Colin Farrell Brought His Son to the Oscars
And other updates that are, you guessed it, extremely important
Well, our boy didn’t win Best Actor. That’s ok, kind of, because Brendan Fraser seems like a very nice fellow and I’m happy for him, although his “how many times can I say the word whale” speech was kind of nonsense and did not at all help turn this film around from what I believe will be a legacy of complete tone-deafness and outright cruelty. I am squarely in the camp of, to quote comedian Matt Rogers, “if someone put a gun to my head and said, ‘You have to watch The Whale,’ I would say ‘Honey, I’ll help you pull the trigger.’” I haven’t seen this movie and don’t plan to and don’t have anything to add to the discourse, but please read what Roxane Gay and Lindy West had to say about it (Lindy actually wrote a couple different articles about it).
In more pleasant news, Colin Farrell brought his son to the Oscars! How loveable can this guy get, am I right?? My fellow Farrell admirers over at GQ said that this awards season, he’s been “a one-man charm offensive.” Hell yeah! He also got one speaking on-camera moment at the awards (if he had some other red carpet or early-in-the-show moment, I missed it, as at that point my Oscar Party party was trying diligently to get some kind of streaming service to work and show us the freaking Oscars), where he shouted out this pretty good SNL sketch with a Colin and Brendan portion that was pretty much exclusively about Irish accents (apparently there was an offended uproar about this, in my opinion, pretty tame fun-poking? With The Whale sitting right there? Pick your battles, folks).
What would be my pick for Best Picture this year? Thank you so much for asking. My favorite film this year, which has become one of my favorite films of all time, is Triangle of Sadness. I have no qualms about its lack of Oscars, because I knew there was no way it was going to actually win, but I’m pleased that it was nominated for both Screenplay and Best Picture, because it tells me that someone somewhere recognizes excellence. Please see this movie, especially if you’re ok with extensive vomiting scenes — it’s very, very worth it. I was also not immune to the charms of Everything Everywhere All at Once. And I’m going to be honest, I did not watch the Elvis movie all the way to the end, and I thought the Tom Hanks part was pretty absurd, but I thought the kid did a pretty good job.
Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day. My primary associations with this day involve playing the flute in my high school marching band as we walked in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was pretty fun except for the actual marching in the parade part. We’d take a two-hour bus ride down to the city, stop at South Street Seaport for lunch, sometimes my friend Gina would buy a bunch of candy at the excellent candy store there and forget she’d given up candy for Lent and then give it to me, then we’d change into our uniforms on the bus and do the parade part, one particularly horrible year in the snow, going back between and forth between marching band arrangements of “Danny Boy” and “MacNamara’s Band” over and over again, then get back on the bus and go to a mall in New Jersey for dinner on our way home — again, far superior to marching.
But this year, I am going to acknowledge St. Patrick’s Day, because of Colin and because my friend wants to have corned beef and cabbage. Hooray! I will be listening to U2 and Van Morrison all day, two performing artists who I feel are often neglected when we talk about the Irish pantheon (and, in the case of U2, often maligned, speaking of battle-picking. We get it, everybody, they put an album in your iTunes without asking first. It’s truly literally not even close to the worst thing that’s ever happened. Also? That album is great).
See you next time for The Beguiled! Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit!
