Where's Ryan Gosling hiding?
Where's Ryan Gosling? The Oscar-nominated "Half Nelson" star was a surprise entry on the Oscar slate. But he's been pretty much MIA from the campaign circuit. He wasn't even at the prestigious and essential campaign stop -- the Oscar Nominees Luncheon -- this week. Even Peter O'Toole showed up for that. Doesn't Ryan want to win?
According to Bonnie Abaunza of Amnesty International, Ryan is in Uganda scouting locations for "The Lord's Resistance Army," a film about child soldiers in East Africa. Gosling's producing the film, co-writing the script, will direct and star in it. With him in Uganda are child soldier expert Jimmy Briggs, author of "Innocents Lost," and John Prendergast, D.C-based senior advisor to the International Crisis Group. He's the guy who took Angelina Jolie on her first trip to the eastern Congo in 2003 and helped George Clooney recently appear at the United Nations to seek help for Darfur's thousands of dead and millions of displaced civil war victims.
While there, they visited some hospitals and aid centers funded by Nic Cage's $2.5 million contribution to help rehabilitate child soldiers. Yesterday morning, Bonnie got a frantic call from Ryan, Jimmy and John asking for her help.
At one hospital, the trio met a 3-year-old girl whose village had been attacked and destroyed by the child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army.
"She had been thrown into a fire to burn to death. But she managed to wriggle out. The child soldiers grabbed her, wrapped her in a rug and threw her back in. But she managed to crawl out again, stay hidden in the brush and survive. She was just 18 months old. She's still alive but is horribly burned. The carpet is embedded in her head. She has a cerebral infection and is in terrible pain with every movement and every breath," says Abaunza.
"She cannot grow because her skin is so scarred. The brave little girl needs more help than the Doctors Without Borders can provide and her only hope now is to get to the U.S. and be given long-term treatment at a Burn Center."
Ryan, Jimmie and John are determined to get her out of Uganda and flown to the U.S. for specialized care and Bonnie is trying to arrange airfare and medical care as fast as she can. So if you wonder where the Oscar-nommed actor has been during the fabulous frenzied awards season, that's what he's been up to. Freaking inspiring, isn't it?
Photo Credits: Ryan Gosling has better things to do than campaign for than Oscar.
Jeff Mayer/WireImage
Photo Credits: Ryan and Rachel McAdams did hit the SAG awards. But they're definitely not a Party Couple.
WireImage
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Wow, if ever there were a story that demonstrated what's right and what's wrong with 2007 Hollywood, this is it.
On the one hand, we see the prizes at the annual Company picnic, the Oscars, being treated like a horse race, handicapping and all. Perhaps a little, simplified, history might be in order to place this race in context.
The ACADEMY of Motion PIcture Arts and Sciences was conceived so that everyone could compare notes on the technology (science) of making motion pictures and celebrate well done films.
In 2007, we have the science and technical awards celebrated on another day than the "Major" categories and in some backroom, the results of which are mentioned in passing on the "big day." Is the science in motion pictures important? Ask James Cameron, who was able to work on his "Avatar" for three months, sub rosa, because he's working with technolgy that allows him to put his actors in their CGI environments in real time.
And artistic achievement? People still try. I've overheard actors on sets discussing the merits of performances that they had voted for in the nominating process.And I don't doubt others are doing it in their respective crafts. It must be hard in the drumbeat of this media blizzard about whose odds are better and who shows up to which luncheons to determine a set of criteria and determine who excelled in those criteria.
It is not the Academy's fault that publicists and marketers have found this horse and are riding it to death. The motion picture dinosaur seems to be unable to find forage in the new post--Internet/DVD/home theater-metorstrike environment. We are after all, the only business in the world that sees a marked decrease in business and responds by raising prices. The downturn has fostered a rather hysterical marketing environment in which the attention paid to an award winning might bring profit to a worthy motion picture.
And the other hand dealt by this article is what major motion pictures can be good for. These atrocities take place in the dark and motion pictures can bring the story to light in ways that mere words on a page (or computer monitor) cannot. We empathize with the children because we are there, emotionally involved. Actors like Mr. Gosling can serve as noble guides, exposing their emotional antennae without filters, so that ours can be touched.
And so we see the faustian bargin, the publicity helps the arts and sciences of making motion pictures, while making the whole event smell like rotting fish.
A genuine, humber actor. What a shame that he has little to no chance of winning after giving arguably the best performace of the year: it was haunting, it was real, and it's an experience itself just watching him and the brilliant Shareeka Epps on screen telling the story.