… That are better than wasting your time with the Oscars.
Sunday, March 5, 2006 marks the 78th Academy Awards ceremony, and to the surprise of many who know me (and no surprise whatsoever to those who really know me), I will be spending my time in better ways.
This year, the Academy has put out a DVD instructing nominees on ways to keep their speeches “short and graceful.” It seems that they are placing a strict 60 second from-chair-to-curtain time limit on winners this year. With this new economy, they hope to keep the ceremony down to a trim two to three hours.
You know and I know, however, that speeches are not the only thing that serves to challenge the bladder on Oscar nights. Why not give the winners their (sometimes) hard-earned dues and let them speak? Why not get rid of the hideous retrospectives, insulting montages, corny dance numbers and stale comedy bits, instead?
Don’t answer. I know why. Hollywood trots out the retrospectives, with Gene Kelly swinging off lampposts, Woody Allen walking along a lit river bank, and Chaplin walking off into an iris with a shrug, because it is trying to sell an idea that is “Hollywood.” (Despite the fact that these three men are best remembered for making fun of, shunning, and being shunned by Hollywood, respectively.)
As well as the false and laughable notion that Hollywood still has what it takes to keep our interest for 90 minutes, let alone five hours. It is attempting to perpetuate the myth that Hollywood is still a dream factory and a place in which fond memories are made. As opposed to the place where sub-par commercial crap is chugged out for the sole purpose of being an over-priced delivery system for cell phone and Mercedes ads. Academy night is the night where Hollywood pretends it’s still full of Chaplins and Gene Kellys… Instead of hacks, flavours of the month, and Seagram’s execs.
However, it is not the decline in the quality of films that will make me find better things to do than watch the Oscars. After all, the decline is nothing new, and, were it the sole reason to avoid this sham ceremony, the difference in quality between Duck Soup (1933) and Go West (1940) would have made me hate the Oscars before I was even born.
No, my main reason for avoiding and scorning this circus is my old-fashioned standards. Because, having disappointed me too many times with their fuddled choices, the Academy voters have convinced me of their incompetence and disregard for enduring quality (and of their blindness to anything that wasn’t shamelessly plugged throughout the December buzz season). The Oscars, with their propensity for making outrageously irrational choices (can anyone explain to me how The Pianist had the best actor, script and director of 2002, but Chicago was the best picture…?) have driven me away through sheer stupidity. I have concluded that the last place for a real film lover on the last Sunday in February (or first Sunday in March, this year) is in front of a TV getting aggravated by glorified Philistines with their fingers on the ballot-button.
If Chicago didn’t kill me, the insult to Bill Murray in 2003 surely did… And the deal was sealed by the fact that he isn’t even nominated this year! Naturally, gay cowboys are more interesting, even without the motorcycle cop and the construction worker.
And even though I like Joaquin Phoenix (who doesn’t stand a chance) and David Strathairn (who probably doesn’t, either), this still doesn’t make the bitterness any easier.
So I have decided to take my nerves away from the Oscars indefinitely. At this point, I probably wouldn’t even watch if I were nominated myself, and that is about as likely as there ever being a year in which I actually agree with the Academy’s choices. Frankly, the Academy doesn’t deserve my aggravation. Any movie award which saw fit to make Chaplin’s only competitive win be for musical composition is not worth the dissolution of my stomach lining.
So, in the interests of true Cinemania, I will offer five better ways to spend this Sunday night:
1) Watching Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen (1924).
Five hours of incomparable silent movie magic, with no speeches at all. And also no glitz and tits, either, which also means no Joan Rivers, so that’s a plus. However, she’s almost old enough to have been an extra in it, so keep your eyes peeled.
2) Reading Joe Adamson’s Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo (1973).
This might take you longer than five hours, but it is certainly worth it. This book, with its humour and critical knowledge of comedy’s “Heroic Age,” has more to offer in one paragraph than hours of flat zings from has-beens who make you wish Johnny Carson was still alive. Or that Jon Stewart's parents had never been born.
3) Oscar Trivia over drinks.
I usually avoid movie trivia games, as I am terrified of losing in front of friends. Being a film student and having to play movie trivia games in mixed company is almost like being a heart surgeon who is asked to do a transplant, while being timed, at the PTA talent show. I always end up getting beaten by someone who knows nothing about film at all but is able to pull every single question that can be answered with “Gone with the Wind”, while I’m stuck trying to remember who did the drapery for The Good Earth (1937). Bad for the ego, to be sure.
However, there is nothing better for reminding yourself what you aren’t missing on Oscar night than by having to remember the details of Raging Bull's loss to Ordinary People in 1980, or, even better, that How Green was My Valley beat out not only Citizen Kane but also The Maltese Falcon in 1941. (For more such tales of horror and amazement, see my tirade from last December.)
In any case, it’s a healthier way to get out the anger than smashing your TV and heading to Hollywood with the shards to kill anyone with a ear-plug-type cell phone (for these are clearly the ideological descendents of the jerks who decided that Robert Altman, Orson Welles and Cary Grant all had absolutely no need of real Oscars over the years).
4) Absorbing half of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985).
Remember when Spike Lee quipped that Oscar night was all about the Holocaust? Make this a reality by watching something of true value. Sure it may not have sour old back-stabbers from Beverly Hills, but it does have ex-Nazis, so you be the judge as to which is better.
5) Spending five hours making real romance.
There is something of a self-depreciating myth surrounding true cinemaphiles that we watch movies because we can’t actually make real lives for ourselves. In some cases this might be true, and I am awfully worried about what hours of sitting and viewing has actually done to our reproductive systems. However, if you can, five hours of dedicated love making, or at least a five minute bear-hug, is better than all the dancing Oscar statues in the world. Let’s forgo the ultimate golden phallic symbol for the real deal, shall we?
It would certainly be better for the blood pressure.
Of course, if all this fails, an old Oscars retrospective collection may be in order, so you can get all of the gold and none of the filler, and remember the good old days when Sammy Davis, Jr. showed up in a Naru jacket and shocked the establishment, or when Chaplin received his guilt-ridden pity Oscar, or any number of faces and films that prove that Hollywood was once worth some hours of your life.
And if even that doesn’t work, there’s always going to bed early with a Neocitron. I guarantee you’ll still have more fun than the poor shmoes who tuned in. Unless, of course, the motorcycle cop and the construction worker do show up. However, if this does happen, I’m sure you’ll hear about it ad nauseam at work tomorrow, so maybe you should get your sleep tonight.
And I don’t mean in front of the TV, either.
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