Click images for desktop size: "Thunderbolts" by Marvel Comics Its Oscar night.
I liked it better when it was on Mondays. It was always a good and justified excuse for leaving work.
Even the cops looked the other way on Oscar night. If you weren't doing anything too dangerous you could get away with most anything.
The streets were deserted because everyone was someplace watching the Oscars.
In LA, even if you never had any plans to make a movie or to be a star, everyone ran their Oscar acceptance speech through their head.
Winning the Oscar was that one moment when you got even with the world. When anybody had ever rejected or neglected you had to stand up and see that you were the best, you had made it. You were something that they would never be.
If living well is the best revenge then the Oscar was the same dish with pesto and chili sauce. Who didn't want to stand up there before the entire world.
Marlon Brando and George C Scott for two.
Scott, when he won for "Patton", was making a stand to stop the silly competition between actors. His powerful message was defused when Goldie Hawn made the announcement with a giggling "Oh my god!"
Brando was trying to make a political statement about Indian Rights when he sent Sacheen Little Feather up to refuse his Oscar for "The Godfather". His message got undercut when Little Feather appeared nude in Oui magazine. Oui was sort of a raunchy sequel to Playboy.
Hollywood seduces. Beauty, money and fame are powerful things. I grew up in them and didn't even realize that they existed until I wasn't there. They never went any place.
There's no particular artistic inspiration to be found in a lust for wealth power and fame.
Jimmy Pickering accepted his Oscar for best animated short subject wearing a tux with a wildly spinning bow tie.
James Cameron knew what it was like to be god.

Click images for desktop size: "Transferring The Bear Knife" by Unknown Peter Jackson continued his quest to be the man you'd least like to sit next to you on a subway. Which is a different kind of power and arrogance we've all seen before.
The Oscars seem to be less and less meaningful.
They were always about money and fame but now it looks like they're only about money and fame.
Who can forget Slim Pickens killing his chances for an Oscar and nearly wrecking his career by shamelessly begging for the recognition. Now a days that sort of pandering is de rigeur, which doesn't mean much except the talent is no longer there.
I worked in the tech end of movies. I used to feel smug because I always felt that on the tech and the writing end of things no one could touch the Hollywood product. No matter what committee tried to ruin a movie the sheer talent would win out in the end.
Now the Asians with fewer resources have taken more and more of that away from us. Their tech stuff is blowing things away and redefining State Of The Art.
The South Koreans have even co-opted the Hollywood staple: The Magic Of Sheer Entertainment.
A ludicrously minor film like "Highway Star" brings in the music and the heavyweight actors to make a light souffle that leaves you with nothing but smiles and the feeling of being entertained.
There's nothing wrong with entertaining people and taking them outside the world they live in for 90 minutes. It used to be our greatest strength. You're not ignoring the world when you make this kind of movie. You're expanding it to fill up the voids and the empty spaces with some light that lets people see their fellows with compassion and a glimmer of understanding. When an actor exposes a bit of the character's soul in a way that leaves you smiling it enables us to see that bit of soul in each other. That's always a special thing.
When did I become so strident?
Anyway, now you can place bets on the Oscars. They give odds.
Since there's no football to pick you have to put up with my incredibly fallible Oscar picks. I'm doing the Best Pictures but the only Awards I care about are the tech ones . . .

"Atonement" - The safest thing to write about is childhood. Lee Harper pulled it off with skill and by putting in the greatest drama that Americans can witness, a racist murder trial. John Knowles and J.D. Salinger both attempted it and had some success. ("A Separate Peace" and "Catcher In The Rye" respectively) "Atonement" is a catholic guilt trip. Its set in the 30's but uses that as an excuse to "purdy" up and hide the emotional flaws. I thought it was hackneyed and cliched.
When Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature for his book "A Fable" it was pointed out that the plot was the same as "All The Kings Men". Faulkner's response was something like, "A plagiarist steals, the great artist steals but then makes it his own." The guys making "Atonement" are not great artists.


Click images for desktop size: "Marvel Heroes" by Marvel Comics "Juno" - When I saw this film I thought it was okay. Nothing more. I thought it was one of the better teen comedies, right up there with "Chicken Chronicles". That its cheap cardboard characters and poorly realized and blatantly false issues revolving around teen pregnancy should be considered Oscar worthy is the curse of the Baby Boomers and the nasty influence they've had on the world. (A lot of that venom is from having to always do Beatle's covers at gigs). This movie offers nothing and smacks of trying to show todays kids that Hollywood is still "hep".

"Michael Clayton" - This is one of those movies that's been made for no other reason than to win Oscars. Its directed by Sydney Pollack ("Tootsie", "Out Of Africa") a guy who can make the most intense moments go through you like spoiled chicken marinated in bad soy sauce. No matter how important the situation in life he can make it appear trivial and not get in the way of the stars. This is the film I'd pick as the possible winner.

"No Country For Old Men" - When the Coen Brothers made "Blood Simple" the casting director told me that these guys were going to be a force in Hollywood. He was right. This movie is mildly entertaining. It tries to hide its exploitation movie roots by giving us a totally downer of an ending. This was an old trick by the guys who couldn't grasp Wittgenstein or existentialism. If everybody dies it means that everything that happened before must have significance. Right?
Its not a bad movie but its got a long way to go before you could imagine this as great.

"There Will Be Blood" - I love lurid title! I found this movie to be a turgid exercise in over indulgence and lack of control. A real turgid mess about money. It took me 6 attempts to sit through it. And I could barely remember what happened before. It drips phony significance from every frame. The actors are out of control and the director's main task was to keep them from stepping on each others lines. It also offers up smacked around kids. All of this adds up to Oscar dynamite! Art is like medicine that is good for you. My pick to win cause its the movie I liked least that will be forgotten soonest.