Oscars Archives - Page 4 of 9 - Ramblin' with Roger

That new Oscar awards plan is dumb; what IS “popular film”?

It’s a sloppy solution to a particular problem brought on by Hollywood losing its ability to make mass market films that are actually ‘good.’

Operation Red Sea It seems that half of the websites I read regularly have weighed in on how dumb the new Oscar awards are; see Ken Levine’s take, e.g.. As Dustbury put it, “This modifies the common complaint that “Hollywood is out of ideas”; it’s just that Hollywood is out of good ideas.

If you somehow missed it, W’s In & Out describes it: “The Motion Picture Association of America has announced plans to institute a new Oscar category for ‘Popular Film.’ The news was vague, with little insight into what it actually means, but the general thought is that it would be meant to honor big blockbuster franchise films and, theoretically, at least lure fans of those types of film into watching the broadcast.

“Never mind that the show is still one of the highest-rated broadcasts of the year and brought in 26.5 million viewers last year—the odd decision has been met with backlash, especially amongst people who view the broadcast because they love the pageantry and competition between actresses or those who, you know, consider film to be an actual art form and expect integrity from the medium’s most cherished prize. It’s a sloppy solution to a particular problem brought on by Hollywood losing its ability to make mass market films that are actually ‘good,’ and the changing landscape of live television.”

Which begs some other questions: “Popular Film” Oscars: What Movies Would Have Won Over the Past 20 Years? La La Land AND Moonlight fans both would have been happy a couple years back.

And, just out of idle curiosity, what HAVE been the most popular films in 2018? As of August 10, 2018 at noon EDT, according to Box Office Mojo, where I go for all my movie box office statistical needs (totals in millions):

1 Avengers: Infinity War (BV) $2,045.3 worldwide, $678.2 domestic (33.2%)
2 Black Panther (BV) $1,346.8 worldwide, $700.0 domestic (52.0%)
3 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Uni.) $1,264.5 worldwide, $407.3 domestic (32.2%)
4 Incredibles 2 (BV) $1,050.9 worldwide, $585.7 domestic (55.7%)
5 Deadpool 2 (Fox) $733.1 worldwide, $318.1 domestic (43.4%)

6 Ready Player One (WB) $582.0 worldwide, $137.0 (23.5%)
7 Operation Red Sea (WGUSA) $579.2 worldwide, $1.5 domestic (0.3%)
8 Detective Chinatown 2 (WB), $544.1 worldwide, $2.0 domestic (0.4%)
9 Ant-Man and the Wasp (BV) $430.1 worldwide, $198.7 domestic 46.2%
10 Rampage (2018) (WB) $426.2 worldwide, $99.3 domestic (23.3%)

I’m fascinated about items 7 and 8. Operation Red Sea (Chinese: 红海行动) is a 2018 Chinese action war film. Detective Chinatown 2 (Chinese: 唐人街探案 2) is a 2018 Chinese comedy-mystery buddy film. For the 25th Beijing College Student Film Festival, ORS won Best Film, and DC2 snagged Students’ Choice Award for Favorite Film.

There’s no guarantee Black Panther will win, if that’s the patronizing plan. Maybe it’ll be the sixth Mission: Impossible -Fallout, which is 13th on the box office list AND has a 97% positive ranking at Rotten Tomatoes. Or Operation Red Sea, or Deadpool 2. This new Oscar awards plan has been almost universally panned and I hope it is axed.

Actress Kathy Bates turns 70

Kathy Bates took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980’s ‘Goodbye Fidel.’

Though Kathy Bates had been working regularly on film since at least 1977, and I undoubtedly had seen her in some of those shows and movies, the first place I really recognized her was in the 1990 movie Misery.

“I’m your biggest fan” undoubtedly affected readers of the Stephen King novel, but to see her Annie Wilkes interact with Paul Sheldon (James Caan)… let’s put it this way; I haven’t seen that movie since I viewed in the cinema, and it STILL makes me shudder. She captured the Best Actress Oscar and a Golden Globe.

My favorite scene of hers, though, was in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), the bit in a parking lot here or here, when Evelyn Couch got tired of being treated like an old davenport. The vicarious pleasure I felt was surprisingly strong.

From IMBD: “Kathleen Doyle Bates was… raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls… One of her ancestors, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans, once served as President Andrew Jackson’s doctor.

“By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kathy was treading the boards frequently as a rising young actress of the New York and regional theater scene… She took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980’s ‘Goodbye Fidel,’ which lasted only six performances. She then went directly into replacement mode when she joined the cast of the already-established and highly successful ‘Fifth of July’ in 1981.

I have enjoyed her work in several other TV shows and films, including:

* a prostitute in Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog (1991)
* the unsinkable Molly Brown in Titanic (1997)
* the villainous Miss Hannigan in a Disney version of Annie (1999)
* quirky, liberal mom Roberta Hertzel in About Schmidt (2002), for which she received a Best
Supporting Actress nomination
* well-to-do Jo Bennett in the latter stages of the US version of The Office (2010-2011)
* Gertrude Stein in Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, 2011)

Kathy Bates turns 70 on June 28, 2018, and by the look of her upcoming credits does not appear to be retiring any time soon, despite living with lymphedema. She has been the national spokesperson for the Lymphatic Education & Research Network.

March rambling #2: librocubicularist

They don’t think capitalism will exist by then

The invasion of Iraq more than a US “blunder,” or “colossal mistake;” it was a crime

The Return of the Chicken Hawks

John Bolton Paid Cambridge Analytica $1.2 Million to Make Americans ‘More Militaristic’

Scientific American: Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?

Give Teachers Guns, And More Black Children Will Die

How baby-toting, robed-and-hooded moms paved the way for today’s white hate groups

Surveillance footage shows the Las Vegas gunman’s methodical steps in the days just before the massacre

Obamas to Parkland students: “You’ve helped awaken the conscience of the nation”

I Tried to Befriend Nikolas Cruz; he Still Killed My Friends

Don Blankenship, the worst man in America, is running for Senate

“Death Penalty for Drug Dealers” Proposal Reeks of Eugenics

Non-disclosure agreements for White House staff? Not so fast

Why the Stormy Daniels story matters – it’s not about sex, it’s about the abuse of power

Austin Goolsbee says the tariffs are like his Aunt Trina’s lasagna

After the Storm – post-hurricanes Irma and Maria in the U.S. Virgin Islands last fall, some people showed up and stayed

New York City exporting homeless families to other parts of the state, including my hometown of Binghamton

Some millennials aren’t saving for retirement because they don’t think capitalism will exist by then

Living like I’m dying

NY Mets hitter Rusty Staub dies at 73

Kimmel Produces PSA For Melania’s ‘Cyberbullying’ Campaign

How to Decipher a Sarah Huckabee Sanders Press Conference

Librocubicularist (noun; plural: librocubicularists) (rare) A person who reads in bed

Bill Messner-Loebs, comic book artist worked on Wonder Woman and Thor, now homeless

Every Wes Anderson Movie, Ranked Worst to Best

Lois Weber, early 20th-century filmmaker

Sophia Jex-Blake, part of the Edinburgh Seven who campaigned for the right of women to study medicine

Steven Spielberg Doesn’t Think Netflix Movies Should Qualify for Oscars

Now I Know: How Chairman Mao Turned Freedom into Oppression and How Hitchcock Kept Psycho a Secret and How a Nearly-Perfect Crime Became Perfect Again and When the Driver Walks Away and Why Tennis Balls Are Yellow and Why You Shouldn’t Eat Those “Do Not Eat” Packets

Lois Lane, The Pulitzer Committee Wants Their Prizes Back

A video essay about cartoon sound effects

“73 Questions” video – Christine Pedi as Liza

MUSIC

Three Manhattan Bridges, for Piano and Orchestra: I. George Washington Bridge – Michael Torke, composer; Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, conductor; Joyce Yang – piano; Torke, Miller, Yang discuss the work

Pluto – King of the Underworld (Hades) – Taimane

Chicken Shack Boogie – Amos Milburn

Snake Farm – Ray Wylie Hubbard

Hendrix doing Hendrix on an acoustic guitar

5 O’Clock World – the Vogues, with more of their songs

Long Time Gone -Tom Jones & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Coverville 1210: Aerosmith Cover Story II

WKRP in Cincinnati new home recordings and end theme lyrics

TV Theme Song medley – Jimmy Fallon & Will Smith

Stream a 346-Hour Chronological Playlist of Live Grateful Dead Performances (1966-1995)

DJT and I have the same favorite song

The curiously elusive date of Bach’s birthday

Oscar nominated short films for 2017: animated

I got the sense that Negative Space was a really personal story for the creator.

Presidents Day means that the family goes to the cinema, as usual to the Spectrum Theatre, its parking lot full. We saw the five Academy Award nominees in the category of Best Animated Short, plus three others.

Dear Basketball (USA, 6 minutes), narrator/writer Kobe Bryant describes achieving his dream and then needing to walk away. I liked the pencil drawings; the guy behind me clearly LOVED them. This has no chance of winning after Kobe’s sexual assault charges some years ago.

Garden Party (France, 7 minutes) – when the humans are away, the amphibians will play all over the house. the animation here was so realistic that one could be forgiven for thinking it was live action. The ending was a surprise, though the clues were there. If the best-looking film were the sole criterion, this would be the winner.

LOU (USA, 7 minutes) – a toy-stealing bully wrecks recess until he’s thwarted by a “Lost and Found” box. This opened for the Pixar movie Cars 3 in theaters, and is of the usual quality of the studio.

Negative Space (France, 5 minutes) – a boy is able to connect with his oft-away dad because dad taught him how to pack a suitcase. I got the sense that this was a really personal story for the creator. My pick to win.

Revolting Rhymes, Part One (UK, 30 minutes), Roald Dahl’s retellings of classic fairy tales (Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Three Pigs) with lots of twists. I enjoyed it a lot. I need to somehow see Part Two. Or does it really end like that?

As is usually the case, there were bonus shorts, ones that didn’t get nominated but were considered.

Weeds (USA, 3 minutes) – on the face of it, the story of a dandelion, stuck on the wrong side of the driveway, where there’s water on the other side. On another level – and my wife really picked up on this – it’s about the “struggle and distance someone may have to travel–against all odds–to find a better life.”

Lost Property Office (Australia, 10 minutes) – no one wants the stuff they’ve lost on the train. Will the powers that be want the guy in charge of tracking those items? The sepia monochrome gives the impression of a less than ideal ending, but it finishes with whimsy.

Achoo! (France, 7 minutes) – The tiny Chinese dragon, suffering from a cold, seems outmatched by two others, who are cocky and a bit mean. Can our bumbling hero put on the best show using his incendiary powers?

Movie review: I, Tonya [as in Harding]

We thought that Margot Robbie captured the essence of Tonya Harding,

Some movies are more difficult to review than others, and I, Tonya is one of them. On one hand, it is a humorous film, making good use of the of the fourth wall to tell a story, or stories – it embraces its differing points of view – about what is referred to as The Incident, the injuring of skater Nancy Kerrigan by people around Tonya Harding.

On the other hand, it’s a lot about the abuse Tonya (Oscar-nominee Margo Robbie) withstands, first at the hands of her never satisfied mother LaVona Fay Golden (probable Oscar winner Alison Janney), then by her husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) in their odd love/hate relationship.

As someone who watched a LOT more figure skating in the day than he really cared about, I know it was also about how the girl from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks in Portland, OR never having the right “look”. Her skating was athletic – she was the first American woman to complete a triple axel in competition – but she lacked the grace, the elan that the skating community wanted to show.

I asked my local expert, my wife, what she thought of Robbie’s portrayal of Harding. She thought, and I concurred, that she captured the essence of Tonya, though she wasn’t as sinewy as the skater. We agreed, though, that the folks playing Tonya’s mom and husband, and especially Gilhooey’s lunkhead friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser), were spot on.

I continue to be amused by the fact that some people get up from the theater as soon as the credits begin rolling, even when those credits are paired with clips of the real people – Tonya, Jeff, LaVona, Shawn. Shawn really DID think he was a world-class international spy.

I liked the film because Tonya eventually overcame what was essentially a rigged system to become one of the best skaters in the world. She was turned into a national joke – the film Tonya points to a real David Letterman Top Ten – because of a ridiculous and ineptly executed plan not of her design. She was banned from participating in the only thing to do what she knew how to do, yet she survived.

I, Tonya speaks of the curse of celebrity, with the swarm of reporters camped outside her door for a time. A television infotainment reporter (Bobby Cannavale) admits how the medium sensationalized that narrative until the Next Big Thing came along.

And, as noted, I did love the storytelling device of the film. Tonya talks about all the specific difficult things she went through to train for the 1994 Olympics, and her coach Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) looks into the camera and says, “And she did!” I laughed aloud through much of the dark comedy.

My wife, who wanted to see the film more than I, enjoyed it less, because of all that Tonya went through, starting at age of four. Of course, we saw this at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.