Bradley Cooper was honoured at the Palm Springs International Film Festival back in January and he gave an acceptance speech there but those awards are pre-determined. As we’ve seen, he hasn’t been up on stage very much this award season – until last night when he won two awards. He now has a Grammy, shared with Lady Gaga, for Best Pop Duo Performance for “Shallow”. He now has more Grammys than Diana Ross who has a Lifetime Achievement Grammy but has never actually won a Grammy before. This is how f-cking weird the awards system can be. Anyway, in addition to winning at the Grammys, Coop also won the BAFTA for Best Original Music. So finally he was able to get up on stage and give some thank yous, including a thank you for Irina Shayk:
Bradley and Irina they did not walk the carpet together although they left the show holding hands. Coop and Irina rarely talk about each other, if at all, which is why this public acknowledgement is such a headline. I wonder too if it’s about taking the opportunity when it comes. Bradley is nominated in three categories at the Oscars – Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Rami Malek and Christian Bale are placed 1 and 2 right now for Best Actor. Screenplay is a longshot for him. And you know how tight the Best Picture race is…
But don’t worry because SEAN PENN IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY WITH HIS OPINION. I linked to Sean’s column at Deadline last Friday in What Else? but if you missed it, you should check it out. Or maybe don’t, since it’s so poorly written and ends with balls.
In the end, the apples and oranges of film competition, and the inequity of advertising budgets has always left the Academy Awards with some inevitable aftertaste of the alcohol most of us have to drink to get through them. To spare myself potential disappointment, I’m raising a glass in advance to Bradley Cooper and A Star is Born. Surely a raised glass is as legitimate as a globe of gilded gold or a male statuette minus a penis (also gold gilded). God forbid it have balls this year!
First of all, what does that even mean? Second, the movie is about a self-destructive alcoholic so way to go on that metaphor, Sean Shakespeare. Third, if this is about art and the human experience, and film’s ability to nurture empathy, most transformative when shown to that which is unfamiliar, what does it say about Sean Penn that his favourite movie of the year was about two famous people who struggle both on stage and off?! Like that’s an experience he has no f-cking idea about!? And fourth, how is Sean Penn suddenly the expert on “the most successful contemporary love story of all time” (even though “contemporary” and “all time” don’t exactly work together in this context, but hey, he’s the writing master, not me). Sean Penn can act. Sometimes he can direct. Writing is another matter altogether. But LOVE? Please. Not in his lane.
And while we’re at it, I don’t remember Sean Penn dumping on the Academy for its lack of balls when they gave him TWO Oscars or, in his mind, are those the only two times the Academy had any integrity? Do you think, if A Star is Born really is able to pull through, that Sean Penn will take the credit? And claim it as his THIRD Oscar?
