A few thoughts on The Oscars

Had a lot of Oscar-related thoughts kicking around the dusty attic twixt my ears and I thought, in smaller perhaps more digestible screes, I'd air 'em out.

Little gold man, I present you with vitriol.

They've always been a bit of a big deal in the Sanders family.  I credit an enormous amount of my adoration of cinema to my mother's twitchy-eyed obsession with the glitz and glamour of the yearly Hollywood telecast.  As I've grown older, and more keen on the corporate pie-fingering so troubling in Tinseltown, I've lost some interest in the big show.

This years show?  Unsurprisingly ho hum.  The producers continue to marginalize the host's ability to smart-aleck the audience.  The speeches, oh the speeches, continue to be laundry lists of veritable unknowns, and I'm always baffled at why folks thank The Academy.  My most egregious complaint?  They chose to include 10 pictures for the coveted Best Picture category and do they reach out across the land to stock the larders with interesting and unique films to balance out the steaming piles already guaranteed spots?  Not a chance.  Instead they backslide, awarding a handful of truly awful films chances to take home Oscar gold.

Now I haven't seen it, but The Blind Side?  My initial viewing of the trailer had me wondering who'd snuck the Lifetime Channel on to my computer.  Is this the direction the Oscars are veering towards cramming absolute sentimental pap around true winners like The Hurt Locker and to some degree, Avatar?  In lieu of Sandra Bullock vehicles, why not plug the newly minted Best Picture holes with deserving independent films or foreign pictures or a healthier dose of genre pictures?  Because these smaller pictures aren't going to bring in the piles of money the suit-and-tie, sun-tanned execs running the movies need to sleep on at night.

I think what bothers me the most about the blockbuster-clogged Best Picture category is the possibility that could exist.  Regardless of your feelings about the Oscars, the broadcast is watched by an enormous selection of people.  The films that are nominated are going to get a boost regardless of what they are, as just the nomination creates interest.  Thus, why not let smaller, more intelligent films gain some of the kudos, financial and critical, the Best Picture noms are lauded with?

Why not create a film culture based around quality and not financial success?

I'd love to know.

----

Criterion Counsel: Making headway. 

'Twas my birthday and AVATAR

Yesterday, amongst dumping rain and a slight cause of the blues, it was my birthday.

Celebration was had. I turned a year older and the world just kept churning on by. Birthdays are strange and I could write a novel on my internal monologue each and every year, but, I won't 'cause I've got better things to talk about.

As my good friend and roommate JM took me, as a swell birthday treat, to a sold-out 3-D, IMAX screening of James Cameron's Avatar.

Not surprisingly, I had a few thoughts.

The Film: Avatar

The Director: James Cameron (The Abyss, Terminator 1 & 2, Titanic)

The Experience: Yon Marcum, myself, and a packed house of hilarious 3-D glasses wearing film dorks, mouths agape as flying dragons, ash, and soul flowers blew past our incredulous eyes. Quite honestly, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else as the first day of my 28th year ticked on by.

Something Interesting: You've heard it all. This film is a beast of hype and word-of-mouth and I can't say anything else interesting except for the fact that it only took 17 days for it to break a billion dollars and it's already being speculated that the film will break the 2 billion mark. It surely was strange to be sitting in a sold out theatre on a Thursday afternoon. James Cameron, you are a rich rich man.

Quick Notes:

1. 3-D makes us all film dorks.

There's something to say about this film and the entire immersive quality of this film's 3-D experience that a theatre full of all ages, races, creeds, and whatnot, all placed enormous 3-D glasses over their eyes and stared, mouths agape at a screen filled with blue-skinned warriors and plane eating dragons. In the arms of James Cameron and this amazing world he's created, we're all film dorks.

2. Call me an Avatar convert.

Everyone has told me how great this film is. Everyone has told me how amazing the world Cameron's created is. Every reviewer is creaming their short pants over the film. And all this hype, it made me wary. Perhaps the PR folk at Lightstorm had out done themselves in persuading the audience to look past Cameron's inability to be brief, to craft dialogue, to step outside the enormous trappings of the sci-fi genre. Was this a gut bomb in the same way Lord of the Rings were? Was I going to leave the theater disappointed as I was after both Two Towers and Return of the King?

Nope. Not at all. This is everything I wanted in a 500 million dollar movie. Epic landscapes, expansive battle scenes, an entire fucking world crafted from the excessively talented minds Cameron culled to bring this thing to life. It's a roaring lion of filmmaking excess in the best way possible. The kind of film that hasn't been brought to life in such an epic manor since Cameron dropped Titanic. And before that since the truly amazing epics of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cameron, you big pompous asshole, I salute you. Now just give one third of the money you've made to Haiti and I'll love you even more.

3. Stop hating haters.

If I hear the comparison between Last of the Mohicans and Dance With Wolves one more time I'm going to fletch myself an arrow and take some revenge. If I hear one more time that this film has a shitty script, similar things will happen. If James Cameron had spent a single extra second on making a big, over-complicated script with deep characters and original ideas, more time would've had to be spent focusing on these characters. We wouldn't have had the luxury, yes luxury, of just sinking back in to the comfortable archetypes Cameron hands over here and enjoying the sheer all-encompassing world laid out before us. And yes, this story line is old and played out, but in a way that feels embracing not irritating. I'm was entertained by the characters, not repelled, and even with such simplistic stories bouncing about I still felt as if I missed out on so much going on in the background. I'm not giving Cameron a pass as a fantastic writer, I'm just saying that the script he created was exactly what the Na'vi and the world of Pandora demanded.

4. Sam Worthington?

I'm confused about Sam Worthington. I assumed he was another Russell Crowe, a big, jockish brute of an actor, but one graced with a certain sort of weight, a gravitas even. Yet, Worthington is a particular sort of blandness suited more for underwear modeling than leading a film. Surrounded by actors such as Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi, Worthington comes off as a ball of bland puff. At times, when he was swathed in CGI, I felt almost as if his words had been muffled, or dampened by James Cameron, knowing full well that this actor was bringing nothing but a certain physical presence to the roll. I'm curious in the months to come, what with Clash of the Titans rolling out if Worthington's star will fade.

Final Thoughts: Put your reservations about big, cheesy sci-fi on the shelf and go see this film. You will be blown away.