Oscars 2009

I had considered writing a little something about this years' Oscar crop, but I had neither the time nor finances to see all the nominated films, and felt underqualified. (Of the nominated films, I've seen only WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Slumdog Millionaire).

So I sat down to watch, thinking this thing would start at 8 p.m. with best supporting actress or some such award, but no, they have a red carpet special on ABC, this despite the fact that red carpet specials had been airing on at least two other channels (CNN, E!) prior to that.

For shits, let me discuss a few nagging issues.

The Oscars are to movie buffs - I consider myself to be a marginal one - what the Super Bowl is to hardcore NFL fans. Mainly: over-hyped, glitzy, and often wrong on the question of who is No. 1. And the sudden national attention that the Super Bowl brings is no different than Oscar season buzz - suddenly Slumdog and Mickey Rourke are on the tips of everyone's tongues. And (please excuse my hypocrisy) just as suddenly, every jackass who got high and watched Tropic Thunder thinks their opinion on who should win matters. (I haven't seen Tropic Thunder).

Despite all this, you'd be a fool to miss the Super Bowl if you love football, and the same goes for the Oscars and movie buffs, even if you don't like the teams that are playing. (For those interested, the red carpet special is the halftime show in my analogy, which is to say completely beside the point.)

A brief word on the movies I have seen, considering Slumdog is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture, and I've seen it, and didn't like it any better than, say, a colorful version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (or is that EM: Slum Edition?).

First though, The Dark Knight. I won't go into detail as to why this is a mediocre film with great moments. But if you rewatch it and don't find yourself wanting to fast forward to the parts with Heath Ledger's Joker, than I think your fanboy dues are fully paid.

I mean, really, that part where Gordon fakes his death? Completely unnecessary, needlessly confusing, and shockingly dumb. That part where the convict throws the detonator off the boat? I have to ask: Are you serious? What hurts is that The Dark Knight was so disconcertingly bad that I called into question director Christopher Nolan's skills. I started to think that maybe Memento actually sucked, and he just confused me into thinking it was good. And yet I still love Batman Begins. It stands on its own as an excellent film.

But Ledger still deserves the award for Best Supporting Actor, and would even if he were attending the ceremonies today. He made the movie worth seeing two or three times, even if you had to whip out your iPhone and play games during the boring, meaningless parts. That's why it made so much box office dinero.

Anyway, I've said too much already. What irks me is this backlash against the Academy for not nominating the damn thing. On CNN, they let morons with computers send in e-mails commenting on the nominations, and some fool said something to the effect of: Why do they overlook movies that are popular and make lots of money like TDK?

While able to operate a computer, this person must not have been alive for the 1998 awards, when the little art film Titanic (worldwide BO: $1.8 billion) took home 11 trophies. It beat out L.A. Confidential and Good Will Hunting for Best Picture, both of which were better films.

Moving on.

Slumdog Millionaire is everything that is wrong with movies and gets almost nothing right - until the very, very end.

For starters, it's a carbon copy of City of God, which didn't win an Oscar when it came out, presumably, because it's in Portuguese and the director was unknown at the time. The people behind Slumdog were smart enough to include English so that high-minded Westerners could "fall in love" with it.

And I'm not even all that mad that Slumdog, like City of God, makes poverty-stricken slums of the worst kind seem a little too beautiful and a little too much fun. Others have been critical for this reason, but I think because I liked City of God so much and I don't mind looking at beautifully shot film that I'll give it a pass.

City of God and Slumdog are set on opposite sides of the world, but they both take a look at slums in an episodic, time-jumping way, from the point-of-view of a good-natured guy from the bad part of town. But Slumdog is held back by an off-the-wall premise (or should I say, plot device). Seems the main character somehow gets on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire as a young man, and knows every answer because each question just so happens to correspond to a tragic/meaningful part of his life in the slums. That's highly convenient, but it could have been forgiven. But then it is revealed (SPOILER I think) that the host of the show has the boy tortured when they suspect him of cheating. They hook him up to a damn car battery!

What the fuck? I don't think that even in the worst of the worst areas that you can get away with fucking torturing contestants of syndicated game shows.

And to make matters worse, the whole movie isn't about winning the money, but about getting this boy back together with a girl he met in the slums. Two things ruin this hokey reunion. One: the relationship was never developed. There is not a scene in this movie where it is evident why these two love each other, other than that they found and lost each other a couple times when they were young, and both went through horrible tragedies. They don't hold one conversation as young adults that make these characters feel real and true. They are merely placeholders. This movie has been called romantic, but it only contains signifiers of romance: lusty staring, longing for one another, sparkles-in-the-eye. It has no actually romance, and shows no progress of love. Only this: Young, poor, together. Separated. Older, apart, incomplete. Reunited. And, I might add, (this is No. Two): They are both drop-dead gorgeous.

Now I'm not going to start discussing the merits of only including beautiful people in movies, because if you exclude beautiful people movies you've excluded just about all of them. But could these two stars, supposedly raised without parents in the slums in this film, be any hotter? He's a bit goofy, but you can tell it's only because he's young. She may be the hottest girl on the planet.

I could go on and on and on, counting the things wrong with this movie. It shouldn't even have been nominated in my view. (And it has been largely critically acclaimed, until some Oscar-season whisper-wars brought it down a few pegs.)

As stated earlier, they did do one thing right. The Bollywood-style dance number at the end could have lasted another 30 minutes and I would have enjoyed it. It made no sense, but still fit with the emotion of the movie more than the kid jumping in a steamy swamp of shit for an autograph.

I've already said too much, and have likely missed a few awards. No worries. All it means is that you'll be spared a long-winded argument for why WALL-E is the best film of the year, and I don't really want to do that anyway, because I haven't seen 'em all yet. (Although I'm not expecting Frost/Nixon or The Reader to best it, I'm curious about Revolutionary Road, Doubt and a few others.)

Any of you out there want to add your two cents? Did you like Slumdog, WALL-E, The Dark Knight any more or less than I did? Do the Oscars even matter anymore? Are you even watching them?