I hated The English Patient. It was my secret shame to hate one of the best movies made in the ‘90s. I saw it thrice just to prove myself wrong, but it didn’t grow on me. Like a bad date that seemed to go on forever (just like the movie itself) it eventually turned into a nightmare. So Oscar season 1996 comes along and everyone is betting on The English Patient. When asked about my thoughts on the movie I answered a sheepish, “I just didn’t like it.” The wake that followed my answer was a barrage of “What the hell is wrong with you?” sort of questions. These people seriously needed to chill out about this beyond-frozen movie.
The 1,001st reason why I love Seinfeld was because of “The English Patient” episode. In it Elaine is forced to watch The English Patient, which she hated (just like me!) and almost gets fired by her boss for leaving the movie halfway through. As punishment he sends her to a cave in Tunisia.
I wasn’t a cinema leper, after all; the real Band of Outsiders of the ‘90s, the amoral Seinfeld gang, had the same sentiments. Did this make me a bad person? I had to ask myself that again when Moulin Rouge came out and was nominated.
I hated that movie. Hated it. Again everyone asked me what was wrong with me. Someone even said, “For someone in fashion, it’s strange you don’t like Moulin Rouge. Says a lot about your credibility.” Eh? Haters for haters!
Ewan McGregor of Trainspotting singing was not something I would wish upon a shooting star. Is that so wrong? Now I really need to sew my lips shut because I really did not dig Avatar. Aside from An Education, which was marvelously written for the screen by Nick Hornby and the splashy Inglourious Basterds, everything put me to sleep. I’m not a CGI babe, not a cartoon chick and definitely musicals make me all Girl, Interrupted. Is it just me or does this year’s list seem a little too heavy on the salt?
My friend from London, Sean Ellis, was nominated for an Oscar four years ago for his movie Cashback. On being nominated he had this to say: “It helps enormously if you don’t have a household name director. It’s like the ultimate industry club of acceptance which also has its weight outside of the industry. It is basically an award to say you have achieved a certain level of excellence within your work. It certainly is nice to be recognized for your work but ultimately, you have to concentrate on the work and not the by-products of the work.”
Which leads me to offer this formulation: retard, suffering, gay and three hours of film. Any of these alone or combined make for a great Oscar movie. Wet, lather and rinse. It’s all very exciting. I loved Milk a lot and its political message on community and human rights. However, it seemed people were buzzing more about James Franco pashing Sean Penn. Talk about completely losing the point.
I mean, seriously, what happened to the days when great films like All About Eve and The Lost Weekend fought for the statue? I mean Up is cute and all, but to put it in the ranks of something fantastical such as Lord of the Rings is lost on me. Adding a minor Coen piece, A Serious Man, is just begging for some credibility. If this Best Picture list had a Facebook profile it would be put in the section looking for: “Whatever I can get.” It’s an absurd list and a depressing refection on what we consider these days as the best.
Sometimes the Oscars can inspire us in those magical moments that deserve a movie of its own. Remember Ben Affleck and Matt Damon winning for Good Will Hunting? Or the sleeper hit that was Juno? The Cuba Gooding acceptance speech? Jon Stewart’s cringe-inducing opening monologue that we all loved?
We’ve all had that one moment where we pretended to win an Oscar even if our acting chops were limited to lying to our parents about who we were talking to on the phone for two hours (I always said it was my teacher, which in hindsight was predator creepy). The Oscars represent a dream, a fantasy. A good winner and the world is a little brighter and everyone seems to walk with a spring in their step. How did you feel when a Life is Beautiful won best picture? It seemed everything was possible then.
These days I’ll settle for a decent list of Oscar nominees.