Let's Talk with Oscar

In less than a week, we will have crowned the new Best Actor and Best Actress in the world; the best Director; the best film; the best supporting Actor and Actress; the best original score: the best performance by a Seat Filler; best animated feature; best animated supporting caterer; best adaptation of an embarrassing question posed by somebody from Access Hollywood; the best  swath of red carpet; the best dressed; the best original sound mix of an original visual effect; the best presenter; the best  everything… all of it, of course, a matter of opinion.  And, of votes.  5800 of them, to be precise. 

Almost every year, I tell myself I am not going to watch the award shows that span over the course of the brutally cold and rainy winter season in Los Angeles.

I watched The Grammys last week only for Radiohead and U2; more the former than the latter.  And, I have to admit, I have fallen prey to Beyonce’s irritatingly catchy “All the Single Ladies”.  My wife does an adorable rendition of this song in our small apartment, which adds to why I am fond of the song.   But, that’s neither here nor there.  We only have four basic channels on the television, so we couldn’t tune into the SAG Awards last month.  I don’t even remember The Golden Globes.  But, the big one is around the corner.  The Academy Awards.  The Oscars.  By the way, do you know where “Oscar” came from.

The "Oscars®" are officially known as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards®. They were inaugurated in 1928 as part of Hollywood's drive to improve its less-than-respectable image. Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick remarked that the statuette looked like her uncle Oscar, and the nickname has stuck ever since.

Membership in the Academy is by invitation only, with members divided into 13 branches. Each branch selects up to five nominees for awards in its area of expertise; the entire membership makes "Best Film" nominations and then votes on all the categories. Major awards are: Best Director, Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress.

The first ceremony was the only Academy Awards® which was not broadcast in some way. It was attended by 250 people and held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Today, no tickets are available for public sale and attendence at the event is strictly by invitation only. The tradition of the Academy Awards® dates back nearly 80 years, when the first "talkie" debuted in 1927 called The Jazz Singer.

Since then, the Academy Awards® have been held at Graumen's Chinese Theater(1928-1946), the Shrine Civic Auditorium (1947-1948), Melrose Avenue Theater (1949), RKO Pantages Theatre (1950-1960), Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (1961-1968), and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (1969-1987). For two dozen years the event was shuttled between venues until 2002, where it has settled once again between the Kodak Theater and the Highland Center® in Hollywood.

www.history.com

I love how they misspelled “attendance” on their website.   See, nobody is perfect.

Anyway,  I am one part cynic and two part optimist and I find this “formula” most evident during award shows.  I have no idea what the “percentages” are, but my guess that there is a large percentage of  ulterior motivation at play in selecting what “the best” of anything is.  We are leaving our hard-earned money doled out at the box offices across the nation, personal aesthetic, subjective artistic integrity and a host of other factors that would otherwise determine the best to only 5800 Academy Members.   The cynic arrives when I think about the millions of dollars spent on marketing campaigns, screeners, advertisements, etc.   The cynic within bullies me mercilessly when I reflect upon the tremendous amount of politicking that tells us, “the American people”, what the best of anything is…

The cynic in me rears its ugly head during the pre-award show where somebody as annoying and inelegant as Joan Rivers puts all the concern on who is wearing what.  It is not a fashion show.  It is a show, I thought, celebrating excellence in the cinematic arts.  Granted, one must wear clothing to such an event, but when businessmen or lawyers get together to stroke each other in front of their peers, do we care what they are wearing?  You see, the whole “clothing thing” reveals how very influential Hollywood is to Joe the Plumber, or, more importantly, Joe the Plumber’s wife.  Award pre-shows are the finest in reality television, because it is highly produced and is set upon telling the less glamorous population how they can be glamorous if either they could make enough money to buy the real gown Nicole Kidman wore, or, in some entertainment show days after the awards, “experts” will tell you how to buy a facsimile of the dress so you can be Beverly Hills glamorous at Target prices.  Why is so much emphasis put on what we wear and how we look?  To the average American, we are convinced that actors roll off the set from a 15-hour work day looking perfect and put together.  They just show up casually to present or accept or win or lose an award and go back to set for another intensely easy and glamorous shoot day.  The dark underbelly reveals the reality my cynical self has been telling me all along – this is a business.  Sex sells as do the dresses that contain it.  This, of course, fuels the already deeply deranged egos that are influencing our culture.  More on this, in a bit.

Now, this year, I was impressed with the movies and know “Slumdog Millionaire” will take Best Picture and its director, Danny Boyle, will take Best Director.  Fantastic.  They deserve it.  It was the only film I saw last year that I didn’t know a single soul on screen.  I didn’t know their names, where they lived, who they were wearing, who they adopted, who they married or recently divorced, where they ate dinner or what politician they support.  I didn’t know any of this and it was glorious.  What made that film transcendent for me was that I was able to get immersed in sheer, audacious and wonderful storytelling.  It was a filmic triumph because it was film is supposed to be about – sweeping photography, simple and passionate story lines, terrific performances and the rare chance to escape to another world, another place and time.  

What I wait on when the envelope is opened and the winner announced is to see if and how the best expresses gratitude for standing before his/her peers.  There is always someone to thank and only so little time to do it.  Acceptance speeches range from heart-warming and sincere to awkward and pretentious and everything in between.  At the end of the day, no matter who you are or how much of a fee you command, you wouldn’t be standing on stage holding a gold statuette without a myriad of people who support you directly or otherwise.  No award-winner is an island.  No winner wins without a team of people protecting, advising, nurturing, inspiring and just plain helping.  So, that is my favorite part of award shows – to see who gets thanked and in what manner.  Everyone’s speech is different, but the ones that deeply impact me most are the ones who are brave enough to exhibit humility, wit and brevity.

Being celebrated for being “the best” in anything is a big deal, but it’s not big enough deal for the grossly disproportionate egos and attitudes that often accompany the moniker.   I would love to see an awards show that celebrated the best discoveries for the cures to cancer, AIDS, Lupus, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, poverty etc.  Can you imagine all the doctors in one room who got together  for dinner, drinks and to celebrate how they made a difference in the world by curing diseases or at least, making breakthroughs toward the cures?   I think it’s important for Hollywood to get a grip on what they are really doing and what they are really winning awards for.  I am not knocking it because I’ll be the first to write my speech moments after being nominated for something.  

Although, one could argue, Hollywood and those brave independent rogues carving their own creative paths, may hold a cure themselves, if not a temporary one.  It’s not a real cure, of course; but a pretend one that can last for a few hours in a dark, mesmerized theatre.  By truthfully and authentically exploring the breadth of our humanity, with tears or laughter or both, there can be good reason to tune in this Sunday evening with friends, family and loved ones…  showing gratitude for the good fortune of being awarded for a role may turn out to be more transcendent than the role itself…

Here is a partial list of nominations by category from:

http://a.oscar.go.com/media/2009/html/print09.html?v2

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

- NOMINATIONS BY CATEGORY - 81ST AWARDS -

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Best animated feature film of the year

Michael Albanese is a playwright, screenwriter and part-time poet. A recent transplant to Los Angeles from New York, he loves, in no particular order, all things Italian, art, films, music, theatre, food, wine, etc.  He drinks a lot of coffee and knows just enough about sports to get by.  He has vast experience in the hospitality and service industries and at one point in life, wanted to be a dentist.  He lives with his best friend, who happens to be his wife, who is likely to win an award before he does.