Key Films / 1936
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Dodsworth (William Wyler) / Wyler had a tendency to overthink his set-ups,
to work out every technical particular of a shot or sequence without
considering...
9 minutes ago
The Monday Morning Question: The Oscars
Monday, February 9, 2009
So I'm all kinds of busy and I'm supposed to be finishing a test but in 2 hours all I've managed to do is 3 pages worth of work (out of 19!) and I got followed by The Man the whole while I was out dropping off a very late reservation request for a dinner at the Kansas Silent Film Festival and then I picked up a burger on the way home and now I'm all jittery because late test + missing a deadline + cop + McDonald's = nervous breakdown, so this one's going to be quick.
The Oscars. Do you care? Do you even watch modern movies?
Because I don't watch many modern films. I haven't seen anything in the theater since my husband and I saw "Snakes on a Plane" and we were clearly the coolest people in the room. This was proven when everyone sat around us as though we were some kind of attractive atomic nuclei of hipdom. Actually, they probably saw us and thought, "Hey, they're old! At least 30! They probably know who this Samuel L Jacobson guy is that everyone's talking about!"
And I don't care about the Oscars, and I'm actually eliding my original reasons (yeah, there was a list) regarding why I hate the Oscars. The last thing I want to do is get a fight going in the comments section.
Don't get me wrong, though, I don't hate all things modern. I love Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Kate Winslet, and there are several other actors and directors nominated who I enjoy, and a few nominated that I am not familiar with but who seem really good based on reviews and clips I've seen. It's just that I am wholly unimpressed with the awards as a whole, irritated by the Oscar baiting that seems to be so fashionable nowadays, and can't get much interested in the whole thing. In fact, I don't usually care about how many Oscars older actors won, because a lot of fine actors, films, and directors went completely ignored by The Academy.
P.S. There were snakes on that plane.
Pictured: Outside view of the 1958 Academy Awards as celebrities arrive. Courtesy Life/Google image archives.
Posted by Stacia at 4:28 AM 9 comments
Labels: the monday morning question
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9 comments:
There's so much Oscar-related overkill, it is hard to care about them by the time we reach the actual ceremony. I tend to find the day after the giving of the Oscar awards a relief.
ed to try and see every "best picture" nominee every year before the Oscars but that has fallen by the wayside in recent years.
I think the hype is WAY over the top and I can't stand all the staged shit. Just give out the awards and go home. K, thanks.
Well, I just wrote a lengthy post on my mixed emotions about awards. On the one hand, I do find myself slightly sucked in, but on the other hand, I think the Oscars are not as important as they are made out to be.
I've given up on the Oscars as being any sort of real measure of acting, directing, scoring, whatever...I see maybe one or two nominated films in a four or five year period, and it's now gotten to be like the Studio days with fake glamour and forced laughter. I like the Independent Spirit awards better, and BAFTA, too. I used to watch for the intros which were often clever, but that's paled quite a bit.
Stacia, I share some of your sense of alienation, but my attitude toward the Oscars depends on the year. Most of this decade has been uninspiring, but last year was intriguing for the competition between No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. I used to make that same effort to see all the Best Picture nominees, but I can't bring myself to do it this time. This year's nominations seemed to be more out of touch with both public taste and the zeitgeist than ever. But to a certain extent, 'twas ever thus.
I've tackled this subject on my blog in years past, and the best argument that the Oscars is little more than a pageant of gratuitous back-patting can be found in Danny Peary's OOP print book, Alternative Oscars, which operates on the premise that there were far more deserving individuals who should have taken home a little gold statue and didn't. I don't agree with all of Peary's choices but it's one hell of a great read.
Oscar night used to mean a lot more to me up until, oh, ten years ago. Now I only watch like a dutiful automaton only because I'm so immersed in following show biz and it wouldn't make sense ignoring it. However, I don't care who wins and I don't catch up with nominated films until months later.
The only "award" that matters is to just wait thirty years and see what films are actually remembered from 2008, nominated or not. Uh, if we can spare the years. :D
I have spoken.
All good points. I wish I cared about the Oscars, because I feel like I should, you know? But I just can't.
I don't watch many contemporary films. Generally I wait to read what people say about them before my interest is piqued. I don't think the percentage of bad films today is any higher than the days of classic cinema, it's that a huge amount of great old ones are available on DVD.
Aside from the celebrity factor, the Awards are just an industry recognition showcase. It'd be much more interesting if these films were rated by the movie-viewing public. THAT I'd watch.
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