don’t
t give a fuck about anyone else.”
He will always be Spicoli, just as Heather Graham will always be Rollergirl, Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude, Hugh Jackman will always be Wolvie, and Derek Jacobi will always be Emperor Claudius. Sometimes a portrayal is so iconic that it dwarfs the portrayer, no matter how talented he (or she) may be, and no matter what else he has done. Heather is not a great talent, but the others mentioned are some of the best performers of their times.
But they will always be Spicoli, Wolvie, The Dude and Emperor Claudius.
Similarly, people who follow Michael B. Jordan’s career still call him Wallace, from his role on The Wire when he was 15.
Yeah I always nick-name the actors based on the character that they’re most known for. Or at least what I know the best. For example: Les Miserables, starring Wolverine, Gladiator, Catwoman, Borat, Red Riding Hood, and Bellatrix Lestrange. Or The Arrival, starring Lois Lane, Hawkeye, and Saw Guerra.
Borat is another perfect example. Even if he won an Oscar for playing Davy Fucking Crockett, coonskin cap and all, I’d sum it up by saying, “Borat was really good as Davy Crockett.”
Yeah, and there was “Kong: Skull Island” starring Captain Marvel, Loki, Nick Fury, Dan Conner, and Dewey Cox.
Ted Levine is always Jamie Gumb, and Stephen Root is always Milton.
Snake Plissken married to the Laugh In dancer
And that guy who plays Loki. In his case, I don’t even know his real name. It may be Loki, for all I know.
FWIW, my reaction is that this labeling scheme says more about the user of it than about the actor. Or even about just their fame. I found Jane Seymour striking in Somewhere In Time. I couldn’t have cared less about Dr. Quinn. Her reputation before that was as a Bond girl. Same could be said of Rosamund Pike. I didn’t really notice how beautiful she is till much later. I became especially conscious of it from Barney’s Version, as Giamatti’s muse. So then I had to watch her acting in lots of things. She only got more impressive. My own take is, if they’re worth remembering, then they’re worth remembering them by their name. Respecting people who are worthy of their fame is an important value to me.
The phenomenon excludes towering giants of the craft. Nicholson, DeNiro, Streep and Pacino are ID’d by their names, while Chris Reeve is Superman, and Paul Hogan is Crocodile Dundee. These are necessary conventions for communication to people who are not immersed in film the way we are. If I say “Paul Hogan did such and so” in a party of random people, about 1% of the listeners will know who I mean. If I identify him as Crocodile Dundee, pretty much everyone knows immediately who the subject is. The same would be true of Sacha Baron Cohen. If somebody in my family asks, “Who was in that film?” and I say Sacha Baron Cohen, not one person would know whom I mean, but 100% would picture him immediately if I say Borat.
Some creators need the same treatment. If I refer to “Trey Parker and Matt Stone,” I’m talking to 5% of the audience. If I say “the South Park guys,” people know who I mean.
There is also a generational communication difficulty which is overcome by the role identification. People my age know who Jeff Bridges is, but if I told my grandchildren, “Oh, yeah, Jeff Bridges was the star of that film,” they would give me blank stares until I said “You know, The Dude.”
On the other hand, everyone knows DeNiro or DiCaprio if I use their names.
And certain nicknames don’t work. I don’t refer to Sean Connery as James Bond because it’s not clear. There are too many.
Even I have some ignorance about these people without the role crutch. As I mentioned earlier, if you tell me Loki was in a film, I can picture the guy instantly, but if you say “___________ was in the movie” and use his real name, I would have to go to IMDb, whereupon I would think, “Oh, yeah, Loki!!”
For of Hogan and Cohen this is absolutely true.
For Sean Penn, calling him Spicoli is more tongue-in-cheek, just like calling Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry.
Although Clint has become such an institution that Dirty Harry seems too casual. I think he’s earned the right to be called Dirty Harold.
Steven Colbert used to call Sean Penn Spicoli in his monologues, but I noticed that they called him Colonel Lockjaw at the Golden Globes, so perhaps he’s opened a new chapter in his life.
Nikki Glaser had a ton of Sean Penn jokes that she cut from her act, but told on Howard Stern. My favorite:
Chase Infinity Payne is here. That’s her real full name, and also how Sean Penn gets an erection.
Yes! That’s exactly what I meant. It conveys something to a subset of people who matter to you, including yourself. And, as fwald mentioned, your sense of humor is involved, as well as that of the folks you expect to be in on the joke. This is yet another case of language use that identifies you and your crowd, more than simply communicating information. Your actual opinion about Sean Penn, which you expressed subsequently, is really indeterminate until you spell it out. But you can get your early jabs in without all that. It says who you think Sean Penn is, as in, in the group of actors undeserving enough of your respect that you match him up with a character who he as an actor was just doing his job of portraying. I don’t know that much about an actor from just a single portrayal. But I immediately know a fair amount about what you think of him just from your choice of epithet.
Trying to think of actors I nickname… McDowell as Alex? Redford as Woodward? Hackman as Popeye? Shatner as Kirk? Nah. I guess I don’t I don’t really do that, which is why I viewed ‘Spicoli’ as derisive. Maybe Lynda Carter = Wonder Woman, since she never did anything else of note. She was more like a personality and her tits were more famous than her, but Penn is more like a real actor to me.
And yeah, JJ Leigh was outstanding in Fast Times. Hers is my fav performance. She was brilliantly believable, endearing, & charming – very sexy too. I still think it’s the best she ever did, and she was only 20 then. So I correct myself to say that to me, hers & Penn’s performances were the most memorable in that movie. I don’t think of her as Stacey though, or him as Spicoli. Just two very talented & respectable actors who manged to rather admirably prolong their careers for decades. And Jen did it through the pain of losing her dad in a horrible way. Quality person.
Whatever his personal quirks, I respect the hell out of Sean Penn as an actor. I find him incredible even in his “lesser” roles like The Falcon and the Snowman, Casualties of War, and Carlito’s Way. He may be the best ever at playing unlikeable characters. Calling him Spicoli in conversation is a humorous shorthand for people in the know, but I don’t see it as insulting or disrespectful, just like I wouldn’t find a casual reference to Nimoy and Shatner as Spock and Kirk as demeaning. However, I certainly wouldn’t call them that to their faces.
I’d have no hesitation calling Shat “Captain Kirk.” It is an acknowledgement that he is more than an actor, but somebody who created something so memorable that it will probably live as long as mankind remains.
I wouldn’t call Penn “Spicoli” because he wouldn’t realize that I consider that one of the top characters in the history of film comedy, right up there with the Dude, Frank Drebin, Dr. Evil, Borat, Uncle Rico, Captain Spaulding, Ace Ventura, Ron Burgundy, Milton the Mumbly Guy, Cuthbert J. Twillie, Pat Healy, Franz Liebkind, etc …
He’d probably think it was derogatory.
Two revealing points in your clarifications.
By fwald: “humorous shorthand for people in the know.”
By Scoop: “He’d probably think it was derogatory.”
Scoop, your position seems to be that the way you talk about Sean Penn and others albeit that it might come across as disrespect, actually doesn’t tell us much of anything, not even about how you truly feel about Sean Penn and all those others you cheerfully enumerated for us, all of whom you affectionately speak of in what may sound to a casual listener like a derogatory way.
IOW, it’s more than a handy way to clarify who you mean. It’s aimed. It’s expected to elicit a desired effect in particular listeners, and moreover, reinforce a general impression of your personality that you want a specific audience to harbor.
fwald, your nifty turn of words is brilliant. And sure sounds to me like a group identity reinforcement way of talking, for members of Scoop’s clique. As is most often the case in small talk, it’s not so much about conveying the information that it superficially carries, as signaling belonging within a specific gathering of fellow travelers.
Calling Sean Penn Spicoli is not derogatory. He created a character that will live beyond him, a la Frank Drebin.
But
The statement “He’d probably think it was derogatory” is meant to be derogatory.
He’s a hothead who’s impressed with himself, has no sense of humor about himself, and would probably get angry and threaten me. Remember what he did after Team America?
Back to the original point, Spicoli is just one of those guys who is so smug, sanctimonious and holier-than-thou, that he manages to make it unimportant that his intentions are good, or that he really is holier than we. Sean Penn always manages to be on the right side in the wrongest way possible.
This isn’t really a fight so much as an exercise in, I dunno, interrogating our own ulterior motives. I totally agree with you about Sean Penn’s virtue signaling, and virtue signaling in general. There’s a race to the bottom to show everyone how we have the savvy to do, not the best thing, but the most correct thing. He’s the poster boy of that. Wise folks I’ve drawn my lessons from have told us in effect that Satan is not the one who merely does evil things, but the one who convinces you at the same time that the evil way is the good way. Figuratively it’s very easy for us to have Satan in our hearts in such a way, thinking we are promoting justice while perverting it. My attempt to not be that guy is to question and flip the roles and turn the situation inside-out, looking for who’s the bad guy I didn’t think of, things like that. So, I have an aversion to people who can’t see complexity in any situation where more than a handful of people are involved. So that good and bad are rarely clear-cut. And, precious little good comes of simplistic worldviews where remedies like “degrowth” are fervently believed in.
Jennifer Jason Leigh was memorable and she’s still interesting as actors go. The only award I gave a damn about was Jessie Buckley’s. I’ve admired her work and wanted her to win. I guess some folks had that opinion too.