--*Au Revoir, Oscar

I watched the Oscars this year not at an Oscar party, but at a post-"Ed Wood" B movie party. How, you may ask, did that happen? Who would schedule a camp marathon on the night of the Oscars? Why is it that when Ryan Seacrest was trolling among the shallow pools of red plush looking for a bosom big enough, like Clooth Na Bare's lake, to drown himself in, I was taking solace in the bosom of Vampira and her statuesque physique and equally statuesque performance as an alien seed hatchling? Why is it that when George Clooney arrived dressed to the Nines, I was watching "Plan Nine From Outer Space"? Why is it that when Miley Cyrus arrived I was looking not into her saucer eyes but looking instead at a flying saucer on fire that oddly resembled the flaming hubcap of a 1978 Pinto hatchback? Why was I missing Mo'Nique and her hairy legs to watch Vampira and her leggy dregs?

Part of it was poor planning, but you might also attribute it to a lack of Academy Awards brio in yours truly. I am probably the only person on Earth who will tell you that I'm put off by the expansion of the Best Picture category to 10 nominees. The reason for this gesture of noblesse oblige by the academy, their opening of the gates to more films, possibly even bad ones, is that America has divided into two camps, the 1% of those who like good movies and then everybody else. It was time to offer a seductive hand, it seems, to lure back the other 99% of moviegoers who had stopped watching the Oscars because they knew they would not see the names Twilight or The Hangover or Medea's Family Reunion engraved on a statuette. Ever. Who knew that their favorite teen angst kitsch and piss-colored melodramas would never be rewarded with the bald trophy who shines like tears from the sun.

I have always loved the Oscars before. Unlike the almost useless Grammy Awards, a ceremony that tries to plant tent poles in the shifting sands of fashion, and ends up mostly rewarding, in the face of such an impossible task, technical prowess and blondeness, the Oscars have always seemed to me to be an actual arbiter of quality first. Sure, they've thrown in such horrible crowd-pleasers as Ghost from time to time, but only the Academy Awards would reach out to a small desert flower growing unnoticed in the vermilion cliffs and water it--such films as Chariots of Fire, perhaps, or performances like Hilary Swank's in Boys Don't Cry.

When business people evaluate stocks, they usually look at two values--what the price of a company would be if everything, including the paper clips, were sold today, and then what the mad crowd thinks its worth. This is a dangerous game with art, which is always given no value until it is suddenly given way too much value. The same with Oscars. Sometimes, when you give an award to a person who actually deserves it, the price of the Oscar goes up. An Oscar worth 50 cents when you give it to Sandra Bullock is worth $1.20 if you give it to Martin Scorsese. Such is the manic temper of commodity.

But this year, the hawkers of the statue seem determined to try to fix its value again (downward) by dangling more of them out to a field of contenders that was largely unworthy. 2009 was not a good year for movies. In fact, it merely confirmed the fact that "merely good" is somehow a worthy substitute for great, something it becomes harder to think as the years pass and that copy of Taxi Driver sits on your shelf, reminding you how things used to be.

I haven't seen Avatar, and maybe I should withhold judgment, but the fact is I can't be excited about it because I feel like I know who it was made for, and it wasn't made for me. I was supposed to be excited last year when the excellent franchise of Star Trek was revitalized, only to find out that a series whose stories once proceeded from big ideas and intellectual curiosity had been turned into a work of hostility by fetish monkeys--people who romanticize mass annihilation and are drunk on enfeebling spectacle. People who prefer to see Captain Kirk as an out-of-control alpha male oozing vengeance rather than the cool, if libidinous, master of the Socratic dialogue that he once was. Could anyone have ignored the irony that the filmmakers of the new Star Trek literally destroyed the old Star Trek reality with a freak time warp accident and a bunch of red goop, freeing themselves to reimagine these beloved characters as a pantheon of whiny Gen Y orphans and freeing the series forever from the yoke of seriousness? Is this how dies the free-thinking, stoic Rousseauian humanist that sprang forth in the 60s, to be murdered in an Oedipal tantrum? His history erased by gadget-loving latch-key kids with a working mom and absent dad who will forever be trying and failing to get in touch with his feelings and beating up lots of people in the process?

This sucks.

I harp on Star Trek only because it was one of the highest grossing films of last year. Its audience has won. They control the films we watch. So I don't feel like they deserve to invest the halls of the Academy too, pulling down the marble and pulling up the porphyry and purloining the columns and otherwise destroying the last of the great Empire that was the Hollywood of the '70s and building their Vandal camps all around.

I can find hope in the fact that a number of good, adventurous, innovative films did indeed win the night--films like Precious and Inglourious Basterds. I concede that quality was eventually rewarded more than commerce. But I can't help but feel that this breach between what's good and what's successful will continue to widen until we have two different industries and two different audiences. If you think America is polarized politically, then I ask you to imagine what it would be like if we are divided aesthetically. It may seem like a silly distinction. But then again, men with long hair and women with hairy legs were once able to change the world.

Bring on Mo'Nique, and her hairy legs.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

--*What Were Some of the Surprises of the Academy Award Nominations?

--*After a rule change, there are now 10 nominees for best picture. In keeping with this new spirit of diluted quality, the category will be renamed "Most Acceptable Picture."

--*There were many historic firsts in the nominations this year if by first you mean it's the second or fourth times something's happened.

--*Historic if "first nominee to ever own a Prius" is historic to you.

--*The director of <em>Precious</em>, Lee Daniels, says that he hopes the nomination of his film as best picture will bring more people to see it. For some reason, an inner city tale about obesity, child abuse, incest, drug addition, dyslexia, Down Syndrome and AIDS is having trouble finding an audience.

--*In expanding the Best Picture category, the academy was hoping to draw more interest to the event by including more crowd pleasers in the competition and keeping actual good movies from having an unfair advantage.

--*Because so many best picture nominees have been added, the academy had to shorten other lists for time. The best supporting actor Oscars thus automatically go to Mo'Nique and Christopher Waltz so we can dispense with all the unnecessary suspense.

--*The competition pits James Cameron, the creator of <em>Avatar</em>, against his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, director of <em>The Hurt Locker</em>, in the best director category. According to their divorce settlement, however, if Bigelow wins, Cameron will be able to visit the Oscar on weekends, but Bigelow will take a good chunk of Cameron's artistic credibility.

--*Bigelow will make history if she wins, by being the first female to take home the statuette, but will also erase history, mainly by making us all forget how many horrible films she's made.

--*Many observers were outraged that <em>Avatar</em>'s actors were not nominated, arguing that the film's animation was actually guided by gestures, facial quirks and timing of actors such as Zoe Saldana. Which provokes the interesting scientific question: Would R2-D2 have been nominated as best actor for <em>Star Wars </em> had he not chewed so much scenery?

--*We've not only got 10 nominated films, but two hosts--Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Obviously, we need to cram as many stars into this night as possible because your neuron receptors have become desensitized to the sight of only one star and now you need several, suggesting heightened bodily tolerance and altered neuroplasticity.

--*Quentin Tarantino is certain to win the Oscar by rewriting history and single-handedly defeating the Nazis. That at least merits an Oscar, a Nobel and a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Angelina Jolie Eats Brad Pitt

(Originally posted Monday, February 16, 2009)

Los Angeles, Calif. (API) Now that she has finished using him for mating purposes, Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie has begun consuming film star Brad Pitt, the father of her children, it was reported Thursday. The couple's last two children were born in July 2008, and following a hectic season of movie releases, Jolie began the oft-observed natural phenomenon of sexual cannibalism that brought a swift end to Pitt's life and career.

Jolie, the internationally renowned film star, multiple-Golden Globe winner and goodwill ambassador to the U.N. Refugee Agency, started eating Pitt, star of 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, sometime last week on the couple's giant bed, and it is not certain whether she has quite finished gorging on him.

"It's a sad day," said Pitt's friend George Clooney. "But that's the miracle of life. It happens."

Pitt and Jolie first encountered each other on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2005, sparking an international scandal when tabloid rumors swirled that she had broken up Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Jolie soon became pregnant with Pitt's child, Shiloh Nouvel-Jolie Pitt, and Pitt has since sired two other biological children by Jolie, the twins Knox and Vivienne, which they've added to a brood of three other adopted children, Maddox, Pax and Zahara.

"This is true Hollywood royalty, and a truly new kind of American family," said former Vanity Fair Tina Brown. "It was sad that it had to end this way, but nature took its course, and we humbly regard its mysteries."

Susan Sarandon, Pitt's co-star in Thelma & Louise, remembered him as a dynamic movie star whose presence and sexual charisma were so appealing, she joked, that he could arouse the mating instincts of almost anybody--no matter what their gender, sexual persuasion, breed, order, class or phylum.

"He was one of the bright lights of our industry," said Julia Roberts. "I can't tell you what a loss this is. But of course, he knew what he was doing."

Sexual cannibalism is often found in cases of sexual dimorphism, when the female is much larger than the male. Biologists have noted that there are many reproductive advantages to the behavior, such as the female's ability to root out inferior DNA by eating males before reproduction, and of course the male's nutritional value, which can lead to a more rugged brood.

Jolie has been married to two other mates, Billy Bob Thornton and Jonny Lee Miller, but many observers said that these men were inferior specimens who were unable to supply Jolie with the superior genetic material she required. Neither man was consumed by Jolie.

"I guess I dodged a bullet there," said Thornton. "Really, I wish Angie all the best."

Pitt, an Oklahoma native, rose to meteoric international fame with the films A River Runs Through It, Legends of the Fall, Interview With the Vampire, Seven and 12 Monkeys.

Jolie, who at first tried to downplay their affair on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, eventually admitted that she had immediately seen Pitt's biological advantages, his statuesque features, his strong square jaw, high forehead, facial symmetry, erect posture and good waist-to-shoulder ratio.

"And of course People magazine said he was the sexiest man alive, which confirmed these genetic traits," said Jolie. "It was fairly clear we would mate."

Jolie, star of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, is one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood, and she's now up for another Academy Award for best actress for her role in The Changeling. She will likely accept the award for Pitt if he wins the Oscar for Benjamin Button, though she was still unavailable for comment while she finished eating the father of her children. In advance of the Oscar presentation, it is likely she is incubating many eggs now, say scientists, though it is unclear how many of them will survive the first molt.

Things Not Quite Overheard at the Golden Globes

(Originally posted Monday, January 12, 2009)

What were some of the thingsoverheard at this year's Golden Globes? (OK, actually overheard at your next-door neighbor's party in the West Village).

--*"She looks like a tramp!"

--*"What are they thinking?"

--*"Is this a wax museum?"

--*"Miss Havisham called! She wants her skeleton back!"

--*"Drew Barrymore looks she's been embalmed."

--*"Shoot that guy in the face!"

--*"I just don't buy Lisa Rinna's newfound wisdom about aging and internal beauty. I think she doth protest too much."

--*"Is Maggie Gyllenhall stupid?"

--*"She looks like my dead cat."

--*"Nietzsche said that when man cannot express himself because of self-consciousness, he turns to art as an act of ressentiment. ... You know, I think Nietzsche's dead, syphilis-ridden corpse would look better than Renee Zellweger does tonight."

--*"Brad and Angelina talked to Billy Bush but not Ryan Seacrest. Evidently, there's some kind of difference between these two red carpet hosts that only sophisticated connoisseurs of idiocy know about."

--*"Did everybody decide to dress badly tonight just to confuse all of us catty people at once?"

--*"Did Mickey Rourke win an award just to confuse all of us catty people at once."

--*"I sure hope this feeling of superiority I'm supposed to be feeling kicks in soon."