Stars Fell on Hollywood Boulevard
The Academy Awards have always been my Super Bowl. (Yeah, I watch that too, but more out of a desire not to be left out of the loop than anything else.) Even after having worked in the film industry for the last ten years – an apprenticeship in disillusionment which you’d think might inoculate me against the more transparently, seductively corrosive elements of Hollywood culture – I nonetheless remain drawn inexorably to the annual La-La love-in like a gypsy moth to a bug zapper.
So here I sit, preparing for the Oscars, with this gleaming new blog-space just waiting to be filled with bon mots and pithy predictions. Problem is, I’ve got very little to say, beyond: What the hell?
I mean, like most people with some modicum of actual taste (and not just a Pavlovian response to marketing tactics), I’m used to the melancholy experience of turning on the TV on the last Monday in March – er, last Sunday in February – and watching the movies I dig most get beat. Lately, I’m growing accustomed to the ones I liked best not being nominated at all. And I’m not some hoity-toity film elitist who’s outraged that Lars Von Trier isn’t up for Best Director. I loved “Titanic.” So there.
But things have gotten out of whack, a screaming symptom of the illness of American cinema. Yeah, the studios are flush. (They say they’re not, but they avoid mentioning how, between DVD’s and foreign theatrical ticket sales, their revenue stream has more than doubled over the last decade. Anyway, Jeffrey Katzenberg still eats at $75/entrée Beverly Hills restaurants for dinner every night, and I seem to recall Mike Ovitz got a pretty little $200 million golden parachute for putting up with Eisner for a year. So let’s just say nobody’s going hungry.) But if money isn’t one’s only criterion – and notice I’m not being such a stark ravin’ commie pinko to suggest it ought not be on the table at all, no sir, and God forbid I should bring up the A word in this context – then it’s clear the patient is sick.
Exhibit A: Of the five Best Picture nominees (“The Aviator,” “Finding Neverland,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ray,” and “Sideways”), not one – not ONE – has yet reached the $100 million domestic theatrical watermark. Without a win, it’s unlikely any of them will.
Now that’s not to say they’re not good. I’m a big fan of “The Aviator.” I do think more has been made of the very good “Sideways” than it really deserves (an opinion shared by its writers and director, apparently, according to their comments at a forum the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik moderated in NYC the other night), and I find the otherwise lovely “Million Dollar Baby’s” plot twist disastrous, for reasons I’ll get to another time. “Ray” is a traditional crowd-pleaser that I give points for great performances and taking a few chances, and “Finding Neverland” is a sorta-true, tear-jerking period piece of the type the Academy generally likes. I’m certainly not sorry I saw any of them. However, the fact that none of them managed to connect solidly with large audiences is disquieting - as is the fact that, with one giant exception (about which more in a moment), they seem to have been the cream of the crop, give or take.
Furthermore, look at the other movies that got significant nominations: “Hotel Rwanda,” a well-intentioned but mediocre movie about a tragically ignored true-life genocide, saved by two magnificent performances – which almost no one saw. “Closer,” a foul-mouthed, rather poorly reviewed spiritual sequel to “Carnal Knowledge” – which no one saw. “Vera Drake,” a perfect little character study replete with compassion for every character in it – which no one saw. “Being Julia,” a Somerset Maugham adaptation – which no one saw. “Maria Full Of Grace,” a sturdy if overrated little indie in the tradition of Upton Sinclair – which no one saw. You get the idea.
Now, none of these movies are sublime classics. That honor, and the only such one I’m prepared to bestow on the class of 2004, belongs only to “The Incredibles,” an achievement of mainstream narrative cinematic craft so outstanding in every way that it’s hard to fathom its being relegated to sharing a category with “Shrek 2” and “Shark Tale,” much less its being ignored for Best Picture of the Year, which it most clearly is. But the inability of Academy voters to take a movie like “The Incredibles” seriously merely because its sets were built inside a computer instead of outside is the most astonishing head-scratcher since… since, um…
Hey – since Paul Giamatti was left out of the Best Actor field. As I said, I don’t think “Sideways” is anything more than a well-written, well-directed, well-acted little character comedy for grown-ups – and God bless it. It’s the sort of thing we should be able to expect when we go to the movies. But it’s not really the sort of thing we should be forced, for lack of decent competition, to give Best Picture Oscars to. However, I’m all over honoring the actors, each of whom was fantastic - especially Sandra Oh, the other member of the foursome to be tragically ignored by the MPAA. Why did they leave her out? Maybe because she’s married to the director? Because she’s Asian and the Academy voters found Virginia Madsen so blonde-hot they just didn’t have room in their little heads to fantasize about another female “Sideways” cast member?
Whatever the reason, they can’t use it to justify the exclusion of Paul Giamatti for the inconceivable second straight year. That’s right, Paul Giamatti should have won Best Actor last year for “American Splendor,” perhaps 2003’s best film (and one which was, naturally, not nominated for Best Picture), and he should win this year for “Sideways.” Of course, he won’t, because he received nominations for neither. I have searched my soul for possible justifications for these twin crimes against art – they thought his father should have gone easier on Pete Rose? They hate “Judging Amy”? They can't get over his having once played a character called "Pig Vomit" in a Howard Stern movie? – but the one that rings truest is the one that gets deepest under my skin: They hate Paul Giamatti because he’s not pretty.
That, of course, is one of the things that makes him such a satisfying actor: he looks, as well as acts, like a real human being. But in Hollywood, looking like a real human being is a liability. In Hollywood, people whose livelihoods in no way depend on going before a camera nonetheless spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on botox and collagen and facial peels and on and on. What’s worse, to me anyway, is that I suspect these are the same popular-and-beautiful people who hold the social reins from kindergarten on up. (I was shocked when I grew up to find that, incredibly, the P&Bs continued somehow to control things after high school, as well, despite having no apparent qualifications for social superiority other than looks and, sometimes, money. Man, I was one naïve cracker.)
So maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. I think the Hollywood elite are freezing Pauly out because he’s short and dumpy and has narrow shoulders. I think they’re freezing him out because his father was president of Yale and they’re intimidated by his intellectual pedigree. I think they’re freezing him out because he lives on the East Coast and picks parts for the artistic challenge and doesn’t schmooze Hollywood players for awards.
Hey, wait a minute… When you think about it that way, maybe it’s a compliment.
(And while we’re at it, what about the women of “Ray”? The luminous Kerry Washington, the arresting Sharon Warren, the incomparable Regina King? You mean to tell me NONE of those women deserved a nomination? Wigga, PLEASE.)
In any case, for my money we’ve got a Best Picture field with only one real candidate worthy of consideration. “The Aviator” is an epic art film about a fascinatingly flawed real-live American billionaire who made movies, dated starlets, flew experimental planes, and went nuts in front of America’s eyes – what’s not to love? – and it’s rendered with a level of technical craft hardly ever seen anymore in American movies outside of films directed by, um, Martin Scorsese. (Who they say will lose again, to Clint, for Best Director. Like I said, Marty: a compliment.)
You don’t believe me? Watch “The Aviator” again; notice how the first third of the picture is digitally altered so the colors resemble the cyan-magenta-yellow three-strip process of the earliest color movies. Cool, right? But that’s not the best part. Two hours later – after the four-strip Technicolor section, after we’ve long since returned to a naturalistic, modern color look - when Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) returns from Howard Hughes’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) past to help him pull his crazy self together to appear before a congressional committee, she enters his shadowy, monochromatic mansion – wearing a brilliant cyan-and-magenta dress that pops off the screen like 3-D. Old Hollywood coming to the rescue, one last time. Folks, THAT is filmmaking, the kind you don’t see in this country anymore, the kind where every element of the visual and aural presentation has been chosen to support the thematic content of the story. Sublime.
And Marty will lose. Unbelievable.
Look. Right now, the American public still goes to the movies. They’ll watch what you put in front of them. If you give them “The Incredibles,” they’ll watch it; if all they get is “Catwoman,” they’ll watch that. (Until they won’t. In the five years after WWII, movie viewership plummeted – not because of TV, which wasn’t widely available yet, but just… because. Maybe because the war reminded people there were other things they might want to spend their free time doing, not knowing when it might end. Today’s audiences live in a universe of innumerable entertainment options – and the young ones are already starting to desert the TV networks in droves. You think theatrical movie theaters can’t go the way of the roller skating rink? Think again.)
Given that fact, I will never for the life of me understand why the lazy P&Bs who run Hollywood aren’t willing to put a little effort into making good movies as well as profitable ones. Granted, it takes more work, and the ability to trust one's own taste – and theirs is mostly in their mouths, these days, which I guess is why they don’t use it anymore – but it sure makes it easier to sleep at night, and it might even give one something to look back on at the end of one’s life and feel good about. A sense of achievement, not just accumulation; a sense not just of having taken, but of having given something back. I would think that would be worth the effort.
But like I said, I’m one naïve cracker.
Movies
So here I sit, preparing for the Oscars, with this gleaming new blog-space just waiting to be filled with bon mots and pithy predictions. Problem is, I’ve got very little to say, beyond: What the hell?
I mean, like most people with some modicum of actual taste (and not just a Pavlovian response to marketing tactics), I’m used to the melancholy experience of turning on the TV on the last Monday in March – er, last Sunday in February – and watching the movies I dig most get beat. Lately, I’m growing accustomed to the ones I liked best not being nominated at all. And I’m not some hoity-toity film elitist who’s outraged that Lars Von Trier isn’t up for Best Director. I loved “Titanic.” So there.
But things have gotten out of whack, a screaming symptom of the illness of American cinema. Yeah, the studios are flush. (They say they’re not, but they avoid mentioning how, between DVD’s and foreign theatrical ticket sales, their revenue stream has more than doubled over the last decade. Anyway, Jeffrey Katzenberg still eats at $75/entrée Beverly Hills restaurants for dinner every night, and I seem to recall Mike Ovitz got a pretty little $200 million golden parachute for putting up with Eisner for a year. So let’s just say nobody’s going hungry.) But if money isn’t one’s only criterion – and notice I’m not being such a stark ravin’ commie pinko to suggest it ought not be on the table at all, no sir, and God forbid I should bring up the A word in this context – then it’s clear the patient is sick.
Exhibit A: Of the five Best Picture nominees (“The Aviator,” “Finding Neverland,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ray,” and “Sideways”), not one – not ONE – has yet reached the $100 million domestic theatrical watermark. Without a win, it’s unlikely any of them will.
Now that’s not to say they’re not good. I’m a big fan of “The Aviator.” I do think more has been made of the very good “Sideways” than it really deserves (an opinion shared by its writers and director, apparently, according to their comments at a forum the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik moderated in NYC the other night), and I find the otherwise lovely “Million Dollar Baby’s” plot twist disastrous, for reasons I’ll get to another time. “Ray” is a traditional crowd-pleaser that I give points for great performances and taking a few chances, and “Finding Neverland” is a sorta-true, tear-jerking period piece of the type the Academy generally likes. I’m certainly not sorry I saw any of them. However, the fact that none of them managed to connect solidly with large audiences is disquieting - as is the fact that, with one giant exception (about which more in a moment), they seem to have been the cream of the crop, give or take.
Furthermore, look at the other movies that got significant nominations: “Hotel Rwanda,” a well-intentioned but mediocre movie about a tragically ignored true-life genocide, saved by two magnificent performances – which almost no one saw. “Closer,” a foul-mouthed, rather poorly reviewed spiritual sequel to “Carnal Knowledge” – which no one saw. “Vera Drake,” a perfect little character study replete with compassion for every character in it – which no one saw. “Being Julia,” a Somerset Maugham adaptation – which no one saw. “Maria Full Of Grace,” a sturdy if overrated little indie in the tradition of Upton Sinclair – which no one saw. You get the idea.
Now, none of these movies are sublime classics. That honor, and the only such one I’m prepared to bestow on the class of 2004, belongs only to “The Incredibles,” an achievement of mainstream narrative cinematic craft so outstanding in every way that it’s hard to fathom its being relegated to sharing a category with “Shrek 2” and “Shark Tale,” much less its being ignored for Best Picture of the Year, which it most clearly is. But the inability of Academy voters to take a movie like “The Incredibles” seriously merely because its sets were built inside a computer instead of outside is the most astonishing head-scratcher since… since, um…
Hey – since Paul Giamatti was left out of the Best Actor field. As I said, I don’t think “Sideways” is anything more than a well-written, well-directed, well-acted little character comedy for grown-ups – and God bless it. It’s the sort of thing we should be able to expect when we go to the movies. But it’s not really the sort of thing we should be forced, for lack of decent competition, to give Best Picture Oscars to. However, I’m all over honoring the actors, each of whom was fantastic - especially Sandra Oh, the other member of the foursome to be tragically ignored by the MPAA. Why did they leave her out? Maybe because she’s married to the director? Because she’s Asian and the Academy voters found Virginia Madsen so blonde-hot they just didn’t have room in their little heads to fantasize about another female “Sideways” cast member?
Whatever the reason, they can’t use it to justify the exclusion of Paul Giamatti for the inconceivable second straight year. That’s right, Paul Giamatti should have won Best Actor last year for “American Splendor,” perhaps 2003’s best film (and one which was, naturally, not nominated for Best Picture), and he should win this year for “Sideways.” Of course, he won’t, because he received nominations for neither. I have searched my soul for possible justifications for these twin crimes against art – they thought his father should have gone easier on Pete Rose? They hate “Judging Amy”? They can't get over his having once played a character called "Pig Vomit" in a Howard Stern movie? – but the one that rings truest is the one that gets deepest under my skin: They hate Paul Giamatti because he’s not pretty.
That, of course, is one of the things that makes him such a satisfying actor: he looks, as well as acts, like a real human being. But in Hollywood, looking like a real human being is a liability. In Hollywood, people whose livelihoods in no way depend on going before a camera nonetheless spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on botox and collagen and facial peels and on and on. What’s worse, to me anyway, is that I suspect these are the same popular-and-beautiful people who hold the social reins from kindergarten on up. (I was shocked when I grew up to find that, incredibly, the P&Bs continued somehow to control things after high school, as well, despite having no apparent qualifications for social superiority other than looks and, sometimes, money. Man, I was one naïve cracker.)
So maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. I think the Hollywood elite are freezing Pauly out because he’s short and dumpy and has narrow shoulders. I think they’re freezing him out because his father was president of Yale and they’re intimidated by his intellectual pedigree. I think they’re freezing him out because he lives on the East Coast and picks parts for the artistic challenge and doesn’t schmooze Hollywood players for awards.
Hey, wait a minute… When you think about it that way, maybe it’s a compliment.
(And while we’re at it, what about the women of “Ray”? The luminous Kerry Washington, the arresting Sharon Warren, the incomparable Regina King? You mean to tell me NONE of those women deserved a nomination? Wigga, PLEASE.)
In any case, for my money we’ve got a Best Picture field with only one real candidate worthy of consideration. “The Aviator” is an epic art film about a fascinatingly flawed real-live American billionaire who made movies, dated starlets, flew experimental planes, and went nuts in front of America’s eyes – what’s not to love? – and it’s rendered with a level of technical craft hardly ever seen anymore in American movies outside of films directed by, um, Martin Scorsese. (Who they say will lose again, to Clint, for Best Director. Like I said, Marty: a compliment.)
You don’t believe me? Watch “The Aviator” again; notice how the first third of the picture is digitally altered so the colors resemble the cyan-magenta-yellow three-strip process of the earliest color movies. Cool, right? But that’s not the best part. Two hours later – after the four-strip Technicolor section, after we’ve long since returned to a naturalistic, modern color look - when Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) returns from Howard Hughes’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) past to help him pull his crazy self together to appear before a congressional committee, she enters his shadowy, monochromatic mansion – wearing a brilliant cyan-and-magenta dress that pops off the screen like 3-D. Old Hollywood coming to the rescue, one last time. Folks, THAT is filmmaking, the kind you don’t see in this country anymore, the kind where every element of the visual and aural presentation has been chosen to support the thematic content of the story. Sublime.
And Marty will lose. Unbelievable.
Look. Right now, the American public still goes to the movies. They’ll watch what you put in front of them. If you give them “The Incredibles,” they’ll watch it; if all they get is “Catwoman,” they’ll watch that. (Until they won’t. In the five years after WWII, movie viewership plummeted – not because of TV, which wasn’t widely available yet, but just… because. Maybe because the war reminded people there were other things they might want to spend their free time doing, not knowing when it might end. Today’s audiences live in a universe of innumerable entertainment options – and the young ones are already starting to desert the TV networks in droves. You think theatrical movie theaters can’t go the way of the roller skating rink? Think again.)
Given that fact, I will never for the life of me understand why the lazy P&Bs who run Hollywood aren’t willing to put a little effort into making good movies as well as profitable ones. Granted, it takes more work, and the ability to trust one's own taste – and theirs is mostly in their mouths, these days, which I guess is why they don’t use it anymore – but it sure makes it easier to sleep at night, and it might even give one something to look back on at the end of one’s life and feel good about. A sense of achievement, not just accumulation; a sense not just of having taken, but of having given something back. I would think that would be worth the effort.
But like I said, I’m one naïve cracker.
Movies
posted by Hotspur at 7:04 PM
3 comments
