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Uncle Orson Reviews Everything
March 5, 2006
First appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC.
Oscars, Anti-Oscars, Aquamarine, Speakers, Snack Mix
You can imagine, as the Oscar nominees sit there waiting for their category to
be read out, that they are going back and forth between two constant thoughts:
1. I'm going to win this.
2. Not a chance.
These thoughts are often accompanied by other, related ones:
1. When I don't win, I need to look very happy about the outcome, as if I
thought it was about time that other dude got the Oscar, and why should I
worry? I've got plenty of time for Oscars. It's not like this will be my only
chance.
2. This is my only chance. Dear God, I'm sorry I haven't been praying much
lately but starting right now I'll pray every day, and cut way back on some of
my more expendable sins. Just let me win.
3. When I win, please please please don't let me forget to mention my
spouse/co-star/agent/lawyer/mom/teacher/children. Let me appear cool and
self-possessed, as if this sort of thing happened all the time; but still warm and
grateful and mature and ...
4. I need to go to the bathroom.
When they get up there, some of them are completely flustered and mumble
and stumble, while others give exactly the speech they planned -- only it's a
stupid speech, and about halfway through they sort of realize it and wish they
had prepared something else to say but now they're into it and they have to
finish; while still others have a stupid speech but don't realize it and go off the
stage thinking they have scored big time. ("I'm king of the world!" "You like
me!")
When Crash won best picture, the producers looked genuinely shocked. There
had been so much hype beforehand about how the "brave" Brokeback Mountain
was a shoo-in that it seemed it had not occurred to them that they might win.
The best Oscar recipients, though, were Three 6 Mafia for their song "It's
Hard Out Here for a Pimp." While the song itself did nothing for me, I was
grateful that they consented to clean up the lyrics for the Oscar broadcast; and
when they came to the microphone, their acceptance was so enthusiastic and
grateful and happy that you just had to like these guys. They were the least
studied, the most genuine of the Oscar recipients.
Then again, maybe that's because they hadn't paid attention to Tom Hanks's
little Oscar Acceptance video that was distributed to the nominees, urging
them not to lose control of themselves (pace Gwyneth Paltrow's weepy speech
when she won) and reminding them that their sixty seconds begin when their
names are announced, so don't stop and kiss everybody on your way to the
stage.
This year I didn't care about the outcome in any category, except negatively
("please not that one"); and not very negatively in any category because Meryl
Streep wasn't nominated for anything.
Yet I still found the show quite entertaining. Jon Stewart is largely responsible
for this. By long tradition, the emcee of the Oscar ceremonies brings along his
or her team of writers and the show takes on the host's public style.
It happens that Jon Stewart's style (unlike, say, David Letterman's) is exactly
suited for the Oscars. Dry wit, rarely mean-spirited, taking nothing very
seriously yet never quite losing the dignity of the occasion.
The fake ads were inspired. The montages of clips were entertaining. Of
course, the best film parody of the night was brought by a friend who took it off
the web -- a juxtaposition of scenes from Brokeback Mountain and Back to the
Future, to make a trailer for a film I wish I could see: Brokeback to the Future
(http://chocolatecakecity.com/videos.html).
But the sequences on the Oscar show were of similar quality. I loved the
opening, where they assembled an astonishing array of previous hosts to make
fun of themselves (starting with Billy Crystal and Chris Rock in a sheepherder's
tent). Best of all, things moved along quickly.
OK, too quickly a couple of times, as the second half of a two-person winning
team was cut off without being able to say a word ... even though other winners
had gone on much longer, and other teams had had a chance for every person
to talk. We could have spared the extra minute.
We only narrowly missed some true excitement, since the award recipients all
walked right past the unguarded edge of the orchestra pit, some of them
actually stepping over the corner of dropoff. One conjured up images of
famous actors with cello bows or trombone slides added to their anatomy. And
Jack Nicholson actually seemed to be pushing Larry McMurtry over the edge.
Still, safety issues aside, the set was splendid compared to the poorly designed
set for the SAG Awards show, which had steps of such uneven depth and
unexpectedly low rise that it seemed most people stumbled.
In most Oscar shows, the patter of the presenters is excruciating. This time,
not so much; and one of the sequences was absolutely brilliant. Lily Tomlin
and Meryl Streep came out together to present Robert Altman's honorary
Oscar. They turned the presentation into a parody of and tribute to Altman's
style, talking over each other, ad-libbing (or seeming to ad-lib), gibing at each
other a little -- it was a complete delight.
Now for the important matters: The gowns. The consensus in our house was
that the best gown was Jennifer Aniston's, with Reese Witherspoon's as a
close second.
My favorite dress was Hilary Swank's, because she looked like a molting snake
that was interrupted halfway through slithering out of her old skin.
And we generally agreed that the worst dress was Salma Hayek's. It had a
weird strap on the left shoulder that made it look as if her left breast had been
misbehaving backstage and had to be strapped down before it was brought out
in public.
Our favorite Oscar was when Reese Witherspoon won. Hers was a warm and
generous performance. I'm glad the academy recognized how hard it is to do
what she did -- It's nice when it's the performance rather than the role that
wins the Oscar. So many acting Oscars are really given for powerful writing, as
if the actor had made up the words or quirks of the character.
*
But we were not content with the Oscar nominees this year. Admittedly, it
wasn't the best year in film, but there were some wonderful movies that were
completely ignored by the Academy, primarily because they weren't "brave" or
"edgy" or extravagantly arty; it's the kiss of death these days for a movie to
affirm old-fashioned values like a marriage that triumphs over adversity
(Cinderella Man) or simply to be entertaining -- heroic or romantic or funny.
So at our Oscar party, we passed out not only our usual ballot, where we
predict the outcomes (our winners this year tied with ten right guesses each),
but also a ballot containing a list of the top 200-grossing films of 2005
(courtesy of the Box Office Mojo website, which had the most usable listing).
People could bestow one, two, or three points on any film, leaving blank the
ones they didn't see or didn't like.
Of course, nobody saw everything (though some people saw an astonishing
percentage of the year's films!); but when we see promos and hype on the
upcoming movies and make a decision about whether to attend, that's a kind
of vote. If a film doesn't look interesting enough to you to be worth the time
and money to see it in the theater -- or even to see it later on DVD -- then
chances are pretty good that you wouldn't like it if you did see it.
Still, it biases our selection heavily toward box office hits. Most of the people in
our group had seen at least seven of the top ten box office hits, and since these
tended to be entertaining, they were likely to end up on the final ballot.
After all, these films were the box office leaders for a reason -- they pleased a
lot of people. And our voters consisted entirely of people, so it was a good fit.
We ended up with several categories. March of the Penguins ruled the Best
Documentary category -- but it also got enough votes to end up on the final
ballot for Best Picture. We also had Best YA (Young Adult) Film and Best
Animated Film.
Our final ballot in the YA category consisted of those that got ten or more
nominating points:
Because of Winn-Dixie
Coach Carter
Dreamer: Based on a True Story
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Sky High
Zathura
The voting resulted in a tie for Best YA Film of 2005: Coach Carter and
Dreamer. I was a little disappointed, because my favorite in this category was
Sky High. But the winners were both very good films. It's a category that gets
little respect, and yet is culturally far more influential than the arty films that
get so much buzz in Hollywood.
In the Best Animated category, we had only three nominees:
Madagascar
Howl's Moving Castle
Robots
My youngest had been lobbying for Howl -- and properly so. The more-popular
Madagascar and Robots had received more points in the nomination process --
but the voters assured me that they voted their taste when they named Howl's
Moving Castle as the Best Animated Film.
In the Best Picture category, we couldn't stop with only five nominees -- there
was a tie in fifth place. And the next two films were only one point behind,
followed by a wide gap. So we ended up with eight nominated films:
Batman Begins
The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
King Kong
March of the Penguins
Pride and Prejudice
Serenity
Walk the Line
Frankly, I think our anti-Oscar nominee list includes films that are more likely
to last -- more likely to still be finding viewers ten years from now -- than any
on the actual Oscar list.
From the nominations, I expected Narnia to win in a landslide -- it got more
votes than anything else on the list. But, as with the Animated Film category,
it's one thing to say what you liked and quite another thing to say what was
best.
Thus Narnia and King Kong ended up tying -- for second place.
And the winner of the Anti-Oscar for Best Picture of 2005 was: Serenity.
That's right. The 99th highest grossing film of 2005, with box office of only
$25.5 million, got slightly more votes than the third and fifth highest-grossing
films of the year, which tied for second in our voting.
But keep in mind that when you have five or more nominees, the likelihood of
the winner being the choice of a majority is quite slight. And there were enough
of us in the room who loved Serenity with a passion that it skewed the results.
Except ... wait a minute. Isn't it about voting for films you love?
No apologies then. At my house, Serenity won as Best Picture of 2005, with
Narnia and King Kong right behind.
Our list of Best Picture nominees is, in my opinion, a terrific guide to the most
entertaining movies of the year. The only ones I'd want to add are Cinderella
Man, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Sky High, and Millions. With a nod to The
Legend of Zorro, Zathura, and Red Eye.
And, a little riskier, because they won't appeal to everyone, the chick flicks In
Her Shoes and Fever Pitch, the family flick Yours, Mine, and Ours, and the
somewhat arty The Upside of Anger, all of which I not only enjoyed but also
remembered fondly.
*
As for the worst movies of the year: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith may
be the top box office hit of the year, but that means nothing except that true
believers show their faith in the face of the evidence. To say that Sith was the
best of the three Star Wars prequels does not change the fact that it was a
laughably bad movie for an incredibly high budget.
But the runners up are also memorably bad:
Aeon Flux, which turns out not to be based on a video game after all, is so
badly written that I can be forgiven for assuming that it was.
The Family Stone, a hideous mess of a film about a repulsive, unbelievable
family of monsters, whose writer actually seemed to think he was making
significant moral points.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a vile, dark remake of a beloved
classic, moving Tim Burton into the same category as Chris Columbus and
David Lynch -- directors so dreadful that their films are to be avoided at all
cost.
Keep in mind that there are many films this year that are much worse than
these by some measures. But these films actually sucked me into the theater
so that I experienced their badness personally.
Films that are obviously bad before you even go to the theater really aren't up
for this "award." If you go to those, you get what you deserve.
*
I went to see Aquamarine because I have an eleven-year-old daughter. But I
found myself enjoying it far more than I expected.
In a beach town, two young teenage girls, Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey
(JoJo Levesque), have been best friends, but now Hailey's mom is moving to
Australia and the girls are devastated at the idea of separation.
Add to this their mutual crush on the terminally good-looking lifeguard
Raymond (Jake McDorman), and the bratty, selfish, sexy prima donna Cecilia
(Arelle Kebbel) as a rival for Ramond's attention, and you have the standard
mix of confusing emotions that drive the YA chick-flick genre. (See also Ice
Princess, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, etc.)
Then we add ... a mermaid. Played by former child star Sara Paxton, the
mermaid Aquamarine is being forced by her father, the king of the sea or
emperor of the ocean or baron of the bay (whatever), to marry some stodgy
dork, but he has consented that she can get out of the marriage if she can
prove that love really exists.
That's right -- no love among the merfolk. Just a myth. Sigh.
In addition, she has to follow the usual idiotic rules: Can't get her legs wet or
she develops a finny tail again on the spot; must be in water before sunset.
So the plot is driven by Aquamarine's need to get Raymond to fall in love with
her in two days. But if the girls are able to help her bring this about, they'll get
a wish -- which they plan to use to cancel Hailey's mom's move to Australia, so
they can stay together.
The comedy is driven by the mermaid's selective naivete. She doesn't know
how to deal with guys -- but she speaks all languages. Yeah, right.
The movie should have been dreadful. But it wasn't.
First, the writing is often clever and resourceful. The dialogue is surprisingly
realistic (between the girls) and entertaining (where Aquamarine or Raymond
are involved).
Where does Aquamarine spend the night, since she has to avoid the ocean lest
Daddy catch her and force her home? A water tower. That was kind of cool --
and it also set up the nastiest trick by Cecilia and her totally deserved
comeuppance.
The casting was also excellent. Sara Paxton is deeply cute as the mermaid --
but she brings it off with sheer charm, so that instead of being annoying, she
wins us over.
And the girls -- both Emma Roberts and Jojo Levesque are well-known TV
presences (and Roberts is also a recording star); but they aren't pretty by any
rational measure. Instead, they come across as genuine girls in that awkward
age just before nubility strikes.
Best of all, they're very good actresses, making the slight complexities of the
characters feel emotionally real even as they also make the plot feel like it might
really happen.
By the end, there were some touching moments surrounded by genuinely
funny gags. Considering that the budget for this film was about thirty cents,
the mermaid costume and effects even come across well. Is this a classic?
Hardly. But it's a film with decent values, artistically and culturally, and I
highly recommend it for its target audience and the parents who drive them
there.
*
My first computer to have a hard disk was an Altos machine running MP/M.
The drive held ten megabytes of data. I was thrilled -- it was room enough to
hold several novels at once, and what else would I put on a computer?
Then CDs came along, holding 65 (later, 70) times as much data. Once we got
the technology to write our own, you could back up a your whole hard drive on
one CD-ROM.
Now you can buy laptops with tiny hard drives that hold more than 100 times
as much data as a CD.
And with the onset of MP3s, which drastically compressed sound files without
sacrificing quality (at least not that most of us can hear), computers became
practical as music machines.
I carry about 700 CDs worth of music with me wherever I take my laptop.
(That may seem exorbitant, but I only keep it down to that number by storing
several hundred CDs worth of Christmas music on another drive.)
And my laptop has a pretty good set of tiny speakers built into it. Tiny, and
tinny -- there's just no helping it.
What about portable speakers? Believe me, I've tried them all. The ones that
don't require batteries are actually worse than the speakers built into my
computer. The ones that do require batteries are markedly better -- still not
good, mind you, but better.
The trouble is, the batteries run out. And the speakers take up space in my
bag. About half the time, I figure it's not worth the weight, the bulk, and the
hassle of batteries.
But there are places where I go often and stay for days at a time, and in those
spots I can get some nice inexpensive speakers that run from the headphone
port on my laptop. I don't want a huge movie-style surround-sound setup, but
I do want something that makes the music immersive, so I can use it as a
barrier to help me keep my focus on what I'm writing instead of ambient
household noises.
And because it's in a fixed location, it can plug into the wall. No batteries.
More amplification. More sound.
I think I've found the perfect inexpensive speakers -- perfect for me, anyway.
For less than fifty bucks, Radio Shack sells a 26-watt Cyber Acoustics
amplified speaker system that includes a small subwoofer and enough cords to
set the speakers in good positions.
So now I can hide inside the singing of the Opera Babes or Mario Frangoulis,
cycle through Bach and Beethoven, Satie and Debussy, or keep myself
energized with Brazilian or jazz vocals. Or set a wistful mood with Mary
Chapin Carpenter or Beth Nielsen Chapman or Lyle Lovett. It makes me
happy. All for fifty bucks ... plus countless hours of ripping CDs ...
*
I have devoted a considerable portion of my life in pursuit of the perfect snack
mix. I had it, for a while, till Pepperidge Farm discontinued their splendid mix.
Well, now I've found a worthy replacement. After making do with the various
Chex mixes for several years, I now go to CVS Pharmacy and pick up their CVS
Gold Emblem Snack Mix: Sweet and Salty. It combines the honey roasted
sesame sticks that I often buy separately at Fresh Market with tiny bagel chips,
cheese corn sticks, and tiny pretzels. Delicious piece by piece or by the
handful.
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