There’s enough time left that I might actually see all the Best Picture nominees before Oscar night rolls around. To date, my personal best is four of five. I love the Oscars and can’t really explain why. I’m likely the only straight man you know that sits through the whole thing year after year. (For what it’s worth, I skip most of the red carpet coverage. Does that make me at all more masculine? No, I didn’t think so either.)
We’ve caught only The Aviator and Sideways so far. Some folks who read my thoughts on The Aviator came away thinking I hated it. Not true; I thought it was brilliant. It’s just that I saw it long after it had been released, and what more could I have said about it that others more intelligent, more qualified, or more masculine hadn’t said already. It was a great movie, but at the same time I don’t want to see it again for about fifteen years. It doesn’t match T2 or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for rewatchability, if you know what I’m saying.
Sideways was a disappointment. I liked it enough, but with the hype machine screaming Best Picture so loud, I just expected more. I think that Thomas Haden Church deserved the nomination but shouldn’t win, that Paul Giamatti got ass-jacked, and that Virginia Madsen played a very good Virginia Madsen. There were parts of the movie I loved, like when Miles downs the contents of a spittoon; I don’t think I’ve ever gone from mild amusement to deep-hearted shame so quickly in my life. In the end though—Best Picture? I say no, and I’ve still got three movies to see.
It’s silly, really, to try and compare Sideways to The Aviator to Ray. In a recent Entertainment Weekly, Chris Rock talks about how awards in art don’t make sense. If Clint Eastwood and Jamie Foxx both played Ray Charles, you could honestly judge who did the better job, but how do you rank them playing two different roles? Fair enough, awards for art are in no way objective, and the Oscars are particularly corrupted by the marketing war chests of bigger studios, but in the end the goal is to canonize movies. It guides the taste of movie buffs and the general public, for right or wrong; more for right than wrong in my opinion. This isn’t the Pulitzers, we all agree, but I’ve enjoyed more Oscar winning movies than I have Pulitzer winning novels.
No one is arguing that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is infallible. This is, after all, the institution that picked Ordinary People over Raging Bull. This is also an institution that touts this lady and this dude as voting members (who shouldn't be dictating anyone’s tastes about anything at this point.) But in the end, there’s no awards ceremony like it. And there will always be upsets, but sometimes the arguments about it are the best part. What do you enjoy more: agreeing with VH1’s 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs Ever, or screaming out “You bastards! Unskinny Bop is definitive nineties rock and roll, it saved me from the gutter, my wife from the pole, and nothing will ever rock harder ever! EVER!”
We’ve caught only The Aviator and Sideways so far. Some folks who read my thoughts on The Aviator came away thinking I hated it. Not true; I thought it was brilliant. It’s just that I saw it long after it had been released, and what more could I have said about it that others more intelligent, more qualified, or more masculine hadn’t said already. It was a great movie, but at the same time I don’t want to see it again for about fifteen years. It doesn’t match T2 or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for rewatchability, if you know what I’m saying.
Sideways was a disappointment. I liked it enough, but with the hype machine screaming Best Picture so loud, I just expected more. I think that Thomas Haden Church deserved the nomination but shouldn’t win, that Paul Giamatti got ass-jacked, and that Virginia Madsen played a very good Virginia Madsen. There were parts of the movie I loved, like when Miles downs the contents of a spittoon; I don’t think I’ve ever gone from mild amusement to deep-hearted shame so quickly in my life. In the end though—Best Picture? I say no, and I’ve still got three movies to see.
It’s silly, really, to try and compare Sideways to The Aviator to Ray. In a recent Entertainment Weekly, Chris Rock talks about how awards in art don’t make sense. If Clint Eastwood and Jamie Foxx both played Ray Charles, you could honestly judge who did the better job, but how do you rank them playing two different roles? Fair enough, awards for art are in no way objective, and the Oscars are particularly corrupted by the marketing war chests of bigger studios, but in the end the goal is to canonize movies. It guides the taste of movie buffs and the general public, for right or wrong; more for right than wrong in my opinion. This isn’t the Pulitzers, we all agree, but I’ve enjoyed more Oscar winning movies than I have Pulitzer winning novels.
No one is arguing that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is infallible. This is, after all, the institution that picked Ordinary People over Raging Bull. This is also an institution that touts this lady and this dude as voting members (who shouldn't be dictating anyone’s tastes about anything at this point.) But in the end, there’s no awards ceremony like it. And there will always be upsets, but sometimes the arguments about it are the best part. What do you enjoy more: agreeing with VH1’s 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs Ever, or screaming out “You bastards! Unskinny Bop is definitive nineties rock and roll, it saved me from the gutter, my wife from the pole, and nothing will ever rock harder ever! EVER!”
Comments
Try having your friend zip up your pants because you are too drunk to do it yourself.
...wait...
That Jorge guy is weird.
All of us are big movie fans, and we've all watched the whole of Oscars (we're with you on the Except For The Red Carpet thing, by and large) for... well... years, at least. More than just a few, too. Several. Many. A lot.
Thus, the solution is simple: move to Toronto within 10 months and invite us over for dinner and drinks on Oscar night, and we can be the Four Straight Dudes What Watch All Of The Oscars Except The Red Carpet Stuff So Much (FSDWWAOTOETRCSSM, Toronto chapter).