Julianne Moore will play Carrie's psycho religious-nut mother in the new remake of Carrie. Approved!

I'm better than you

The Golden Globes were, as usual, far more entertaining than the Oscars. I also had no idea they are a humanitarian org. I thought they were just starfuckers (with accents) like me!

It's hard to take the likes of Kelly Osbourne seriously in the realm of fashion of beauty, but Madonna looked amazing—loved the dress and the looser hair. Her shots with Ryan Seacrest were a bit puffier than lately but nonetheless, she remains relaxed and seems genuinely thrilled to be promoting her movie.

Green is the color of Elton's envy

Why did fucking Nicole Richie name-check her hairstylist? Can't we leave anything to the imagination?

When the show began, I had to gasp at seeing Madonna and Meryl Streep at the same table. It makes perfect (Weinstein) sense, yet seeing the two living legends (and former feuders) seated together was a big thrill.

Ricky Gervais—who I love—was very funny in his intro. Even funnier was watching the petrified audience cautiously waiting for the blade to drop. The joke about Jodie Foster's Beaver, which he'd never seen and which "a lot of others had never seen," was daring; they cut away rather than linger on Jodie's reaction. She was a great sport.

Poor Gerald Butler...shaking with nerves and as off with his timing as he was on with his beauty. Kudos for rewarding Christopher Plummer for supporting actor! Beginners is a terrific movie and he deserves it for his performance as well as for his career. 

Fucking exquisite always...it's not even fair to other humans 

Laura Dern is not funnier or better than Amy Poehler, let alone the others in the category of actress in a comedy. They, like the Emmys, always go with people known for their movies in TV categories. Cool seeing Laura brought her mommy Dianne Ladd, who looks the same after all these years.

Rob Lowe's hair is like Priscilla Presley's face: It was perfect for an unnaturally long time, then it just WENT. He and the always gorgeous Julianne Moore handed the trophy to Downton Abbey, which I promise to watch. Poor Elizabeth McGovern taking a spill.

Whoops! Wrong year!

Kate Winslet certainly deserved to win for Mildred Pierce, which I feel was not appreciated as much as it should have been. It's hard remaking perfection, but I think they succeeded by  rethinking it from the ground up. She looked spectacular.

It's a scandal that Julianne Moore has no Oscars

All of 51-year-old (happy birthday!) Julianne Moore's performances—obsessively ranked! (Pssst—remember the time I met her and asked her about Body of Evidence???)

Prove it!

As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.

Of whom are you more jealous?

Here are my favorite 100+ posts out of nearly 11,000. Please take some time to read (or re-read!) a couple and tweet or Facebook any you like.

xoxo Matt

The pocket pool championships were intense this year

BOY CULTURE

Boy-crazy

FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novell and novel Boy Culture as well as the movie version; might be my ultimate post.

Jonathon Trent & Derek Magyar make an Allan Brocka sandwich

BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.

I was left "Reeling" by the experience

FRIENDS AND "FAMILY" (2006): The movie version of Boy Culture hits Chicago.

No one would've mistaken me for Taylor Lautner

RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.

 

MY ART

 

Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean

GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.

i-i-i (phone)

Not totally built

Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away

"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.

Let's call it a draw

DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.

The shirtless one

LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.

Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end

ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.

ME

Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life

BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.

Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered

LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.

Be Italian

CIAO HOUNDS: OUR TRIP TO ITALY (2011): Finally got José to Europe.

Death becomes here

ILLINOIS DEATH TRIP (2007): Ruminations on death while revisiting a past home, and the past.

Life is short...and meaningful

PASSING BY (2008): Mourning the loss of a person I only met once.

Lots more...

I was invited, as part of my day job, to see some early clips from the upcoming Disney film John Carter, an ambitious adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs genre classic that until recently I'd never heard of. This is odd because I was most definitely a fantasy junkie for a period in high school—a dungeon master and pulp buff...the works.

The story follows a Conferate soldier transported to Mars, where he must fight for the love of his life in a fantasy realm that has arguably prefigured Star Wars, Dune, Avatar and, well, just about everything.

Ryan Gosling plays a prickish love doctor to Steve Carell's hapless cuckold in Crazy Stupid Love, coming July 29. Looks kinda funny, and with Julianne Moore and Emma Stone and Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei and a mean joke about Twilight, it seems promising:

Full trailer after the jump...

As you may know, Kathy Griffin is playing NYC again, a city she sarcastically calls "open and giving" before asking New Yorkers, "Have you guys met you?"

Unable to resist the urge, we got last-minute TKTS tickets (50% off) to her show—Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony—last night. As always, she's a lot of fun, but as I've noted the last couple of times I've seen her, I wish she'd take a little more time to craft jokes because her shoot-from-the-hip style can wear a little thin.

Her worst habit is promising to tell us about some juicy story while in the middle of one or two other juicy stories. It becomes a sort of gossipy, comedic Inception—stories within stories within stories—leaving me a bit tense that she'll forget to go back. Indeed, she promised us an amazing Uma Thurman story that would make us shit our pants, but it failed to materialize.

Are you a Kathesist, or a fagnostic?

The year's 10 best-picture nominees' posters are reimagined much more literally.

Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson were the kids, and they're all right!

The Oscar nominees from The Kids Are All Right are speaking out on the movie's strong showing today:

"Four nominations and four kids. I am damn proud!"—Annette Bening, Best Actress

"It is with great honor and humility that I receive my Oscar nomination. I have been included with a group of top-notch actors who I respect and admire. I am humbled to be in their presence. I also would like to acknowledge the power of ensemble acting. The kind of acting that happened in this movie does not exist in a bubble. Any honor that I receive must be shared with Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Josh Hutcherson, Mia Wasikowska, the rest of the cast, and of course the inimitable Lisa Cholodenko. Thank you to the Academy. This nomination is a win for marriage equality and that is the most I could hope for."—Mark Ruffalo, Best Supporting Actor

Academy voters to viewership: "Kiss our ass!"

This is not about merit. Or rather, this is never only about merit, so don't take my observations as endorsements or write-offs.

The producers of this year's Oscars telecast may have gone way populist, hiring attractive young stars James Franco and Anne Hathaway as co-hosts, but the Academy voters have gone the opposite route, shunning a surprisingly large number of glamorous stars who actually merited consideration.

Full list of Oscar nominations is here.

It struck me immediately as I listened to the nominees being announced this morning, the unfun lack of household names except in cases where the performance was beyond locked (Natalie Portman, Annette Bening).

Off the top of my head, major surprise snubs include (in descending order of WTF?): Andrew Garfield for The Social Network (he was the heart of that movie, has acting cred from Boy A and is the next Spider-Man), Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine (a well-liked, extremely respected actor whose counterpart was honored), Mila Kunis for The Black Swan (she may be a newcomer to critical acclaim but she played two completely different roles, one of which was arguably the title character), Matt Damon for True Grit (an old favorite in one of the year's hardest-charging contenders to steal The Social Network's thunder), Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter (not considered a great thespian but he was responsible for the film existing and was the title character), Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right (she's been nominated and overlooked before, but this time was really exceptional).