It's Oscar time again and that means the opportunity to see what has become of Joan Rivers' face, an overdose of Hollywood self-congratulation and, if we're really lucky, an awards broadcast that includes an (unintentionally) hysterical interpretive dance that somehow
is supposed to represent the nominees for Best Picture (Look! There's Idi Amin in a pas de deux with Martin Scorcese).
There may also be a brilliant actor or two who spontaneously and miraculously shape-shift into military analysts, and ever so kindly inform us as to how the war in Iraq is progressing.
And fear ye not: there will be Britney Spears jokes. And they will be well deserved.
As for Jews at the Oscars, JTA's Tom Tugend got it right when he said that the Jewish cabal that is said to run Hollywood botched it this year when it came to promoting The Tribe for Academy Award nominations. There just aren't a lot of Jews nominated.
But, I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week, and for my money, there wasn't a better performance this year -- lead or supporting -- than Alan Arkin's in the awesome "Little Miss Sunshine."
Arkin delivered the most cantankerous, funny, touching performance of the year as the drug-fueled, sex-obsessed Grandfather along for the insane ride on the little yellow bus in this gem of a road picture (and this takes nothing away for Sacha Baron Cohen's touchingly realized portrayal of a Kazakh TV reporter's love for Pamela Anderson). Arkin's nomination in the Supporting Actor was a no-brainer.
True, he faces stiff competition from the likes of Eddie Murphy in "Dreamgirls," and Mark Wahlberg, who rocked in "The Departed." But Arkin - who was nominated for Oscars in 1966 and 1968 - gave the most fully realized of all the nominated performances. He went from insanely funny scenes in which he doles out sex advice to a teenager (have lots of it), to scenes depicting the painful relationship between a father and a son, to beautifully tender scenes with his granddaughter (the amazing Abigail Breslin). Arkin did it all.
It was a small movie and a relatively small role, but Arkin made the most of it and deserves to win. And I'm not just saying that because he's Jewish.
