The Nominations:
- Actress in a Supporting Role: Melissa McCarthy
- Original Screenplay
The Black-and-White:
A review by moviegirl
Moviegoers showered Bridesmaids with love to the tune of well over $250 million at the box office. But fair warning: it’s possible that I have no sense of humor.
Here’s the quick synopsis from imdb.com:
Competition between the maid of honor and a bridesmaid, over who is the bride’s best friend, threatens to upend the life of an out-of-work pastry chef.
I picked this up at Amazon’s Black Friday sale for $5. I knew it was a box-office phenomenon on the order of The Hangover, and I thought for sure that I would find it hilarious.
And then… well, like I said, it’s possible that I have no sense of humor.
SNL cast member and indie darling Kristin Wiig wrote and stars as the down-on-her-luck and inexplicably insecure maid of honor who heads up a rag-tag band of bridesmaids. I’m not sure how the script ended up nominated in the Original Screenplay category since I didn’t find it that original. The beats followed a fairly predictable pattern of events — think My Best Friend’s Wedding with more bad behavior and a lot more profanity — and there weren’t any particularly clever twists or reinventions of the genre. It seems like the originality lies mostly in the fact that this is the kind of movie that usually gets made with men instead of women. I don’t think that’s enough to win an Oscar, especially when compared to The Artist.
I’ve been a fan of Melissa McCarthy for many years. Like Sookie St. James (McCarthy’s accident-prone chef on Gilmore Girls), bridesmaid Megan is all about physical comedy. McCarthy invariably stole the scene from the rest of the first-rate comediennes in the cast, playing the quirky, inappropriate character with abandon. Again, though, I’m not sure it’s enough to win the Oscar. To me, the performance seems like a caricature, although her tough-loving of Wiig’s character toward the end was a nice twist. On the other hand, the supporting actor/actress category typically hasn’t required much character development, and McCarthy has been getting a lot of notice this year with the Emmy for her television show and multiple nods in the industry for her role in Bridesmaids. So, it’s not impossible that she could win, especially if the two nominees from The Help draw votes away from The Artist.
Overall, this movies seems like an odd choice to nominate, and has the air of a ploy to attract a younger viewership for the ceremony. Note to the Academy: remember how well that worked last year (answer: google “worst Oscar telecast”).
Oscars in Black and White 
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This was much-ballyhooed as a breakthrough movie for “women’s comedies”. Really? This?? Maybe I am in fact not the target audience, because in the first half of the film I felt a distinct sense of unease and alienation. I felt I was supposed to find this humorous, but I just had no reaction – the jokes all felt flat. The timing was terrible, the foley work bizarrely off. By the end of the film, I at least felt mildly invested in the characters. As the film pointed out, if you’re at rock bottom you can only go up, and that’s why the film seemed to end on a higher note, anyway.
Yeah, I guess I don’t have a sense of humor either. I will say the movie managed a certain amount of originality, though–I hate the entire genre of “women just want to get married” movies, but this one managed to further annoy me in ways I haven’t encountered before!
Things I said while watching this movie:
“Wow, nothing in my experience really relates to this at all.”
“No, I suppose you should stop it while I go get seconds, since I’m going to comment on it.”
“Maybe this would be better if we were high, too.” (In response to “This is the most surreal thing I’ve seen since Videodrome, and I was high then.”)
“Was whoever wrote this smoking crack?”
“Well, I’m certainly glad we’re not eating dessert right now. My, our cat is cute. Look, a cute cat!”
“I have never had a conversation with other women anything like this.”
“Drugging people is not funny.”
“Seriously, it’s not.”
“Why is she not in jail?”
“I want to reach through the screen and slap this film. I feel sorry for Lillian.”
“A porcupine! Awwwww.”
“I want this movie to go away.”
“Oh, good, at least the film is slapping itself.”
“Shouldn’t the real question be whether she actually wants to marry this guy? Is that not relevant?”
“The dogs are wearing little bow ties!”
“Well, I guess by the end at least I wanted to strangle everyone somewhat less.”
“That seems like a good idea.” (In response to, “Quick, I’ll put on some Star Trek to get the taste out of our mouths.”)