The Oscars

I have no use for the Oscars.  I don't think they mean anything, or at least not anything that has to do with the quality of movies and the talents of the people involved with them.  And since I don't even care what gowns which women are wearing, who's there with whom, and what's behind Jennifer Garner's change of clapping pace and facial expression, there isn't much left for me.

I first decided the Oscars were meaningless, at least for the purpose I imagined them to have, when Jane Fonda won best actress for "The China Syndrome," which I happened to have seen that year.  She beat Bette Midler, who was unbelievable in "The Rose," which I also saw that year.  But Bette Midler was new, and Jane Fonda was established (Jane Fonda, of the Fonda Fondas?), and Bette Midler's character was a bad girl, and "the Academy" decided, for completely non art-related reasons, to honor Jane Fonda.  That was it for me.  I saw "The China Syndrome" once, when it came out.  I was not interested enough ever to see it again.  I've seen "The Rose" many times, I own it, I love it, and no actor/actress was ever better than Bette Midler.  Alan Bates was fantastic, too.

The fact is, I don't typically see movies that much.  I used to rent them sometimes, when you could do that, and if I find something intriguing at Goodwill, I buy it for $3.  But I'm not big on spending $10 or more (only $9 at O Cinema, me being old and all), plus parking, to see a movie I might well not like.

This past year was slightly different.  I didn't see many of the movies that got nominated for awards, but I saw some of them.  I saw "The Shape of Water," "Lady Bird," and "A Fantastic Woman."  I wanted to see "Three Billboards..." and the thing about Churchill, but I was just too busy.  Maybe some other time.

"The Shape of Water" was an excellent movie.  I really liked "Lady Bird," which was more quirky than great, until the last few seconds, when the lead character calls her mother on the phone from big, bad NYC.  That was not the way I wanted to see her evolve.  It killed the movie for me.  And "The Shape of Water" had a flaw in the plot, too.  How could the lead actress get into the special room where the beast/man was?  It was a high security room.  They wouldn't allow her access to clean the room alone, and certainly not to eat her lunch there.  Ridiculous.  But it was still a very well put-together movie.  Spectacularly acted, too.

So, was "The Shape of Water" the best movie this year?  How should I know?  I didn't see the rest of them.  It was good, though.  Better that "Lady Bird?"  Yeah, OK, better than "Lady Bird."

"A Fantastic Woman?"  "Best Foreign Film?"  Pu-lease.  It was an interesting premise, but the movie was very poorly constructed/directed and poorly acted.  What might have been an interesting punchline fell completely flat, because it wasn't developed properly.  The story-telling quickly became idiotic.  And the camera work was awful.  Although it's true I didn't see the others, so maybe it was better than they were.  If it was, they must have been pretty bad.  Do they have to nominate movies, etc, if they're all bad?  What is it, like grading on a curve, so someone, no matter how deficient, has to get an A, and someone, no matter how accomplished, has to fail?

Here's the thing about "A Fantastic Woman," though, at least this year.  The lead character was transsexual, and in real life, so is the actor/actress who played her.  And this is the year of hating men, who are sexual beasts and predators.  It's "MeToo," destroy someone first and ask questions later*, and it's a real lynch mob mentality.  So there was a huge sentimental and politically correct factor that operated in favor of "A Fantastic Woman," no matter how unworthy was the cinematographic effort.  Well, in my opinion it was unworthy.

So, no, I don't watch the Oscars.  I don't care about them.  And everything I hear, including this year, reinforces for me why I'm right not to care, and not to waste my time.


*I was a very big fan of John Oliver.  I watched his shows on youtube more or less faithfully.  That was until I saw his panel discussion which included Dustin Hoffman, who was in the midst of fending off accusations about himself as a former masher.  At least he was said to have engaged in some relaxed conversations with women with whom he worked.  Oliver said he simply had to raise this issue, even though it had nothing to do with the panel discussion, and he was tenacious with Hoffman.  Hoffman tried to deflect a bit, really mostly by asking Oliver if he believed everything that was said about Hoffman.  Yes, Oliver asserted, he did believe it all.  And he was willing to indict Hoffman on what rumors and allegations were coming through the grapevine.  No "process," and certainly no due process, necessary.  You couldn't describe a lynch mob mentality better than that.  So I have stopped watching John Oliver entirely.