Oscar, Oscar, Oscar...

Okay, now read that title the way Tony Randall would (in "The Odd Couple") and you have a close approximation of my attitude towards this year's..."contest." That would be a kind of sad, pitying condescendence. I can take that attitude--this year, I don't have any live television to watch the thing (though I suspect that, like last year with Jon Stewart, the show will be a cut above being hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and all--I hope she doesn't dance to "Proud Mary" with Snow White!), so I'll take the snooty approach and say that "it's not a good year."

It actually is. The nominees for Best Picture are a mixed bag: although I didn't like "The Departed" and didn't think "Little Miss Sunshine" deserved a nomination, there's not a real "dog" in the bunch (I say this not having seen "Babel," just going on Jon's assessment). There's also no clear favorite to win. I'd like to see either "The Queen" or "Letters from Iwo Jima" win, even though I'd have preferred to see Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" be the nominee. It will probably be "Babel." Mirren will take Best Actress. Whitaker will take Best Actor (though I'd love to see O'Toole win--finally). Eddie Murphy will take Best Supporting Actor (although--I know--Mark Wahlberg was the stand-out in a great cast at the top of their games in "The Departed") and Jennifer Hudson will take Best Supporting Actress: both Murphy and Hudson for "Dreamgirls"--haven't seen it, but the awards have something to do with dues-paying. Which brings us to Martin Scorsese, who will win Best Director, even though he wasn't this year. That would be Eastwood, or Greengrass, or any of a number of Spanish directors. It'll be a Compensation Award, like James Stewart winning for "The Philadelphia Story," as opposed to "Mr. Smith..." Scorsese should have won for "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas" or "Taxi Driver" or "Kundun" or "Gangs of New York" or "The Age of Innocence," all very personal masterpieces as opposed to recent showy exercises like "The Aviator" or..."The Departed." Still it's nice that they were able to make room for him this year. He has long deserved it. So has Ennio Morricone, who will get the Lifetime Achievement Award. It doesn't matter what kind of "movie-fan" you are, you've heard a great Morricone score: if you're a snooty film-fan, then he did "Cinema Paradiso" and "The Mission;" action-fans know him for the Leone spaghetti westerns and "The Untouchables;" Sci-Fi fans for "Mission to Mars" and "The Thing;" He does it all, and he does it like no one else. Bravo.

But, having said all that, there's no real reason to watch, and I can't get too exercised about it. The show is at its best when its at its worst. When somebody decides to get all-political, when Cher's costumer goes on a bender (when anybody goes on a bender), when the claws come out. Now, that's an Oscar show! Lately it's all been a little safe and frozen in gilded amber. So I guess my attitude would be "Meh." For a related article on that word, go here.
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The same story from another part of town. AARP magazine has its version of the Oscars only it's called the "Movies for Grownups" awards (for those 50 and older, and face it, you are heading there). Not a bad list, really. Their lists of nominations are quite excellent. Its top honors:
Best movie-"The Last King of Scotland"
Best Actress-Helen Mirren "The Queen"
Best Actor-Donald Sutherland "Aurora Borealis" (never heard of it!)
Best Director-Clint Eastwood The Iwo Jima movies
Best Screenwriter-William Broyles, Jr./Paul Haggis "Flags of Our Fathers"
Best Comedy "Little Miss Sunshine"
Best Foreign Language Film "The Lives of Others"
Best Documentary "51 Birch Street"
Breakaway Accomplishment-Terry Badshaw "Failure to Launch" (WTF?)
Best Intergenerational Movie "Akeelah and the Bee"
Best Grownup Love Story Tom Wilkinson/Blythe Danner "The Last Kiss"
Best Movie Time Capsule "Hollywoodland" (they liked the production design)
Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Be Grownups "Lassie" (with O'Toole and Pete Dinklage, it's worth a look)
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Okay, Okay. One more "Hollywood" post. One fellow who just recently died (and so won't be part of the "Obituary Montage" at the Oscars) is Peter Ellenshaw. In an industry now dominated by CGI for good or ill, Peter Ellenshaw created special effects in the simplest manner possible--he painted them. The more spectacular effects and panoramas in Disney's films in the late 50's-early 60's were due to Ellenshaw's matte paintings. You'd look at them up close and they'd just be daubs and globs of paint, but on a glass-field, photographed by a camera, they glowed with a magical hyper-reality that warmed the heart and "sold" the scene. He was a film-artist in every sense of the word. To read about Ellenshaw and to see more of his work, you can read tributes here and here, and here stands his official web-site. When you speak of Disney "Magic," he was one of the Walt's grand wizards.
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Man-oh-man, it is stormy out here today. Grey skies. White caps. Birds flying backwards. Even the eagles are a little panicky in their flight-paths. Now for future reference, if you ever visit the cabin and are confronted by the dog, bear this in mind: he was a cringing, shaking little ball of fur during the big wind gusts today. Scared-to-death. Big "mean" ol' dog. Nice act.

I think any love affair I might have had with the Island is over. I was over at Walaka's "Flapjack Friday" last night--I had a late start at the Ranch, I was hungry, I'd driven all damned day and I needed company-- at one point he mentioned that he'd applied to a teaching position on the Island and might move here. My reaction was so sharp it surprised even me "Why in the HELL would you do THAT?" Walaka was sitting casually, but that snapped his head back. "Full-time, tenured position?" "Oh, yeah, well, yeah, but if it was just one class of many..." A solid year of commuting on and off the Island has taken its toll: I now think it was a stupid thing to do, to move out here and work way over there. But it didn't simply occur to me--it lept out of my chest like that thing in "Alien." That's why I'm looking for work closer to home.
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I did have a nice time at Walaka's last night. Big crowd. Good eats. "Meh" movie. Good group of actors, some of whom were VERY into their parts and even little cameos by Tippi Hedren and Shirley Jones. Two women directed it but they apparently didn't have any qualms about exploiting Danica McKellar as a trampolining cheerleader (I guess as long as she's not nude, it's not exploitation, huh?) I suspect that this was a "deal" picture where everybody was represented by the same talent agency. I also suspect the film-makers are Kubrick-obsessed*. Half the dialog in the movie consists of "Open the door, Hal!" and at one point "the Kubrick box-set" is equated with Grandmother's sterling-silver candlesticks. Hmmm. Hmmm-sliding into "meh."

But it was good seeing everybody. Glad to see John, however briefly, and although I didn't meet O o-fficially, she acted like we had, which was gratifying. I've read so much of her, I feel like introductions might just be redundant at this point. Some passing swipes of conversation about Ken Nordine--one of my little pockets of "fun with audio" is his "Word-Jazz" concepts. He's an "aging hipster," to use Dr. Evil's phrase, but he's still fun and young at heart, and filled with good ideas. He is 87, and one has to use the phrase, "years young." May we all age so well and imperceptibly.
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Okay. Smokey just ran in and sat beside me, looking at the door. "You need to go out." I said to him. He looked at me and headed for the door. Has to pee! K was asleep (she's still sick!), but he knew what to do. I take back everything I said about him before. Smart dog. Knows just what to do.
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So, yeah, K's still sick. She overdoes the previous day, and, as a result, gets a little more bronchial the next. Got her more juices, more Nyquil, more Airborn, and made her some homemade soup (Oh, yeah, I'm a "miracle-worker" alright--she told me how to make it, and what she needed). It's worrying. Stay in bed longer next time...don't overdo, it doesn't work like that with this one. But she's eating more. That's a good sign.
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So, okay, that's a wrap. Print it. Let's go eat.



*Like I should talk. I've written about Kubrick here, here and here. And there's another in the works. Sheesh!