Awards Humbug

When I was younger my best friend and I would get so excited about the Oscars, scrambling to see the nominees and then putting together a fabulous Oscar party. Either I'm getting older or the ceremonies are getting ever more tedious. Probably both, but how can I know? I'm surprised that I've gotten to that attitude that always made me bristle when I encountered it in others: I don't for the life of me understand the point of giving out these awards. Well, scratch that. I understand multiple points for the awards. I just believe that the extent to which these awards mean anything is severely limited. The Spirit Awards are still marginally interesting to me, but my relationship to the Academy Awards is generally characterized by a blend of indifference and frustration. I mean, how do you get excited about a thing like that when this crap exalting groupthink prevails. I'll admit that Lincoln is partially redeemed by a few strong performances (like David Strathairn, whom nobody seems particularly interested in nominating for anything) and an interesting script, but, hello, it's total kitsch, and Sally Field, bless her heart, certainly didn't help matters. Argo, Django Unchained, and Zero Dark Thirty are all mind-numbingly unremarkable. Well, the Tarantino one was remarkable for making me think about how much liked Lars Von Trier's Manderlay better, just like, I suppose, I couldn't stop thinking as my mind wandered during the insipid Argo how much I liked Persepolis. Then you have the adaptation of Les Miserables that was so botched and marred by bad style that you'd think it was directed by the same guy who delivered the shlocky The King's Speech. I haven't seen Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild, or Silver Linings Playbook, but I'm hopeful they'll be better than most of the other presumptive nominees. Right now, the only credible nominee is the uneven, Spielbergified Lincoln.
What was so great about Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone? I like her, and it was a decent performance, but why has the borg decided it was such a powerful performance? Because she's vain and likes to dance with killer whales and get banged by abusive men? I don't know, I think that movie was kind of overrated. And for man-acting, the only performance that will likely be nominated which is neither bad nor inconsequential is that of Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln. I mean, again, I like Hugh Jackman, but his turn as Jean Valjean made me feel like I was watching a spoof on SNL. Actually, I felt that way through most of the movie, so it's probably Tom Hooper's fault, but why not blame the lot of them, I say. Ben Affleck was fine in Argo, but is that what this award means? Award to the least inadequate high profile performance?
It's been a lousy year at the cineplex. I'm hoping I love Silver Linings Playbook and Beasts of the Southern Wild enough that I don't spend the next two months sulking about the fact that I can't think of a single mainstream film that I liked better than Cloud Atlas  or Sleepwalk with Me. What???? Thank god that living in Chicago means I can see movies any day of the year that have nothing to do with the cineplex. I feel like I'm being an elitist here, but seriously, Zero Dark Thirty and Argo are the best you've got?

PS- Also, don't even get me started on Seth McFarlane. I appreciate that he's a fellow traveler on the yellow brick road and all, but if Ted (or Magic Mike, btw) get nominated for anything, something inside me will probably die. Speaking of the yellow brick road, I'll probably plotz for shock if How to Survive a Plague gets nominated since those documentary voters sure hate gay people. I see on one of those odds websites it's currently ranked as second choice to win the award, but I'm pretty skeptical, if past is prologue.

Worst Comedies of All Time

I guess FILM.COM has this list of the worst comedies of all time. Apparently over there at film.com the world started in 1984. Probably these kids are sheltered and don't know anything about movies from before E.T., though one of the authors, let's call her Molly Q. Millennial, says in a comment that the worst comedies are all from the past 20 years. I guess it never occurred to her that people thirty years from now will never have heard of Freddy Got Fingered. In general, the list is pretty uncontroversial, except for what kind of psychopath would include Who's That Girl on a list like this unless they were born after 1985 or before 1965? Also, it's not controversial to put All About Steve on this list, but I always felt that it was better than The Blind Side anyway, not to mention countless 'successful' romantic comedies like Sweet Home Alabama. Of course, I went into All About Steve expecting it to be bad so maybe my expectations were too low. I actually thought it was better than a lot of the movies of its sort. I mean, I haven't even seen New in Town, but I'm sure it's substantially worse than All About Steve. But why do people always have to be hating on Pat? Bullies, I say.
Anyway, I'd also suggest that Rhinestone (1984) transcends the conventional good/bad dichotomy, though I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying I would watch the movie in one continuous sitting. Of course, this brings us back to what a questionable exercise it is to assert a supposedly objective evaluation of art. I'm willing to concede none of these movies are particularly good, with the exception of Who's That Girl of course, but I'm not sure it's a very well considered list of the the 'worst comedies of all time.' Which comedies have you seen that were more painful than these? For the record, the worst SNL films are Coneheads  and MacGruber.

Steven Spielberg Top 5

Largely because of my tendency to agree with JR Jones, I tend to read the Chicago Reader film feed pretty regularly. Monday there was an interesting top 5 from a writer named Drew Hunt, whom I've honestly not taken much note of before. It seems to be an installment of his "Monday Top 5" series, which I sort of vaguely recall having read before. This particular list is of Steven Spielberg films, and while I don't necessarily feel the same about all these movies as Hunt does, I was pleased to see that it didn't focus on a lot the Steven Spielberg movies that make him one of my cinematic bêtes noires. I've been more annoyed than anything else by films like Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, the Indiana Jones films, and even The Color Purple (I loved the novel though) . I guess starting even with E.T. as a small child I never seemed to be able to connect with these over the top bourgeois populist entertainments, but there were some exceptions. Hook came out when I was in middle school, and I tended to like that largely because I really liked Julia Roberts at the time. I loved Schindler's List when it came out and I probably still think it's his best film, though I haven't seen Amistad, Lincoln, Munich, or The Terminal.

There's no sense in going in reverse order here, because the best film is obviously Schindler's List, though Drew Hunt seems to disagree because it's not even in his honorable mentions, let alone his top 5. Just to make sure we kill all the suspense here, there's no Jaws or Close Encounters of the Third Kind here because I mostly think those movies are really boring.

1. I'm aware that some people have some problems with Schindler's List (1993), like maybe it's too manipulative or operatic or I don't even know what. It's absurd because these are the criticisms you could throw at almost his entire body of work, but it works in Schindler's List, in contrast to almost all of his other movies.

2. Sugarland Express (1974) found Goldie Hawn at the top of her game. And Steven Spielberg's kitsch was still somewhat restrained by the 1970s aesthetic.

3. Duel (1971) is a classic. I say this without even having seen the last ten minutes or so, but I tell you I saw enough. One day I'll need to find out if I'm right.

4. Minority Report (2002) could have gone either way, but the world is a better place because Samantha Morton has magic powers and her witchcraft made the entire film soar. Well, that's how I remember it anyway.

5. I'm still going to post this thing because hardly anyone reads it anyway, but I'm starting to wonder how all these real writers of content manage to come up with these things all the time. I honestly haven't seen most of these movies in years and years and years. With that said, of all those other movies I haven't seen in years, I'd probably pick Empire of the Sun (1987) as my fifth best Spielberg film, although part of me wonders if it's only because it was the favorite film of my best friend in high school. I don't know, I remember thinking it was a respectable film at the time. Anyway the only other possible contenders I could possibly think of would be AI or Always. Actually, to be honest, I fell asleep once when I saw Munich in the theater. It seemed pretty good, but I was super exhausted. Beyond that, I think Catch Me If You Can was somewhat better than I expected, and I'm hoping Tony Kushner's hand will mean I like Lincoln. So yeah, I guess that's why it's Empire of the Sun, even though it's no The Killing Fields.