No One Is Happy With the Oscars

We seem to be so grouchy about our entertainment. There was so much grousing about the 92 Academy Award nominees and the awards show itself, you’d think the entire world was forced to take a spelling test and file their taxes at the same time. There’s not enough diversity in the nominees. There’s too much diversity in the production numbers. There’s too much politics in the acceptance speeches. Don’t like that host. Don’t like not having a host. The ceremony is too long. They shouldn’t have cut off the speech from THAT person… The Academy Awards seems like a microcosm of our American politics. No one likes the process or the outcome, except for the ones we agree with.

Thoroughly NonAmerican and Violent

In the interests of full disclosure, I did not see Parasite, which won Best Picture. It also won Best International Film (note the change in language from the old “Best Foreign Film”), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. This was the first time the Best International film also won this distinction and the first time the Best Picture was in a non-English language. Seems especially ironic in a country immersed in a war over whether to expel everyone not from ‘Murica.

Best Picture winner, Parasite, official photo from Madman Films.
Continue reading “No One Is Happy With the Oscars”

Fantasy and Reality: Oscars 2018

Fact vs. myth. Reality vs. fantasy. Vengeance or forgiveness. Sunny spring or snowy nor’easter. The first weekend in March is the time for the shiny node of Los Angeles to parade its sun and glitz to the world, a perfect contrast to the blizzards of the northeast and a stark reminder of the unreality of the movie world. It’s Uncle Oscar’s birthday!

That unreality was pushed even further by the triumph of this year– the Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. The win has prompted some heated debate in the household. We all liked the movie when we saw it, and my 20-year-old daughter was particularly delighted as she’s been a del Toro fan since Hellboy.  My wife said it really made her think about how they took the “fish out of water” idea and explored it from so many angles. But then, she wrote a short story called “Fish out of Water,” so I guess she oughta know.

Shape of Water, Oscar Best Picture, caricature drawing
Shape of Water cartoon courtesy of Los Angeles Magazine

Best Picture?

Despite what I am about to say, The Shape of Water is an excellent movie, interesting, sophisticated, innovative in its way, and worthy of an award. This award? Well, I don’t know. This is the second year in a row where a fantasy has been close to the top prize, and between La La Land and this movie, I am wondering if there’s a new category of adult fantasy that’s started some sort of trend. Continue reading “Fantasy and Reality: Oscars 2018”