Adolf Hitler fumes after learning that Albert Brooks has failed to receive a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination
Who would have have guessed that two of Albert Brooks’ most die-hard fans are the unlikely pair of Russell Crowe and Adolf Hitler. And they’re both mad as hell at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members who have bypassed Brooks in the Best Supporting Actor category for his critically acclaimed performance as a nasty gangster in Nicolas Winding Refn’s thriller Drive.
On Jan. 25, the Gladiator Academy Award winner and Man of Steel costar Russell Crowe tweeted: “[Drive’s] Ryan Gosling didn’t get an Academy nomination? There’s some bullshit right there.” He then added, “Albert Brooks you were excellent in Drive. Excellent.”
Now, Crowe’s reaction to Brooks’ omission from the Academy Awards’ Best Supporting Actor shortlist was nothing compared to that of Hitler. The German Führer was particularly galled that Moneyball’s Jonah Hill managed to sneak in, considering that Hill had the sleeper hit Superbad stolen from him by Michael Cera. In Hitler’s view, that’s as low as you can get. See below:
For the record, in addition to Jonah Hill, the 2012 Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominees are Christopher Plummer for Mike Mills’ Beginners, Nick Nolte for Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior, Kenneth Branagh (as Laurence Olivier) for Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn, and Max von Sydow for Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Bennett Miller directed Moneyball, which also features Brad Pitt and Robin Wright.
A FilmDistrict release, Drive received a single Oscar nomination, for Best Sound Editing for Victor Ray Ennis and Lon Bender.
As for the Hitler clip, that’s European Film Award nominee Bruno Ganz in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Der Untergang / Downfall, nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award in early 2005. A controversial World War II drama that went on to become a sizable box office hit in Germany, Downfall was criticized by some for portraying Hitler in a “sympathetic” light. The historical drama depicting the last days of Adolf Hitler went on to win Best Foreign Language Film awards in Argentina (Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards), Denmark (Bodil Awards), the United Kingdom (British Independent Film Awards), Norway (Amanda Awards), and the United States (National Board of Review, Online Film Critics Society).
Also of note, at the Critics Choice Awards 2011:
Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer announced he had discovered a substitute for the Fountain of Youth. “I feel terribly young tonight suddenly,” Plummer told the crowd, “and, at my age, I need all the help I can get in that department.”
On his Twitter account, Albert Brooks posted: “Just got home from Critics Choice. Did not win but beat up Plummer in parking lot and took his award.”
Judd Apatow takes on Jerry Lewis re: women comedians
While accepting the award for Best Comedy for Bridesmaids at the 2012 Critics Choice Awards ceremony, Judd Apatow ended his speech with the following: “Jerry Lewis once said that he didn’t think women were funny. So I’d just like to say, with all respect, fuck you.”
Needless to say, Apatow isn’t worried whether or not his Critics Choice Awards acceptance speech will help to earn him an Oscar. Nor is he worried that Jerry Lewis, 86 next March 16, will come after him. Anyhow, Apatow’s “fuck you” was greeted by cheers from the audience.
‘I don’t like any female comedians’
Jerry Lewis’ negative comment about female comedians was made at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen in 1998. During a Q&A session with Martin Short, Lewis said “I don’t like any female comedians.” What about Lucille Ball, Short asked? “No. A woman doing comedy doesn’t offend me but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.”
It unclear whether or not Lewis was being sarcastic.
Lewis, one might add, is hardly the only celebrity to have come up with this sort of nonsense. In 2007, the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens wrote a ludicrously reactionary Vanity Fair piece in which he used one of those myriad “scientific studies” to explain women’s appreciation for – and lack of – a good sense of humor. Sample: “… [M]y argument doesn’t say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.”
The grouchy-looking woman in the photo illustrating Hitchens’ article, by the way, is Oscar winner Jane Darwell (The Grapes of Wrath, 1940), who was (at least somewhat) humorous roles in Gone with the Wind and Chad Hanna, not to mention Aggie Appleby Maker of Men, in which she plays Wynne Gibson’s no-nonsense landlady.
Linda Lovelace movie casting: Demi Moore out, Chloë Sevigny in
Demi Moore has left the cast of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Lovelace, a biopic about Deep Throat porn star-turned-anti-porn Born-Again Christian Linda Lovelace that began shooting in Los Angeles last December. But you lose one, you win one. Moore has exited just as Chloë Sevigny has joined the Lovelace ensemble.
According to Deadline.com, Moore, who was to have a small role as radical anti-porn feminist Gloria Steinem, exited Lovelace “because of the stresses in her life right now” that have forced her “to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health.” Also as per Deadline, Sevigny has joined Lovelace to play “a feminist journalist assigned to write a story about Lovelace.” Now, at this stage it remains unclear whether this “feminist journalist” is Steinem herself. Reports vary on the matter.
Sevigny is best known for three roles: her Oscar-nominated performance as Hilary Swank’s lover in Kimberly Peirce’s real-life inspired (and unabashedly fictionalized) Boys Don’t Cry; her Golden Globe-winning turn as a member of an “extended” Mormon family in the television series Big Love; and as the woman performing oral sex in Vincent Gallo’s widely derided The Brown Bunny.
The Lovelace cast includes Amanda Seyfried as Linda Lovelace, Peter Sarsgaard as her abusive husband Chuck Traynor, James Franco as Hugh Hefner, in addition to Eric Roberts, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody, Wes Bentley, Sharon Stone, Bobby Cannavale, Chris Noth, Robert Patrick, Debi Mazar, Cory Hardrict, and Juno Temple.
notes
Jerry Lewis quote via People magazine; other quotes via E!Online.