Oscars and Marina de Tavira

Poor Emily Blunt! This, I imagine, is how she looked this morning as the list of the Oscar Nominees was read!

She was left off TWICE! And s0mebody named Marina De Tavira was put it her place! How awful! No Best Actress(f0r her lovely Mary Poppins) and no Best Supporting Actress for silently giving birth in a bath in “A Quiet Place.”

Who just does this Marina de Tavira? And who does she think she is? And this unknown Mexican actress may have just turned the entire Oscar race upside down! Or “turning it turtle” as Meryl Streep so memorably sings it in “Mary Poppins.”

Yalitza Apercio (left) dines with Marina de Tavira & kids in “Roma.”

Marina De Tavira is a highly respected and accomplished Mexican stage and screen actress who plays the distraught, disconsolate, beleagued young mother who is abandoned by her successful doctor husband in what is probably the year’s most acclaimed film “Roma.”

Alfonso Cuaron, who was just nominated himself for an astonishing FOUR Oscars(director/writer/cinematographer/producer) brought Marina and her non-actress peasant nanny co-star Yalitza Apercio Everywhere that he went since he began campaigning at every press event imaginable since the film’s release. In English or in Spanish, it didn’t matter since Marina (and he) speak both, although Yalitiza speaks only Spanish. And Cuaron always thanked the BOTH of them. So Academy voters were seeing and hearing her name all season.

In addition to creating a masterwork of cinema, in the process Cuaron is bringing the positive side of his homeland, Mexico, the United States when America really needs to become acquainted with all the positive sides of Mexicali life that is possible. And “Roma” does this beautifully.

And the fact that it’s subtitled and in Black and White and Spanish can only serve to bring our two countries closer.

My Spanish isn’t that great, but I understood every single little thing that was happening in “Roma.” I can’t wait to see it continue its triumphant march to the Dolby in February.

I ‘ve even witnessed De Tavira’s charming, extremely elegant presence at the press conference at the New York Film Festival this year, where it was my great pleasure to see “Roma.” I can’t stop talking about this incredible film. Every time I see Yeletiza Apericio’s angelic face, I have to stop myself from bursting out crying.

“Greenbook” Wins the PGA!

Controvsial buddy/ road trip film won Best Picture of the Year Award over fierce competition from “Roma” and “Star is Born” and several other films.

The Peter Farrelly comedy based on a true story about a noted African-American jazz musician and his for- hire body guard touring through the rural segratated South in the early 1960s stars Screen Actors Guild nominee Viggo Mortensen and Academy Award nominee Marhershala Ali.

Ali also won the Golden Globe Award for this performance and the Broadcast Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor.

This PGA Award positions “The Green Book” very firmly at the head of this crowded Oscar race in a tumultuous season.

“Roma” Wins Best Picture from the Broadcast Film Critics! Close ties with Gaga, no REALLY!Christian Bale wins TWICE!

“Roma” makes history at the Broadcast Film Critics tonight. It becomes the first foreign language film to ever win Best Picture. It also won Best Director for its genius helmer Alfonso Cuaron, and he also won for Best Cinematography. Altogether “Roma” won the most awards tonight as it also won Best Foreign Film.

History was also made when Glenn Glose for “The Wife” tied with Lady Gaga for “A Star is Born.” That is a combo I thought I would never in this life see onstage together ! Both WINNING!

For those who care about these things, Lady Gaga’s leading man/director/co-screenwriter/co-producer Bradley Cooper once again got  SQUAT! Nada. Nothing Zilch! Just like he also got completely shafted by the Golden Globes.

Gaga’s win here least keeps her in the race, to some degree. But the Academy, who hands out the Oscars is going to give it to 70-something veteran Glenn Close, who has six previous nominations and no wins.

Mahershala Ali nailed Best Supporting Actor once again for “The Green Book,” and he will probably go on to repeat his Golden Globe triumph at the Oscars. This category is now officially closed.

Regina King also won, AGAIN, for “If Beale Street Could Talk” but she won’t win at the SAGS because she wasn’t nominated there. Watch Amy Adams for “Vice” take that.

Christian Bale was TWICE tonight for his evil vice president in “Vice.” This makes him almost a lock now for Best Actor at the Oscars,

Golden Globes Got Good! Classy, Even! Shocked! Hooray for Glenn Close, Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”!

Who Woulda Thunk It? Broadway’s Glorious Norma Desmond FINALLY coming in to her own after HOW MANY Golden Globe nominations! I mean, what were the odds up against Lady Gaga? For. as I said, a few posts back, “A Bore is Starred?”

Glenn, who I famously interviewed for the New York Times, a while back,was always supposed to be an also ran. A rather withheld patrician typ has always had trouble getting her emotions out from within. She was brought up reserved.

And there was upsetting the Golden Globe apple cart AND all the Oscarologists (me among them) who wrote her off as having no chance. Against the on-slaught of the youth condition. Lady Gagagagagagme among them. And winning of a simple domestic drama no less! “The Wife” There’s no stopping her now. She’ll win the Oscar too,

And that EGREGRIOIUS piece of dreck, “Shallow” won for Best Song and she was lucky to get that.

Watch one of
“Mary Poppins Returns” win there. Leaving “A Star is Born” with ZERO. It COULD happen.

Emily Blunt Looking at Two Oscar Nominations and/or Wins

Could 2019 be beginning with the ambrosial prospect of the brilliant British actress Emily Blunt up for TWO Oscar Nominations? One for Leading Actress for “Mary Poppins Returns” and the other for the nerve-shattering pregnant wife Evelyn in her real life husband John Grasinski’s horror film “The Quiet Place”?

Well, it’s happened already from a no-less than august awards body the SAGs, which nominated her twice in both categories. It’s almost unheard of. And she could win both.

The roles couldn’t be more diverse and more than show Blunt’s huge range as an actor. This certainly seems to be her moment. Awards-ignored for years, despite her superlative work in over 30 films, and every kind of character imaginable, 2019 finally seems to be her time to shine.

“The Quiet Place,” for those who may have missed it, is the early-in-the year 90 minute horror film that drew raves from critics as well as a boffo turn at the box-office.

incredibly taut and electrifingly directed and co-written by her real life husband John Grasinky, it stuns by the use of all things, silence. Blunt even has a deaf daughter played marvelously by the real life deaf actress Millicent Simmonds.

All are in jeopardy in a remote farm-house from a more or less traditional horror film monster (again astonishingly played by Krasinsky Himself) and if all this seems to much for the normal Awards-voting film=goer, don’t forget, they LOVE silent films(which “The Quiet Place” more or less is) and this is Emily Blunt’s year, there’s no denying itl And “The Quiet Place”s overwhelming and unexpected audience acceptance. only ads to Blunt’s momentum with Poppins. Disney had mounted a jmajor campaign for “Mary Poppins Returns” in all categories and Paramount has now done the same with “The Quiet Place.” So she was TWO major studios pushing for her.

Blunt even has a sure-fire “Oscar clip” scene where she has to give birth SILENTLY in an old-fashioned stand-alone bathtub. They all have to keep silent at all costs or the monster will incinerate them. It’s an edge-of-your-seater and in the same year as Blunt’s courageously/outrageous musical turn as  Mary Poppins, rivaling predecessor Julie Andrews, who also won an Oscar for Poppins.

It’s an awards-magnet role and Emily Blunt is the newly minted Awards magnet herself. And she’s nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy, too.

The Golden Globes are this coming Sunday. Don’t miss them! If Blunt wins there against high-brow fellow Brit Olivia Coleman for “The Favourite”, she could very well begin her march to the Oscars! You heard it here first!