Oscars 2015 - Winners Review

Did anyone think the Dolby Theater’s stage contained Millennium Falcon cues?

I wouldn’t put it past Disney; look at the picture Dancing with the Stars posted to Facebook today:

Hmmm... 

How did you like the show itself?

 

My favorite moments:  Lada Gaga and Julie Andrews.  For a brief moment, class returned to the stage from the Old Guard.  I also loved the artwork in the Memorandum montage, but I kinda miss the clips. 

How about the host?  Neil Patrick Harris was hit and miss for me, sometimes awkwardly flat.  It was all downhill after the opening sequence.  I've seen worse, however. 

Moving on, let’s take a look at the winners…

So, how’d I do last night?  About as well as I did at the track the day before.  Maybe better.

Here’s the rundown:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:  Birdman

My Pick: “Hmm… STORY…   I’m going for Budapest, but I suspect the Academy loves a good play as it does a movie.  Birdman for them.  I’m okay with either.”

Indeed, the Academy loves a good play.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:  The Imitation Game

My Pick:  “It’s between The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, and I loved Stephen Hawking’s story.  The Academy might go with Sniper just to show that it’s nuts—disagreeing with itself for publicity.”

Interesting choice from the Academy, so it must confirm how closely the writers followed the book.  Nice knowing the Academy isn't completely nuts as well.

VFX:  Interstellar

My Pick: “For me, Interstellar.  The Academy will find that choosing a superhero movie will just be a hydra.  They were all good.”

SOUND MIXING:  Whiplash

My Pick:  “Birdman for me again.  Great sound, great mix.  Felt like a Tom Waits vinyl.”

Can’t disagree with the Academy on their choice.  Between two movies with drums as part of their soundtracks, I suppose it’s more involved to mix the rest of a band, especially a big band.  I simply enjoyed the space created in Birdman more.

SOUND EDITING: American Sniper

My Pick:  “Birdman for me.  The Academy should pick Birdman on the same merits.  Its sound was delicious.”

And yet, all those varietal small arms clips accumulate into an Oscar win.

PRODUCTION DESIGN:  The Grand Budapest Hotel

My Pick:  “The Grand Budapest Hotel, methinks.  The Academy might go for Interstellar as a consolation, but that would be a technical mistake.  Mr. Turner for a close second.”

Shame we never know who comes in second.  I suppose an Olympics-style podium is in poor taste?

 

ORIGINAL SONG:  “Glory” from Selma

My Pick:  "Selma, and I suspect the same from the Academy.”

Powerful performance of it last night, but did it get a little too political during the rap?  I never feel comfortable when people use a bully pulpit during an artistic awards ceremony.  It’s another Kanye.

ORIGINAL SCORE:  The Grand Budapest Hotel

My Pick:  “I’m going with The Grand Budapest Hotel here, although it reminds of the Sherlock score.”

MAKEUP and HAIR:  The Grand Budapest Hotel

My Pick:  “I’m going with Grand Budapest, but the Academy might award Foxcatcher’s humongous nose.”

Well they didn’t, fortunately. 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:  Ida

My Pick:  “…saw none.  Shizakoff!  I hear Ida is the one to see.”

Well that confirms it!

FILM EDITING:  Whiplash

My Pick:  “I’m going to go with Boyhood even though I disliked the film.  A close second for Whiplash.  The Academy might choose the same.”

I’m quite relieved, actually.  For me, Boyhood was the Pontiac Aztek of Hollywood 2014.  Somebody liked it enough to make production. 

DIRECTING:  Birdman

My Pick:  “I’m thinking Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman all the way.  I’ll take “fresh” over “solid” and/or clean, methinks.”

Fresh it is!

COSTUME:  The Grand Budapest Hotel

My Pick:  “Oh dear, I just don’t know.  It’s between Into the Woods and Budapest Hotel for me.  Budapest, please?  The Academy might go for the least obvious in Vice or possibly Mr Turner, and I would settle for Turner if that be the case.”

Nope—the Academy went for the obvious choice. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY:  Birdman

My Pick:  “Tough for me to make a choice while missing one of the nominees.  That said, it’s still difficult.  I’m wavering between Grand Budapest and Birdman.  Ugh!  The Academy?  I think they will continue the Birdman bandwagon, further solidifying the need for late releasing.”

This is becoming my favorite category.  I love the innovation angle, and Emmanuel Lubezki is the back-to-back winner.  (last year – Gravity)  Awesome.

ANIMATED FILM:  Big Hero 6

My Pick:  I saw none of these for lack of motivation. 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:  Patricia Arquette

My Pick:  “I’d find it impossible not to give Meryl another award too, but I’m smitten with Emma Stone today.  The Academy?  Emma.”

Save one, I blew the actor’s categories.  Patricia Arquette was certainly the best part of Boyhood. 

SUPPORTING ACTOR:  J.K. Simmons

My Pick:  “I’m rooting for Robert Duvall, but I suspect the Academy will pick Ethan Hawke or Edward Norton.  If I picked a 2^nd Place, it’s Mark Ruffalo.”

Yep—too many edits on The Judge.  J.K. Simmons’ win proves that an Oscar win in this particular category is not so much about the role, but how well it’s acted.  He was excellent, but the role was just over the top from my perspective.

BEST ACTRESS:  Julianne Moore—Still Alice

My Pick:  “It’s Reese and Reese alone.  They were all excellent, but nobody came close to Reese.  Unless it was Cotillard?  Anyone?”

And that’s exactly what I get for not viewing all the films beforehand.  Alzheimer’s is a seriously touchy subject, much akin ALS.  No coincidence the best acting awards were portrayals of the diseased.  Both were brilliant and eye-opening.

BEST ACTOR:  Eddie Redmayne

My Pick:  “For me, it is Eddie Redmayne.  His Stephen Hawking was just incredibly accurate.  Thing is, there were four of these role types nominated this year, and that seems to be a winning formula for Best Actor lately.  It’s why the award might go to Michael Keaton, and, in that case, I’m completely okay with it.  He was electrifyingly good!” 

So happy for Eddie’s win.  Must-see performance!

…finally…

BEST FILM:  Birdman

My Pick:  “For me it’s a fantasyland tie between Grand Budapest and Birdman.  Both were superb.

For the Academy, it’s a close race between Boyhood (grr!) and Birdman, but I think the triumph belongs to Birdman, clearly.” 

And so it did!  Fresh, innovative, sumptuous.  It’s an Off- Broadway Tarantino.

Sadly, I remembered a snarky tweet from last night.  “So, the Best Film, made by the Best Director and shot by the Best Cinematographer, could not produce the Best Actor.”

Redmayne was just that good, and besides, I think Keaton said it best: "Look, it's just great to be here. Who am I kidding? It's great fun."

He’ll be back.  So will Meryl.  It’s inevitable.

/T

Drive*

The title of this entry is Drive*.  Notice the asterisk?  The other day, a dear friend posted one of those ubiquitous internet memes berating Generation Me.  You know—those confounded millennials every elder despises?  Yes, them…again.

Here it is:

I posited that an asterisk should be attached to “drive”, appending another note of sarcasm.  Now, my sarcasm should have been interpreted to berate those kids further, meaning, they actually haven’t learned to drive—at least, not properly, nor remotely to the standards of their pontificating elders.  In fact, I don’t believe drivers (mostly the American variety) et al have evolved much.  We’re all doing our best—in the most wildly varying sense—navigating from A to B without catastrophe, using an olden system of roads and rules rife with ambiguity and interpretation.  Nobody, it seems, wants to change anything, even after confronted with disheartening 35,000/year death and 3M/year injury stats.  When they do, those efforts are suddenly gift-wrapped in blaze red cellophane tape.  Example?  Look no further than GOP hopeful and former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush.  Back in May 2005, he cited a lack of empirical evidence after vetoing a popular Road Rage Reduction Act in Florida.  It would have made it illegal to loiter in the left lane of an interstate or multi-lane highway.  You know the rule—Keep Right Except to Pass?  Nobody squats in the left lane making others angry, supposedly.  That, my friends, is the very definition of disconnect.  But no, I’m not blogging a hit piece on Jeb today.  Other than the aforementioned disconnect, well, and that whole Florida homeowner’s insurance rates quadrupling during his reign thing, I suspect he’s a rather nice fellow.  My concern is for the simple stagnation in basic transportation, and its need to evolve.  Who’s championing this?  I mean right now, who?

You may have been monitoring the autonomous automobile ongoings at Google, Tesla, and other tech campuses such as Audi, BMW, and, yeah, yet another German automaker, Mercedes-Benz, and their ‘mobile living space’.  (Neat, but really, Mercedes?)  Suffice to say, there are more than a few brilliant minds groupthinking their way towards removing your hands from the steering wheel.  Is that what we want?  Woody Allen’s Sleeper?  Someone pass the orb, dude!  Ah well, I believe driving—it’s purpose—comes down to individual philosophy, attitudes, and their resulting (pardon the pun) impacts they have on other drivers.

For those that tremble at the responsibility, dread climbing into that seat, timidly thrust themselves into the fray of a multi-lane freeway, and general perceive driving as a necessary labor of despise—a painful sacrifice to Chronos—self-driving automobiles hearken lofty angelic chorales and glistening metallic pain crystals (throw a little Vaseline on the lens for that softened soap opera look).  And, this might be a good thing.  You see, these are the folks that just might not belong behind the wheel in the first place, similarly to the many disabled people who also need a ride (well argued in this Oatmeal article).  Philosophy and attitudes may conflict with additional education on the subject, let alone any enthusiasm.  Folks like myself, on the other hand, wish we could get better at it.  Moreover, we enjoy driving itself, and crave the war on Chronos when it matters.  Get out of the way you texting pacifists, I’m trying to DRIVE here!

To be fair, those same car manufacturers excel at the conventional driver experience (Google being the exception, of course).  We already have countless vehicles with exceeding capabilities far beyond that which global governments will permit.  Why is that, by the way?  Ah, well, not the debate de jour.  What I mean is, if we possess the Six Million Dollar Man army in vehicles—to go better, faster, etc.—what’s the holdup? 

Us

Yes, it’s us.  We are the flatulence nobody claims, the sloth—the whining sloth—that deserves what is to come.  That’s right.  Once this autonomous driving thing is perfected, and we are all still paying through the nostrils for insuring the technology, a driving we will no longer go.  God forbid a software glitch makes a deadly mistake creating a class litigation swarm complete with desperate television advertisements.

So help me out here:  Who is listening to actual drivers out there?  No, I don’t mean anyone behind a steering wheel, I mean those who wish to stay there and get better at it.  Who?  Anyone?  Helloooooooo...

Better Drivers, Better Roads, Better Rules.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  What do we get?  Better cars, but with more distractions and less visibility.

The above article was meant to conjoin a previous installment regarding a Super License.  There exists individuals with ideas, obviously.  Mine is not exactly original.  I would also cite the entire country of Finland and their efforts to create the Master Race(rs) (used in pointed pun and jest).     

So what does politics have to do with it?  Everything.  Be mindful of those that champion your cause and vote for them accordingly.  But if you detect a sniveling panderer to complacency, dump ‘em like the steaming handful of poo they are.  Please! ;) 

Listen*

Oops. Another asterisk.  Have you seen this?

The Info Age is slowly but surely whittling away the ‘magic’ that is ..er.. was the craft of commercial music.  For the purposes of disclosure, I’ve been dawdling within that industry for a couple decades now, and I’ve been exposed the man behind the curtain.  Hmm… not sure that came out right.  Anyway…  Now hang on, don’t get your G-strings over-tightened, folks.  Not every artist is a manufactured dupe.  I’m strictly referencing the carefully-considered-in-a-boardroom-think-tank types.  These acts have been around for decades because they make money.  Remember, it’s the music business.  The music industry.  The publishing industry.  And on and on and so forth.  Although true artist/performers are commingled within, there will always be a percentage of commercially-conceived performers miming the latest computer-generated hits.  Until the consuming public defers those acts, they will always be around.  Don’t be surprised by this if you’re buying into it.  Engineering feats and faultless acting are ever on the increase.  It’s up to you to buy it or not—especially after your enlightenment.    

Writing Update and More from …Nelson’s Arcane

DUST’s sequel is still in the making, of course.  I’ve experienced a recent slow-down due to a real-estate intervention and other life activities, but the creating and writing continues!  I’m still hoping for a 2015 release, but I can’t give a date yet.  There is a lot of work yet to be done.  In the meantime, here are a couple more hidden homages within DUST:

From the chapter, “Rocked”:

“…Trovarto produced a plain black metallic and rectangular bar that measured about nine centimeters long, four centimeters wide, and just one centimeter thick..”  —The dimensional ratios of Monsignor Trovarto’s communicator are the same as the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  This ratio also appears throughout the famous Parthenon.

From the Chapter, “Amerimem Industries”:

“You can always throw a sheet over him or something.”  —Chris said this to Emily when she became frightened at the prospect of another night with Xeno (a stuffed toy clown) in her room.  This is a reference to a classic scene from Poltergeist.

More Soon!

/T

Everyone Thinks Your Music Stinks

 I still buy the occasional album, but it has to be GOOD.

I’m at the point now where if someone wants to share my music these days, or even talk about it, I take it as a huge compliment.  I’ve read several of these “Blame the Fans” (DMN, FORBES, GENE SIMMONS, QUIETUS) arguments now, and they're usually from a view that doesn’t quite grasp, let alone embrace, the last decade’s revenue shift or perhaps the value of a quality original production.  The assumption is that signed artists (i.e. those that “made it”) were making their heyday fortunes from recordings and touring.  Fact is, up until the late ‘90s album profits subsidized their tours.  Still true for mega-artists, perhaps, but I suspect that touring still creates the lion’s share.  Back in the day, ticket prices were generally cheaper (inflation-adjusted), productions more lavish and entertaining, and those concerts tested/teased upcoming material.  Oh, and the obligatory swag you sported in high school the next morning...

Good times.

But where are we today, exactly?  Generally speaking (because there IS some great new music out there), what we have now is factory-driven, formulaic, homogenized silt.  What musician gets out of bed in the morning and says, "Today I want to create something completely different.  Something never heard before."  Don’t take my word for it; people like Ian Anderson have been spouting this for quite some time.  No, it’s not the typical elder complaints ala Tony Bennett or Time (although I agree with parts of their reports concerning corporate influence).  Apparently, very few artists and producers strive for a well-conceived, sonically-excellent original work of ART these days.  Because of this, upcoming generations are all well and good with low-cost, massively-engineered, low-fi digital…and lots of it.  Who can blame them?  And concerts?  There’s not much out there special enough to justify $200 for a date night...or fan’s geek-on…or whatever the motive.  Us “older” folks aren’t much for shelling the money, or more importantly the time, to see their favorites simply stand on a prosaic stage, running a pacifying song list that took merely a week to rehearse.  Asking a kid to blow that kind of coin for couple hours away from their X-Box, or—how much Smirnoff Ice is that?—yeah, well, you see the economics. 

My takeaway from all this is:

Stop whining and UP YOUR GAME.

Be ORIGINAL, Make ART, give them a SHOW.

The public will decide if you’re worth their gonk.

WRITING LIFE UPDATE:

Still pounding away at the keys whenever a free moment arises, but the missus and I are in the beginning process of changing neighborhoods…so there’s that distraction.

Avanti!

/T