There’s a whole lotta hatin’ going on Facebook and Twitter about tomorrow’s Royal Wedding.
True, the news media is filled to bursting with coverage — all the minutiae on Kate and Wills, their families, the wedding parties, the route, the ceremony, the receptions, the ridiculous souvenirs.
It’s almost as annoying as NBC’s promotion of The Voice.
But how can Americans spew such bitterness upon these nuptials, when we typically lavish such love on all things British?
Don’t we get all excited each summer come Wimbledon… even though its finals fall on or around our nation’s Independence Day? Sure, we have the US Open in September, but their tennis tournament has the Duke and Duchess of Kent, strawberries and cream, and spiffy tennis whites.
It’s so proper. It’s soooo not us.
And don’t we love the actors and actresses who hail from the British isle, with their superior dramatic training and — most importantly — their glorious British accents? 
Didn’t we just bestow the Best Actor Oscar on the very worthy Colin Firth for his performance in The King’s Speech? We love him ‘exactly as he is’ — for his Mr. Darcy-ness — a quality that could not be achieved if he were not British.
You know it’s true.
So, America, try to recapture some of the love for the British that was in your heart when you gave The King’s Speech the Best Picture Oscar…when the very prickly, very American The Social Network clearly deserved to win.
It’s there. You’ve just forgotten.
(Ad campaigns will do that to you.)
Director’s cut
I love Jason Reitman.
Or, more specifically, the movies he directs.
He first caught my attention in 2005 with Thank You for Not Smoking. Then along came Juno, its oh-so-unique voice the brainchild of writer Diablo Cody. And in 2009, Reitman brought us the brilliant George Clooney vehicle Up in the Air, my choice for Best Picture Oscar.
Sadly, the Academy was more impressed by tales of the war abroad than at home. Whatever.
This film has none of Juno’s quirky teen speak; Theron’s character is way past that. This golden girl blew out of her one-horse town years ago and is living large in the big city, a successful writer of youth literature.
Or that’s what it looks like from back home. Her reality — and the lives of the people she left behind – are very different than they appear on the surface.
I love this film. I love the performances that Reitman pulled out of his actors. I love that he didn’t feel the need to ‘nicen up’ Theron’s character as she continues her path of destruction.
And I especially love the possibility that Oswalt — Patton Oswalt, the chubby standup comedian — might get an Oscar nomination.
Jason Reitman did that.
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Posted in Academy Awards, Celebrities, Comedy, Commentary, Entertainment, Humor, Life, Movies
Tagged Academy Awards, Best Picture Oscar, celebrities, celebrity vehicle, Charlize Theron, comedy, commentary, Diablo Cody, entertainment, George Clooney, golden girl, Humor, Jason Reitman, Juno movie, life, movie director, Movies, one-horse town, Oscar nomination, Oscars, Patton Oswalt, standup comedian, teen speak, Thank You for Not Smoking movie, Up in the Air movie, Young Adult movie, youth lit