The 2010 Oscar nominations are out, people. Check them out here. Bravo for Carey Mulligan, who picked up a best actress nomination for An Education (I can’t give quite the same hearty congratulations to the film itself, what with the five extra Best Picture nominees and all–but still, good job). Kudos as well to Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick for their supporting actress nominations. I’d worry about them canceling each other out, though I think it’s a moot point–if word on the street is to be trusted (and when has it ever been wrong?), Mo’Nique will snag the statue for her portrayal of the bad mama in Precious.
The 82nd Oscars will be held Sunday, March 7, with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosting. Does this mean we can look forward to lots of 30 Rock and pot jokes, a la It’s Complicated?
The ax has fallen: according to Tom and Lorenzo at Project RunGay, Sal Romano, beloved former art director and closeted homosexual at Sterling Cooper, won’t be returning to Mad Men for a fourth season. As you’ll remember, Don fired Sal on the spot in episode 3.9, after it came to light that he’d rebuffed the drunken advances of Lee Garner, Jr, heir to the Lucky Strike fortune.
Yikes. I was holding out hope that Sal would wend his way back to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but apparently Weiner felt being true to the time required a bit of artistic brutality: “We don’t murder people on our show, but for there to be any stakes, there have to be consequences … I know how people felt about Bryan. I obviously love working with him, and he has been an indelible character since the pilot. But I felt it was an expression of the times that he couldn’t work there anymore. It’s the ultimate case of sexual harassment.”
I have to say, I’m crushed. The last we saw of Sal, he was skulking inside a pay phone at a rest stop, calling Kitty to say he’d arrive home late, the shadows of other men moving outside. Though I can understand Weiner’s logic, there seems to be a fine line between highlighting the discrimination of the times and actually participating in it to some degree by excising the character, who also happens to be played by a gay actor. Now the show is stripped of one of its most compelling characters, and Weiner has significantly hobbled its ability to explore this important issue. Can we expect new gay characters in Sal’s place, or a deeper exploration of characters like Kurt? Or will gay issues take a backseat as the civil rights and feminist movements start heating up?
This weekend J. and I were lucky enough to score free tickets to Garrick Ohlsson’s Chopin concert at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara. For the musically uninitiated (like me), let me enlighten you: Ohlsson is a rock god of the classical piano world, and Chopin in particular–Jimi Hendrix, only wielding a Steinway instead of a Stratocaster. For audience members in the musical know, the two-hour concert must have been akin to my watching Vladimir Nabokov scribble in a notebook for a couple hours, or a basketball fan drooling at Michael Jordan practicing lay-ups. The audience gave two standing ovations (they were elderly, so it should count for more) and squeezed a couple encores out of him.
Ohlsson, who started playing piano at 8 and entered Julliard at 13, was the first American to win the 1970 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (Chopin was Polish). The man has serious chops. Check out this historical footage from the 1970 competition, post-win:
With 2010 marking both the 200th birthday of Chopin’s birth and the 40th anniversary of Ohlsson’s win, it was a perfect storm of historical significance. And yes, the stereotypes about classical music concerts are true: the man entering the theater before us was wheeling in his oxygen tank. But an opportunity to hear a world-class talent do what he does best? Count me in! And it wasn’t all a blur: the second nocturne and the funeral march should sound familiar to everyone who watches movies or cartoons and doesn’t live in a cave. Plus, the Lobero’s intimate seating allowed an up-close view of Ohlsson’s mad skillz: at one point (I think during the polonaise) he was so wound up he actually popped out of his seat.
A true pleasure. I might be a newly minted Chopin fan after all.
