By Victoria Looseleaf

If it’s May it must be time for another season of Fox TV’s hit series, So You Think You Can Dance. We gotta say: We love the show and are excited to see another batch of dancers, some fabulous, some not so fabulous, some wacky, some wonderful. The point is this: SYTYCD is a great showcase for both choreographers and performers alike. And the big news this season (its 9th, canyabelieve), is that the show has been scaled back to just one night a week from two.

But don’t fret, dear readers, it’s all good. In fact, there will be more dance, not less, and we got the scoop straight from the horse’s mouth, Mr. Nigel Lythgoe, himself (right, with Angelina Ballerina). Click here to read our Dance Magazine story about the revamping of the show; click here to read past posts about the Brit who has done so much to promote dance, including his starting the Dizzy Feet Foundation, an organization to help underprivileged young people realize their dreams of becoming professional dancers and to support, improve, and increase access to dance education in the United States. Right on, bro!

Finally: Click here to read about the dynamic Debbie Allen, who will be a judge during some of the auditions; click here to read about Sonya Tayeh, who’s doing another new work for Los Angeles Ballet this month. And since we don’t want any of you getting carpal tunnel syndrome from all this clicking/linking business, here’s one final click that also concerns dance. In this case it’s about the Minkus of dancemakers, Benjamin Millepied (he’s Natalie Portman’s beau), and his work for Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. We’ve also got some of the skinny on his so-called 2012 L.A. Dance Project.

In the interim, put on your dancing shoes and let’s all get our groove(s) on!

By Victoria Looseleaf

After he blew into town last weekend with three North American premieres for Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève – talk about an ill wind; click here to read our less than rave Dance Magazine review – Benjamin Millepied announced that his nascent L.A. Dance Project, will feature a total of seven dancers. The big reveal: Not one is from L.A.

This nugget was announced at a press conference touting the 2012-13 season of Dance at the Music Center, held the day after Ballet Genève’s three-performance run ended.

Millepied, at right (he may have left his heart somewhere, but not in L.A.), points out his rationale: “Casting was really, really hard.”

As any local dancer was aware, Millepied held an audition last year in downtown L.A. “It would’ve been my wish” to hire local performers, the 34-year old was quoted as saying, going on to explain that he was looking for dancers of a certain quality and caliber, and “most people that great usually have jobs.”

Huh? Is this hubris or what? And what, really does that mean? This city is teeming with wonderful dancers (left, swan corps, Los Angeles Ballet), and the notion that we would finally have some kind of troupe affiliated with the Music Center, well, that was exciting to our terpsichorean community.

Millepied, who is the beau of Oscar-winning actor Natalie Portman and father of their son, Aleph – mazel tov (click here and here to read all about the anointed couple from several postings past), also said that L.A. Dance Project is close to finding a permanent space in the city. “The goal,” he added, “is to have a home.”

Having a home is good, yeah. And he and Portman allegedly live here. But since she’s a major Hollywood star (left, trying to execute the 15% of actual dancing she did in Black Swan, an uncredited Sarah Lane did the rest), and he’s the new face of Yves St. Laurent’s men’s fragrance, L’Homme Libre (“for a spontaneous man with a contemporary masculinity”), we wonder how much time does the couple actually spend in the City of Angels.

We were excited at the thought of a local dance company being in residence at the Music Center, but the L.A. Dance Project seems more like a slap in the face to those dancers and troupes who have been living and making work here for years. (Click here to read more about Los Angeles Ballet, still relatively young at six years, but showing their mettle; click here to read about Diavolo, now celebrating 20 years; and the list of fabulousness goes on…)

Let us know what you think. Is Millepied, with his Hollywood caché, good for this town, or is he a carpetbagger, an interloper, leaping into the spotlight just because he can? And here’s fouettés for thought: Will this mediocre choreographer continue to put his foot in his mouth by spouting outrageous statements, like his casting mal mots, or will he, at some point, embrace the local dance scene and make it an authentic L.A. Dance Project?

Pictured at top: Dancers of Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève in Millepied’s Le Spectre de la Rose, courtesy GTG/Vincent Lepresle, courtesy Davidson & Choy Publicity

By Victoria Looseleaf

Life changes in an instant and so it did when my mother passed away suddenly on March 22, curiously enough, my father’s 88^th birthday. They’d been apart for years, but having had five children together, an inextricable bond existed between them.

After spending a week in Florida in emotional agony (is there any other kind), I am now back in this crazy quilt of a city; back to a routine of teaching, writing, going to cultural events – music and dance concerts, screenings, the theater, museums – and, gratefully, seeing friends.

In actuality, my first night out is tomorrow when we go to Disney Hall to see John Adams conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in what is sure to be a grief-assuaging performance. On the bill is the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 9 – a work that was co-commissioned by the Phil – and Adams’ own Violin Concerto performed by the dynamic Leila Josefowicz. Thank God, as well, for the curtain-raiser, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, by Estonian holy minimalist composer, Arvo Pärt. Let the tears flow…

Friday night Passover begins and Saturday morning at 8 a.m., we’ll be listening to Arts Alive on KUSC, as we’ve got an interview with Irish thespian and stellar Beckett interpreter, Barry McGovern (at right, below). Click here for our chat with Mr. McG.

He plays Vladimir to Alan Mandell’s Estragon in Michael Arabian’s stunning production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. It’s at the Mark Taper Forum through April 22. Go, it’s fantastic. We were at opening night, March 21, not knowing what sorrows the next day would bring.

Sunday we’ll catch the final performance of our colleague, Julian Sands (at left), in his one-man celebration of Harold Pinter, directed by the inimitable John Malkovich. Check it out: It’s a benefit for the wonderful Odyssey Theatre.

Wow: Just writing about this stuff makes us feel better.

T.S. Eliot may have dubbed April the cruelest month, but the April issue of Dance Magazine is anything but cruel. Indeed, it’s très cool, and we’ve even got a short interview with the super talented dancer/choreographer Christopher Scott, part of a larger piece about choreography for the camera in the issue. Some of you might know Scott from So You Think You Can Dance, while he’s also been integral to John Chu’s Hulu web series, LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, both in front of and behind the camera.

Take a look at the story here and don’t forget: Hug the people you love. (Top photo: Gustav Klimt painting from 1911, Death and Life)

By Victoria Looseleaf

Spare. Evocative. Ultra-Jewy. And we still found ourselves loving Nathan Englander’s latest short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (Knopf). While the title decidedly takes it cues from the Raymond Carver classic, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Englander’s style and subject matter are far from the so-called “Kmart/dirty realism” movement god-fathered by Charles Bukowski and that includes cronies Carver and Cormac McCarthy.

In other words, Englander is more bar mitzvah than baptism; so, hello, allegory with lots of Jews, Jews, Jews! From Orthodox folk to Holocaust survivors, this slim tome (207 pages) features eight stories that veer from I.B. Singer-esque to Philip Rothian, Peep Show smacking of the latter.

Taking place in a seedy Times Square sex shop (that would be, of course, the Times Square of yore, those good old pre-Disneyfication days, when beach chairs on the pavement would have seemed like an LSD hallucination), the story also manages to turn back on itself. Featuring a suburban husband who plans to live out his fantasies in one of those $5 booths, this tiny tale finds our protagonist encountering not a bevy of luscious (?) nude babes, but a scenario rife, instead, with barely-clad rabbis, the man’s half-naked wife and – gulp – his mother.

Talk about a guilty conscience!

As for the title tale, we confess to having a weakness for Anne Frank (and visit her home each time we’re in Amsterdam; click here for some of our Netherlands reportage), and are in awe of Englander’s deft way with both characterization and plot in the Frank story, where two couples – one secular, one Hasidic – gab around a kitchen table. In between guzzling vodka and toking on tampon-wrappered joints (the dope is appropriated from the hostess’ son, no less), the quartet riffs on subjects ranging from Mormons converting dead Jews (oy!), including Ms. Frank (double oy!), not to mention non-Jews such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, to Floridian neighbors liking their guns and porn.

Shades of the 60’s mesh with today’s notion of perverse psychological game-playing: “If one of you wasn’t Jewish, would you hide the other?” becomes the question du jour. (There is a similar kind of morbid joke running through Jennifer Westfeldt’s forgettable rom-com, Friends With Kids, with the lead couple continually asking each other uncomfortable questions like, ‘Slow death by cancer or swift death by car?’ Click here for our take on that flick.)

Camp Sundown also serpentines into moral ugliness: Set at an old folks’ summer camp, a comical elder-rompfest (for more on “Elder Love,” click here for our Olympia Dukakis/Zach Galafianakis post), soon descends into a sinister situation with several of the campers believing one of their own had actually been a Nazi guard at a concentration camp. A geriatric witch hunt ensues: not a pretty sight.

Englander has a fine ear for dialogue and pitch-perfect inflections that immediately transport us to such varying locales as the aforementioned Catskills, the state of Florida and 42^nd Street. He also takes us to an Israeli settlement in the heart-wrenching story, Sister Hills, where bad luck, superstition and grief course through his finely etched prose. Having burst onto the scene in 1999 with For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, another short story collection chronicling the Jewish experience with equal parts wit, black humor and farce, Englander continues on the brilliant path trod by Bellow, Malamud and our long-time favorite scribe, Philip Roth (click here for some of our Roth coverage).

“What you do is tell the stories you have, as best you can,” says the wife in the formalist saga, Everything I Know About My Family On My Mother’s Side. And whether we’re defined by our stories, our ancestors, or even what we eat – Kosher pickles, anyone – with our memories also not immune to playing tricks, the 40-something Englander makes identity a profoundly moving and mystical experience.

P.S. Just in time for Passover: The New American Haggadah (Little Brown), edited by Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; click here for our Oscar coverage), with a new translation by Englander (below left), will soon be gracing Seder tables around the  country. As our Jewish mother would say, “Enjoy!”

By Victoria Looseleaf

Between going to a cool Purim party (best costume was a Julius Caesar toga, replete with spangled, pinking-sheared trim), which was really an all-out drunken wine tasting (the vineyards, of course, were Jewish-owned, with a 2009 Honig Cabernet absolutely lip-smacking), teaching Dance History at USC, and hunkering down to finally begin work on our long-awaited e-book (the title’s so hot we’re trademarking it), we’re just now getting around to this week’s post.

Still, we did manage to check out Los Angeles Ballet’s Swan Lake (click here for our LA Times review and here for a more in-depth look at the avian ballet), as well as catch a screening of Jennifer Westfeldt’s directorial debut, Friends With Kids. Having had her biggest success with Kissing Jessica Stein (and an even bigger coup in coupling with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm – the pair have been together since the late ‘90s), Westfeldt is a gentile Woody Allen…kind of. She is also, unfortunately, a Diane Keaton wannabe (click here for our take on Keaton and her brilliant memoir, Then Again), and therein lies the problem(s).

The movie, basically a predictable rom-com, posits the question, ‘Can sexual attraction survive childbirth,’ with its answer being, ‘No, so why not have platonic pals procreate while seeking other life/sexual partners?’ And while this thesis did lead to some funny lines/situations, we weren’t in love with the film. Indeed, there is something about it that just doesn’t work. After scratching our heads, we’ve come up with the following theories.

Westfeldt, attractive enough, is no Diane Keaton, as mentioned above, and inserting herself in the lead role is a mistake, no matter that she also wrote and produced the film. It also seems Westfeldt has had some work done and thus has a hard time truly emoting (click here for our take on the Goddess of Plastic Surgery, Joan Rivers).

We also didn’t care for her co-star, Adam Scott, a lothario (huh?), named Jason, who insists he’s not sexually into Westfeldt’s Julie, but somehow has enough heat to attract the bootylicious Mary Jane (Megan Fox).  We’d never heard of the dude, Scott, but, short and lubricious-like, he apparently stars in Parks and Recreation and also has a recurring role on HBO’s Eastbound & Down. (For anything HBO, we turn instead to the recently-ended Boardwalk Empire, now available On Demand; and currently are lapping up Luck, starring the bromantic duo Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Farina as today’s answer to Midnight Cowboy‘s Ratzo Rizzo and Joe Buck, albeit a pair with dough. We also dig the latest Ricky Gervais show, Life’s Too Short, which, to us – and contrary to most critics’ opinions – is so far so good.)

But we digress. The supporting roles are well-cast – hello, Bridesmaids – with the kid-bearing couples, Kristen Wiig and Hamm, and Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd, completing the ensemble. But Bridesmaids it ain’t (or so we’re told; sue us, cuz we haven’t yet caught that film, having been in Europe during its box-office boffodom; click here for some of our overseas coverage; here for yet more of that reportage.) We do know, however, that we would rather see Hamm in the lead and Westfeldt in a supporting role. (Happily, we don’t have much longer to wait for the two-hour premiere of Season 5 of Mad Men, which begins March 25, filling the void that Downton Abbey has left…)

And while FWK is requisitely chatty, it’s about as daring as pastrami with mayo, and a wee bit too hip for the room: men blathering about Kegel exercises – really? Friends With Kids, as the New Yorker notes (cover caricature by Clayton Junior), is more like the TV series, Friends (we never watched one ep, truly), with a few kids thrown in for good – or bad – measure. Westfeldt is talented, but as an auteur she’s no Orson Welles. (In fairness, who is?) This is a small, forgettable flick that will suffice on the small screen, with its last line probably the worst ever uttered in cinematic history: Far from the poetry of Citizen Kane’s “Rosebud” (itself a reference to a female organ, but who knew?), or Casablanca’s Rick offering these glorious words, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Julie, alas, says to Jason, “Fuck the shit out of me.”  Talk about a romantic faux mot. Pass the Purim wine, s’il vous plait!

By Victoria Looseleaf

“How many ‘Swan Lakes’ can you see? How many ‘Giselles’? That’s what a cranky German asked me one year in Havana where we were both attending that elegantly decaying city’s International Ballet Festival. “How many Beethoven 9ths can you listen to,” we replied, “cuz it depends who’s performing it and what production it is, blablabla.”

Well, we’re happy to report we never tire of Swan Lake (or at least almost never), in part because of Tchaikovsky’s glorious music. Thus did we look forward to Los Angeles Ballet’s premiere of this classical, er, war-bird, this past weekend at UCLA’s Royce Hall. At only six years old, LAB has gained a foothold, no pun intended, in our fickle city, and is also garnering quite a following in the process. (Click here for some of our recent LAB coverage; click here for earlier reportage).

In any case, trust us when we say we’ve seen our share of Swan Lakes, including the above-mentioned Cuban mounting, several Russian offerings, among them the Bolshoi‘s and Mariinsky‘s (cover shot of the latter’s Diana Vishneva by Gene Schiavone; click here for our 2008 LAT feature on the prima), a San FranciscoBallet production and a few from our East Coast compatriots, such as American Ballet Theatre‘s version starring Gillian Murphy, above right…and the list goes on. But for those who aren’t able to catch a live performance of the Petipa/Ivanov masterpiece, there are, propitiously, DVDs galore.

The astonishing Cuban ballerina, Viengsay Valdes, a protégé of Alicia Alonso, demonstrating her flawless technique, here with Elier Bourzac.

Indeed, our friends at Video Artists International (VAI), have a slew of classic releases, including a Bolshoi Theatre production from 1957 featuring the über-pliant Maya Plisetskaya, dancing with her Siegfried, Nicolai Fadeyechev (“This Swan Lake is a treasure,” touted the New York Times); and, from 1992, The Bolshoi’s Nina Ananiashvili pirouetting with the Perm State Ballet, partnered with Nicolai’s son, Alexei Fadeyechev. VAI also has various Swan Lake excerpts in its enchanting series, Great Stars of Russian Ballet, Volumes 1-4.

How then does L.A. Ballet’s rendition compare? Find out for yourselves by clicking here for our LA Times review. And don’t be afraid to ruffle your own feathers: Check out one of the troupe’s remaining four performances to see what this fantasy world of good and evil avians is about. After all, without art, our lives would be emotionally bereft. LA Ballet photo, Reed Hutchinson

P.S. We can’t resist Babs Streisand as Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl!’

By Victoria Looseleaf

Now that February is over – and with the Oscars telecast finally marking the end of awards season (check out our before and after takes on Hollywood’s biggest night) – we’ve got other things on our minds – like work!

Seriously: Calling all terpsichores, at least those keen on strutting their stuff – for pay! The March issue of Dance Magazine is all about jobs – how to get ‘em, how to keep ‘em and everything else you need to know to further – or jumpstart – your career. And hey – we even contributed to the issue with a story, How I Got That Job, talking to four brilliant dancers about their paths to success, including Katricia Eaglin of Dallas Black Dance Theatre (above right). We’ve also written a piece about students and professional choreographers teaming up at UCLA, in a course called First Hand (click here for that).

As Martha Graham once said, “Movement never lies” (click here for our recent Graham coverage, including our LA Times review), so keep on dancing and the truth will set you free. In the interim, if you just like to watch, there’s plenty going on in Los Angeles in the coming weeks, including Los Angeles Ballet’s new production of Swan Lake (we’ll be covering the performance for the LAT this weekend; click here and here for some of our recent coverage on the troupe celebrating its sixth season); Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company (click here for our LA Times feature from, gulp, 2007), at the Ahmanson Theatre, March 9-12. On a more intimate scale: L.A.-based butoh artist extraordinaire, Oguri, will be at the Electric Lodge, March 16-18, with Andres Corchero, a guest dancer from Barcelona. (Click here for our Oguri Times coverage from 2009; click here for an earlier review. Then you’re on your own, though we’ve been writing about this master for many years and it’s cool to see the vast array of performances he’s given all over town in the past several decades.)

The end of the month (March 23-25), brings Ballet Preljocaj’s Blanche Neige, or Snow White, to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. (We covered the world premiere of the piece in 2008 in Lyon, France; click here for that; click here for our LAT coverage of Angelin Preljocaj dancing a solo in Montpellier in 2009; and click here for our Dance Mag coverage of the troupe’s performance of The Four Seasons at UCLA, also from 2009.)

If you can’t make any of those shows, well, you can always tune in to the new season of Dancing With the Stars, which, to our way of thinking, has come up with its weakest list of so-called stars yet, Martina Navratilova and Gladys Knight aside. (Click here for our Dance Teacher Magazine cover story on DWTS pro, Cheryl Burke).

In any case, we confess that we love to watch the pros (and have a fondness for Maksim Chmerkovskiy, whom we met in Vegas while covering a quartet of Cirque du Soleil shows; click here for our recent Dance Mag review of Iris, click here for our Vegas coverage; and click here for some of our Jacques Heim coverage – he choreographed Cirque’s KA and is artistic director of Diavolo, who, btw, will be at the Irvine Barclay Theatre March 22.) But enough about us, just go out and shake a tail feather. Who knows, you might even find yourself digging dance so much you’ll sign up for classes and dream about winning that mirror-ball trophy, a feat (no pun intended), that became reality for last season’s DWTS victors, the heroic JR Martinez (whom we adore!), and his partner, Karina Smirnoff.

P.S. And just cuz we love him, we’re glad that Ivan Vasiliev, left, has the job that he has – dancing with Mikhailovsky Ballet, whose current artistic director is Nacho Duato (click here for our 2007 LA Times story when Duato was still at the helm of Compañía Nacional de Danza). Yeah!

(Cover photo: Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly Away)

By Victoria Looseleaf

You know the annual Oscar extravaganza is in trouble when one of the best moments happens before the proceedings. We’re talkin’ about the glorious prank our man Sacha Baron Cohen, aka The Dictator, pulled when he dumped ashes he says belonged to the late Kim Jong Il, all over Ryan Seacrest, the most overpaid, overexposed emblem of mediocrity show biz has managed to produce in recent years. (We do think, however, Seacrest handled it with a modicum of finesse, though we understand the American Idol emcee was somewhat, er, miffed.)

As for Billy Crystal returning to host the affair for the ninth time, he would have been better off kept on ice in some sort of cryogenic-like holding cell, his actual on-air visage/mummification making King Tut look like the boy wonder he actually was. In other words, Crystal wasn’t funny, relevant or worthy of the gig (okay, we did like his Sammy Davis, Jr., all racism aside, below), and here’s hoping that next year brings a breath of originality in the form of, well, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy or even, hmm, Lewis Black.

WTF and why not? (We normally would be touting Ricky Gervais, though his major wimp-fest at the Globes significantly lowered his ranking in our book, not to mention that the Oscars would never have a British host, our love of Brit men notwithstanding.)

In any case, most of our prognostications came true (click here for our picks and pans), with our favorite film, The Artist, snagging top honors with five wins, and Hugo accruing its five-statuette bounty in technical areas.

The big upset of the evening, though, was Meryl Streep, who, in Lanvin’s hideous gold lamé gown that looked like a shower curtain from Cleopatra’s court, managed to sneak the little man away from Viola Davis in the best actress category (Streep’s third Oscar win). “They like her, they really really like her,” is what we thought about the academy members sticking to their own kind (average age, 62, white and, well, male), but if you ponder the situation, Streep’s Thatcher could have been a great drag performance; it certainly took the pancake makeup from Glenn Close in the unfortunate Albert Nobbs).

Davis, who gave one emotional acceptance speech after another during the awards season – aside from Streep copping the Globe – must have freaked out, though being a fine thespian she did hide her disappoint with aplomb. We don’t feel too bad, however, cuz Viola  is still (relatively) young and has a (somewhat) long career ahead of her.

Indeed, Viola would make a great Michelle Obama, not to mention Angela Davis, Winnie Mandela or, umm…, perhaps a Zora Neale Hurston or Lorraine Hansbury. (Click here for our L.A. Times interview with Davis from 2004; click here for our musings on Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize-winning response to Hansbury’s classic, A Raisin in the Sun.)

As for presenters, we did like Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell (click here for more about the former), spoofing marching bands and cymbalists, but, for the most part, the bequeathers were as dull as their teleprompted words. (Where was Bruce Vilanch when we really needed him?) Then there was the lack of production numbers, which was, to put it mildly, pathetic.

Face it: The Cirque du Soleil scene just didn’t cut it (click here to read our take of Iris, not a pretty picture), and why there were only two best original song entries is beyond baffling. Admittedly, we wouldn’t have wanted to see Madonna crowing about anything related to her bomb of a movie, W.E., much less the song she was “persuaded” to write (and for which the Hollywood Foreign Press fawned all over her by awarding her the Globe). Hah!

Oy! And don’t get us started on the fashions. We long for the days of Bob Mackie and Cher (talk about “oxy-tv,” Mackie can be seen hawking his appliquéd leisure suits for aging Floridians on the shopping channel…), or Björk’s ode to insanity in her inspired sartorial choice – a swan-necked faux tutu.

In other words, nothing really stood out, and that goes for Angelina Jolie flashing her leg in an otherwise drab black Atelier Versace gown. That the thigh-baring pose was immediately aped by The Descendants screenwriters Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash after they accepted the screenplay award from Jolie means nothing (and wasn’t all that amusing). By the way: Is it us or has Ms. Jolie come to resemble her very own Madame Tussaud creation, even when she opens her mouth to speak, the Twitterati be damned, as there were allegedly 3399 tweets per minute (see @AngiesRightLeg), about Jolie’s pretentious and put-upon, er, position.

To quote Meryl Streep after winning the Gold, “…but whatever!”

Tomorrow at this time we won’t remember 99% of the telecast, including most of the losers, also-rans and what-have-yous. (And we’re doing our best to forget anything having to do with Melissa McCarthy and Jonah Hill, that’s for sure.)

Even Uggie’s appearance couldn’t save the show from complete ennui, appearing as it did during the final moments when The Artist was crowned with Hollywood’s top honor. So, until next year, it’s au revoir and bon chance – goodnight and good luck. And may the best Frenchman continue to show Hollywood how it’s done!

By Victoria Looseleaf

Now that Downton Abbey is finished for the season, there is something we have to look forward to this Sunday, besides HBO’s Luck: The Oscars, the mother of all awards shows. Having declared The Artist best picture immediately upon seeing it last November (click here for our rave), we’ve been on that Hazanavicius (pronounced Ha-zahn-a-vish-us), train ever since. And nothing has changed! The Artist is a feel-fabulous film that reminds us why we love movies in the first place. (We’re not even going to list the other eight best picture nominees, though we were high on Hugo, Midnight in Paris and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.)

We’re also gonna stick out our swan-like necks and declare that, oui – Michel H. will snag best directing honors, thus needing both arms to schlep his Hollywood gold back to France. Meanwhile, Michel’s wife, Bérénice Bejo, won’t be so charmed – she’s up for best supporting actress. No matter; she’s got him and her career has now officially been launched into the stratosphere, her funky dancing aside. As to the other director nominees, we generally like Alexander Payne (hello, Sideways), but found The Descendants dull and disjointed. On the other hand: The charm of Hugo won’t garner another little man for Scorsese, who won an Oscar for The Departed, and hope he returns to gangsta form with something a little less kid-friendly for his next outing. (We know, that was the whole point of the flick. Actually, Sacha Baron Cohen, who once thought we were, gulp, porn stars, should have been nominated for his turn as the Station Inspector.)

That brings us to Woody Allen. Since having taken a darker turn with the wonderful Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream (nobody but us saw the latter), he’s been on a roll – not counting the ill-conceived Scoop, of course – with his Midnight in Paris absolutely brilliant. This marks Allen’s 15th nomination as a writer and seventh nod as a director, but he’s not gonna show up to collect the statuette for best original screenplay, so let’s give him a hand here and now. (How J.C. Chandor got a nod for Margin Call, we’ll never know. But since we saw it minutes after finding out Steve Jobs died, we attribute some of our disinterest to that; click here to read our Jobs remembrance; here for our Son of No One/Margin Call musings.)

As for the acting categories: Our readers are well aware that we dissed Michelle Williams as Marilyn (click here for that), but loved Rooney Mara as the sado-masochistic Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Neither chick, however, will win. After all, Monroe doing Monroe was never nominated, and Mara, though young, lovely and über-talented, will have her shot in due time. Then there are the grande dames: Meryl Streep and Glenn Close (The Iron Lady and Albert Nobbs, respectively). Though we’re huge fans of both these gals, we didn’t see either film (we’re not alone there), so sue us. Seriously, we would like to see Glenn win, but fugeddaboudit for now.

This brings us to the winner, Viola Davis (below, right). We disliked The Help on many levels (perfunctory script and directing, for two things), but since Davis has been wowing everyone with her acceptance speeches and did do a fine job in a mediocre film, the Oscar goes to…her. (Disclosure: We interviewed Viola back in 2004 for the Los Angeles Times, when she appeared on stage at the Mark Taper Forum in Intimate Apparel. What a lady, what an actor; click here for our story).

The big given: Christopher Plummer (above), is a lock for best supporting actor in Beginners. We were, however, also very keen on Max von Sydow in the otherwise bad film, Extremely Mawkish & Incredibly Pretentious, er, well, you know what we mean. Cheers, then, to Plummer! Octavia Spencer (near right), nominated for best supporting actress in The Help, is the other no-brainer. We like Jessica Chastain, but, frankly, she was overexposed. (Indeed, she was in so many movies last year that her performances bled together like madras shorts in warm water, what with Wilde Salome, Coriolanus and Take Shelter giving her the Jude Law dubious distinction award. We didn’t mind her, however, in The Tree of Life; click here for our take on that; and bah to those who didn’t “get” it.)

Alas, we’re torn between best actor nominees. It’s about time that Gary Oldman was recognized for his abilities, which finally culminated in a pitch-perfect portrayal of George Smiley in the formidable Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And it would be a coup if he carried off the upset of the evening. In a perfect world…maybe, though we doubt this will happen. (Remember Javier Bardem in last year’s Biutiful? He didn’t win, but click here for our interview with him anyway.) But we digress: Brad Pitt is always good, just not good enough in Moneyball (okay, we didn’t see it, but are longing to). We also didn’t see Demián Bichir in A Better Life, so congrats on the nom, but the statue, we feel is a tug of war between George Clooney (The Descendants) and The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin. (Above: The five best actor nominees at the Academy’s annual luncheon.)

And while we’re crazy for Clooney, The Descendants did less than nothing for us (not nothing, but less than nothing, hah!). Who cares that Clooney cried while talking to his philandering, coma-ridden wife? Who cares that he huffed and puffed in flip-flops? No big whoop. But we do care about Dujardin as a fading silent movie star who eventually finds his footing, all puns intended, in the form of tap dancing. Thus it would please us, très beaucoup, to see Dujardin take home the Oscar – as long as he shares it with Uggie, and doesn’t tap dance over the heads of the audience (shades of Roberto Benigni, when Mr. Looseleaf and I were in attendance way back in 1999).

And while we’re grateful that Anne Hathaway and James Franco will not be returning as hosts (click here for last year’s coverage), we’re not thrilled with the old-school casting of Billy Crystal, whose face, as of late, seems to have been rearranged like a Picasso portrait. (Mr. Crystal should take some cues from the queen of cosmetic surgery, Joan Rivers; we’re just sayin’.) We’re also rooting for Wim Wenders’ Pina (above) to win best doc (click here), and, finally: We’re sad that Oscar’s star scribe, Bruce Vilanch, has not been recruited for this year’s telecast, meaning we’re gonna need to stockpile the Veuve Clicquot …beginning, well, maintenant.

P.S. We also want to mention A Separation, our pick for best foreign language film – and, in a complete aside – are hoping that The Dictator rabble-rouses a bit, either before or during the proceedings, cuz afterwards we just won’t care.

By Victoria Looseleaf

As our loyal readers know, we recently admitted that the PBS smash, Downton Abbey, is our TV DOC (drug of choice). And now that Season 2, having to do with World War I and its ramifications, has ended – SPOILER ALERT – with Matthew Crawley on his knees in a snow-festooned scene that has him asking for Lady Mary’s hand (not for a waltz, but – tah dah – in marriage), we are elated at this turn of events. We’re also rueful, of course, that DA won’t be returning until Spring 2013, albeit with the great Shirley MacLaine, who promises to help turn the fashions and foibles of the 1920’s into a kind of, well, Occupy Downton Abbey.

All we can say is, “Thank God for On Demand.” (Lately we’ve also been revisiting HBO’s The Wire and will soon check in on Showtime’s Homeland again.) That said, who knew that this costume drama about class and changing times, mores and hemlines, would start a cultural conversation unseen since the likes of – well, you fill in the blanks.

Personally, we weren’t Upstairs Downstairs fans (we were too busy cruising  the world – Ceuta, anyone?), but do find DA every bit as delicious as The Sopranos was, as Boardwalk Empire is, and hope that Luck will be (all from HBO; also from the network, Ricky Gervais‘ new endeavor, Life’s Too Short, about which we’re reserving judgment, but confess we were decidedly unimpressed with Gervais’ wussy showing at the Globes).

But we digress: That the glitterati, of sorts, are having viewing parties (the Daily Beast reported that Patton Oswalt live tweeted during his soirees and Katy Perry – not to our liking, on any count – has been, since her split with Russell Brand, consoling herself with tea and crumpets, or at least tea and whatevers), says something. We’re just not sure what!

Ergo: With DA now a firmly embedded cultural touchstone (we wonder if the Obamas tune in…), it was only a matter of time before SNL had their shot at the series. It’s also no surprise that books have been rushed to print – but DA getting the paper doll treatment? Well, why not! Meanwhile, as blogs buzz with all manner of critics weighing in, we don’t necessarily agree with those arbiters of tastes who declared Season 2 not as fabulous as the show’s inaugural season. “Rot!” we scoff, tossing in our two shillings’ worth.

Indeed, to our way of thinking, never have so many intriguing characters been caught up in so many twists and turns, especially as endured in DA‘s last two, two-hour eps, with the Christmas finale particularly satisfying. We love the drama of Mr. Bates’ having been accused of murder, as his new bride, the housemaid Anna, stands by her man. As for Sir Richard’s smarmy tabloid ways (shades of Rupert Murdoch), will he or won’t he…publish Season 1′s tawdry story having to do with the deflowered Lady Mary and the dead Turk? We say, “Let ‘er rip.”

And what about that miracle from on high (or low – as it was Matthew Crowley’s below-the-waist problem that caused, er, friction with his betrothed, Lavinia)?

Cousin Matthew’s leap from that wheelchair was on a par with Jennifer Jones spotting the Virgin Mary in The Song of Bernadette – or at least Deborah Kerr telling Cary Grant, “If you can paint, I can walk,” whilst disabled on her couch in the final scene of the 1957 cinematic love-fest, An Affair To Remember.

And poor bad boy Thomas, throwing his lot in with black marketeers, only to get shafted himself. (His bit with Lord Grantham’s dog, Isis, is nasty, but priceless, and certainly in keeping with the servant’s closeted, noir self.) Yes, the drama keeps unfolding like Irish linens at a state dinner, with love seemingly at the root of it all: Lady Sybil ultimately getting daddy’s approval – almost – to run off and marry the chauffeur Branson; Lord G rooting for daughter Mary even after he learns of the tale of the Turk.

And whose heart didn’t stop during that whole business with the Spanish flu. Crikey! With Lady Cora on her deathbed and Lord G stealing a kiss from housemaid Jane, this was gasp-inducing television, often enhanced by the inclusion of new-fangled devices!  (The phonograph, at left, with Carson and Lady M, while certainly enlivening the proceedings, was also key to Lavinia losing her will to live.) In essence, what we have here is not a failure to communicate, but the rapturous ability to communicate, thanks to Julian Fellowes, who created the series and continues to crank out what is arguably, well, crack TV!

And the cracks just kept coming, from the indomitable, unforgettable, beyond brilliant, 77-year old Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess Violet. To wit, here’s one of the grande dame’s choicer retorts, no matter that it’s from last season: “Why does every day involve a fight with an American?” Hey: She’s got no quarrel with this Yankee!