BEFORE: Well, was that a crazy Academy Awards broadcast, or WHAT? All that fuss over the last few weeks about how eight awards would be given out before the show, and what an unfair that disaster would be for the categories of Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Short, Best Live-Action Short, Editing, Make-up/Hair, Production Design, Score and Sound - and I think pre-taping those awards was, well, not a terrible idea. The goal was to make the ceremony SHORTER, and cutting out the time it takes for those eight winners to walk ALL the way to the stage (and you know they seat those animators and editors WAY in the back...) I think it worked. Now, was it fair that eight Oscar winners didn't get to give their speech in front of the full crowd? That they got their Oscars while the fabulous stars were still arriving and being photographed ont the Red Carpet? No, of course not. But the show FLOWED a little better, and if they hadn't tipped their hand, I'm thinking there would be some people out there who wouldn't have even noticed that some segments were pre-taped - only us film experts with a sharp eye might have noticed the lack of a delay for those winners to approach the stage. Look, there once was a time when "SNL" was completely live, no-taped segments, uh-uh, absolutely forbidden, if they can't do something live in front of the audience, then it didn't make the show. But, gradually, they introduced pre-taped segments like the phony commercials and the "Lonely Island" music videos, and you know what? The show survived, and maybe even got a little bit better once they started bending the rules. Same goes for the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, it was always ALWAYS sung live, until we learned that even Whitney Houston sang to a pre-recorded track of her own voice - SHOCKER! They don't say "lip-synching" any more, it's a dirty word, but come on, singing to a pre-recorded vocal track, even if it's only there as a "back-up", that ain't live. Deal with it.
That being said, there was STILL plenty of fluff that could have been cut, in order to make room for those eight categories. The too-long segment from the three female hosts at the start of the show was followed by ANOTHER too-long stand-up routine from Amy Schumer, which could EASILY have been cut, there's 5 minutes right there. Kevin Costner's mansplaining of how a film director works, also unnecessary, that was easily five minutes too long. The TEDIOUS reunion of the casts of "Pulp Fiction" and "White Men Can't Jump", not needed, there's another 10 minutes in total. What the hell's wrong with, "I'm Samuel L. Jackson, she's Uma Thurman, he's John Travolta, now here are the nominees...."? Nothing, I say - trim, trim, trim the blather.
There were TWO songs performed from "Encanto", and one of them wasn't even nominated! I don't care how popular that song was, if it wasn't nominated, it gets cut. I'd never say that the "In Memoriam" segment should be cut, of course, but it was FOUR songs long by my count, and several minutes was focused on just the dancers - trim, trim, trim that.
All I know is, whatever Chris Rock said, and however long it took him to say it, if it had been nixed earlier on to save time, then the whole incident with Will Smith would never have even happened. That bit a few years ago with the famous people taking the selfie? Same thing, it's cute and maybe entertaining, but it's NOT an award being presented, so get rid of it. Award, speech, song, award, speech, clip, award, speech, song - that's how it should go, nothing else except the Lifetime Award and the "In Memoriam" montage.
Tomorrow, March 29 the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" showcases the films of the 1940's for the last time, here's the line-up:
6:00 am "The Human Comedy" (1943)
8:00 am "Princess O'Rourke" (1943)
9:45 am "Green Dolphin Street" (1947)
12:15 pm "The Seventh Veil" (1945)
2:15 pm "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941)
4:00 pm "The Great Lie" (1941)
6:00 pm "Now, Voyager" (1942)
8:00 pm "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)
10:30 pm "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949)
1:00 am "The Razor's Edge" (1946)
3:45 am "The Battle of Midway" (1942)
4:15 am "Vacation from Marriage" (1942)
Oh, I see how it is, TCM, the month's almost over, the 2022 awards have been given out, so we're really at the ass end of things, aren't we? I haven't heard of most of these films, but I have seen two: "Now, Voyager" and "Mrs. Miniver", so it's not a total loss. 2 seen out of these 12 brings me to 138 seen out of 320, which is 43.1% seen. Down one point, late in the game, but I should bounce back a little before this ends on Thursday.
Me, I'm in the middle of the Nicolas Cage Film Festival, as he carries over from "A Score to Settle". Five down (including the one in January) and five more to go.
THE PLOT: A hitman who's in Bangkok to pull off a series of jobs violates his personal code when he falls for a local woman and bonds with his errand boy.
AFTER: As I said a few days ago, I'd dropped this one from the list when it disappeared off of any streaming service I had access to, and it looked like I'd have to pay $3.99 to see it, so I dropped it from the list. BUT, then it resurfaced on Pluto TV, which is FREE, I just had to watch a few ads, so that's OK, I can do that, because FREE is a great price. Right now I can only learn where a film is streaming by Googling it, as it's always changing - BUT I think technology is working on sorting out the whole streaming mess. I got a device called a Flex for my parent's house when I turned in their cable box the other day, and the Flex had access to all these streaming services - Hulu, Netflix, AmazonPrime, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and several others. You could type in the name of a movie or TV show, and it can direct you to whichever service has that movie or show, and then hopefully it's a service that you already pay for, or maybe is free, and then you can watch it. It's just like changing channels on TV, except you're switching between streaming services, and then you're not also paying for cable. The wave of the future, I guess.
Yeah, today's film is pretty basic, though - I guess I can see why it ended up on a free streaming service with ads. If I'd paid $3.99 or even $2.99 for this, I would have felt very ripped off. It's just a hitman taking people out, there's nothing even unique about it. Well, OK, there's one unique thing at the end, no spoilers, but you'll know it when you see it. I guess it's also kind of unusual that the hitman falls for a deaf Thai woman, this really stresses the difficulty in communication between a hearing and a non-hearing person. Is this what "Coda" is about? I must admit that I avoided learning too much about "Coda", and now it's gone and won Best Picture - I don't even have the cast list in my system yet, because it's not available on streaming yet. That's going to change really soon, right? Or will they keep it in theaters longer now that it's won the Oscar? Jeez, here we were thinking that eligible films being streamed on Netflix or HBO Max would have an advantage because more people would see them, and then a film that's still ONLY in theaters wins the top prize, how does that work? It must be a great film, because everyone who saw it must have voted for it, and meanwhile, twice as many Academy voters might have seen "The Power of the Dog" on Netflix, and still didn't vote for it. Well, anyway, if "Coda" is a quirky, meaningful, poignant and ultimately uplifting film then I definitely will get to it, I just can't say for sure when. Hey, how about January 1 of 2023? I started off both last year and this year with Best Picture winners, "Parasite" and "Nomadland", and I've made that work....
(ASIDE, and last word on Oscars 2022, I swear - my decisions to watch "The Power of the Dog", "Being the Ricardos", "House of Gucci" and "Dune" were good ones, I stand by them. I had seen at least one film nominated in every major category, and thus I felt like I had a dog in each fight - maybe that's the secret to increasing the ratings, just let every movie-goer stream all of the films, and then they'll all feel more connected to the ceremony. Anyway, just two films that I saw won a combined 7 Oscars, mostly it was "Dune" winning the technical stuff, though. The good news is that my list of films to watch in April, May and July already contains "Encanto", "Luca", "The Mitchells vs. the Machines", "tick...tick...Boom!", "The Lost Daughter", and "Summer of Soul", and I'll still have more time to get to the rest - the whole section of my chain between Mother's Day and Father's Day is unplanned, as is everything from August to December. So I will do what I can to get "Nightmare Alley", "Don't Look Up", "Belfast", "Licorice Pizza" and maybe even "King Richard" in there, and if I don't, well, there's always next year. Come on, did ANYONE think that we'd be calling "Cruella" an Oscar-winning picture?)
Anyway, blah blah blah, Nic Cage is a hitman, and he lives his life according to a set of rules, like "Get out before they kill you" and "Don't have personal attachments" and "It's only a job, it doesn't matter who you kill, as long as you get paid." Well, he's going to be rethinking a few of these rules before the end of the film - he goes on ONE date with that deaf pharmacist, and then he suddenly feels guilty about all his hits? I'm not sure that's how love works, but who am I to say? Maybe this Fon girl is really something, and they're meant to be together, and she could make him want to be a better person.
What I'm unclear on is why the crime boss that hired the hitman is also interested in tracking him down - I guess because he wants to tie up all the loose ends, maybe kill the hitman after all the hits are done, and then the hitman can't blackmail him, is that the plan here? It just seems like dirty pool, that's all. There's so much here that's ridiculous, from Cage's terrible mullet-like hair, to the belief that he could know JUST enough of the Thai language to get by, to the bending of the rules for the sake of friendship and maybe even love, even though he knows deep down that he'd have to change careers to be in a workable relationship. He's the hit-man with the heart of gold, it seems, but that just doesn't seem possible in the real world, the whole premise thus becomes somewhat ridiculous. I'm sure, however, that things are going to get even more ridiculous around here in the next few days - and I can't even watch the upcoming Nic Cage meta-movie "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" as part of my chain, because it doesn't get released until April 22, about three weeks too late for me to include it.
Also starring Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Yeung, Panward Hemmanee, Nirattisai Kaljareuk, Dom Hetrakul, Stephen Baldocchi, James With, Peter Shadrin, Veerasak Boonchard, Namngen Boonnark, Tuck Napaskorn, Armondthap Limdusit, Winai Thawattana, Keang Kunsri.
RATING: 4 out of 10 boats in the floating market
No comments:
Post a Comment