My wife and I will be eagerly watching the Oscars Sunday night. No other annual televised non-sporting event means as much to either of us, and we’ll be watching the pre-and post-show activities as well.
On January 31, I posted my top ten films of the previous year. I hadn’t seen "Capote", "Walk the Line", or "Constant Gardener" at the time I wrote the list — I still haven’t seen "Gardener", but did catch the other two. (Well, most of "Capote". It was on the little screen on our flight to London two weeks ago, and I took a mini-snooze during part of it). "Capote" would make my top ten, but not the top half — and "Walk the Line" would be in the same general vicinity.
Here are my hopes and my predictions in each major category:
Best Supporting Actress: I both hope and predict an Oscar for Michelle Williams in "Brokeback Mountain." It was a crime that Maria Bello wasn’t nominated for "A History of Violence."
Best Supporting Actor: I hope for William Hurt for "A History of Violence", though his screen time was very small. I predict it will go to Paul Giamatti.
Best Director: I hope and predict Ang Lee for "Brokeback".
Best Original Screenplay: I’d love to see Noah Baumbach for "Squid and Whale" win, but it will go to Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco for "Crash."
Best Adapted Screenplay: I can’t root against "Brokeback Mountain", but might secretly hope for Josh Olson for "A History of Violence."
Best Actor: I’m hoping for Heath Ledger, and predict Joaquin Phoenix.
Best Actress: Just to be contrarian, I think it would be great fun if Judi Dench won here, but that won’t happen. If Reese Witherspoon doesn’t win, I’ll be floored.
Best Picture: I predict Brokeback, the best of the nominees. I don’t think the ultimately dull "Munich" deserved the nomination it got, and I would have substituted in "A History of Violence" or, perhaps, "Syriana."
And for what it’s worth, I have little time for the "red state" folks who accuse the Oscars of being "out of touch" for nominating serious films that have not been blockbuster hits. By that logic, Stephen King and Barbara Cartland should long ago have won Nobel Literature prizes, and Milli Vanilli should have won a Grammy. (Oh. Wait a minute…)
Pshaw. The Oscars are a mutal backpatting event and self-congratulatory political correctness-fest which long ago lost any relevance, and I would as soon spend the evening digging out an ingrown toenail as watch them; sonner, in fact, because it would at least be productive.
The best film is the one which sold the most tickets, the best actors and actresses and directors and such are the ones which command the most money and whom always have a job to do when the last one is finished. One might argue that the teeming masses are philistines unqualified to jusge such things, but I’d submit that a self-appointed elite intellegentsia is no better qualified in any respect.
In any event, a “best film” that nobody sees is no better than a “masterpiece” which can’t find a place to hang except in a cathouse toilet. There’s a reason why such soi disant “genius” is often undiscovered, and it often involves it being of about as much worth as a bag of sour owl crap.
If you like a film, or the subject matter, by all means, see it and make no apologies or explanations. But in the end, taste and trash are entirely subjective, and the most difinitive award being the dollar spent to see it.
But, then again, I’m a capitalist slob.
Gonz, I disagree. Not on political grounds, but on aesthetic ones. The philosophical discipline of aesthetics tells us that there is a difference between what we automatically like and what is, ultimately, superior. Just as morality is not based on what feels good, quality is not based on what is most pleasing.
My father — a trained philosopher and a solid amateur cellist — always says that Bach was the greatest composer, but Gluck is his own personal favorite. He can distinguish between "the best" and the "one I happen to like most". One of the functions of education is to help folks make that critical distinction.
Ah, Hugo, I’m much more of an aesthetic relativist; in that regard I tend towards empiricism: Does it send a thrill, a shiver up my spine? Handel - Wagner - Beethoven. I used to study what I should like, and after a while realized it bored me to tears. By such reckoning Lovecraft was a pulp hack, but he is the only writer of modern horror who has every been able to cause me to leave the light on when I fell asleep. There’s a lot to be said, I think, for listening to our atavistic selves. I learn more about myself finding out why I like what I like, than fretting about why I don’t like what others say I should.
Gonz, we’re a hoot. When it comes to religious morality, there you are arguing for the traditional teaching of Holy Mother Church while I argue for a very progressive theology; when it comes to aesthetics, you’re arguing for the ultimate validity of personal experience while I insist on certain timeless principles. Our contradictions, my brother, our contradictions!
Off to watch basketball.
We can agree on basketball. But what else can you expect from a seven foot man from Indiana?
On reflection, though, I guess I regard the material as transient, and the spiritual as eternal; I rather suspect you find it quite differently. From where I sit, reality is always filtered through the lens of subjective experience, as far as this world goes, no matter how hard we wish otherwise, we’re forever prisoners trapped within our own heads; hence St. Paul reminds us that we see through a glass, but darkly.
Gonz, the intellectual case for absolute aesthetic relativism isn’t really much more compelling than the case for absolute moral relativism. The difference is that pretending like the former is true is consistent with (and to some extent required by) a free society, whereas pretending like the latter is true is not. That’s a good recommendation for allowing people to make and see Rob Schneider movies, but to pretend that that actually means they are good is madness. Most fans of such movies seem pretty upfront about this.
Hugo, tough break. I was a Golden Bear in spirit last night, for strategic reasons (UW Pac-10 title hopes) and because I hate the freakin’ Bruins. I was so excited Cal forced the overtime, but alas…
Amen to that last part Hugo. I never get the raionale that most of us know, much less decide, what good art is. Seems obvious by our consumption habits we have, um, No Idea. Someone I know was actually trumping Wedding Crashers as the movie the Oscar candidates can’t contend with. This from a person who likely wouldn’t be caught dead with a Wedding Crashers ticket in his/her churchy little hand.
oh, and you are really missing out on the Constant Garderner. I would really like to read your response to that one.
I have both highbrow and lowbrow tastes, and I think I can tell the difference between liking something because it’s easy and fun and mindless and liking something because it is very well done and is beautiful or makes me think.
I’m with Gonz on this one: The Oscars to me are little more than a politically-driven, back-slapping, self-admiration clusterfuck of elitist Hollywood snobs. I say the movie that the most people enjoy is the best one, and as Gonz correctly asks (paraphrasing): If a so-called ‘great’ film isn’t seen by anyone, then it is really ‘great?’
Personally, I predict an all-out Brokeback Mountain fest, not because it’s necessarily the best film of ‘05 but because it’s the most PC. Which is why on Sunday night I’ll be digging out my ingrown toenails instead of watching the Oscars.
DJW, thanks for the commiseration. It was a tough loss. Erica, I will hunt down Constant Gardener on DVD very soon. That and “Hustle and Flow”, another film with several nominations that I haven’t seen…