Oh, stop the persecution of Oscars' prognosticators!
Uh-oh! Looks like the Film Snob Moonies have kidnapped Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood-Elsewhere.com and put a hex on him. Normally, he's gung-ho to start dishing the Oscar derby early, but he just issued a scary pronunciamento: "October and November should be set aside as ignore-the-Academy months." (READ MORE)
Secret note to Jeff: Film Snob Moonies are just like those zombies in "Night of the Living Dead." Sure, they're terrifying and can infect you, but they're not invincible. Nail 'em between the eyes, kiddo, and make a run for it!
"Fi-lm," as we all know and the snobs stress, is a two-syllable word for a rarified religion only understood by an anointed few. Film Snobs are the faith's high priests and they have two reasons to live: 1.) to worship movies like Mithra and 2.) to take all of the fun out of movies.
No one -- and that includes you, me and Jeff -- is permitted to smile or enjoy himself in church, do you understand? While High Mass is going on, any boy caught secretly checking his Blackberry to find out which ponies are leading the pack out at Belmont must be flogged. In order to save his mortal soul.
The tyranny of Film Snobs is the scourge of the movie biz. Always has been, especially among academics and critics who want to turn all discussion into a collegiate Henry James seminar, just to prove how smart they are, or else into a holy creed that they can dole out from mountaintops.
Actually, there are two kinds of Film Snobs. One group considers the Oscar a golden chalice, which they valiantly struggle to protect from infidels. The other snobs pooh-pooh the Oscar as a fake god, a mere gold-plated statuette, which it is, and thus a perfect metaphor for Hollywood.
Both groups share the same view of what should be done about Oscar nominations: delay attention to them until the last possible moment because they're either too holy or too ridiculous. Take your pick. Just, please, look the other way!
Oh, come on! We're talking about "Gladiator," "Chicago" and "Titanic"! Sure, the occasional "Volver" and "Vera Drake" sneaks into consideration, too, and may demand some genuflection, but that's that.
What's wrong with Oscar noodling as early as possible? It promotes exactly what we should all celebrate: a keen interest in defining and tracking the best of movies.
People who track the derby ask important questions: Is this movie really one of the best of the year? What makes it great? If I don't think it's so terrific, and others do, what am I missing? Should I see it again?
And, most important of all, what defines a movie as one of the five best of the year, according to this group — academy members, let's say — or that group — voters of the Golden Globes or L.A. Film Critics Association? The groups frequently pick different movies. What are they looking for? And, if we can figure it out, what will they probably hail among the new movies breaking out right now?
Why not have fun applying what you learn each year? Why are scowling nuns with hard, wooden rulers still in charge in this modern MTV world?
There is no such thing as a best picture of the year, after all. Over the past 40 years -- ever since the creation of awards by the National Society of Film Critics and the L.A. Film Critics Association to rival to rival the Oscars, National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle -- only once has there been a consensus among all Hollywood awards that, yes, this one film is the best of the year. Only once.
Do you know what movie that was? "Schindler's List." It's the only pic to win the top award from every Hollywood group -- the Oscars, Globes, guilds, critics' groups. However, just when everyone in Tinsel Town agreed on a best picture, the rest of America disagreed. That same year the People's Choice Award went to a different Steven Spielberg movie, "Jurassic Park." Back in 1993 that award was still decided by a Gallup Poll (today winners are chosen by unscientific Internet voting), so results were a fairly accurate reflection of what average Americans thought.
So, if a best picture doesn't really exist, what harm is there in wondering about it months, a year or even years ahead of time?
None, of course. In fact, it's lots of fun and promotes a positive public discussion of film greatness. Without it, the media and industry titans would be doing more of what they do too often now: measuring the success of movies by how much money they earn.
What's worse? Weighing movies according to real gold (b.o. money) or fake gold (Oscars)? And why do you care so much?
If you're a Film Snob Moonie, I think I know the answer. The reason you don't want us to pay too much attention to what Oscar voters or Golden Globe voters think is because you want us to care what YOU think when you pass out stone tablets from your blog or in between pages of your obscure magazine or downtown newspaper.
If Jeff Wells paid any attention to your silly dogma a year ago, he wouldn't have been one of the key leaders of one the most important internet discussions about film in 2006. A year ago this week -- actually, on Sept. 26 -- "The Departed" was released to theaters and Jeff wondered out loud if, egad, this big, shoot-'em-up movie could really be Oscar's next best picture.
Maybe, he thought at first — then, wait a minute, naw, they wouldn't because they've never done it before! Meantime, his readers piped in with hundreds of intriguing comments and Jeff traded dish with other web bloggers like me and the cross-chat we all had was fascinating and even important.
One last note to Jeff: If you stand by the idea of not discussing Oscars until December of this year, do you realize what you may be giving up? Why? Because your Moonie slavemasters want you to?
You're a cinephile. You've seen George Romero's 1968 classic. You know what you have to do to be set free.
Godspeed, fellow Oscar seer! Now gooooooooooo!
LOL! Very funny stuff... I wish I could get that image as a wall poster! :)
Posted by: Edward Douglas | October 01, 2007 at 05:31 AM
Tom, you know he's right. You, as a top Oscars guru that many people pay attention to, hold in your hands the ability to shape the Oscar derby in small but meaningful ways. When people with as much importance in the awards derby as you, Sasha Stone, Jeff Wells and others (but you possibly most of all), push with enough gusto for the films that *they* think deserve awards recognition, those efforts make a legitimate mark in the race. By "thinking as an AMPAS voter thinks", you are simply ensuring that those ways of thinking will never change.
Posted by: Slayton | September 30, 2007 at 09:56 PM