"And the Oscar for Best VOICE Performance Goes To ..."

And no one saw it coming ...

It was undeniably a great year for movies, so it's a bit ungrateful for me to complain that the 2014 Academy Awards nominations this year are so boring and predictable.  But there's no wildcard nominations like Beauty and the Best or Babe for Best Picture, and the closest thing to a dark horse is Philomena.  So, as I did last year, I'm going to propose some new Oscar categories to spice things up.  These categories are designed to honor people and types of movies that the Academy currently ignores while also introducing some fun and excitement into Oscar Night ...

Apropos of Last Week's Post ...

I know this is a few months old, but this video from College Humor finally caught my attention last week, coincidentally the same week that I called out Scorsese for whiffing on male nudity in Wolf of Wall Street ...

My favorite line from the video, regarding the lack of male nudity in Game of Thrones: "You'll show a pregnant woman get stabbed in the baby and you won't show one innocent little hardened dick."

Too true.

And in the meantime, Girls is back for a third season, meaning that it's time once again for Lena Dunham to have to justify showing nudity for purposes other than replicating straight male porn.  It's not just the lack of dongs on cable TV and R-rated movies, it's the narrow view in our culture of the narrative possibilities of nudity in general.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

Martin Scorsese's latest, The Wolf of Wall Street, is the very definition of "polarizing."  According to the aggregated critics on Rotten Tomatoes, it is "amongst Scorsese's best work", "the worst writing Scorsese has ever been associated with",  "the best film of 2013" and so horrible that "[i]t doesn't even deserve a grade."  Critics are split on whether the movie has "propulsive purpose" or, alternatively, no discernible "point of view."  There's also a raging, furious debate over whether the movie glorifies or condemns the capitalist excess of its pro/antagonist, Jordan Belfort.

The one point on which everyone seems to agree, however, is the film's supposed debauchery.  And yeah, sure, there is coke snorted or blown into various bodily orifices, a marching band in their underwear, and multiple depictions or orgies.  But I have one important question to ask ... why don't we ever see Leo's penis?

More, with spoilers for Wolf of Wall Street below the fold.