Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!
Oscar nominations were announced this past Tuesday at 5:38 AM PST. Yours Truly wakes up at the late hour of 4:30 every day, so with my morning routine already in the bank, I decided to watch the chuckly Anne Hathaway and the what’s-his-face President of the Academy spout out the nominees in “top categories” for the awards. What defines a top category, in this instance, is the showiest titles, the big cheeses of actors, the “most important, flashiest bits” of the movie — the actors, the writers, the directors, the pictures themselves, and the foreigners. What you need to understand is that the Academy members — or, more precisely, the folks in charge of the Oscar Telecast — are more interested in generating buzz and viewership for the telecast than they are for honoring the latest-greatest contributions to the art form.
I won’t ask you to forgive my foul-ish mood today regarding Oscars, and won’t even pretend to chalk it up to the fact that Mr. Wolff ate away at our regularly scheduled blog-time this week because of his timely chomp-up of the Grammy Awards. I can only ask you to read YUKI, the #3 BIRTH issue of MYTHOI, written by a fella named James Ninness, and worthy of every iris in the states to see and download.
Folks, lend me your ears, and your time, and I’ll tell you a little something about the missing piece of the Oscars, something that has left a void since 1952, and shall perhaps one day — through the genius and respect that is Martin Scorsese, or perhaps even from another writers’ strike — return to show us the way. I’m going to tell you about actual respect towards a craft, and how Television Killed the Triumph of Awards.
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony in the media. In 1929, the first Oscars were given to celebrate the excellence of film professionals in the years 1928 — 29. The awards show was conceived by Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM studios. Key word there is “excellence” — not celebrate, but excellence. After the LA Times leaked the award winners in 1940, the names were thereafter sealed in an envelope and revealed only during the ceremony, which was first televised in 1953 with Bob Hope as Master of Ceremonies. It is perhaps the decision to televise the show which has brought the most criticisms to the awards themselves.
No longer are voters or Academy members interested in honoring timeless classics or films that will go on forever to be known as the greatest in the pantheon of the art of film in general. Tim Dirks, editor of AMC’s filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards, “Unfortunately, the critical worth, artistic vision, cultural influence, and innovative qualities of many films are not given the same voting weight. Especially since the 80s, moneymaking ‘formula-made’ blockbusters with glossy production values have often been crowd-pleasing titans (and Best Picture winners), but they haven’t necessarily been great films with depth or critical acclaim by any measure.”
Make no mistake about it, the Academy Awards are still the most prestigious award ever to win as a filmmaker. But you must be cautious when you win it, think about what you’ve done to deserve it. Should you be given the award as a gift because of your family relations (Sofia Coppola, “Lost in Translation” writer)? Or how about because the Academy forgot to honor you for a prior piece (Russell Crowe for “Gladiator” instead of “The Insider”)? What if you just had something important to say, despite your film being mediocre at best (“An Inconvenient Truth”)? The point is, because of the commercialization of the Oscars themselves, the awards and honors encapsulated by them have become less prestigious over the years, more about popularity or politics than actual excellence.
Twelve years ago, one of the best films of the 1990s (a fantastic decade for films, despite what anyone else says to you), “L.A. Confidential,” was virtually shut out at the Oscars by the Billion-Dollar-Baby “Titanic.” The monster that slipped on an iceberg offered smooth sailing into Awards History for James Cameron, and somehow captured hearts and minds of moviegoers across the US, and around the Globe — most notably, Academy members were swept up in the wave of apparent heaping praise for the film. And that became the problem. Advertising. Campaigning for an award that SHOULD be given on artistic merit and excellence in the craft, was instead doled out to those who could afford to buy it.
Enter Harvey Weinstein, Stage Right. In case you don’t recall, Weinstein was behind one of the greatest coups in Academy Awards history when he sold members on the idea that “Shakespeare in Love” offered a more historically and artistically brilliant film than “Saving Private Ryan” and “Life is Beautiful.” Even Spielberg stood backstage, holding his still warm Best Director Oscar, wondering how the mighty Miramax Man managed to flatten Ryan’s privates.
And lo, the Awards themselves were pushed back, from late March to late February, to hopefully collapse the campaign season and bring forth honorable films rather than wide wallet films. But that still wasn’t enough. Gone are they days when films released any time before May of the year (“Silence of the Lambs”) are even within radar of Academy members — or marketing wallets. This year, for instance, the only film to be nominated for Best Picture and released before June of 2009 was Disney-Pixar’s “Up.”
And that was released on May 29.
Look, I’ll still watch the Awards, and hey, if I could, I would go to them. But the thing about Awards is, once you start spreading them around, giving them to the moneybags rather than the talentbags, you start to lose sight of why they exist in the first place. You shouldn’t make movies to make money, and you shouldn’t make movies to win awards. You make movies to make a piece of Art, whether it’s a 3-hour character piece exploring the existence of love, or it’s a 3-hour action piece creating a new world, using new technology, and still somehow exploring the existence of love.
I’m as hard-assed as the next soldier, but when it comes to executing your job properly, I’m hoping you don’t spend the most money on the most expensive gun to hit the target; I want to see you hit that target with the cheapest man-made rifle you can find. That’s where real talent lies, and that’s where real inspiration comes from.
That’s just the type of soldier I wanna see on my set.
Let me know what your reactions are to this year’s awards nominations, and next week we’ll ramble on about celluloid history — the type that should disappear from history.
You are dismissed.
Sgt. Angle.
A screen shot from the upcoming THE GOON movie! Huzzah! This awesome picture of The Goon and his sidekick, Frankie got me thinking about the greatest sidekicks of all time. So, today I present to you my list of the ten greatest comic book sidekicks of all time (in no particular order):
RICK JONES: The ultimate utility sidekick. This man has been an assistant to Captain America, Captain Marvel (the first and the third), The Hulk, and even the Supreme Intelligence (well, kinda). This guy is the village doorknob of sidekicks, everyone gets a turn.
