Thursday, March 02, 2006
Oscars Schmoshcars
Whatever. Can I get a “who cares?” Can we, all of us, the general public, the combined citizenry of our grand republic come together, friends, countrymen, as a nation of free minded human beings, and collectively agree to just not give one half-acre of horse manure about the bloomin’ Academy Awards? Can we do this? I think we can. In fact, I think we’re almost there. Despite the millions of dollars that Hollywood spends promoting itself, we may just be at a critical divergence of human development, when the light started to dawn. “You know, Bob? There just really isn’t anything worth seeing right now at the theatre. Maybe we could just watch that John Wayne on DVD?” Eureka!
Ask yourself. Besides the gay cowboy movie, can you name (without googling it) any movie nominated for Best Picture? Besides the Johnny Cash biopic stars, can you name two actors or two actresses nominated? Besides Steven Spielberg, can you name a director nominated? Can you name a single screenwriter? Of course not!!! Why? Because you are that rarest of things in Hollywood – you are normal. You are a normal American with a normal life and normal friends. You work for a living and pay bills and take the kids to dance class and soccer practice. Americans from sea to shining sea are realizing, one crappy movie at a time, that the problems of little rich people in California don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
The same people who think we are hanging on baited breath wondering, worrying, wasting away at the thought of whether so-and-so will be passed over again – oh, the horror! – the same people who think we desperately want to know about the latest anorexic 19 year-old ‘actress’ in drug rehab or what God-forsaken nonsense Britney Spears committed over the weekend – these are the people who hope against hope that they can convince everyday Americans that the Oscars are something more than the gobsmackingly audacious sickening parade of self-worship that they most obviously are.
Here’s my theory: we don’t actually want to know celebrity gossip; it’s just that of all celebrity news, 85% is gossip-level nonsense. We Americans actually do like good films. We don’t actually care about “issue films” where Hollywood tries to ‘educate’ the madding crowds. We actually do like and will pay to see good, entertaining films.
Take a look at the five Best Picture films: “Brokeback Mountain,” the gay cowboys thing, “Capote”, a film about the eccentric alcoholic and drug addicted author, “Syriana,” a wholly unintellectual film ‘proving’ through the absence of fact that America is actually a force of evil, “Good Night and Good Luck”, a film that lumps all conservatives together in a morass of corruption and all media into heroic champions of liberty. The filmmakers actually seem amazed that people actually think there were Communists in the government (regardless of stunning Venona Papers evidence proving exactly that). We then add “Munich,” a disgraceful revisionist version of the terrorist attacks of the 1972 Olympics that focuses on humanizing terrorists, and “Crash,” about how Los Angeles is (still) full of racist white people. These were the five “best” films of 2006.
But the New York Times is shocked, shocked that movie sales have plummeted.
The combined total box office take of the above five films is around $200 million, which doesn’t sound too bad until you discover that Chronicles of Narnia’s opening episode, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” by itself grossed $287 million, not including upcoming DVD sales. Good film, good story, great characters – $287 million dollars. Who knew?
Here’s a better night for you. Get Howard Hawks’ El Dorado, 1966, with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum – the only movie they did together. Wayne returns to the scene of his crime to help his friend the sheriff (Mitchum), now doubling as the town drunk, to prevent a war between two families over water rights.
See James Caan as a near-blind gunfighter-in-training getting lessons from the Wayne’s world-weary cavalryman. See Charlene Holt (briefly) do things with 1960’s lingerie you didn’t think were possible. See Robert Mitchum rise out of a two-month hangover to fight the good fight, and see the crotchety sidekick Arthur Hunnicut play “Marchin’ to Georgia” with a Winchester on church bells.
Ed Asner and Michele Carey have bit parts and Christopher George is the villainous Nelse McLeod. It’s great flick, with good men and strong women and the classic smalltown noble struggle that marks so many good westerns.
And best of all? It didn’t win a single Oscar. Wasn’t even nominated.
Whatever. Can I get a “who cares?” Can we, all of us, the general public, the combined citizenry of our grand republic come together, friends, countrymen, as a nation of free minded human beings, and collectively agree to just not give one half-acre of horse manure about the bloomin’ Academy Awards? Can we do this? I think we can. In fact, I think we’re almost there. Despite the millions of dollars that Hollywood spends promoting itself, we may just be at a critical divergence of human development, when the light started to dawn. “You know, Bob? There just really isn’t anything worth seeing right now at the theatre. Maybe we could just watch that John Wayne on DVD?” Eureka!
Ask yourself. Besides the gay cowboy movie, can you name (without googling it) any movie nominated for Best Picture? Besides the Johnny Cash biopic stars, can you name two actors or two actresses nominated? Besides Steven Spielberg, can you name a director nominated? Can you name a single screenwriter? Of course not!!! Why? Because you are that rarest of things in Hollywood – you are normal. You are a normal American with a normal life and normal friends. You work for a living and pay bills and take the kids to dance class and soccer practice. Americans from sea to shining sea are realizing, one crappy movie at a time, that the problems of little rich people in California don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
The same people who think we are hanging on baited breath wondering, worrying, wasting away at the thought of whether so-and-so will be passed over again – oh, the horror! – the same people who think we desperately want to know about the latest anorexic 19 year-old ‘actress’ in drug rehab or what God-forsaken nonsense Britney Spears committed over the weekend – these are the people who hope against hope that they can convince everyday Americans that the Oscars are something more than the gobsmackingly audacious sickening parade of self-worship that they most obviously are.
Here’s my theory: we don’t actually want to know celebrity gossip; it’s just that of all celebrity news, 85% is gossip-level nonsense. We Americans actually do like good films. We don’t actually care about “issue films” where Hollywood tries to ‘educate’ the madding crowds. We actually do like and will pay to see good, entertaining films.
Take a look at the five Best Picture films: “Brokeback Mountain,” the gay cowboys thing, “Capote”, a film about the eccentric alcoholic and drug addicted author, “Syriana,” a wholly unintellectual film ‘proving’ through the absence of fact that America is actually a force of evil, “Good Night and Good Luck”, a film that lumps all conservatives together in a morass of corruption and all media into heroic champions of liberty. The filmmakers actually seem amazed that people actually think there were Communists in the government (regardless of stunning Venona Papers evidence proving exactly that). We then add “Munich,” a disgraceful revisionist version of the terrorist attacks of the 1972 Olympics that focuses on humanizing terrorists, and “Crash,” about how Los Angeles is (still) full of racist white people. These were the five “best” films of 2006.
But the New York Times is shocked, shocked that movie sales have plummeted.
The combined total box office take of the above five films is around $200 million, which doesn’t sound too bad until you discover that Chronicles of Narnia’s opening episode, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” by itself grossed $287 million, not including upcoming DVD sales. Good film, good story, great characters – $287 million dollars. Who knew?
Here’s a better night for you. Get Howard Hawks’ El Dorado, 1966, with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum – the only movie they did together. Wayne returns to the scene of his crime to help his friend the sheriff (Mitchum), now doubling as the town drunk, to prevent a war between two families over water rights.
See James Caan as a near-blind gunfighter-in-training getting lessons from the Wayne’s world-weary cavalryman. See Charlene Holt (briefly) do things with 1960’s lingerie you didn’t think were possible. See Robert Mitchum rise out of a two-month hangover to fight the good fight, and see the crotchety sidekick Arthur Hunnicut play “Marchin’ to Georgia” with a Winchester on church bells.
Ed Asner and Michele Carey have bit parts and Christopher George is the villainous Nelse McLeod. It’s great flick, with good men and strong women and the classic smalltown noble struggle that marks so many good westerns.
And best of all? It didn’t win a single Oscar. Wasn’t even nominated.
