Month: February 2015

Superfluous 7 – Best Picture Winners That Matter

Did you watch The Academy Awards last night??

 

oscarNeither did I, but from catching up online it looks like the powers-that-be predictably followed their usual patterns. American Sniper, a film that normal people love because it celebrates American heroism and doesn’t try to minimize the evil of radical Islam, was overlooked. Some British dude won Best Actor because a) he’s British, and b) he played a handicapped character. Meanwhile, Michael Keaton…freakin’ Batman…gets squadoosh. Julianne Moore, an atheist who is all about abortion and wants to take away your right to bear arms, was awarded with a Best Actress statuette. The dude from the Farmer’s Insurance commercials was named Best Supporting Actor, probably in part because he’s old. A rapper won the award for Best Song. Presenters apparently included Kevin Hart (the only way he’ll ever be on the Oscar stage), The Rock (really??), and noted liberal assclowns Sean Penn, Liam Neeson, Gwyneth Paltrow, & Satan’s favorite talk show host. Tim McGraw took his lips off President Obama’s manhood long enough to perform a song, and somebody thought it was a good idea to give Lady Gaga a microphone, although to be fair the general consensus is she was quite good (see what happens when you toss aside the gimmick and just sing?). All in all I’m glad National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and a really interesting Billy Joel biography kept me entertained.

 

The truth is that I haven’t had Oscar Fever for several years. That begs the question…why??

 

There are a hundred different answers to that question, mostly to do with personal preferences & lifestyle, but one big issue is the huge disconnect theaterbetween Hollywood’s definition of quality and the public’s idea of popularity. A quick look at some of the highest grossing films in recent years is revealing. The Pirates of the Caribbean series. Iron Man. The Harry Potter series. Twilight. The Spider-Man movies. The Star Wars prequels. Popular?? Yes. Profitable?? Obviously. Award winning?? Not really. This isn’t a recent development though. Look back at the 80’s. Top Gun, Back to the Future, & Batman made a ton of cash and were all cool flicks in my opinion, but the “experts” didn’t shower them with trophies. Same deal for pretty decent stuff from the 70’s like Grease, Blazing Saddles, Dirty Harry, & The Poseidon Adventure. Meanwhile, The Academy has given Best Picture statuettes to the likes of Crash, The Artist, Dances with Wolves, The Hurt Locker, Out of Africa, The English Patient, & No Country for Old Men. What’s up with that??

 

So this train of thought led me to ponder…what films cross over?? What are some of the movies that I appreciate as a fan that were also rewarded by folks who (theoretically) know what makes a movie “good”?? There are only two requirements that qualify a movie for this list…a) I like it, and b) it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Therefore, without further ado, it is my pleasure to present…..

 

from the home office in Hollywood, FL…..

 

The Superfluous 7 Best Picture Winners That Matter:

 

 

 

 

7 Rain Man
Rain Man won Best Picture for 1988. Dustin Hoffman won Best Actor and Barry Levinson won Best Director as well, among other awards. Hoffman beat out Tom Hanks rainman(nominated for Big) for his trophy, which in retrospect is pretty darn impressive. His turn as an autistic savant is poignant and amusing, but not histrionic. It is still one of Tom Cruise’s best performances, and the film itself holds up well thru repeated viewings.

 

 

6 The Silence of the Lambs / The Greatest Show on Earth
lambsI’m not generally a horror/suspense/thriller fan, and I still maintain that the book is even better than the movie, but the success of Lambs can’t be greatestshow5overlooked. It was the 5th highest grossing film of 1991 and won Best Picture, Best Actor (Sir Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodi Foster), & Best Director (Jonathan Demme). I became familiar with The Greatest Show on Earth many years ago because I am a big Jimmy Stewart fan. The film also stars Charlton Heston and is kind of a soap opera set inside the circus. It was the top grossing movie of 1952 and won Best Picture, beating out High Noon (starring Gary Cooper).

 

 

5 American Beauty
American Beauty is a strange film. It falls into that dramedy category that I seem to enjoy so much. It was the 13th highest grossing film of 1999, but when one realizes abthat the #1 hit at the box office was Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace the often stark contrast between quantity & quality becomes clear. American Beauty overcame competition from The Green Mile and The Sixth Sense to win Best Picture, and the brilliant Kevin Spacey beat the likes of Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, & Denzel Washington for Best Actor. Spacey is hilarious thru much of the film, making it exceedingly entertaining & watchable, but its darker elements (especially toward the end) and the weird next door neighbors, while adding the gravitas that Hollywood loves, intensifies the eccentricity.

 

 

4 Titanic / Rocky
titanicTitanic not only topped the box office in 1997, it is the 2nd highest grossing film in the rockyworld…of all time. On top of the obvious mass appeal & financial success it is actually a really good movie that pretty much swept the Oscars and made huge stars out of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and director James Cameron. Sadly there was never a sequel. Conversely, 1976’s Rocky spawned numerous sequels, but none were as good as the original, which was written by Sylvester Stallone himself. Good sports films are almost always treasured by the masses but rarely receive high critical praise. Rocky broke the mold and has stood the test of time.

 

 

3 Casablanca / The Godfather Part II
casablancaWhen folks converse about the greatest movies ever made there are a handful of names that almost universally get denirotossed around. One of them is Casablanca, a romantic drama set against the backdrop of Nazi controlled Morocco during World War II. Casablanca has an elegance & sophistication that almost all modern entertainment lacks and is as great today as it was 70+ years ago. Maybe better, if that’s even possible. No car chases. No explosions. No CGI. No illicit sex or celebration of deviant lifestyles. Just good acting and fantastic writing. Hollywood should try that more often. Some say that The Godfather Part II is superior to the original film. I don’t quite agree, but I understand the sentiment. Part II seamlessly tells two different stories at the same time. Al Pacino returns as Michael Corleone, who is determined to make his “family business” legitimate. Robert DeNiro also stars as the younger version of Don Vito Corleone, as we see how he came to America and rose to power as a mob boss. In essence The Godfather Part II is a sequel AND a prequel…a pretty neat trick. DeNiro and Marlon Brando are the only two actors to win Oscars (Best Supporting Actor for DeNiro, Best Actor for Brando) for playing the same character, and the film was the first sequel to ever win Best Picture. Al Pacino was robbed of the Best Actor statuette…one of the most criminal snubs in the history of film.

 

 

2 Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump is kind of a divisive movie. Lots of people love it. Some people hate it. Many feel that, in hindsight, Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption were Forrest-Gumpsuperior films and one of them should have won Best Picture. Those same people think that either Morgan Freeman (for Shawshank), John Travolta (Pulp Fiction), or Paul Newman (Nobody’s Fool) might have been more deserving of the Best Actor award. I disagree on both counts. I adore Forrest Gump. I have watched it dozens of times and find it enchanting. Hanks has had a fantastic career, having been in a plethora of solid romantic comedies & animated features, but Gump remains his pinnacle.

 

 

1 The Godfather
For those familiar with my 100 Favorite Movies series the top two choices here come as no surprise, as they capped those rankings as well. I have called The GodfatherThe Godfather a “nearly flawless” film and I stand by that proclamation. Francis Ford Coppola is a legendary director. Pacino, Brando, James Caan, Talia Shire, Robert Duvall…all legends. The cinematography is brilliant. The music is extraordinary. The Godfather won Best Picture over Deliverance, which is kind of like saying the winner of a free meal at a restaurant chose surf & turf over cold pizza and a bottle of ripple. Brando had zero legitimate competition for Best Actor, but shockingly Francis Ford Coppola did not win Best Director. I am sure there is an “inside baseball” story about that, but I’m far too lazy to do the required research. Needless to say that The Godfather has aged more than well and it is a rare example of the rank & file in flyover country and the elitists in the film industry completely agreeing on something.

Celebrating VD

celebrate

Observant citizens of The Manoverse may have noticed that awhile back I created a new category for the archives called Holidays & Celebrations. That idea came about mainly due to my love for Christmas, but I am also interested in the history of other special days on the calendar. I feel like society often pushes aside the meaning of holidays and looks at them simply as a day off from their job or as a reason to frivolously spend money. Don’t misunderstand…I am not anti-frivolity. Fireworks on Independence Day, costume parties & trick-or-treating on Halloween, football & cheesy parades on Thanksgiving, Christmas presents & eggnog…it’s all good. But we should always remember that there is a reason…usually a profound & significant one…that these became widely recognized annual celebrations in the first place.

vd

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. It is my least favorite holiday, as it likely is for many single individuals. When most people think of Valentine’s Day I am sure certain images come to mind…heart shaped boxes of chocolate, red roses, & those little candy hearts with messages written on them like “Be Mine” or “Kiss Me”. Is Valentine’s Day just a conspiracy from Big Candy and the Flower Mafia designed to guilt married people into buying their products and drive the lonely & unattached into a bottomless pit of despair?? Surely there is more.

First things first…
There was indeed a Saint Valentine. He is an obscure priest known to have lived in the 3rd century and been martyred in Rome. That’s pretty much all that is known. There may have even been more than one Saint Valentine, but that just adds to the confusion.

saint-st-valentine_fb

So why is there a holiday dedicated to a guy that we know virtually nothing about?? While Saint Valentine was indeed real, the holiday dedicated in his honor seems to be built on a foundation of legends & folklore. Some stories indicate that he was imprisoned for giving assistance to Christians who were, at the time, being persecuted in Rome, and also performing marriage ceremonies for soldiers (who were forbidden from getting married). It is said that while in prison Saint Valentine healed his jailer’s blind daughter and converted the man himself to Christianity. Valentine was then beheaded by order of Emperor Claudius because he refused to deny Christ, but before his death he left a goodbye note for the formerly blind girl and signed it “Your Valentine”. No one knows if any of these things actually occurred, but it makes a great story.

The Feast of Saint Valentine was initially began by Pope Gelasius in the 5th century. It is believed to have been placed in mid-February to Christianize a pagan fertility feast called lupercalia, aka the Wolf Festival, named in honor of Lupa, a female wolf who was said to have suckled the twin infants Romulus & Remus, the mythical founders of Rome. The month of February itself comes from the term februum, which means purification. Romans believed that birds chose their mate in February.

chaucer

Things got a bit of a boost during The Middle Ages, which lasted from the 5th to the 15th centuries, but in this case we’re probably looking at around the 12th century when things like chivalry & love became somewhat of a pop culture sensation. Author & poet Geoffrey Chaucer made a big contribution to the Valentine tradition with his poem Parliament of Fowls, which was written to celebrate the nuptials of two 15 year old kids…England’s King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia. Twelve years later Anne died from the plague and Richard II became nuttier than a fruitcake, but at the time of their marriage they were the Middle Ages equivalent of Brangelina, Kimye, or Jay-Z & Beyonce. At any rate, in Chaucer’s poem he writes:

For this was on Saint Valentine’s day
When every fowl comes there his mate to take
Of every species that men know, I say
And then so huge a crowd did they make
That earth and sea, and tree, and every lake
Was so full, that there was scarcely space
For me to stand, so full was all the place

And as Alain, in his Complaint of Nature
Describes her array and paints her face
In such array might men there find her
So this noble Empress, full of grace
Bade every fowl to take its proper place
As they were wont to do from year to year
On Saint Valentine’s day, standing there

You know that on Saint Valentine’s day
By my statute and through my governance,
You come to choose and then fly your way
Your mates, as I your desires enhance
But nonetheless my rightful ordinance
I may not alter, for all the world to win
That he that is most worthy must begin

Saint Valentine, who art full high aloft
Thus sing the small fowls for your sake
Now welcome summer, with your sun soft
That this winter’s weather does off-shake

–

In 18th century England Valentine’s Day began to resemble the holiday that we all know. It became common to exchange Valentine cards & candy with one’s sweetheart. You can easily fill in the blanks as far as the rest of the holiday’s evolution.

hearts

Valentine’s Day is celebrated worldwide, but it is interesting that its religious origins have been minimized to the point that most don’t even realize that there was a real Valentine, that he was a priest, and that he was martyred for spreading the gospel and refusing to deny his Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Only the Anglican & Lutheran churches retain any semblance of the day’s sacred significance. So enjoy your chocolates, flowers, & dinner with your spouse, life mate, mistress, boy toy, or “friend with benefits”. I am sure many will celebrate by heading to the cinema to see the romantic blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey. Like I said, frivolity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But also take a moment to appreciate the real reason for the season.

Winning & Musing…..A Post-Super Bowl Wrap-Up

I know I said I wasn’t going to watch The Super Bowl, but I did…kind of. The Owl called me about a half hour before kickoff and we talked until midway thru the 4th quarter. The game was on but my TV was muted. However, thanks to modern technology I was able to go back and fill in some blanks so I could knowledgeably pontificate on all related matters. The things I do for my peeps. You’re welcome.

 

 

 

 

 
imI didn’t have any major issues with Idina Menzel’s rendition of the national anthem. I’m not a fan of Menzel’s distracting odd-shaped mouth or the fact that she unleashed Let It Go on an unsuspecting populace, but atleast she didn’t forget the words like Christina Aguilera four years ago.

 

 

 

It seems like the best Super Bowl commercial is the one that didn’t air. GoDaddy.com (a company I despise because of their idiotic name) produced an ad that mocked Budweiser’s sentimental puppy commercials, during which a little dog runs away but returns only to have the owner say she’d just sold him online with a website she created thru GoDaddy. It was a clever parody. But unfortunately we live in the United States of the Offended, a nation that seems to have lost our collective sense of humor. A bunch of pansies started an online petition demanding that the ad be pulled, a petition that stated that GoDaddy was “encouraging private breeding/puppy mills while shelter animals wait patiently for their forever homes” and also railed laugh2against online transactions involving pets because the animal “could be sold to someone who runs a fighting ring, someone who abuses animals, or someone who cannot adequately care for an animal.” Oh please…get a freakin’ grip people!! I could walk out of The Bachelor Palace and be struck by a meteor. I could go on a blind date and find out the potential mother of my children is a homeless transvestite serial killer with a drug & alcohol addiction. I could traipse all the way to the local grocery store specifically to purchase a gallon of skim milk only to find them sold out of everything but half gallons of 2%. It’s called life!! Look, I am not minimizing the value of responsible pet ownership. I know several people who have rescue pets and folks that foster on a regular basis. I’m down with the jive. I love my dog more than just about anything in the world. But this is a nationally known company that paid $4.5 MILLION for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl and because a bunch of bored bleeding hearts got their knickers in a twist was forced to hurriedly produce and air a subpar commercial. They certainly didn’t get their money’s worth. Can’t we all just lighten up?? Laugh a little. Learn to take a joke. You’ll live longer.

 

 

 

kpKaty Perry’s halftime show was…okay. Perry, a fallen preacher’s kid who has turned her back on The Lord and embraced 21st century whore culture, is a lovely young lady that has put out some catchy tunes (amongst the other things she has put out), but I’m not the target audience for her act. Lenny Kravitz wasted his time & talents by even showing up, and I didn’t know who that fat rapper dude was that popped in. It was a visually creative spectacle, especially at the end when Perry flew off on the star from the “The More You Know” PSAs that used to air on NBC in the 90’s. I am sure that teenage girls and massive amounts of 20-somethings with no taste are going to trumpet this as the greatest Super Bowl halftime show EVER…but I’ll take Springsteen, McCartney, Prince, dead pedophile Michael Jackson, or even Justin Timberlake & Janet Jackson’s old saggy nipple any day of the week.

 

 

 

How big of an idiot is Seattle head coach Pete Carroll, not to mention offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell?? I’m pretty old-fashioned when it comes topc football. I suppose spread offenses & dual threat quarterbacks are fun to watch, but at the end of the day if you can’t hand the ball off to your running back at the 1 yard line and ram it down the defense’s throat for a touchdown then you don’t deserve to win. Throwing the ball in that situation is insane, and no explanation can logically justify the play that was called. I am certainly no fan of Seahawks’ RB Marshawn Lynch. He made a complete jackass out of himself in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Having said that though, if Lynch is in your backfield at the 1 yard line GIVE HIM THE DAMN BALL!!!! And if that fails I think QB Russell Wilson is a pretty good second option. Get him out in space. Let him try to find an open guy, or if nothing is available he can throw the ball away. I don’t know how many offensive plays are in a typical NFL playbook, but I have to believe that in a list of options the play that was called would have to be dead last. Carroll can no longer be taken seriously as a head coach on any level, and Bevell…once thought to be a potential future head coach…may have just irreversibly torpedoed his career.

 

 

 

sb2You know who I feel sorry for?? Seattle wide receiver Jermaine Kearse. Kearse made an amazing juggling catch that put the Seahawks inside the 5 yard line with about a minute remaining in the game. That catch should be…and would have been…remembered as one of the greatest catches in Super Bowl history. It was spectacular. Sadly, due to the stupidity of the “braintrust” that called Seattle’s final offensive play, Kearse’s incredible reception will just kind of disappear into the ether, as if it never happened at all.