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The studios hate the Oscars for a different reason than I do, yet I understand their plight...
It wasn’t so much about admiration for the picture itself, though there was plenty of that. Insiders read the snub more as a rejection by the academy, once comfortably regarded as an adjunct of the industry that created it, of what the inner circle does best: Build complex, monumental films that move millions.
But the academy gave no points for popularity. And the company folks noticed.
Maybe we should just split the annual "film awards". We can have one batch devoted to popular box-office hits, rewarding the especially stellar and accomplished among them. Media darlings and people who are famous for doing nothing can present. Fireworks and acrobats on stage, possibly animatronic elephants. Then we can have another batch devoted to movies that are actually good; not good-hearted, but well-made and well-acted and well-written even if no one sees them, with very little fanfare and no red carpet and no mush, for God's sake, no mush.
And if there must be awards given to feel-good movies that are not actually good in a merit sort of way, but aren't box-office smash-ups either, then they can have their own separate shindig. The Yay! Awards, or some such thing. Maybe the Academy can take over there, since they consider themselves the guardians of mass morality. They need to let go of the whole "artistic achievement" thing, though, cuz that is something they just don't do.
Carpetbagger (the NYTimes film awards moron) describes the Oscars as "a ceremony that can feel oddly reassuring in the face of difficult economic times." Yeah. Definitely the Yay! Awards.
A sad HAHAHAHA to the idea that Pete Carroll is a "specialist" at the University of Southern California, $4,415,714 salary aside. Specialist at what? Being a dick-face?
The idea of him teaching class reminds me of American Lit (Differentiated!) in tenth grade, which was taught by one of the football coaches. He was kind of a sad, stern guy. Never let the class sidetrack him into discussions about the team. He would just chuckle, all dark and grim like we're atheists in foxholes, and say, "Now, guys. What about Huckleberry Finn." Looked somewhat like Major West of 28 Days Later. He had a dogmatic approach to most of the books and was impatient with getting these points - which were above the heads of most of the students, but below mine (not to be too cocky about it, ha ha) - across when most of the class was like, "Catherine [of A Farewell to Arms] is like a Cadillac - she's easy". He liked me, though, gave me an A on everything and kept all my papers (even the horrendous Catch-22 in-class paper I wrote where my thesis was something like, Yossarian is a liberal - seriously, goes down in my memory as the worst thing I ever wrote). I feel like he was fond of The Grapes of Wrath - he seemed down with listening to Rage Against the Machine's "The Ghost of Tom Joad." So I guess it can be done.
Still. It's hard to imagine Pete Carroll teaching English.
Paul Wolfowitz is a raving lunatic and a piece of shit. "The reason the terrorists are successful in Indonesia is because the Suharto regime fell and the methods that were used to suppress them are gone." Can somebody staple his mouth shut, please?
Seriously, Wolfowitz, DIAF.
It wasn’t so much about admiration for the picture itself, though there was plenty of that. Insiders read the snub more as a rejection by the academy, once comfortably regarded as an adjunct of the industry that created it, of what the inner circle does best: Build complex, monumental films that move millions.
But the academy gave no points for popularity. And the company folks noticed.
As little as a year ago, the prestige that came with an Oscar contender could seem worth at least a small financial loss to studios that could always make up for it with their summer hits.
In tougher times, not so.
Maybe we should just split the annual "film awards". We can have one batch devoted to popular box-office hits, rewarding the especially stellar and accomplished among them. Media darlings and people who are famous for doing nothing can present. Fireworks and acrobats on stage, possibly animatronic elephants. Then we can have another batch devoted to movies that are actually good; not good-hearted, but well-made and well-acted and well-written even if no one sees them, with very little fanfare and no red carpet and no mush, for God's sake, no mush.
And if there must be awards given to feel-good movies that are not actually good in a merit sort of way, but aren't box-office smash-ups either, then they can have their own separate shindig. The Yay! Awards, or some such thing. Maybe the Academy can take over there, since they consider themselves the guardians of mass morality. They need to let go of the whole "artistic achievement" thing, though, cuz that is something they just don't do.
Carpetbagger (the NYTimes film awards moron) describes the Oscars as "a ceremony that can feel oddly reassuring in the face of difficult economic times." Yeah. Definitely the Yay! Awards.
---
A sad HAHAHAHA to the idea that Pete Carroll is a "specialist" at the University of Southern California, $4,415,714 salary aside. Specialist at what? Being a dick-face?
The idea of him teaching class reminds me of American Lit (Differentiated!) in tenth grade, which was taught by one of the football coaches. He was kind of a sad, stern guy. Never let the class sidetrack him into discussions about the team. He would just chuckle, all dark and grim like we're atheists in foxholes, and say, "Now, guys. What about Huckleberry Finn." Looked somewhat like Major West of 28 Days Later. He had a dogmatic approach to most of the books and was impatient with getting these points - which were above the heads of most of the students, but below mine (not to be too cocky about it, ha ha) - across when most of the class was like, "Catherine [of A Farewell to Arms] is like a Cadillac - she's easy". He liked me, though, gave me an A on everything and kept all my papers (even the horrendous Catch-22 in-class paper I wrote where my thesis was something like, Yossarian is a liberal - seriously, goes down in my memory as the worst thing I ever wrote). I feel like he was fond of The Grapes of Wrath - he seemed down with listening to Rage Against the Machine's "The Ghost of Tom Joad." So I guess it can be done.
Still. It's hard to imagine Pete Carroll teaching English.
---
Paul Wolfowitz is a raving lunatic and a piece of shit. "The reason the terrorists are successful in Indonesia is because the Suharto regime fell and the methods that were used to suppress them are gone." Can somebody staple his mouth shut, please?
Seriously, Wolfowitz, DIAF.
