Monday, February 23, 2009

From the E-Mailbag...

This is from a reader of this site named Jane Rusher...

I disagree with you about the acceptance speech last night by the man who wrote Milk. Wouldn't it be better if we just agreed that the Oscars are not a place for politics?

Sure...that would help remove another way in which they might be interesting and relevant. Better to have the winners spend more time congratulating themselves on being in show business and pretending that's the only world that matters.

Seriously, I think one of the things a person wins when they win an Oscar is that 45 seconds to talk to the world. Are we so fragile and incapable of dealing with loud opinions that we can't endure certain things someone might say? If they want to get up there and sell Amway products or list their favorite foods, fine. It's their 45 seconds.

The remarks about Milk were totally appropriate. I thought the way Sean Penn said what he said was clumsy and likely to alienate those who most need to be convinced. But he and the screenwriter were both talking about what the movie they'd just won for meant and what they hoped moviegoers would take away from it. They were talking about what was relevant about the film and about the story of Harvey Milk. That's more meaningful than if they spent the time thanking their agents.

There's another matter I'd like to address. A lot of folks today are discussing what certain Oscars mean and how the victory of Sean Penn over Mickey Rourke means that Hollywood was making a statement about gay rights or Proposition 8 or something of the sort. I think that's assuming an awful lot of facts that are not in evidence.

First point: Anyone who believes "Hollywood" speaks with one mind hasn't spent any time in Hollywood. I don't think I've ever been in a meeting here with more than three people where everyone agreed about what time lunch should be. Secondly, even when a majority votes one way, it doesn't mean they all had the same thing in mind. Imagine if all you knew about the last presidential election was that Barack Obama won. You didn't know if he got 97% of the vote or just one person more than John McCain. You didn't know which states he'd carried, which ethnic groups, which age groups, etc. All you knew was that he won. How much would you really know about what America was saying with its vote?

Well, that's about how much we know about the Oscar voters.

The Academy has about 6800 voting members...people who could have voted. How many did? We don't know. It's rumored (rumored, now) that about half vote each year. Let's say 3400 did. For all we know, 1300 members voted for Mickey Rourke, 1301 voted for Sean Penn and the rest was split between the other nominees. What would that say about the mindset of the Academy, as opposed to Penn winning in a landslide?

And maybe the margin, whatever it was, was because the advertising campaign mounted to persuade Academy voters to cast their ballots for Milk was just plain more effective than the one for The Wrestler. I was mailed a screener DVD of Milk but I don't think I got one for The Wrestler.

It's even possible that some voters didn't care about gay rights when they voted. Maybe — and yeah, I know this is a stretch — someone voted for Sean Penn just because they thought he gave a better performance than Mickey Rourke. It could happen.

I can name a hundred reasons someone might have had for voting for Penn over Rourke...and yes, some of them might only have tipped a vote or two. But we don't know that Penn didn't win by a vote or two.

As you may recall, I thought Rourke would win. There seemed to be something in the air...some way in which that felt like a better ending to the story than another Penn victory. But some number of voters, the quantity of whom we'll never know, thought Sean Penn belonged up there. Why? I dunno. And neither do you.

• Posted at 8:46 PM · LINK

The Price is Quite Right

When the complete boxed set of Get Smart came out, it was $200 plus postage and handling. Now you can get it on Amazon for $86.99. Isn't that the perfect number? Get DVDs of the adventures of Agent 86 and Agent 99 for $86.99.

• Posted at 4:27 PM · LINK

Go Read It!

The best thing about the Academy Awards? Ken Levine's annual Oscar post-mortem.

• Posted at 10:27 AM · LINK

It's (Almost) That Time Again!

It will soon be March and we all know what that means. The chain of restaurants known variously as Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes will be featuring Mark's favorite soup, their version of Creamy Tomato. It's nice of them to do this each year for the month of my birthday but maddening that they don't just wise up at corporate HQ and make it one of their year-round offerings.

I will be going often to Souplantation (that's what they call 'em in Southern California) during the month...and the soup should be even better this year than it's been in the past. Why? Because I've mentioned it so often here, and even prompted a mention of it on the TV show, The Big Bang Theory, the Souplantation folks sent me a mess of free passes to dine in their restaurants. I've been saving them, for obvious reasons, for March. I mean, what's better than Souplantation Creamy Tomato Soup? Free Souplantation Creamy Tomato Soup.

There is, however, one possible downside. I fear Souplantation will suffer a drop in their usual grosses this March. In fact, I know they will because I won't be paying for my many meals there. They'll compare the take this March (when I'm not paying) with last March (when I was) and some yo-yo will conclude, "Hmm...the Creamy Tomato Soup seems to be losing popularity. Maybe it's time to stop making it altogether and to replace it with Purée of Toad or some other equally yummy variety!"

So if you were ever thinking of trying it, try it this year. Just to make up for what I won't be spending there.

Here's a link to their website so you can see if there's one near you. If you join their Club Veg program, they occasionally e-mail you with discount coupons. Discounted Souplantation Creamy Tomato Soup isn't as good as Free Souplantation Creamy Tomato Soup but it's something.

• Posted at 10:17 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This runs around 14 minutes and the opening's a little dull...but wait. It gets better.

Back in the eighties, there were these odd TV specials to benefit the Actors Fund. They were called Night of 100 Stars and they all had more than a hundred stars on them. In fact, they featured so many stars that all a good percentage of them could do was to walk out, get applauded and walk off. In this number, which is from the 1982 special, a bevy of Broadway stars actually each sing a few bars from showtunes with which they were associated. (There are exceptions, though. Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin, who were then starring in the non-musical Same Time Next Year just walk through. Tell me when you've ever seen a man look more awkward than Mr. Grodin does in this clip.)

There are some great performers in there and it's wonderful to see them though frustrating that their performances are so brief. Still, take a look. This is in two parts which should play one right after the other, probably with a slight overlap, in the player below. Like I said, it starts slow but it gets to be quite remarkable.

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Post Oscar Blogging

I watched the last part of the Academy Awards (from Jerry Lewis onward) live and then went back and used TiVo to get through the first part in well under an hour. It seemed like a decent show to me. I think a lot of people expect the Oscars to be something they can never be. I mean, a lot of the show is about giving awards to people who do Art Direction and Sound Editing. The folks in those categories are totally deserving of their moments in the spotlight but there's a limit to how much entertainment value you're ever going to realize from those portions of the show.

The idea of having five presenters in the acting categories struck me as a good one. Some time ago here, we did a little poll on who they could get to present who might be exciting. The consensus seemed to be that no one living person would be that exciting but that certain combinations of presenters might make things extra special. I think it did, though some of the dialogue — the little speeches where past winners told the nominees how brilliant they were — seemed a little excessive.

The audience ovation for Jerry was moving but the honoree almost looked like he was back on the Percodan. I half-expected him to lapse into his profound mode and say something overly schmaltzy. Instead, he said very little and you got the feeling the audience was disappointed he wasn't more like Jerry Lewis. But good for the Academy for finally honoring a guy they should have recognized decades ago...and wasn't it nice to see one person on that stage who'd been in the business longer than Steve Martin? (Yeah, I know there were a few others. But it sure didn't feel that way.)

Hugh Jackman seemed like a pleasant-enough host. The guy's impossible to dislike...and the irrelevant music number wasn't as bothersome as they usually are since the show moved along at a good clip. It ran 3 hours and 30 minutes, which is probably what its producers were aiming for. Yes, I know they said 3 hours in the listings but that's just what they put in the listings. They never really intend it to be that length. I also liked the fact that I didn't see anyone get played off in mid-speech because their thank yous were running long.

I was surprised that Sean Penn bested Mickey Rourke for Best Actor...and I got the feeling everyone else was too, including Sean and Mickey. Penn's speech seemed a bit clumsy and inelegant, and also unnecessary given the earlier, more moving acceptance speech from Dustin Lance Black, who wrote the screenplay for Milk. I agree with what Penn said but wish he'd said it better.

All in all, it was a pretty good show...at least if you make good use of the Fast Forward button on your TiVo or VCR remote. If you found it dull, you oughta try my method.

• Posted at 12:16 AM · LINK