CHARLIE'S CRITICAL OSCAR ROUNDTABLE

Jaime Diaz of Golf Digest knows, I'm guessing, nothing about movies or the Oscars; push "play" to listen to a few people who do.

From Hulu.com by way of Salon comes this edition of The Charlie Rose Show which aired this past Tuesday and which features A.O. Scott from The New York Times, Dana Stevens from Slate, Annette Insdorf, director of the undergraduate film studies program at Columbia University and, most happily, Stephanie Zacharek from Salon, one of my favorite film critics. It’s an interesting roundtable— After replaying the footage of the Best Picture nominees early Tuesday morning (listen to the cheers when a couple of apparent unexpected titles are announced) Rose leads the panel through the top five categories—Picture, Best Actress, Actor, best Supporting Actress and Actor-- for each critic’s response. The fur never flies—remember, this is PBS, not Fox News, so some value is placed on basic decorum—but the discussion does get pretty spirited on Kathryn Bigelow and why she’s not just a woman who blows up stuff real good. For a supposed shoo-in, the subject of Jeff Bridges and his performance generates a lot of interesting observations. But my favorite moment, which actually gave me a little chill of happiness, comes when Ms. Zacharek gives a little love to a movie and an actress that haven’t generated much critical respect of any kind. It’s a moment that ought to suggest, if not outright prove to the as-yet-unconvinced that not every critic is perched on an ivory tower ready to dismiss a popular favorite.

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UPDATE 2/9/2010 9:25 p.m. By pure coincidence, as if to knock the battery off the shoulder of that supposed Olympian crtitical perspective I just mentioned here, this past Saturday Stephanie Zacharek published a fine essay in defense of Sandra Bullock that those positioned to dismiss the popular actress for not being weighty enough to win an Oscar for best actress would be well advised to read. Check it out here.

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