Obligatory Post-Oscars Post

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man...."

Coming into the night, The Artist was the clear front-runner for Best Picture, presumably because Academy voters like to pat themselves on the back.  Wouldn't you know it, for the second year in a row, the Oscar went across the pond.  This time to the French.  My dad was none too pleased.

Francophilia aside, The Artist is basically just a love-letter to the very people who made it.  I'm not saying it's a boring film; I haven't even seen it yet, and I plan to do so once it's out on video.  But the fact that it's silent, or black and white, doesn't impress me, or change anything about the way the story is constructed: the principles of drama remain the same.

To homage silent film with the creation of a silent film is autofellatio.  That's bad enough, but to award Best Picture to such a film is to award the actual "performance."

Also: how the hell does a film win the top prize at both the Oscars and the Independent Spirit Awards?  Isn't one show supposed to showcase only the most independent films, and the other show the most studio-supported films?

This is why, I guess, I don't like the Oscars, even in the years that films like The Departed get Best Picture.  It's all one big horse and pony show.  Predicting the Oscars has become the work of algorithms.

Wait, wait, I'm not done with The Artist!

Again, I'm not saying it's a bad film.  I'm sure it's probably pretty good.  To rant about The Artist winning Best Picture is not to rant about The Artist.  But if that film won Best Picture for any reason other than it being silent, I'll eat my hat.

Look at this: the people who actually lived when silent films were being produced regularly acknowledge that it's not much of a feat to craft a well-told story that also happens to be silent.  Likewise, I've seen enough silent films in my day to know that their muted dialogue alone is nothing noteworthy.  It's not a limitation.  In fact, sometimes it's a boon.

But if the last film you saw was, say, Avatar, you'd probably be pretty goddamned impressed.

Woody Allen doesn't attend the Oscars, though it's not, strictly speaking, as I understand it, a boycott.  He doesn't seem to have anything against the Academy, he just finds art so subjective that awarding an objective measure of any particular film's quality is, at best, an empty gesture.  A crapshoot.  I'm inclined to agree.

Perhaps, as recompense for the unchecked freedom by which I bash the awards, I am now forever fated to decline attendance -- if in fact I ever get invited.

But it's still the biggest movie-themed party of the year, and even in context, good things come out of the Oscars, such as Meryl Streep's magnanimous joy upon taking the stage for her third Oscar (her first in thirty years).  Not gonna lie: if the French can steal Best Actor for pretending to be Americans, then I've got no problem with the Americans stealing Best Actress for pretending to be British.

Well, anyway, I swore I wouldn't watch this year's Oscars telecast, and of course, I did.  I'll probably do the same next year (unless The Dark Knight Rises gets a nomination for Best Picture).  I suppose I can't complain too much about a night of heaping laudatory praise upon the industry I desperately seek to join.

G-d, at least The Help didn't win.

--Serge

PS: Expect a Topical Tuesday post tomorrow, for, um... Wednesday.  "Wednesday Whatever?"  Idk.  It will either be about the latest beef I have with my local church, or a post on the planet's largest animal that ever lived.  No, it's not what you think.