Holy War: Religulous

And on the eighth day, God said: “Pull my finger.” That isn’t a joke from Bill Maher’s Religulous, but it might as well be. Helmed by Larry Charles, the director of Borat, and starring Maher, Religulous is a documentary in the Michael Moore style in which religion is in the crosshairs and condescending jokes are the ammunition. Maher, standing front and center, takes us on an offbeat tour of several major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, etc), a few minor ones (a marijuana-using sect in Amsterdam) and those in between (Scientology). Maher interviews people at the Vatican, near the ruins of Megiddo, at a religious theme park in Florida and at other places across the globe. No matter which religion is being discussed or who it’s being discussed with, the conversation remains the same. Though Maher’s explicit arguments change on a case by case basis, the implicit theme goes something like this: “If you believe that, I’ve got some land near Chernobyl to sell you.”

The point of Religulous, Maher says, is to create a case for doubt. Maher notes, seemingly sincerely, that he just doesn’t know whether any of the world’s religions have it right or if there is a God at all. Thus he doesn’t subscribe to any religion, but he is careful to point out that he isn’t an atheist. To absolutely not believe in God would, in Maher’s view, cause him to commit the very sin of certainty that confounds him about believers. The trouble is, for a guy turned off by a made-up mind, Maher is so devout in his doubt that it might actually take a talking snake or a few days living inside the belly of a fish for him to see the light. After all, this is a man who calls religion “detrimental to the progress of humanity.” You’d have an easier time building an ark than finding doubt in that statement.

But if you think Maher’s imperfections as a listener render Religulous unworthy of your attention, think again. Maher himself doesn’t always play fair (his ideological battles in this film often pit him, a heavyweight debater, against novice lightweights), but as a whole his documentary gives voice to a shockingly silent though significant minority. According to a statistic cited by Maher, 16 percent of Americans are admitted non-believers. But while Bill O’Reilly throws regular fits about a mounting “attack on Christianity” taking place in the U.S., the fact remains that remarks disparaging any religion other than Islamic extremism are considered taboo. That’s unfortunate. If you believe that society is improved by a free market of ideas, Maher’s anti-God bullhorning isn’t just acceptable, it’s long overdue.

Of course, Religulous won’t be embraced by everyone. Many will be offended, by Maher’s smugness if nothing else. But is Religulous truly offensive? If you find yourself leaning toward yes, you might ask yourself why. All Maher does with this film is repeatedly call attention to the curiosities, let’s call them, of many religious faiths. Shouldn’t something as significant as a belief in God be able to stand up to such cross-examination? Why is it that something so profound all too often goes unchallenged? There are a few instances in Religulous when people walk out on Maher rather than stand up to his questioning. “I didn’t know you were making that kind of film,” they say. Translation: “I’m here to agree with you, but don’t you dare raise doubts.” Seems to me that though we tell ourselves we don’t discuss religion in public because faith is a private matter, perhaps the real reason we avoid the subject is because it keeps us from being asked questions for which we don’t have answers.

In case it matters, full disclosure: From as early as I can remember until I left home for college, I went to church every Sunday. I even went to a Catholic high school, though that was more for the benefits of a private school education than any desire (parental or personal) for religious influence. Looking back over my life, I can think of numerous positive encounters with representatives of the Church and not a single negative one. But I am no longer a practicing Catholic. The sticking point, if there was just one, came down to the Church’s cowardly, just-barely-tolerant treatment of homosexuals (revealed through a number of equal-rights measures going through my home state of Oregon in the early 90s). I failed to see how the Catholic Church’s stance was remotely in line with the spirit of Jesus Christ’s teachings, and that quashed any desire for affiliation. As of today, I haven’t altogether eliminated the idea of God, but I can’t say I believe in Him. I love the idea of an afterlife, but I’ve seen no evidence of one firsthand, and so I don’t believe in that either. I hope I’m wrong on both counts.

In the meantime, yes, I find it either arrogant or naïve to think that any of us has a clue who God is or what His intentions are. Maher doesn’t need to sell doubt to me. I already have it. On that note, if Religulous is meant to be a vehicle to spark a non-belief movement, I’m not sure it succeeds. The movie is peppered with observations that should give any thinking believer a pause, but these erudite points are lost amidst others that are flimsy and sophomoric. Time and again, Maher genuflects to comedy before honest conversation, and in doing so he is likely to repulse the very people he hopes to convert. In Maher’s ideal scenario, the gag-filled antics of Religulous make it the meat surrounding the bitter pill that is Maher’s truth. But, more likely, the dog in this scenario is Maher. He spends so much of Religulous wearing a grin of self-congratulations that he might as well be licking himself.

To be fair: America probably isn’t ready for the PowerPoint lecture in favor of doubt, ala Al Gore’s global warming wake-up call An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps this was the only approach available to Maher if he hoped to reach a mainstream audience. But by that design, Religulous isn’t as funny as it should be or even all that bold. There are a few terrific gags (a Brokeback Mountain music cue, for one), but most of them are cheap or predictable. As it turns out, Maher’s smartest joke, borrowed from an old stand-up routine, doubles as his most cogent argument for doubt: First he lists some of the beliefs of Scientology, and then, after those get a laugh, he compares them to some of the beliefs of Christianity. The point? Most religions seem so wacky to outsiders that it’s hard to believe insiders have taken an honest look at themselves. It’s a gotcha moment for the audience, and it’s hard to avoid the trap.

At my Catholic high school I came in contact with various religious figures who encouraged me to challenge my faith. I doubt that most are so fortunate. Religulous attempts to take the fight to those who think their religion is above scrutiny. Believers shouldn’t ignore Maher or dismiss him as a bigot. They should welcome the challenge. Because if you have true faith, what is there to fear? Regardless, so as long as “In God We Trust” is printed on our currency and Presidents take their oath on the Bible and school kids pledge allegiance to the flag “under God” (terminology added in the 1950s, remember), religion doesn’t get a free pass. My personal wish would be for all those who rushed to see The Passion to put forth equal effort to see Religulous. It’s only fair. Besides, in the end Maher and Believers share a fundamental view: If Christianity or Judaism or Islam or any of the world’s religions are accurately advancing The Word of The God, well, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

Tale of Two Sundances: Appaloosa

At the end of Appaloosa, a lone cowboy rides off into the sun-tinged horizon of New Mexico circa 1882. In doing so, he is following a trail blazed by so many before him – the ride into the sunset being as much a staple of the Western movie as the cowboy and the horse – but he is heading nowhere in particular and he is in no particular hurry to get there. This much we know, not just because the metaphorical device is as self-evident as a fist-fight in a saloon or a duel on a dusty main drag, but also because, against all reason, the cowboy comes right out and says so. The clunky explanation is delivered in a bit of bow-tying voice-over that is as unnecessary as it is indicative of the film entire. Appaloosa, a Western heading nowhere in particular and in no particular hurry to get there, is a model of screenwriting mediocrity.

The film is based on a novel by Robert B Parker. Screenwriting duties were handled by Ed Harris, who also stars and directs, and Robert Knott. Neither Harris nor Knott has a previous screenwriting credit, and their lack of experience shows. Intending, I think, to be an examination of a pair of tight-lipped lawmen-for-hire, Appaloosa is instead just tight-lipped. Expressionless. If you recognize where the film aims to go, you can perhaps make some allowances and help it along. But the hard truth is that Appaloosa moves with all the purpose of a stray cut off from the herd. It doesn’t take us anywhere. It merely takes up time.

It’s a shame, because as lethargic as the film is, Harris’ passion for it is unmistakable. Working with cinematographer Dean Semler, whose Western credits include Young Guns, Dances With Wolves, The Alamo and even City Slickers, Harris frames his shots with the care of someone in love with the genre. Appaloosa lacks the opulence of The Assassination of Jesse James, which Roger Deakins approached with Malickian flare, but it gives us a handful of iconic two-shots of the contemplative cowboy leads Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), plus a seduction amidst a dust storm that’s so visually romantic that it feels as if it comes from Gone With The Wind. In these moments, Appaloosa is at least nice to look at. But because Harris and Knott fail to find the pulse of their story, that’s all that it is.

Appaloosa’s chief sin is that it is almost entirely without dramatic tension. It opens by announcing the villain, Jeremy Irons’ Randall Bragg, a wealthy rancher living just outside of town who shoots the local marshal rather than let two of his ranch hands get taken away to jail. Enter Virgil and Everett, gun-toting friends who roam the Southwest looking for little towns in need of peacekeepers. Tired of Bragg’s band of mischief-makers, Appaloosa’s three suits, who often appear to be the town’s only citizens, immediately enlist Virgil and Everett’s services. But if you figure this sets up Appaloosa to be a gritty battle between the lawmen and the lawless, you figure wrong. It’s just about this time that a train comes into town bringing with it the fine fashions and empty purse of Renee Zellweger’s Allison French. And immediately, Appaloosa takes on a new identity.

From here, Appaloosa is a love story, or perhaps a collection of them. Whatever it is, it’s poorly executed. Sitting in one chair we have Virgil, admittedly uncomfortable with even the concept of emotion, finding himself stirred by this newcomer. In another chair is Everett, equally quiet but obviously attracted, and yet bound first to Virgil. And last there’s Allison, who we grow to learn has an eye for everyone and is willing to take on all comers (pun intended). Her appeal, beyond being female, is never made clear. She has no money, no skills beyond the piano and, worst, no real personality. Without many lines to speak, Zellweger spares us a return to her hammy antics of Cold Mountain, but her performance is ghastly nonetheless, a collection of smiles, grins and beams. Allison is fool’s gold, but that doesn’t keep the character from being the underlying motivation of almost every scene following her introduction.

The other characters aren’t any more interesting. Villains usually make for ripe roles in Westerns, but Bragg is more bark than bite, and beyond that he’s a bore, thus continuing Irons’ recent streak of unmemorable bad guys. Meanwhile, Mortensen is given just one good scene as Everett, and it comes all too late to make an impact. For the most part, Everett is little more than Virgil’s mustachioed shadow, and the soulful Mortensen is routinely upstaged by the 8-gauge shotgun he carries. Then there’s Virgil, clad in black as if to highlight his lack of transparency. For Appaloosa to succeed, it needed to be driven by the perversity of Virgil’s twisted ethics and urges, but Virgil’s character seems made up of screenwriting concepts rather than actual emotions. Harris the writer fails Harris the actor, leaving Virgil looking more empty than distant. Frequently, shots of Virgil and Everett that are meant to suggest depth or poignancy merely evoke aimlessness.

To Harris’ credit, the gunplay in Appaloosa is thrillingly quick and vicious. Trouble is, that’s exactly the wrong kind of gunplay for a film that rarely feels worthy of our attention. As a frequent critic of the drawn-out “action” sequences that typify most adventures these days, I will have to dodge lightning bolts as I write this, but Appaloosa needed at least one free-for-all in which the shots pop like fireworks and the supply of ammunition is bottomless. This wasn’t the time to go for realistic minimalism. To imagine this film done right is to think of something closer to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid – another Western with two men in love with the same woman and yet more in love with one another. “Who are those guys?” is the famous refrain from that film. I might ask the same question about Virgil and Everett. After almost two hours, I still didn’t know. Or maybe I was never made to care.

Announcing the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon!

[Nov 4 Update: The Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon has commenced here.]

The 2008 race for the White House has gone on so long that even Barack Obama is starting to look old. And, sure, the whole drawn-out affair has recently gotten a bit more interesting, thanks to a certain hockey mom from Alaska who is so intent on staring down the Russians every morning that she apparently can’t remember the name of the newspaper that’s spread out next to her bowl of cornflakes. But, like it or not, in just over a month the spectacle will end.

Come Election Day – er, maybe a few days after – some of us will be celebrating and some of us will be sobbing. But, assuming we’ve been keeping up with the coverage, all of us will find ourselves with a little extra free time and a pang of regret that the whole blessed affair ended so quickly (just go with me on this). So on that note, in the spirit of keeping the rash of political mania burning just a little longer, or if only to provide a welcome diversion from the election’s outcome, The Cooler is pleased to announce the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon, taking place right here November 4-9.

Bloggers: Consider this your invitation.

The parameters are these: Your post must deal with politics and movies. Simple as that. If that means you write an appreciation of a political-themed drama like The Candidate, perfect! If that means you analyze a documentary like No End In Sight, that’s great, too. If instead you want to dive into the deeper political themes of a blockbuster like The Dark Knight, be my guest. Politics and movies are the essential ingredients. Go forth and be creative.

Per usual, post your contribution on your blog and send me the link via e-mail or the comments section the week of the blog-a-thon. If you don’t have a blog and would like to contribute, e-mail me your contribution and I’ll post it here at The Cooler.

In the meantime, if you would be so kind, help spread the word.

See you on Election Day!

Queue It Up: An Unreasonable Man

[With politics dominating our conversations, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

You see him as the gallant superhero for the average American consumer. Or you see him as the megalomaniac whose unrealistic presidential bid landed George W Bush in the White House. Or maybe you don’t see him at all. But whatever image you have of Ralph Nader today, figure that it will change as you’re watching the engaging profile smartly titled An Unreasonable Man. Heck, figure that it will change a few times.

That’s this documentary’s beauty. Directed and edited in frequently fawning tones by Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovon, Unreasonable is the product of Nader supporters. That much is clear. Yet the profile is peppered with dissent. It’s not a balanced portrayal, but it is most definitely fair, which is all we can ask and more than we can expect from a political film. Here, Nader’s critics never get the last word, but they’re neither ignored nor restrained. One detractor goes so far as to call Nader a Leninst, and his charge – harsh though it is – is allowed to resonate.

That Mantel and Skrovon are so willing to embrace this anti-Nader vitriol without resorting to itemized rebuttals demonstrates their assurance in both their filmmaking and their subject. And it’s equally telling that Unreasonable refrains from cheap-shot innuendo. Today the doors to America’s public debate forum are open as wide as ever, what with the Internet, cable news proliferation and the recent documentary boom. Yet the end sum doesn’t seem to be an increase in open-minded discussion so much as a surplus of open-mouthed yelling. Unreasonable bucks that trend with its simple civility.

This film is passionate, measured and convinced, much like its subject. One could easily be put off by Nader’s smug self-assurance, but at the same time it’s refreshing to see someone so willing to live in the line of fire. If Bush is Queen Isabella, sending others into unknown lands, ready to take credit for success or blame failure on poor intelligence, Nader is Christopher Columbus: where his ideas go, his ass follows. That doesn’t make Nader perfect (though he might argue the point), but it at least makes him respectable.

Should you find it difficult to embrace Nader today, you ought to be able to appreciate some of his past achievements. The first half of Unreasonable details Nader’s long career as a consumer advocate, including his daring fight with General Motors in the mid-1960s, which led to significant auto safety reform. A lesser man would have rested on those laurels. A lesser film would have done the same. But the latter half of Unreasonable bravely treads into muddier ground, examining Nader’s role – real or imagined – as “spoiler” in the 2000 presidential election.

On this subject, there is no simple interpretation, though mine finds Nader culpable of nearsightedness, if innocent of Al Gore’s demise. Others see it differently. That they get to say so on camera says something impressive about this film. By broadening the conversation, Unreasonable gives Nader more depth in two hours than Bush has suggested in two terms.

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

Paul Newman: 1925-2008

If the most revered performer of anti-heroes in American cinema history was Marlon Brando, second on the list – and not by much – was Paul Newman. Brando drew us to his bad-boy personas by offsetting despicableness with heartbreaking vulnerability. For Newman, however, the counterbalance was something else: charm. With his stunning blue eyes and innate sweetness, Newman was unfailingly likeable, despite some of his most famous characters’ best attempts to convince us otherwise. Now, sadly, Newman follows Brando somewhere else: to the list of the departed. Newman died yesterday after a well-known but very private battle with cancer, his modesty in his final days consistent with the dignity that was one of his trademarks.

To think that we can separate what we know of the man off-screen from the character on the big screen is foolish, in any situation. A troubled actor (Mel Gibson, say) can ride through hard times off-camera thanks to the goodwill generated by his likeable cinematic portrayals. Likewise, an actor’s real-life image has a way of informing our instincts about their characters. Newman, who may not have had a single enemy other than Richard Nixon, brought genuine warmth with him to the screen whether he wanted to or not. It was because of all the attention paid to his beauty that Newman began seeking out unwholesome onscreen characters in the first place.

For my money, Newman’s best performance (and I admit there are many I haven’t seen) comes in 1963’s Hud, which earned him an Oscar nomination. The titular role provides him with arguably the most vile character of his career (“The man with the barbed wire soul,” the movie’s tagline assessed), and yet we’re still drawn to him. When a drunken Hud tries to force himself on Alma (an outstanding Patricia Neal), we experience her feelings of betrayal because, like Alma, we didn’t think Hud capable of such a thing, despite evidence to the contrary. Newman’s good-natured spirit is what makes Hud’s actions so revolting, and also what allows us to believe in his remorse after the fact.

As for my favorite Newman film, that has to be Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, one of the many pictures in which he played opposite Robert Redford. No disrespect to Joanne Woodward, Newman’s wife of 50 years who acted with her husband in four films, it was Redford who was Newman’s natural onscreen other-half – the Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire. In their 1969 pairing, Newman is perfectly cast as Butch, the stick-up artist with such an inherent authoritativeness to him that even Sundance is surprised when Butch finally admits late in the film that he’s never shot and killed anyone before.

Newman and Redford were friends off-screen, too. In the onslaught of tributes that we’re sure to see in the next hours and days, keep your eye out for an interview in which Newman, a notorious prankster, details some gift-swapping foolishness involving his pal Redford. I don’t remember who conducted the interview or how the story goes, only that it involves a car (a Porsche, I believe) that the two friends managed to send back and forth to one another – though not always in the same condition they received it. What I’ll never forget is the twinkle in Newman’s eye when he tells the story. You didn’t need to read accounts of Newman’s extensive philanthropic efforts to feel the warmth of his heart.

I close this remembrance with some images from the film that gave Newman arguably his most famous character, Cool Hand Luke, and from Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. The former film, you might recall, ends with George Kennedy’s Drag recounting his final moments with Luke. It’s a description that takes on deeper meaning as we say goodbye to the actor, the race car enthusiast, the humanitarian and the legend who played him. Here's Drag:

“He was smiling. That’s right. You know, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then they weren’t ever gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural born world shaker.”

Diane Lane Naked

I can’t remember what tipped me off. What I do remember is that the first time I saw the trailer for Nights In Rodanthe, I figured out much earlier than I should have that the film is based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. As in, long before horses go galloping down a white-sanded beach, and well before a single character cries and even before Richard Gere puts on his Poignant Face. Which means I had it pegged in about 5 seconds. I’m not sure what it was that triggered me, but the stench of Sparks’ goopy sentimentality announced itself from around the corner like a garbage truck on a humid summer day. Yick.

Like Righteous Kill last week, Nights In Rodanthe is a movie I won’t be seeing. Not opening weekend. Not ever. My aversion in this case isn’t to the Sparks-inspired material (though I can’t say it helps) but to seeing Gere opposite Diane Lane. Again. This is the third time the actors have shared the screen together, and it’s one time too many. Only six years ago, almost two decades removed from their first pairing in The Cotton Club, Lane and Gere starred in Unfaithful, the Adrian Lyne-directed meditation on love, passion, fidelity and ethics, with some Hitchcockian (and I’m not using that term lazily) flare on the side. And it’s with that film that our lasting impression of the Gere-Lane pairing should stay.

Though Gere’s singing and dancing as Chicago’s Billy Flynn drew him raves, Unfaithful provided him with one of his finest performances of at least the last 15 years – the American Gigolo proving refreshingly vulnerable in the sweaters of Ed Sumner, the working dad who excels in the office but is clumsy with the home video camera. Watching Gere’s Ed clean up the mess at the apartment of Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) is to see him become the quintessential Hitchcockian everyman. It’s one of the few times in recent memory that Gere has shed the Poignant Face for anything else, adopting in its place the terrified expression of a child who has done wrong. It works.

Alas, Gere’s performance in Unfaithful is hardly remembered because Lane’s performance is so unforgettable. Simply put, she carries the film in what must be the most versatile and visceral performance of her career. Her Connie Sumner is a woman at war with herself, stuck between infatuation and dedication, struggling to determine the direction in which her heart leads and whether she has the courage to follow it. Notable, of course, are Unfaithful’s vital sex scenes, in which Lane is without clothes. Devastating, though, is the scene when Connie rides home on the train after her first tryst with Paul, where we see her overcome with conflicting emotions that wash across her face like waves. In an altogether dynamic performance, it's in that scene that Lane is truly naked – entirely without armor.

The following images are a tribute to better days*
























* Note: In the film itself, we alternate between the images above and those chronicling Connie’s first tryst. In the interest of brevity, I left out the images of Lane in bed (sorry, fellas), even though her performance demonstrates a similar gravity and range: terrified, invigorated, ashamed, exhilarated. Having said that, take note that you needn’t actually see Connie in bed with Paul to know how the first episode went and how she feels about it. Ten minutes of exposition couldn’t accomplish what Lane conveys above.

(Un)Popularity Contests?

I didn’t watch the Emmys. That’s in large part because I don’t watch much television. I don’t watch much television because I don’t have the time. Keeping up with movies is task enough. Thus, I have lists of shows that I want to catch up with at some point via Netflix, but I struggle to get around to them. It was only within the past year that I finally watched the first season of 24. Didn’t care for it. Won’t be going back for more. Which I guess is a good thing, because it means that I’m even closer to seeing a single installment of stuff like The Wire, John Adams and Mad Men, to name a few things recommended to me.

The other reason I didn’t watch the Emmys is that they have always seemed an especially imperfect concept. The Academy Awards are problematic enough, but a single movie season is far more self-contained and easier to evaluate. With the Emmys I’ve never grasped how an actor can win an award year after year for playing the same character while another actor slogs away in one role for just as long, finally breaking through in, say, Season Six, because the writing finally got a little better or – let’s face it – because Hollywood decided it was time to throw a bone to someone new. You get the idea.

Anyway, I did read some Emmys coverage. And that led me to the post-Emmys chat with entertainment critic Tom Shales of my local Washington Post. And that led me to this shocking exchange:

Ashland, MO: What's the point of giving awards to programs most people have never seen? Not only is this true of Emmys, but also Oscars. Do critics automatically assume something can't be meritorious just because most people like it? It didn't used to be this way. What changed?

Tom Shales: I think it's actually worse with the Oscars. To be a best picture nominee now, it seems like a film has to be depressing, arcane, arty, dreary, and in limited release. I guess it's partly because so many films are made based on comic books, and the Hollywood establishment doesn't want to give awards to THEM. So they go looking for the most obscure films they can find. I don't think I saw any of this years' Best Picture Nominees.

Ugh. Where to begin?

Let’s start with Ashland, MO, who successfully uses “meritorious” in a sentence and yet thoughtlessly suggests that there’s no point in awarding TV shows or movies that “most people have never seen.” Seriously, take special note: Ashland doesn’t complain about a recent fad (ala: “What’s with the trend…?”). No, Ashland complains about the whole concept (“What’s the point…?”). It’s a disappointing outlook to say the least, especially in this age of DVR, DVD and Web-posted editions of shows (how I keep up with The Office, half the time), any of which make it easier than ever to – gasp! – try out a show that the entertainment establishment itself has seen fit to praise.

Even more disturbing, however, than the reader’s comment is that of Shales, of course, who doesn’t think he saw any of the most recent Best Picture nominees and thus thinks that Juno (one of the five) was “depressing, arcane, arty, dreary, and in limited release” because Ellen Page wasn’t wearing a cape. Holy Critic-Totally-Out-Of-Touch-With-Pop-Culture, Batman!

Sure, Shales is correct that an alarming number of mainstream movies these days are about men (and sometimes women) in tights. And, no, Hollywood probably “doesn’t want” to give awards to those pictures, either because the movies in question don’t merit such recognition (most of the time) or because giving recognition to a heavily-marketed popcorn flick that has already dominated at the box office and sold big on DVD has little financial incentive (almost all of the time). But the Academy Awards “go looking for the most obscure films they can find”? Really?

True enough, not one of last year’s Best Picture nominees was the kind of thing that the Average Joe Moviegoer (whoever that is) would have seen coming a year away. Juno, to keep with the previous example, became a Big Thing post-release, thanks to critical and audience acclaim. It opened in limited release, but it sure didn’t finish that way. To read the comment by Shales, the Academy should go ahead and nominate the latest Indiana Jones and Batman flicks today, not based on merit, but simply because they benefited from being highly-anticipated sequels that “most people” (to quote Ashland, MO) at least saw and may have actually enjoyed, too.

One of the many things that’s backwards here is that the Academy’s nasty habit isn’t fleeing the mainstream but being unwilling to leave it behind. Each year’s slate of nominees tends to include at least one Jerry Maguire – a marginally decent movie upgraded to contender status for the sole purpose of giving Shales and cinema shut-ins like him a reason to tune in on awards night. But I digress. What’s especially frightening is that Shales is apparently oblivious that The Departed won for Best Picture two years ago, and Crash before that, and Million Dollar Baby before that and, whaddyaknow, Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King before that. I could keep going (Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, etc.), but I don’t think I need to. These movies don’t fit Shales’ description of a Best Picture nominee as seen within the context of the question from Ashland, MO.

The ultimate irony, though, is this: while folks like Shales and Ashland, MO, feel shut out of the ceremonies and thus ungratified by the Oscars, cinephiles often come away equally disappointed. Among that more avid fan base, Crash, Gladiator and Titanic might as well be four-letter words – the movies’ vast successes mutate to become their biggest crime. It’s a shame, but it’s true. Either way, whether the Academy Awards recognize the obscure or the popular, the esoteric or the easily accessible, Oscar night seems to produce far more losers than winners.