I'm really not that crazy about "awards" shows, but I am a bit of a movie fanatic (hmm, can one be "a bit" fanatic? Would that be like being "a bit" pregnant?) - Anyway, I watched the Oscars with my friend Jeannette last night and we oohed and ahhed about which stars looked fabulous and tittered about why Cameron Diaz couldn't manage to do something with her hair, got teary-eyed at the flashback montages, and critiqued the jokes. We both felt that it was interesting that the awards seemed pretty evenly distributed this year with, for the most part, everyone getting something as opposed to what often happens where one film seems to run away with all the top categories. Of course, having not seen a lot of the contenders, I don't suppose I have the proper authority to say which awards were deserved and which were not, but hell, I will anyway: I was disappointed that "Atonement" didn't win for Art Direction, and the only award they managed to come up with was for Musical Score. Again, to be fair, it looked like they had stiff competition for this category (Sweeney Todd won) and I didn't see the other contenders. Jeannette was very excited that the song from "Once" won, having just seen that film the night before:
But I would have liked to have seen this one win instead:
We also both thought that the quality of the ads that aired during the show was impressive, and I thought more so than those that aired during the Super Bowl. (Yes, Virginia, there are people who are interested in advertising. My friend Gayle ONLY watches the Super Bowl for the ads.)
Tilda Swinton certainly seems a quirky personality, doesn't she? And while I was impressed with her performance in "Michael Clayton" I was sorry that Ruby Dee didn't win for "American Gangster" but I'm sure that is my old-lady sentimentality talking (especially since I haven't actually SEEN "American Gangster" - cough, cough); same for the French actress who won for Best Actress - I was pulling for Julie Christie, even though I didn't see either of the films of those two actresses.
So there you go - My Thoughts About The Oscars! What, you want me to talk about POLITICS? Stay tuned....
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8 comments:
I liked it when they gave that girl who won for Best Song a chance to come back on stage and say her piece after she had been rudely drowned out by the orchestra moments before.
Yes, I agree! Were there any other surprises, reactions, general thoughts you had, Mike?
Never mind! Question answered!
Perhaps I'm being a bit curmudgeonly, but I get tired of having all the Oscars every year go to films that were released on Dec. 31 in New York and L.A. It's like a big insider joke. All you motley movie watching scum go off to the cineplexes and watch the latest money-making sequels, while we elitist Hollywood types get all the good, quality films mailed to us to watch at home on our fancy home theater systems. We will then award Oscars to films you've never even heard of to demonstrate our intellectual and cultural superiority.
Indeed! And a curmudgeonliness that, I must say, belies your relative whippersnapper status amongst old and seasoned curmudgeons such as myself. It's hard for me to get too worked up about these award ceremonies. I rarely see more than a few of the nominated films, but that's not to say that they aren't - for the most part - available. I suppose the market here in San Antonio may not be conducive to showing more small, indie films, but they do come to places like the Bijou, even if not for very long. To play Devil's advocate here for a moment, perhaps the Academy is in a no-win bind here (damned if they do, damned if they don't): You criticize them for honoring the films nobody ever heard of, but can you imagine the flak they would get if they only honored their big-budget studio productions?
What you have to keep in mind when I talk about availability of films is that I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who did not grow up in the big metropolis of San Antonio. I grew up in small town South Texas where we had to drive 30-45 miles to find a multi-screen theater. And I can guarantee that those three and four screen theaters in Kingsville and Alice were not showing the artsy fare that makes Academy voters swoon in their seats. I went to see movies like Ghostbusters and Grease and Conan the Barbarian and Star Trek the Motion Picture.
That's not to say that those are the films that should win the Oscars, but surely their has to be some middle ground where popular films are given their due along with the art house stuff.
It almost seems to me that films that are popular are penalized by the Academy these days. There are lots of hugely popular films that are worthy of Oscar consideration (beyond the technical categories): Spider Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Bourne Ultimatum. (I swear I felt like the Academy had to be dragged kicking and screaming to finally give an Oscar for Lord of the Rings!)
But these films get passed over for stuff like "Crash" and "Babel" and "Atonement" and "In the Bedroom".
Can't they leave at least one slot each year for a movie that folks outside of the major metro areas might have had a prayer of a chance of seeing? Is that too much to ask? Sheesh!
but surely their has to be some middle ground where popular films are given their due along with the art house stuff.
Well of course there is: the box office. There's also The People's Choice Awards. The Academy, after all, is comprised of industry insiders who are bound to have a different vantage point of judgement than we, the unwashed masses. I don't think it's fair to deride that as "elitist" - People for whom film making is a livlihood are bound to have a different set of standards than those of us who are just fans.
The People's Choice Awards!?! Yuck!! Now you're making me sound like an elitist snob. ;)
I think there are already plenty of awards for Hollywood insiders: Writers Guild, Actor's Guild, Director's Guild, L.A. Critics, New York Critics, etc. etc.
The Academy Awards should be all encompassing and representative of all perspectives from the insiders to the fans. They will never get it right to the point that it satisfies everyone. I'm just making the argument that in recent years the pendulum has swung too far away from popular fare to the point that all the nominations are going to small independent films that nobody has heard of. I don't want the pendulum to swing too far to the other side and emulate the PCAs.
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