I'm watching the Oscars tomorrow night. I know most of the people who are reading this are rolling their eyes, and I expect a few photoshops of me to immediately start floating around the web as a result. Perhaps I should hold a contest. The one of me as Elmer Fudd seems to appear occasionally, so perhaps that was the pinnacle.
In any case, my mom was a film buff, and turned me into an OLD film buff. I don't like modern movies all that much anymore. I think the last one that really entertained me was Tombstone. Other than that, when The Shawshank Redemption lost out to that vapid piece of crap Forrest Gump for Best Picture, that sort of spelled doom for AMPAS (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) as far as I was concerned. Having a best picture like American Beauty, another perverted piece of garbage, hasn't helped. However, I do believe that I have seen every Oscar broadcast since I was a kid in the fifties. I haven't missed one, which makes my wife roll her eyes at me and tell me that she'll see me in the morning.
Movies like Saving Private Ryan, The Shawshank Redemption, Apollo 13, Cinderella Man, etc., PROVE that quality movies without some perverted societal message or loaded with nothing but perversion or profanity can still be made. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen much these days. So why do I watch?
Well, I come from the days when the Oscars had some fake Indian ("Sacheen Littlefeather") come up and refuse Marlon Brando's Best Actor Oscar. When periodically someone like Vanessa Redgrave would get up there and make an ass of herself decrying "Zionists." I even remember the famous occurrence when streaking was all the rage in college, and a naked streaker raced across the stage behind actor David Niven, who, without missing a beat, wondered aloud why someone would want to show off "his shortcomings" on international television.
I am always hopeful that someone will once again make a fool of himself/herself on stage and give everyone something to chuckle about around the water cooler the next day. So that's probably the main reason I watch what has become an almost interminably boring program. I keep hoping for a return to former Oscar "glory," I guess. Why doesn't it happen?
Well, my opinion is that no one is really a BIG star these days. The ones who are left from the old days are rapidly dying off or are getting a bit long in the tooth for glamorous roles on the silver screen. One day we have someone everyone talks about -- the next day they're in rehab after throwing their poodle out the window on the freeway because someone made them mad in traffic and they were on a bunch of drugs taken with a water glass full of booze. And no one can remember who the hell they were two weeks later; for instance, who was that youngster who died of mixing drugs a week or so ago? The name meant absolutely nothing to me, but I DID see a few gasps for this unknown actor on various message boards. Wasn't like losing a Bogie, or a Gable, or a Jimmy Stewart, though, was it?
Don't get me wrong -- stars had lots of problems way back when. Bogart was always getting into squabbles, as was Frank Sinatra. Stars committed adultery as a matter of course. The difference? I dunno. Perhaps they could (or the studio execs could) manage to provide a buffer with which to smooth over the private lives of stars and keep their screen personae intact. Regardless -- if you ask anyone who their favorite STAR is these days, I'd be surprised if any standout names come up. They're here, and they're gone. The longest-running name I see for this year's Best Actor nominees is Daniel Day-Lewis, and that's really not all that long.
I will say, however, Halle Berry, a couple of years ago, almost fulfilled my expectations. She shouted away on stage as an apparently self-appointed representative of the black race in film, saying that blacks were finally getting a fair shake. This was from a girl whose black dad, when Halle was a child, ditched her WHITE mother and her, leaving Whitey to raise her on her own. I'll never figure out logic like this. I wonder if she ever remembered to thank her mother.
Oh well, in any case, I'll be watching on Sunday, February 24. With my fingers crossed. At least we can hope that the entertainment will be better than that shown by any of last year's movies.
Now in May, look for 65-year-old Harrison Ford to reprise his role as Indiana Jones. I'll be prepared to suspend disbelief for that one. As a 55-year-old, I want to think I can still do all the stuff that Indy does. Well, maybe not. But it's fun to think about.
Photoshop, anyone? One of me as Indy?
:)
Herp
