Month: February 2005

Some thoughts on the Oscars after 24-hours of marination.

1. The host sets the tone:
The Oscars bored you to death last year partly because hobbits had overrun the joint. The rest of it was Billy Crystal not
realizing how charmless and unfunny he has become while playing anyone
other than a cartoon character. As host,
Crystal moved the show along with the alacrity of your deaf uncle
playing charades on the first night of Hannukah. You wanted to yell
"Just get to the damn presents!"

Which is why this year felt
swift, jabby and wound a little tight, like a Chris Rock comedy
special.  Rock set the tone by telling his standing ovation "Sit
your asses down." Meaning there would be no tearful speeches, no "Yay
Hollywood!" film montages, no stupid presenter banter once he took the
reigns. He broke all those rules a little bit but only a little. The
program clocked in at 3 1/4 hours, a full 45 minutes shorter than last
year.

2. Clint Eastwood on life support: Like I’ve said
before, while everyone I know was calling Mystic River "A
Greek Tragedy on par with Oedipus", I was calling it "powerfully flawed."
While everyone I know and the lady at my dry cleaner was calling
Million Dollar Baby "a knockout punch to the gut," I was saying "Only
if you didn’t see the last act coming, which I did. From outer space."

Not
because I’m genius (boy how that has been disproven!) but because
everyone seems to think that we have have simply not honored Clint
Eastwood enough yet. He’s won just about every award possible
(a previous Best Director Oscar, an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award and
the mayoral seat of Carmel to name a few) and is an icon of cinema, of
American masculinity. But no, we need to make sure that he gets buried
in gold trinkets like the Pharoah. So who cares that Million Dollar
Baby is a good-but-not-great film? Not us as we yell "more, more"
while kneeling before the buldge in his tuxedo pants.

3. Who gets the tickets?
Some ace reporter/blogger needs to investigate precisely who gets a
seat at the Oscars and who doesn’t. The Kodak Theater aint Michigan
Stadium. There’s maybe 2,000 seats in the place. We get that famous
people and nominees sit on the main floor so they can be cut to or
climb up onstage but how do they decide that Oprah gets a ticket this year
and isn’t involved in the show one bit but Jack Nicolson (who was
elected Mayor of the Oscars around 1983 in a secret ceremony and hasn’t
given up the office yet) was mysteriously absent? How did Lou Gossett
Jr. (still smarting from too many Iron Eagles) and Spike Lee
(wearing swimming goggles) end up there while box
office titans like Tom Cruise and Will Smith don’t?

Cintra Wilson argued that Oscar
producer Gil Gates, aiming for a younger, hipper, and hence,
not-all-white demographic, stocked the crowd with people of color.
There’s probably some truth to that but P Diddy? Wasn’t he a youth
favorite in like 1997? Jay Z is retired. Beyoncee’ maybe but she
actually had a job to do. 3 of them.

At this rate, plan next year to see Martin Scorcese sharing a knowing glance with Lil’ Jon.

4. The Techie Ruse: Can we quit the stupid, patronizing charade of having a hot little under-30 actress host the "Scientific and Technical" awards and then reading a report card of it on Oscar night? Please tell me what Scarlett Johansson is doing hosting a ceremony that has awards like "Best use of a Steadycam" other than to give a bunch of techies an erection? Give that job to Harry Knowles or some other Ur-Geek. At least it would be honest.

5. Nobody pays attention to what the men wear: Ever.

The Yes Men (2003): "A prank is only as compelling as the story of why it happened in the first place."

So I’ve been making a sort-of-half-assed-not-really (SOHANR) attempt to watch all the films on AFI’s Top 100 Films of all time. AFI put the list together in 1995 as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of cinema.

I had decided to make, say every 5th rental from Netflix, something from the Top 100 on the idea that I could run through it in six months or so.

That so didn’t happen. Because I’m a big baby.

I have some juvenile tumor running loose inside me that says that anything "classic" will be soul-sucking drudgery and why should I bother and hey, isn’t there an old Gilmore Girls episode on the Tivo?

But last weekend, I offered up a viewing of Grapes of Wrath (#21) to Suzan who had refused several times before (She knows herself better than I. When she isn’t interested, she means it). This time she said yes.

Good movie. I’ve never read John Steinbeck’s novel nor anything about the movie so I was in without a point of reference. I gather after seeing it that Grapes is one of cinema’s great tributes to working people and New Deal FDRism (the cops, landlords and companies are all corrupt heathens, the government-run worker’s camp is an oasis of brotherhood) but by golly, it earns it. The performances, Greg Toland’s lyrical, silent cinematography and a screenplay that pushes itself forward as effortlessly as wind. This is a movie you "should" like but end up liking all on your own.

How do you feel about "classics?"