Monday, 25 February 2008 08:59 pm
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deckardcanineAn Esquire article that was linked from IMDb today begins with a gripe that the Academy Awards keep going to "feel-good blather and life-affirming gimps."
Now, I realize that the article was written before last night, but didn't author Mike D'Angelo know that No Country for Old Men was slated to win, with There Will Be Blood a likely second choice? Even if he didn't, someone should have pointed him to the previous three Best Pictures:
The Departed -- Produces a good deal of paranoia. The biggest relief is not in who dies so much as your realization afterward that your own life isn't like that.
Crash -- Produces a good deal of heartache, if you weren't one of those dissenters who thought the film corny. The ending is not primarily positive; rather, it projects a cyclical repetition of people not getting along at all.
Million Dollar Baby -- Who watches the last half-hour more than once?
If these films make me feel good, it's only in the sense that I'm glad to have seen them. And isn't that pretty much a prerequisite for wanting them awarded?
As for "life-affirming," that term is about as strange to me as "sexually active" is to Juno. What does it mean? Telling us that life exists and we are a part of it? If I needed that affirmed, I wouldn't look to movies for the answer; I'd do something active. Or does it mean telling us that life is worth living? If so, it's more or less redundant with "feel-good."
Admittedly, there have been many years in semi-recent memory -- and distant history, for that matter -- where the most coveted Oscar went to a happier movie over a seemingly better one. Examples should not be necessary. Still, D'Angelo's claim is about as timely in my mind as a claim that the Academy keeps picking hosts who will appeal to conservatives.
Now, I realize that the article was written before last night, but didn't author Mike D'Angelo know that No Country for Old Men was slated to win, with There Will Be Blood a likely second choice? Even if he didn't, someone should have pointed him to the previous three Best Pictures:
The Departed -- Produces a good deal of paranoia. The biggest relief is not in who dies so much as your realization afterward that your own life isn't like that.
Crash -- Produces a good deal of heartache, if you weren't one of those dissenters who thought the film corny. The ending is not primarily positive; rather, it projects a cyclical repetition of people not getting along at all.
Million Dollar Baby -- Who watches the last half-hour more than once?
If these films make me feel good, it's only in the sense that I'm glad to have seen them. And isn't that pretty much a prerequisite for wanting them awarded?
As for "life-affirming," that term is about as strange to me as "sexually active" is to Juno. What does it mean? Telling us that life exists and we are a part of it? If I needed that affirmed, I wouldn't look to movies for the answer; I'd do something active. Or does it mean telling us that life is worth living? If so, it's more or less redundant with "feel-good."
Admittedly, there have been many years in semi-recent memory -- and distant history, for that matter -- where the most coveted Oscar went to a happier movie over a seemingly better one. Examples should not be necessary. Still, D'Angelo's claim is about as timely in my mind as a claim that the Academy keeps picking hosts who will appeal to conservatives.
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As for "life-affirming," that term is about as strange to me as "sexually active" is to Juno. What does it mean? Telling us that life exists and we are a part of it? If I needed that affirmed, I wouldn't look to movies for the answer; I'd do something active. Or does it mean telling us that life is worth living? If so, it's more or less redundant with "feel-good."
Yeah, that's pretty well it; it defines a genre of movies that try to say that life is worth living. As opposed to, say, noir films, that say we're all evil and we're all screwed anyway, so who cares and why bother trying? As the saying goes, pessimists may be right more often, but optimists have more fun.
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