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Monday, 25 February 2008 08:59 pm
(no subject)
An 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.