Wednesday 12 February 2003

Oscars

Nominations for the 75th Annual Academy Awards are now in ... and no one will be at all surprised to hear that I have seen only one of the films on The List.  I haven't seen The Hours, or Gangs of New York, or Chicago and nor do I want to.  American American American flimsy trash.  The film I hoped would be up for Best Foreign Film (Y Tu Mama Tambien - yay Pedro) wasn't there, only "placing" in the Writing (Original Screenplay).  Bleh.

And now I'm afraid I'm going to talk about The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.  Again, no one could be surprised.  Maybe you should go and look over my list of recipes and think about what to have for dinner.  Because there is a rant coming up.

Okay.  The Two Towers makes a Best Picture nomination; really pretty daft and obvious tokenism given the lack of nominations in the other "biggies" categories (Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting ...).  Of course it got nominations in most of the perceived "chickenshit" technical categories of Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound, Sound Editing and Visual Effects (and it had goddamn better win in more than one of those this year), surprisingly not nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay, but the huge, glaringly obvious absence is in the Best Score and Best Song categories.

I say again, no nominations for Best Score or Best Song.  If you happen to be amongst my acquaintances, or have read my loooong entry back here you'll know without a doubt why I am so very very very pissed off.  Howard Shore's score is simply amazing, way beyond the league of anything John Williams et al could ever hope to achieve in a million years.  And to pass over Gollum's Song for something from The Wild Thornberrys Movie really really peeves me.  Yes I am peeved.  Peeved peeved peeved peeved peeved.  To not even get a mere nomination in either of those categories is unfor-fucking-givable and if I was involved in any way with The Two Towers, particularly if I were the composer or member of the orchestra or choir, I'd be utterly raving, frothing at the mouth .. you get the drift.

I hate the Oscars.  As far as I'm concerned they are the epitome of much that is wrong with the USA.  The total single-minded attitude that "We are so great, we are so great, everybody loves us, we are so great" (with apologies to Bart Simpson) and that the rest of the world will therefore fall over themselves to follow like sheep; and the elevation to sainthood of the celebrity, and the importance of the frock - ie, again the typically USAn attitude that only looks count and will get you anywhere.  Forget vision, talent, sheer brilliance.  Just vote for the same people you've always voted for, so long as they look good in a frock/tux ... (although that does not explain Gwyneth Paltrow and her Shakespeare in Love bibelot - eeeeeeek).

Okay okay, to be fair The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did well last year, getting nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Song (by Enya, sorry even *I* have to shudder, her and her overproduced wail), plus actually being nominated for and winning the Best Visual Effects award, and of course picking up the Best Score statuette for Howard Shore.  Maybe the Academy, in all its wisdom (cough*like hell*cough) decided that Mr Shore has had his 5 minutes in the spotlight and wasn't going to get the chance to go up again.  But then that doesn't explain the John Williams phenomenon, does it, especially considering he's done nothing but rip off Gustav Holst's The Planets, regardless of what the actual movie is about, year after year after year.

Thank goodness for the Screen Actor's Guild of America and it's nomination for The Two Towers for Best Ensemble, because that is what TTT is, an absolutely superb ensemble piece.  Let's see what happens on 9 March then, and I may be somewhat assuaged. 

I'm still pissed off, though.