BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

5. Matt Damon, Invictus – This guy’s career has made an interesting arc, starting with writer/heavy actor in Good Will Hunting, and sort of evolving into the new thinking-man’s Van Damme. That’s still less than an actual thinking man. An Afrikaans accent is hard, but let’s not give an award to someone for frosting his tips. Same Chances As: Eric Roberts in Runaway Train, 1985. Odds: 50/1

4. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger. The former barback at Cheers is actually one of the better actors that no one realizes is a good actor. The problem here is twofold: people think of Joan of Arc when they hear ‘The Messenger’ and no one saw that movie either. Same Chances As: Richard Farnsworth in Comes a Horseman, 1978. Odds: 45/1

3. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones. An amazing actor, good in everything he does, even the occassional awful movie. While sexual abuse will pay dividends this weekend, he’s just at the mercy of the frontrunner here. Great actor in a random movie. Same Chances as Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby, 2004. 30/1

2. Christopher Plummer, The Last Station. Never underestimate the old guy who’s never won it. At the very least, fear the massive wooly beard. The only true contender to the top seed. Same Chances as James Coburn in Affliction, 1998. Odds: 10/1

1. Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds. The gold standard for the slam dunk is Heath Ledger last season. The next best thing is comparable to Waltz. A menacing, yet strangely likeable Nazi acting his ass off in four different languages. Like the other automatics, everything positive you had to say about this movie included his name. Same Chances as Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, 1996. Odds: 1/3.

BEST ACTOR

5. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker. A good performance in a great movie with a fantastic character. This is where you get in trouble, Bad Guy From SWAT: think about the great performances of all time. Would you ever think about how much better someone else would have done in that role? Never. Renner was solid, but what if you had a Daniel Day Lewis or a pre-psychosis Pacino in this part? Same Chances As: Jude Law in Cold Mountain, 2003. Odds: 20/1.

4. Morgan Freeman, Invictus. Great actor, okay movie, part tailor made for the guy. That’s probably why everything else kinda slipped by the wayside. You don’t win this just for being the best actor in a movie. Same Chances As: Alec Guinness in Star Wars, 1977. Odds: 15/1.

3. George Clooney, Up in the Air. The guy from Ocean’s Eleven playing a classy suave dude. These things shouldn’t be overly impressive. Then again, Cary Grant did that his whole career and did just fine. When’s Clooney going to play a musician with palsy? Let’s just call that the edge of range. Same Chances As: Cary Grant in None But The Lonely Heart, 1944. Odds: 10/1.

2. Colin Firth, A Single Man. Playing a gay dude gets you the ‘Oh he’s so brave!’ accolades, as if the Fred Phelps Posse is going to lynch him outside of the studio. He did it well than others have before, but there just isn’t enough juice to knock off the main guy. None of that was innuendo. Same Chances As: Peter Sellers in Being There, 1979. Odds: 6/1.

1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart. The Dude was first nominamed in 71 for The Last Picture Show. He’s zeroing in on Paul Newman, “just give him one already” territory. But this is actually his best job yet. The academy will abide. Same Chances As: Michael Douglas in Wall Street, 1987. Odds: 2/1.

Let me get right to the point:  Conservatives just don’t do well with comedy. Intrinsically, they are simply unfunny.  It’s been proven and stuff.  This is because… they suck the taint from the fringe of my balls I’m about to teabag them with.

I wasn’t looking for trouble.  Trouble came dunkng for me.

See, I’m addicted to this cyber-gadget I’ve written blogged about before.  Twitter.  Perhaps you’ve heard of this contraption.  I think it’s the offspring of an illegal iGay relationship between Jobs and Gates.  I dunno.

I dabble in politics.  Mostly, lately, I try to stay out of it (aside from the post I stuck here yesterday).  Today had to be different though.  Here’s the offending tweet:

@dmataconis: @markos Has any liberal been funny since The Smothers Brothers ?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Now, I may stink.  Let’s grant that out for you sheep dag logicians who will resort to arguments such as that later on down the yellow brick road made of cyberbits.

Take my lame intertubes-comedy powers away from me.  They were never there to begin with anyhow, right?  I suck.  We can assume this arguendo.  I couldn’t do standup if my Mom was on life-support and in need of one laugh in a room full of stoners.  Like, I really suck.  Happy?  Ok?  Granted.  Here we go…

The Smothers Brothers?  No liberal comedy since then?  Please.  Liberals fucking own comedy bitches.

If you don’t like it, don’t watch and read our shit.  Go watch Glenn Fucking Beck and his testicle retracting comedy tour.   Maybe George Will is doing the Def Comedy Jam at The Apollo.   Why do I feel the need to even write that which is self-evident?  Why must I use an allusion to The Constitution I know Tea-Baggers won’t get in the latter sentence?  Do they even understand the difference between the words, former and latter?  I know that confuses the little fuckers.

But I impress.

Let me get those not blessed with a life in Twitter Hell up to speed.  “@Markos” is Markos Moulitsas — the fellow who started The Daily Kos and the internet.  The other gentleman, umm… did not start the internet.  He’s a libertarian and free to read this if he’d like.  By doing so of course, he becomes a communist.  Like me.

Anyhosers, I couldn’t let that shit stand.  I mean come on.  Liberals own comedy.  Like it or not, it is what it is.  Markos got involved.  The interwebs got involved.  A cacophony of libertarian and conservative comedy collaborators coincided and cluttered my mention box which sadly, does not begin with the letter, “c.”

So, I challenged the bastards.  To a comedian draft.  Anything goes in cyberspace, and it doesn’t get more intellectually lame than this.  Has to be a record.  A comedy draft.  I am a fool.  To the windmills…

I  gave my opponents (and by proxy with Markos via a retweet) a head start.  They could pick the first ten comedians and I’d help them.  The aforementioned libertarian came up with Drew Carrey.  That was it.   Ok.  I’ll give him Drew Carrey.  He’s on The Price Is Right.  I’ll be damned before cursing the grounds a wayward Yodeler battles with a yellow ruler.

Tweets flew in.  No named comedians though.  I had to help.  I gave them Penn Jillette, a self-proclaimed libertarian whose name I might have misspelled.   One could argue he’s a magician, but, I’m happy to be a reasonable sort.  They can have friggin’ Penn.  He’s an Aristocrat and gets a pass.

Who else?  Dennis Miller.  The only punchline for him would involve some serious fisting.

Oh yeah.  Frazier.

That’s pretty much where conservatives and comedy stop.  To a death-mobile crashing halt.  Unless you count Palin from the other night — but, if you’re like me, massive organ failure is not comedy.  One could argue Leno is a conservative (don’t know), but then you’d have to further contend Leno attempts comedy.

From the top of my head: John Belushi, Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Pryor, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, SNL, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Howard Stern, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Cheech, Chong, David Letterman, Dave Chappelle, Dave Attel, Larry David (I could do a list of Daves), Rob Delaney, Gladstone, G. Xavier Robillard, Richard Lewis, Jerry Seinfeld, my jock strap from eighth grade, this shoe horn, Senator Al Franken, and my middle finger.

Get real.  I present a challenge.  Come up with ten comedians who are outspoken and conservative or whatever.  You can’t.   I’ll line up ten of my comedians.  We’ll get some blades, a couple of broken beer bottles, the tunes from West Side Story, and a bunch of coke.  It’ll be swell.

With that, I leave you in a wake of cyber-blood and guts and the souls of lost abortions and chicken sandwiches and all the internet has to offer.

Emoticons!

So people apparently love gambling. Let’s fill in some blanks.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

5. Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air. As stacked as the leading lady category is, the supporting section is like the premade sandwich section at Ralph’s around 1am. This chick had the worst fake cry in movies since Mike Meyer’s splashed water in his face in Waynes World 2. Same Chances As: Rosie Perez in Fearless, 1993. Odds: 40/1

4. Penelope Cruz, Nine. Penelope, who is a pretty good actress in spanish and the female Keanu Reeves in English, has the tough spot of being nominated for a movie everyone agreed kinda stunk. To give her the award is to excise everything from consideration save the performance. Since when do the Oscars do that? Same Chances As: Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal, 2006. Odds: 21/1.

3. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart. The victim of savage blowback. No matter how good she is, doubters will say that they could have put a table next to Jeff Bridges and it would have gotten nominated. Kinda like when evaluating Bird and Magic without thinking about their supporting casts. Or Manning vs Brady. Sports sports sports. Sports. Same Chances As: Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas, 1990. Odds: 9/1.

2. Vera Farmiga, Up In The Air. It’s never a good sign when two people from the same movie have to see who gets it. Votes will be split. But the psychiatrist from The Departed is actually really, really good. Probably the best actual performance of the year. She has to worry about a political frontrunner and fake tears landing on her. Same Chances As: Maggie Smith in Othello, 1965. Odds: 5/1.

1. Mo’Nique, Precious. The biggest problem with this situation is that it’s unclear how much Mo’Nique is actually acting here. The film was basically her childhood, and combing through any sort of sexual abuse survivors’ meeting would probably get about as good as a performance, as long as they were willing to toss a downs syndrome baby across a room. Same Chances As: Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck, 1987. Odds: 2/1.

BEST ACTRESS

5. Carey Mulligan, An Education. She’s like the one playoff team that makes the field because their division sucks, and they get axe murdered by a wild card right out of the gate. I’m going to keep with the sports analogies, that’s what google is for. Same Chances As: Sally Kirkland in Anna, 1987. Odds: 30/1.

4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious. The consensus among acting masters is that Precious was driven more by story than by acting, and that casting was the real success here. It’s going to sound repeatedly like I didn’t think this movie was all that great, but in many cases, the actors aren’t the reason why a good movie is good. Think Trent Dilfer on the 2000 Ravens. Sidibe didn’t turn the ball over. Same Chances As: Salma Hayek in Frida, 2002. Odds: 15/1.

3. Helen Mirren, The Last Station. When you’re hot, you’re hot, and Helen Mirren was insanely hot in Logan’s Run about forty years ago. Now, she’s just an awards monster. When all is said and done, Mirren is going to be considered one of the three to five best actresses ever. Did a great job navigating Chris Plummer’s beard, one of three that could walk with this one. Same Chances As: Miranda Richardson in Tom & Viv, 1994. Odds: 5/1

2. Meryl Streep, Julia & Julia. The Michael Jordan of Actresses. Whenever you ask, “Best Actress”, the answer is always Meryl Streep. It’s just a matter if the academy wants to give an award to someone else. She has THIRTEEN NOMINATIONS in this category (three in the supporting section). The best performance of the year, but she isn’t the frontrunner. Same Chances As: Frances McDormand in Fargo, 1996. Odds: 3/1.

1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side. A moratorium on sports references with a sports movie. Stella Adler said that a star is the best someone can personally do themselves. This is as good as Sandra Bullock gets, save maybe her turn in Demolition Man. Is this even on the radar if it was Meryl Streep? Definitely not. But think about all the starlets who went from eye candy to Oscar Winner? That’s the academy’s money play. Same Chances As: Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, 2000. Odds: 2/1.

Remember those excuses always neatly tucked in your back pocket to get out of a jam with Mommy?

First-term Rep. Eric Massa announced Wednesday that he will not seek reelection, saying his doctors have told him that he can’t continue to “run at 100 miles an hour.”

But several House aides told POLITICO that the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that the New York Democrat, who is married with two children, made unwanted advances toward a junior male staffer.  [...]

Asked specifically about the sexual-harassment allegations, he said: “When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I’ll talk about it [later].”

Massa has suffered from Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. On a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, he said he was hospitalized in December and that his doctors made it clear to him that he needed to slow down. He denied that he was retiring because of a sexual-harassment claim.

Andrew Koenig was found dead in Canada yesterday from an apparent suicide.  He was best known for playing “Boner” on “Growing Pains”.  Andrew also had many other endeavors in comedy.  He had a feature film called New Wave he had been working to produce for some time.  He was a part of several web sites (http://www.monkeygolucky.com and http://www.pardcast.com/).  He did improv and loved making people laugh.

Andrew Koenig on the Set of "Instinct vs. Reason"

I had the pleasure of meeting Andrew in 2004. I was just starting out as a screenwriter and had optioned a script (”Instinct vs. Reason“) to a small production company. We made a short film script out of that feature script to take to festivals and try to build up interest for a feature. They hired on Andrew to direct. Andrew brought in a lot of fun, energy and creativity and made something that everyone seemed to enjoy.

I traveled out to LA for the table read and for the premiere of the short. When I told me friend that Koenig was directing, he begged me to get his autograph for him, but I chickened out when I finally met Andrew. While out in LA, Andrew invited me to an improv show he was doing on a regular basis. At that time, he had real life and joy about him. He loved entertaining and making people laugh. The improv show was fairly small, but you could see happiness in him every time he told a joke that landed.

Then I went back out to LA for the premiere. It went well, although it didn’t win any awards, it still meant the world to me. Andrew expressed a little frustration to me about the results. He left early from the festival that night and that was the last time I saw him. We kept in touch in email after that. I even invited him to my bachelor party in Vegas. Being a TV star and all, I would have totally understood had he not even responded, but he still took the time to apologize to me that he couldn’t make it.

To a lot of people, he was that guy from Growing Pains. But to me, he was the first director I ever collaborated with. The first “star” I ever got to work with. I guy I watched in several endeavors over the years do all he could to entertain and make people laugh. A guy I was too scared to ask for an autograph from. I only met him in person twice and I’m not sure what it meant to him, but that little film we came together to make represents a really special part of my life. And I feel just terrible that I never let him know how much that all meant to me. Thank you so much, Andrew! I’m sure you’re in a better place now making people laugh.

Mark and Andy are back with the first video version of Suckling at the Glass Teat!