Final Oscar Post: Academy Commentary

After much discussion and review of this year's Oscar nominees, the Oscars are over, so I've decided to give my opinion of the 84th Academy Awards. My reaction to this year’s Oscars is very lukewarm. To be frank, I think the Academy is getting a little out of touch (warning: rant imminent.). The one decision they made this year to appeal to a wider audience was to bring back Billy Chrystal as the host, who was hilarious as usual. Other than that, the Academy still seemed to ignore the larger public.  Modern movie going demographics are all over the place in terms of age, gender, nationality and ethnicity. In contrast to that, a Los Angeles Times study found that that the Academy voters are 77% male, nearly 94% white/Caucasian, and 84% over 50 years old (\latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/academy/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-html,0,7473284.htmlstory ). This helps explain why the Academy continues to vote for movies that mostly appeal to just a small, select group of people (old-fashioned movie buffs). The age gap is what matters most to me. This year, The Artist, a silent , independent film , won 5 Oscars, including best Picture and best original score (someone please explain to me how a silent film wins for best music score) . Who saw The Artist before the Oscars? Apparently, just the critics and people who live in big cities, because before The Oscars, I hadn’t heard from anyone who’d seen it unless they specifically went to New York or Philly to see it. I’m sorry to anyone who had seen The Artist during its limited release and loved it ; but, it seems to me that the system is rigged so that limited release movies like that can be made specifically to win awards. Slumdog Millionaire did almost the exact same thing a few years ago.

          I want to be clear that I am less upset about The Artist winning than I am about what other deserving movies it beat out. Believe me, I’m sure The Artist was great (I intend to see it during its wide release), but Hugo and Moneyball were also nominated for best picture. Both were deserving movies that I already reviewed. If Hugo had won, it would have been the first 3D film to win Best Picture. If Moneyball had won, it would have been the first baseball movie to win. I bring this up because Hugo and Moneyball were accessible, enjoyable films. They were also really good and dramatic. Why didn’t they win? Were they not traditional enough? Hugo did win in several other categories,(cinematography, sound nixing, sound editing, visual effects) but Moneyball didn’t win in any. I call foul. A similar thing happened last year when the excellent but very modern The Social Network lost to the also great but more traditional film, The King’s Speech.

Again, I want to stress that I am not against good films winning awards. What bugs me is the accessibility gap. In an earlier review, I voiced concerns that The Adventures of Tintin, an excellent and accessible film, wasn't even nominated for best animated feature. While the eventual winner of the category, Rango, was pretty good film, I have my own issues with it in terms of accessibility. Personally, I found that Tintin was easier to follow, had more likable characters, and relied less on old cinema in-jokes. For proof, I point you to both films' world-wide grosses: Tintin grossed $373,567,516 and Rango grossed $244, 57,58 1(boxofficie.com).

I have other issues with the Oscars, Like Harry Potter not winning a single award, even for makeup, but this article is long enough. Thanks for reading it.

St. Patrick's Day

                                            
    The Irish are popping in green for their holiday. There is green EVERYWHERE!! The people usually always dress in that color for work and school days also. Some times you see little leprechauns hopping around, LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you won't get to scared if some foot prints are the yard, please don't call Erlick.


                                 JUST LOOK OUT FOR THE GREEN GUYS 

Post created by:  Robyn and Gary

Summer Olympics 2012 London England

       The Summer Olympics, which is always an event which bring many tourist too the host city will be hosted by London England during the 2012 games.  This is good news for the people of London who are surviveing through one of the worst economic crashes ever.  It is estameted that the 2012 Olympic Games will bring in about 1.6 billion dollars for British busnieses which as the prime minister David Cameroon said. The games will bring investors too London if they have never been there before.  But with the outside investments the games bring several problems with it too the host city.  Owners of London's movie theater's are ecpecting the theaters to be filled tith empty seats.  Also the London form of public transportaion, the tube, which is like the subway had its contuctors therten to strike. But with the games comes the growth of the construction insustry. This will also help England's economy since the construction companies will need to buy building matterial and also hire prople to design sporting complexes, which England will be able to turn into housing complexes, because the foundation had already been layed, once the 2012 Olympic games have been cimpleted. As the former wastlands of East End have been completly remaid so that they will comply with the olympic building standards.  This formula worked in 1992 when Barcelona hosted the summer olympics and again in 2010 when Vancouver hosted the winter olympics they were forced to sell some of there assets.  But for every eucess story there is one that ends up with the opposite end result. There is an Athens story of despair, who hosted the 2004 and ended up in dept with millions of dollers still to pay of after they hosted the Olympic games. For every tale of debt and depair, there is the angle Vancouver choice to take and sell off some of its own assets to help pay for the total cost of the games.