On Oscar Night

I enjoyed watching the Oscars this year. I haven't done it for a while and I can honestly say I'm glad I did this time. One huge reason for that is the interpretive dance group that did the filler entertainment. Seriously, when they made themselves in penguins for Happy Feet I thought it was brilliant. When they formed their bodies into a van for Little Miss Sunshine I wanted to call some Puritans and report the dancers for witch-trial. I immediately hung up the phone when they did Snakes on a Plane and Casino Royale though because only by the will of God could a group of humans do that.

The awards themselves I didn't care about half of, but I suppose that's the way of things, to be honest I don't really understand many of the subtleties of sound mixing and so I've never been too passionate about most of the technical awards. I was pissed off that Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Film, but I haven't seen the German one that won, so I'll have to hold off my rage until I see it, pass a completely biased judgment on how crappy I think it is and feel justified in saying that Pan's Labyrinth was robbed.

Before the awards I was hanging out with my roommate Andy and we were talking about Netflix and the topic of the purpose of movies came up. I think it's an important thing to bear in mind, I watch movies primarily to be entertained, sometimes I'll watch them to learn something also, but that's pretty much the whole deal. I can appreciate technical quality and originality, but the fact that I find myself laughing a lot harder and more entertained by You Got Served and Nick Fury: Agent of Shield (David Hasslehoff with an eyepatch....) than something technically impressive and artistically rendered makes them the more worthwhile movies in my mind. Then again there's nothing wrong with enjoying movies, or anything else for that matter, for other reasons, so long as you don't intentionally dislike a something, regardless of enjoying it, on some contrived principle.

A lot of people get very passionate about the Academy Awards, especially regarding the winners of Best Picture. I remember when Crash won best picture over Brokeback. I was kinda pissed at first too, because I thought Brokeback seemed more important. I hadn't seen Crash yet though, so I gave it a chance. In the end I find myself agreeing with the academy, from a technical standpoint the use of multiple narratives was effective, and I relate and react more to themes of racism than a homosexual love story turn tragedy. That being said, I think both movies were excellent.

The point I'd like to make though is that all art of personal, and so an Oscar isn't the be-all end-all of a movie, people will appreciate movies that aren't nominated and a lot of people will dislike movies which are nominated. Everyone already knows this, and it's not worth jumping up and down saying that the Academy is filled with idiots. The Academy is not filled with idiots, if it were I highly doubt they could have contrived of such an excellent way to make copious amounts of money.

There's a great beauty in the world, and that is in our freedom to appreciate what we wish, exercise that right for yourself and don't put people down when they do the same. 2006 was a relatively good year for movies in my opinion and I'm pretty excited for this year's contribution to our collective need to escape reality once in a while. Have a good night everyone!