This Week in Rixflix #4: March 31-April 6, 2017

A much smaller week in film watching than the previous week (10 less films), much of it directly responsible for the upswing in my hours spent writing now that the hip is doing even better than before. Having regular physical therapy also ate into the film watching time as well. Oh, yeah, and some old pal reunion time at Disney California Adventure Park on April Fools' Day with my pals Mattman and Leandro, where April Fools' was never even mentioned once. Hard for even me to think about film for long when hanging with my buddies at Disneyland Resort. (Unless we are talking about film, of course. But we only did a little bit...)

This week's feature film count: 15; 13 first-time viewings and 2 repeats.
Highest rated film: Little Fugitive (1953) – 8/9.
Lowest rated film: Frankenstein Island (1981) – 2/9.

The Arnelo Affair (1947) Dir.: Arch Oboler – A deadly dull affair without a single surprise in it, The Arnelo Affair is a waste of a pretty decent cast including Frances Gifford, George Murphy, John Hodiak, a very young Dean Stockwell, and a devastatingly underused Eve Arden, who brings the only life (and intentional comedy) to the picture. The lovely Gifford is a wife who is absolutely bored with her life with Murphy, who shows her no affection or attention at all. Her attention is turned momentarily by cad about town Hodiak (who might as well twirl his mustache if only it were longer) but when push comes to shove, she refuses to destroy her marriage with an affair. But Hodiak sets her up as the prime suspect when he decides to murder his previous flame. Since we know everything going on, and barring an incredible twist ending that never comes, all one can do for the last 40 minutes is wait for Hodiak to have a change of heart. Want to take bets that he does, but in such a way that Hodiak pays for his murdering ways violently so that the censors are appeased? Rating: 5/9

Rosalie (1937) Dir.: W.S. Van Dyke – A rather strange film that I would refer to as a "trifle" if it weren't overlong at 123 minutes, Rosalie boasts Nelson Eddy in his first role away from Jeanette McDonald, Cole Porter songs, John Philip Sousa marches, collegiate football, West Point antics, European court intrigue, and Eleanor Powell dancing her heart out at usual in the leading lady role (including the famous scene where she taps across the tops of a series of giant drums). It's an odd amalgam of ingredients, and though it has a cast filled with terrific character actors, some of them – such as Edna May Oliver, Jerry Colonna, and William Demarest – are absolutely trapped in nothing roles. I guess this was so they could give Eddy more time to bore us with molasses-slow ballads.

The best parts, and the main reasons this film slinks up to "good" territory for me, belong to sidekick Ray Bolger as Eddy's best pal who has to jump through hoops (not literally) to win his own fickle girlfriend's heart back, and his future co-star from The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan – the Wizard himself – as the king of Romanza, a fictitious country that doesn't seem to be all that happy to have a befuddled monarch who takes his orders from his own ventriloquist dummy. (That's right... you did not read that wrong. Ventriloquist dummy...) I did wonder for a while if perhaps this film was actually meant for Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but it turns out that the film version of Rosalie (it was a Broadway show originally with a non-Porter score; Frank Morgan played the king on stage as well) was started in 1928 as a vehicle for Marion Davies until the production fell to pieces. A decade later in the sound era, the film was completed with only a few shots from the 1928 attempt incorporated into the final product. Regardless of its history, what made Rosalie work for me, apart from Powell's luminous dancing talent, were the scenes between Bolger (who never really gets to let loose with his incredible dance skills, though he teases them) and Morgan, who form an odd friendship amongst all the dull romantic stuff around them. They are great fun, but unless you have over two hours to spare, don't bother. Rating: 6/9

Honeysuckle Rose (1980) Dir.: Jerry Schatzberg –  One of a pair of films that I watched this week where I had seen portions of each previously but had never sat down to go through them in their entirety (Min and Bill being the other), Honeysuckle Rose was the first starring feature for Willie Nelson, and he came out of it with an Oscar nomination for One the Road Again, the monster crossover hit that was introduced in this picture. It had once astounded me that this film also received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Supporting Actress (for Amy Irving, in the very first year of the Razzies), but when you actually look the truly shocking facts up, 70 films overall have received either nominations or awards at both the Oscars and Razzies (including Suicide Squad, which won an Oscar – sadly – this year). While Irving is pretty unpolished and young in this film, nothing about her performance reads "year's worst" to me, so obviously someone just had a beef with her in the nomination process (probably John Wilson, founder of the Razzies, whom I take exception with on a great many things he does with his awards). This movie is merely OK dramatically; in a film mostly about infidelity and the threat of divorce, everything gets tidied up far too neatly to be satisfying on that front. But the musical sequences onstage with Nelson and his band are wholly entertaining, and I also have to give a nod to a fine supporting role from the great cowboy actor Slim Pickens in a non-comedic performance. Rating: 6/9

The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (2016) Dir.: Lonny Price – I love several Stephen Sondheim musicals, but Merrily We Roll Along is not one of them. This is mainly because I have barely heard of it, though I have heard a couple of songs from the show before (Good Thing Going, Not a Day Goes By). The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, directed by show alumnus Lonny Price, gets into exactly why most people don't know Merrily better, which opened and closed after 16 official performances (not counting previews) in 1981 (though it has been revived more successfully since). We see modern day interviews with many of the original cast, including Jason Alexander, long before his fame-making days on Seinfeld, and with Sondheim and producer Harold Prince. Luckily for this documentary, extensive filming of rehearsals had taken place at the time in conjunction with a planned television doc, which gives viewers more of a inside look at the development of the production than we might normally have gotten. But there was a little too much "inside baseball" going on here to keep my full interest through its running time. Nicely done, and essential for Sondheim and/or musical theatre fanatics only. Rating: 6/9

Easy to Love (1934) Dir.: William Keighley – The first of two 1934 comedies with which I quite unexpectedly had great fun during the week. Easy to Love is a romantic farce that features the always elegant Adolphe Menjou as a philandering husband who has the tables turned on him by his wife, played by an angered but mischievous Genevieve Tobin. She finds out the location of the love nest he shares with his would-be next wife, Mary Astor, and then precedes to make him jealous in return by affecting an affair with his best friend, a millionaire played hilariously by Edward Everett Horton, a personal favorite since my youth. Door-slamming silliness abounds, all very lightly done and coated with some terrific lines by a game cast. ("Well, I've had a lot of shotgun weddings, but this is the first fire ax wedding I've ever officiated at," says the Justice of the Peace, essayed by the terrific character actor, Guy Kibbee, and yes... someone is indeed holding a fire ax in the chapel.) Hugh Herbert shows up as a very confused detective, and that was all I needed to sell this film to me for good. A nice surprise. Rating: 7/9

Sing and Like It (1934) Dir.: William A. Seiter – And here's that other 1934 comedy, that has gangster Nat Pendleton and his grouchy, cigar-chomping (as always) sidekick Ned Sparks wander into a community theatre and encounter ZaSu Pitts, where she awkwardly and awfully squawks her way though a terrible song about mothers. Unluckily for everyone, Pendleton is a full-on mama's boy who tears up at the song, and decides then and there (and especially after everyone says openly that it stinks) that he is going to make Pitts a big Broadway star. Soon, he and his thugs are not just taking over the upcoming show belonging to a big-time producer played (once again) by Edward Everett Horton, but he even has a couple of his guys rewrite the script by adding incredibly sophomoric jokes to it. If this sounds reminiscent at all of Bullets Over Broadway, then you win a cigar, because that is basically what it is, only the would-be star is just gawky ol' ZaSu Pitts and not the gangster's girlfriend, played here by a fiery Pert Kelton, who then plans to have Pitts kidnapped. Just so remarkably silly and goofy, in which Sparks gets the best showcase, throwing off remarks about everything going on around them, which mostly fall on the deaf ears of Pendleton, who just keeps crying every time he hears the "Mama" song. Sing and Like It gets a couple of big demerits though for having a repeated punchline being each time Kelton ends up with a black eye from her man. (Easy to Love doesn't go that far, but yes, the threat of a wife-beating lurks there as well, as it does in many a 1930s comedy.) Sure, it was the times, and one cannot judge ancient relics by the acceptable societal measures of today and ever hope to be entertained. But that doesn't mean one has to like them either, and such scenes come off completely cold today for anyone that is not a white male in the House or Congress. Still, my rating is a 7/9.

A Visiting and Revisiting Special: Boycott the 2016 Academy Awards? Pt. 1

There is a good chance that very few people in the Western Hemisphere, and a good many of them beyond, don't already have an opinion about the lack of artists of color in the Academy Award nominations this year. Whether luck of the draw or the system being broken and needing a good fix, having two years in a row where several prominent performances by non-white actors and actresses have gone unacknowledged by the Academy looks pretty bad to most people that care about these things.

My writing partner, Aaron Lowe (Working Dead Productions) and I have decided to discuss this topic in lieu of our usual back and forth conversations on a particular movie in our Visiting and Revisiting feature that we split between our respective websites. To put it out front, we are both Caucasian and male. My politics are outspokenly liberal (though I believe that a centrist position is the best way to get things done in Washington), and Aaron identifies as "pretty strongly liberal" (his words). 

So, you are not going to get a William F. Buckley Jr. vs. Gore Vidal-style point-counterpoint here. What we wanted to do was actually think through the problem and see what lies at the heart of it, determine whether a large-scale, knee-jerk reaction boycott would do any good, and see what possible solutions there could be so that not only are all sides appeased, but that the situation rights itself for the future.

1. Do you believe that the actions (to this point) of the Academy point to systemic racism, or do you feel that the list of nominees from the past two years is simply "the luck of the draw," given the fact that there have been past years where persons of color were nominated and even won?

Rik: When I wrote this question, I used the term "luck of the draw," but of course, I know it really doesn't come down to that at all. There is a nomination process that has been long in place, and it relies on the placement of nominees on each ballot after they first determine a "magic number" for each category, which itself is based on the total number of ballots divided by the number of possible nominees for that category plus one. The term "magic number" does ultimately denote a bit of luck because the selection of nominees does depend on the order in which the ballots get counted. The first candidate that reaches the required "magic number" gets the first slot on the nominee list, and so on until all the available slots for that category are filled. First come, first served.

So, do I think that the nominations are based directly on the racism within the Academy itself? I doubt it. To be sure, the Academy, like much of Hollywood, was built and is still largely based on an "old boys" network, that is -- like much of big business in America -- still terribly, predominately white and male. Yes, the USA is (as of the 2010 Census) 63+% non-Hispanic white, but the disparity within the Academy is even larger, with an LA Times study in 2012 finding that the group was likely to be 94% white, while men make up 77% of the membership overall. I think the biggest problem is that the film industry in America itself caters mainly to the white male audience. If you have 40 Oscar quality pictures released within a year (and that is pushing it; I am just using it as an example) and only a relative few are built around non-white themes or feature lead actors of non-white origin, then it makes the reality that one of those few films will get nominated a long-shot.

This is not to discount that there could be some old school, good old boy racism at play here. Maybe Hollywood isn't quite as left leaning as Fox News and its cohorts would like the American public to believe. There probably are many older members of the Academy -- and in 2012, 86% of them were over the age of 50, with the median age being 62 years old -- who harbor ancient racial resentments instilled in them since they were younger and raised in less enlightened times. I don't doubt that there are problem many in the membership who feel that way. It would be like with any slice of America that you cut, there is going to be a certain segment that leans a certain way.

I think a larger problem (in direct response to this question) is that within that older membership, that there is a likely disconnect between themes that are interesting to moviegoers today versus what those older members might want to see onscreen. It is more likely that this white, older chunk of the Academy may not be all that concerned with seeing the far fewer films per year featuring younger (or even established) actors and actresses of color in stories that don't necessary connect to that in which they are interested. These older members also might not want to see supposedly "heavier" films about African child warriors (Beasts of No Nation) or gang shootings in Chicago (Chi-raq), and they likely don't care at all about rap or hip-hop (Straight Outta Compton). In many ways it doesn't surprise me these films got zero or little attention from the Academy. The two films with black leads and/or creators that really had a shot should have been the highly acclaimed (and justly so) sports dramas, Creed and Concussion, and only Sylvester Stallone, a white actor, was nominated between them. Old white guys tend to like sports --- especially football and baseball -- but they may have reacted negatively to Concussion's casting of their beloved NFL as a secretive, villainous organization that doesn't care about the fate of its players as long as they keep the money flowing. (Which they are, but shhhhhhhhh...)

Aaron: To answer quickly, before going on to individual points: I believe the problem lies in the people, not the system. Surely the system has allowed a certain amount of stagnation to set in, but when I went to research how someone becomes an Academy member, and how the voting was handled, I found that it was remarkably fair and balanced, in the literal meaning of that phrase, not in the Fox News meaning. Obviously, the system favors those films and individuals with the largest amount of exposure, which leads to the predictable roundup of popular crowd-pleasers, but that’s the nature of popularity contests. In reality, a contender can come from anywhere, and the system itself is, essentially, colorblind.

I tend to believe that the average Academy member is not as racist as this year’s scandal would imply, and I doubt there’s a conspiracy here where large groups of white-haired old men decided to exclude performers of color. It’s just another case of a large group of people making individual choices; choices that they maybe don’t realize are quite so exclusive. I might be giving these people too much credit, but generally speaking I don’t assume people are mustache-twirling villains. That doesn’t really come as any consolation, and in fact may be worse; if people were doing this consciously we could easily say it was wrong, but if people are doing this with good intentions, it’ll be harder to fix.

The demographic argument about the Academy –that they are older white men and stuck in their ways- rings a bit false to me. Let’s say the median age right now is 66; this means these people came of age during the civil rights movement, and they likely came out of leftist leaning film schools in the 70s; George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, for example. George Miller is in his seventies and he just made one of the most feminist -- not to mention energetic and truly wild -- action movies of all time. I know those people are outliers, but when we talk about how old the average Academy member is, it’s not as if they were raised in the antebellum South. 

But here’s another problem; people recognize and feel comfortable with what they know. There’s no big conspiracy here, but people making movies form relationships with people they get along with, and people they enjoy working with, and the entire system becomes a bit closed off and incestuous. It can be hard to break into that world. I don’t automatically assume racism when I hear about a writers’ room that is primarily white, or male, or what have you. I do assume that whoever put that room together was more interested in having a room full of people that he or she was comfortable working with than in having a room made up of diverse voices. I think that practice is being seen here, writ large. Academy members see things their friends worked on, they vote for things their friends worked on, or speak to their life in some way. And since the Academy is made up of so many older white men, you see a pretty whitewashed selection of films.

To answer another point you bring up; Hollywood is definitely not as left leaning as Fox News would like Middle America to believe. Hollywood is the very definition of capitalistic; they go where the money is. The problem is, the source of the money is changing, and the entertainment industry is incredibly slow to realize this. Look at the continuing controversies over the removal of strong female characters from the promotional materials for films such as the new Star Wars film or The Avengers. The entertainment industry just isn’t ready to accept the fact that there might be money in catering to, or at least acknowledging, a market other than 18-40 year old white males.

2. Do you think "Affirmative Action" should apply to supposedly exclusive and invite-only clubs, such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science?

Aaron: I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with the term “Affirmative Action” and what it implies. I understand the motivations behind it, and they are truly noble, but it implies (whether accurately or not) a certain amount of racism on the other side of the coin. When people talk about Affirmative Action it’s usually implied that those benefitting from it aren’t quite deserving of the help; that they’ve only been included due to their skin color or ethnicity or gender. Of course, that’s exactly what has been happening with white people for hundreds of years, but it still carries a negative connotation.

The problem here is that Affirmative Action is completely unnecessary in this case. There’s no reason to invite members into the Academy based solely on the boxes they fill out on the census form. There’s also no cap to the number of members the Academy can have, so there’s no real reason to exclude anyone. There are plenty of talented and deserving individuals that the Academy is ignoring. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs issued a statement promising to overhaul the Academy’s membership process, and actively recruit a more diverse crowd, which seems to me like a great start. They’ve done this in the past, when they tried to recruit a younger audience in the 60’s, and that seemed to work well for them at the time.

Rik: I feel Affirmative Action is still very necessary in the public and government sector. But should it be mandatory for private clubs and organizations? I'm not sure that anything should be done about that. If a particular group wants to keep their practices and meetings to an invited group only, I don't see the problem with that. But I also know I would not want to belong to such an organization if their inclusion process was based around standards that were openly racist or sexist. I know that I wouldn't want to belong to a club that was "men only," because what good is anything if there is not a chance of women being involved? (There is a certain irony that so many men brandish an oversized and often outspoken fear of homosexuality, but then really just want to hang out with other guys 90% of the time.) And what good is an organization that doles out awards to the best films within a calendar year if it doesn't have a membership that can recognize a certain portion of those "best films" because it is imbalanced?

3. What do you think would be a good, or even the best, solution towards broadening the membership of the Academy and making it at least reflect the demographic breakdown of America?

Rik: My solution for the Academy membership is to blow it up! By that, I mean make it much, much larger than it is right now (currently only 6,000+ members). I would switch it from invite-only to including all "active" members of the major Hollywood trade unions and guilds. This would include the Screen Actors Guild (including CON-AFTRA; they are combined now), the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, the American Society of Cinematographers, the Producers Guild of America... all of them, as long as they are represented by one of the categories in which an award is given. Anyone that is a current member of the Academy but may not be active in one of the unions or guilds is allowed to remain (you have to give them some reason for living), but this will allow the Academy to include most of Hollywood's artists. Yes, it will put their membership at over 200,000 members (at least), and there will be logistical problems involved in developing a new nomination and voting process and the screening of nominated films, but that is their problem. If you want the Academy to represent the industry, then that is the quickest way.

Aaron: Honestly, that seems like such a logical idea that I was honestly surprised it wasn’t how the process worked already. Being a member of one of those unions automatically means that you are working as a professional, and have had at least one credit within the past year. I have to imagine that such an influx of younger, more diverse members would make an immediate impact.

To read Part II of this discussion, please click here.

How Many Have You Seen? The New Annual Pylon Oscar Nomination Rundown...

I've made attacks on the Academy Awards before. Yes, I have watched the Oscars every single year since I was a kid, and I have always made a big deal about being sure to watch it whenever it rolled around again. Especially back in my home state of Alaska, where we would hold parties each year and my friend Matt and I would write up stupid jokes for every single one of the nominations and have our pals fill out a ballot. 

But I also recognize that the Oscars are, in many ways, a joke. They can build or destroy careers, and in that way, they can be deadly serious, if only to the ones whose careers are at stake. But if you are just an average person on the street, the Oscars really don't mean all that much. It's a thing that many of us watch without thinking, like the Super Bowl or a Thanksgiving Day Parade. We do it because that is what everybody does. I fully stopped watching the Super Bowl three years ago because, really, why should I when I don't actually watch football anymore, or even really like the game at all? (I suppose if the Packers get into it, then I would again.)

And in the past, thinking that I was cool or above it all and should really just grow up and be concerned with more important affairs, I have ripped the Oscars vocally and online to whoever would listen (or pretend to listen). The Oscars really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, I suppose -- not that I believe there is an actual "grand scheme" to anything -- but come on. I am such a phony. I am too big of a movie nut not to seem the Academy Awards each year. I have to admit it... I really do love the Oscars. Always have, always will.

I will probably never miss them for the rest of my life. And this is taking the more grandiose and pretentious term cinema out of the equation and just focusing on movies. The Academy Award ceremony is movie love on the biggest platform there can possibly be. Even when you don't agree with many (or any, some years) of the nominations or winners, there is no bigger stage for fans of cinema than the Academy Awards ceremony each year. And since I rarely fully agree with many of the nominations, I just need to learn to lump it and acknowledge that I will still watch the Oscars even if they only select Michael Bay films for the rest of eternity.

That said, I will still raise a fuss if I wish, purely on the grounds of free speech. When the Academy performs a perceived injustice, and I agree that they have, I will speak my mind. This year, and last year, the lack of African-American nominations when there are clearly legitimate contenders for such honors is a huge red flag. And especially in a year in which the Academy has chosen Spike Lee to receive an Honorary Oscar for his career achievements in film and a socially conscious voice, the lack of such nominations is astounding. Lee took the Academy to task on the issue of race when he received his honorary Oscar late last year. I doubt he gets to do a speech at the full ceremony in February, but if he should get the chance... watch out! 

In 2015, there were several viable African-American contenders for Oscar gold, they practically got shut out, with only Straight Outta Compton getting a screenplay nod (the screenwriters are white) and Creed getting a nomination for Sly Stallone (also white you may have noticed). Idris Elba, monumental in Beasts of No Nation, and thought to be a shoo in was totally snubbed. And many thought Will Smith was also a no-brainer for Concussion (though I have yet to see that one).

Look, I'm white and this crap is getting embarrassing. We are not talking some Tyler Perry or Martin Lawrence-level garbage here. I'm not getting riled up about Madea not getting her due. And I definitely do not believe in some recreational soccer bullshit where everybody that competes (I'm sorry... recreates) gets a medal for participation. I don't think that there should be a nomination for every slice of racial group there is. If they did, the already too long Oscar broadcast -- and I am saying this as someone who can't wait to see it and loves it immensely -- would take even longer than it already seems.

But it does become pretty transparent that when there are two straight years (let alone many years, but the last two in particular) where there are high-profile projects featuring black actors that have been both successful at the box office (not necessarily a thing for Oscar choosing) and also highly critically acclaimed, but then there are zero to very few black actors, actresses, directors, and screenwriters nominated, something is broken in the Academy. And it is probably the old white guy membership.

Let's go over the Oscar categories one by one and tabulate what I have seen thus far...

[Titles in bold black are nominations that I had seen at the time that I published this article.] [Titles in bold red are nominations I've seen after initial publication but before the Oscars. Updated through 2/13/16.]

Best Actor in a Lead Role:
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

OK, right from the start, I am in trouble. I have only seen 2 out of 5 performances (Damon and DiCaprio). Steve Jobs came and went out where we are back in October, and doesn't come out on DVD until Feb. 16, inside two weeks from the ceremony. Trumbo has been in what they call limited release forever around our area, so it will probably never come to our small-time, 14-screen theatre (ha!). The Danish Girl probably won't play here either, so it looks I will have to rely on Amazon or iTunes to see these things in time. (Don't even get me started on Samuel L. Jackson and Idris Elba not being on this list.)

Best Actress in a Lead Role:
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Ooohh, it gets even worse. Yeah, I'm a guy, so many of you would not be surprised that I haven't seen any of the lead role actress performances. But it's not that I don't want to. In our household, I'm the one that has been flapping my gums about seeing Room (I loved Brie Larson in Short Term 12) and Carol (Cate and Rooney as lesbians? Hell to the yeah...), and I am way more likely to go see Joy and Brooklyn than my spouse. The worst part is that Joy was playing here until the day after the nominations were announced on Thursday. On a side note, I thought for sure Emily Blunt would be on here for Sicario. So I guessed wrong, though not in seeing it, because that movie was one of my favorites of the year (more on this coming up in a bit). A big fat zero out of 5.

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

I was counting on a couple more nods for The Big Short in this category, and the one that I was least impressed by got chosen. (More sound and fury from Bale as far as I am concerned.) But I just got to see Stallone in Creed, and I like that he has been selected. As I mentioned both Spotlight and Spies have passed through already, so I am going to be dependent on video. I am disappointed that Harrison Ford didn't get noticed for bringing Han Solo back to us (briefly) and doing it in a way that made some of us fall in love with him all over again. A solid 3 out of 5.

Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

You've heard my tale on the other four films here, and Leigh's crazy role is the only one I have seen. That's good enough for me -- she is one of my longtime fave actresses -- but still, only 1 out of 5 so far. (Can I count Alicia Wikander because I drooled over her in both Ex Machina and The Man from UNCLE last year?)

Best Directing:
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Pretty good... 3 out of 5, with McKay, generally a comedy director of much more raucous material getting a surprise nod as far as I am concerned (and many others, I am seeing now). A little peeved about Ryan Coogler not getting picked for his excellent work in Creed, though I wouldn't put the film up for Best Picture (just a notch below), and F. Gary Gray probably should have been in here for Compton. I didn't expect Tarantino to get picked this time, but I will take Miller in his stead.

Best Film Editing:
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It's the more technical categories where I get to shine in showing what I have seen already, since blockbusters and sci-fi movies tend to get nominated a lot. And that is exactly how it goes in the Film Editing category, where I have already seen 4 out of 5 nominees. Good job, me.

Best Foreign Language Film:
Colombia, Embrace of the Serpent
France, Mustang
Hungary, Son of Saul
Jordan, Theeb
Denmark, A War

Every year, I try to pay attention and catch whatever foreign films are getting some buzz. This category is actually fairly easy sometimes since foreign films often don't get nominated in the year in which they were released. It is not unusual if I have seen two or three of the nominees by the time they are announced. Not this year though. A big fat zero.

Best Original Score:
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
Carter Burwell, Carol
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sicario
John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I thought Morricone might not get selected since some of the most memorable bits from the score are reused bits from other films he scored in the past (The Thing, The Exorcist: The Heretic). I am glad Sicario got chosen as well, but it deserved Best Picture, Best Director , and Best Actress nods, at least, if not also for Benicio del Toro for Supporting Actor, in what I think was one of the more memorable performances of the year. Oh, well... On the "seen it" front for this category, 3 out of 5 once again.

Best Production Design:
Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant

Another 3 out of 5 tally. Luckily, just seeing either of the remaining films in this category knocks down several nominations at once. Can't wait to see them.

Best Visual Effects:
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Finally, a sweep! And it's no surprise either, really, given my usual taste in big screen fare.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

The usual suspects (this year) that I haven't seen here, giving me only 2 out of 5. 

Best Original Screenplay:
Bridge of Spies, Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, Alex Garland
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Spotlight, Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Straight Outta Compton, Screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

Goddammit, Compton finally got some love. Should have been at least an acting nod or two, if not more. My wife was very excited about the nod for Inside Out as well, given that it is an animated film, which often get overlooked in most categories outside of their two exclusive categories. I especially like the pick of Ex Machina, certainly one of the more original sci-fi tales to come along on the big screen for a good while. Another 3 out of 5 tally.

Best Animated Feature Film:
Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out
Shaun the Sheep Movie
When Marnie Was There

Big, big surprise with only one film seen out of the five for me. I like that the Oscars are being more adventurous in selected foreign animation relatively often in this category, but that also means that I have go seek them out more as well. It also means that I get to skip a lot of mainstream animated sequels that might otherwise get nominated. So at least they are doing one thing right.

Best Cinematography:
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario

Hoo hoo! A camerawork nod for Sicario, which deserves it, and one for The Hateful Eight, which frankly seems like it was expecting it. (Seriously, it was exactly what I thought when I was watching it.) A big 4 out of 5 movies seen this time.

Best Costume Design:
Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant

Ugh, just sat through the exceedingly dull Cinderella two weeks ago. Nice costume work, yes... I will agree. And not a bad film, just not more than an average film. Another 3 out of 5 seen.

Best Documentary – Feature:
Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

At last! I have seen one of the documentaries before the nominations were announced! And another film (Amy) is at the top of my Netflix queue even though I don't get a crap about its subject. Only 1 out of 5 right now, but with one other on Netflix streaming right now and another one about to be, I am fairly certain this short list will get knocked down in time for the Oscars.

Best Documentary – Short Subject:
Body Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Last Day of Freedom

Another zero non-effort. That's usually the case with short films in any category. No surprise. I guess that I will have to see if some service like Vimeo or Amazon does a group showing of short films that have been nominated.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Mad Max: Fury Road
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
The Revenant

I thought for sure that I would sweep this category in advance -- I usually do -- but some Swedish version of Forrest Gump snuck into it in a way that is usually reserved for the Original Song category. Oh, well... 2 out of 3 wasn't bad, to clean up Meat Loaf's grammar at tad, until I found 100-Year-Old Man on Amazon Prime the other night and watched it (I'd say "for free!" but I did pay up front for that service. So, no...) And now that I have seen it, it's another category sweep! (Just a slightly smaller one...)

Best Original Song:
"Earned It," Fifty Shades of Grey
"Manta Ray," Racing Extinction
"Simple Song #3," Youth
"'Til It Happens to You," The Hunting Ground
"Writings on the Wall," Spectre

Another category where I am surprised if I see any of the films since this is the one category where really, really crappy films can sneak into the Oscar race just because Diane Warren is still breathing and producing shitty music. The worst part is that now I have to watch Fifty Shades of Grey because it has been nominated. (I don't have to actually watch it, but it does go on my watchlist automatically.) Such bad selection this year that they had to go to the documentary category to swipe a couple of films, and one of them was produced by Discovery Channel. Another 1 out of 5, but I should knock out most of this by the time of the broadcast.

Best Animated Short Film:
Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay's Super Team
We Can't Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow

Best Live Action Short Film:
Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
Shok
Stutterer

Two more categories featuring short films with which I must catch up en masse or not at all. Two more 0 out of 5 tallies. Not really holding my breath on these ten films, though at least the Don Hertzfeldt short (World of Tomorrow) is available on demand. And since I watch everything he does, I will at least be 1 out of 10 by the time the Oscars roll around.

Best Sound Editing:
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yes! Another sweep! At least I got a couple of those.

Best Sound Mixing:
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

One more 4 out of 5 tally, before we hit the biggie...

Best Picture of the Year:
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Not too bad... halfway there. Whether I get to see the other four will depend on what our theatre ends up getting in the next month. Bridge of Spies and Spotlight have already played here, Brooklyn never got here, but I'm holding out hope for Room. And this list is about two films too short, though I can think of about five that should be on here. Why not select ten films when you have the opportunity to select ten films? I don't get it. Why not just set it, and not make it ambiguous as to how many might get selected in a given year? And now, they are going to get a rash of shit about a couple of their omissions. And they rather deserve it. Not that they care.

All told, out of 121 nominations, I have seen (as of 1/16/2016) 55 of them. That is right at 45% (repeating) of the nominated films and performances, and this is from a guy that watches movies constantly. Just not, apparently, many of the ones nominated for Oscars this year. The upside is that seeing any combination of the films that were nominated the most makes me jump right up the ranks pretty quickly: Carol, Bridge of Spies, and Spotlight (6 noms each), The Danish Girl and Room (4 each), and Brooklyn (3 noms). 

Pre-guessing and second-guessing the Oscars noms and winners is what makes this game so fun. It's stupid, meaningless, and mindless entertainment, just like many of the far more popular movies that the Oscars usually skip over each year. I will get to my Oscar picks next month in the week before the broadcast, which will give me time to hopefully see many more of these films.

The 46x60 or So Project, Pt. 1: Building a Tower of Film...

I wanted focus, but the question was, "Focus on what?" I began to try and work out exactly where to begin reeducating myself in the film history of my lifetime. Do I start with a certain director and watch all of his available films straight through? It sounded good, but then I was likely to lapse into a state of cinematic paralyzation if I restricted myself to just one style without interruption, and how would I determine the best place to force an interruption if needed? How would I fit those moments into the plan? The same went for choosing one genre outside of my normal path and focusing on the landmark films within that genre. Except who was to establish what I should see within that genre? I considered focusing on stars, cinematographers with whom I have grown enamored and wished to see more of their work, even something as goofy as choosing a random key grip and then watching any film in which they were involved.

But, then it struck me... Considering my concerns regarding The Last Detail and its until-thus-far unseen ilk, it dawned on me that most of the films of which I claimed knowledge (when in fact I didn't beyond what I had read fleetingly) were released within the span of years in which I have been alive, from 1964 to the present. (Yes, I have established my age, but then that has never been a problem with me, as I always feel as if I am 22. Only an increasingly creakier 22...) What if I were to focus on watching the major films, foreign and domestic, that have been released within my lifetime? 

The reasons are three-fold. One, most of the films on which people would confront me would be of more recent vintage, so this would be a great way to capture that knowledge and be ahead of the game, or point me towards films to include in my "to-see" list when I ran into someone who mentioned something I hadn't watched. Two, it would allow me to flit about through most of the major directors and styles throughout my lifetime, without allowing myself to fall into a state of that dreaded boredom, for too long at least. Thirdly, and I was hoping most interestingly, it would allow to actually gain a large dose of cultural and political knowledge by watching films through the '60s, '70s and '80s, and perhaps increase my understanding of the shifting tides of both the American and world consciousness through these decades. (There was also a fourth, smaller reason, that didn't strike me until much later. This was seeing the evolution of the movies themselves through five decades of development, turmoil, and changing technology.)

So, I knew why, but now: what? How to determine which films to watch. The first step was easy: the Oscars. I do not believe that there is ever actually a "Best Picture" in any given year. Styles are so diverse, as are intents, and who is to ever say that a supposedly moving drama about love and loss during wartime is any more meaningful than a mere comedy that seeks to bring nothing but laughter and smiles to people's faces? That's right: simple escape is just as important. I often deride it, or at least those who only go that route, but the use of the movies as mere escape is actually quite important. It is a release for emotions and pent-up frustrations that can prove very necessary to society. Thus, I needed to build a list that gave me a fairly accurate picture of each movie year. The Academy Awards are critiqued by the masses as being not populist enough, and on the other hand, by much of the film community, as being too populist. The Oscars really cannot win in the long run. They just have to endure, and prove themselves enough of a mark of excellence to thrive.

I may not agree most of the time with the Oscar choices, but I do know that it would prove enough of a mix of the high and low to begin building my list using all of the nominees and winners for all categories from films released in 1964 forward. I created an Excel database and begin to construct my Tower of Film. At first, each year ended up working out to about 25-35 films or so, which is what I began calling the project, added a 44 at the front, representing the number of full years of my lifetime to that point. (I changed it to 46 for now, for while I have just turned the corner on 45, I am actually in my 46th year of existence. The title will remain so for a good while though. I am reluctant to change it past this point of establishment, if only out of exhaustion.)

Completing the Oscar list left me delighted with the structure of the thing -- each year neatly blocked off, films alphabetized within each year, and columns for each category, the winners in yellow -- but desperately seeking major films which I had known to have come out in a particular year, but were not to be found within their block. What to do? How to add films without making this list more personally oriented, and not neutrally enriching?

The trick was to turn it personally towards someone else: Danny Peary. Mr. Peary had written a volume in the early '90s (on which I have written before) called Alternate Oscars, which is basically his version of how each Best Picture, Actor and Actress award should have been handled from the beginning of the awards in 1927 through the year of the book's devising, 1992. Peary makes numerous interesting and brave choices, such as the great Karloff getting a Best Actor achievement for his astounding role in Val Lewton's production of The Body Snatcher in 1945. (It is a favorite of mine as well, and I agree, Karloff is exceptional in the film.) Like the Oscars, no one will ever agree with all of Peary's choices (even I don't), and many of them are based on whether he had already rewarded a certain party with an award either farther up and down the line, so it plays heavily on second and even third sight. Alternate Oscars is armchair critiquing at its top-notch best.

And so I went through his book beginning in 1964 and adding in any films not touched or dismissed by the Academy the first time around. This began to flesh out the list a tad more, but it really only added, at most, three or four films per year, if any at all. Scanning my own collection, I began to realize that what the Oscar (and Peary's list) was missing was a foreign influence. Apart from the Best Foreign Film category and the odd stray nomination elsewhere, foreign films were barely represented, with many prominent directors of my lifetime missing wholesale from the list. Since it was a few Criterion Collection discs that caused me to muse on this aspect, I decided to grab the entire Criterion list of releases, queue it up by year, and then add all of those releases from 1964 on up. This made the list bulge out a bit more, sometimes as many as seven, eight or ten films per year, though there was naturally a major drop-off from the mid-'80s to now, seeing as the company really concentrates on older films, with only a few more modern releases in the mix. I was also aware of the European version of Criterion, Masters of Cinema, and though some films were matched on both lists, it did a handful more films of great interest to me, some not released on Region 1 discs at all. (I would eventually purchase a couple of Masters of Cinema discs at Scarecrow Video in Seattle in late July. Region 2, yes, but they will play on my laptop.)

So, I now had a good fifty or so movies per year on my list, and it was looking like it might top out at around 2000 films. But it wasn't enough for me...

(To be continued in The 46x60 or So Project, Pt. 2: It's a Tower Built to the Heavens. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?)