I've come for my award

As we all know, there is only one thing more important than watching movies and that is talking about movies and deciding which ones are most worthy of awards. Without awards, watching movies would be a worthless waste of our time and money. "I guess I enjoyed that," we would think as we stared blankly at the closing credits, "But how do I know if it was really any good without some external system of evaluation, symbolised through statuettes?"


Luckily for us we do not live in this terrible alternative universe where people enjoy things simply on their own merits. No. We are fortunate to have a plethora of guilds, academies and organisations who will tell us what is good. Hurrah. With that in mind, I thought I'd share some thoughts about the upcoming 2011 Oscar Ceremony.

Firstly, this tendency to scribble Oscar credits all over filmtrailers, in a bid to make us go 'Ooh! That must be good then'. I don't like it. Firstly, it makes me feel bad for the actors who don't have any credits.


'Academy Award winner Robert DeNiro'

'Academy Award winner Meryl Streep'

'Academy Award winner Kate Winslet'

' .... Ewan McGregor'


Kind of makes you feel bad for Ewan, doesn't it? There's a tacit pause before his name, a space where his accolade should be; a space that my mind silently fills with the word 'Loooooser'. And I like Ewan. He's no loser. He'd slice Winslet's face right off if it came to light-sabres.


I thougt of a solution for this yesterday when watching the trailer for Never Let Me Go. Here we have the same trick - Carey Mulligan appears and the words 'Academy Award Nominee' float across her lovely face. Kiera Knightley follows and there, again, appears the elegant script, 'Academy Award Nominee'. And then up comes splendid Mr Andrew Garfield. And... nothing. No award for you. Empty space for you. Poo on your head for you. But then I thought, in the absence of something Oscar related, why don't they just use that space for something else? How cool would it be if, as Garfield appeared, they had simply faded up the words 'Spider Man!!!' With the exclamation marks and everything. Look everyone! It's Spider Man! Woo! You may have a nomination, Mulligan, but can you shoot webs from your wrists and traverse the night skies fighting crime? No, you bloody can't.

This would have remedied one of the great Oscar-related injustices of modern times - the constant refusal of the Academy to give the award for Best Director to the man who most deserved it - Martin Scorsese. Ok, they got round to it eventually, but he had to endure years of being '............ Martin Scorsese' despite making Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and many other wonderful films. How much better would it have been if, every time his name came up, it had been legally compulsory to accompany it with the phrase      '...I made bloody Goodfellas. That's right - Goodfellas. Good. Fellas. All your films are worthless by comparison. Worthless! Goodfellas! Ha ha ha ha ha!'



The other issue I have is that this list of accolades is kind of meaningless in the first place, isn't it? The clear implication of showing off all these awards and nominations is to make us think 'Wow! This film contains some serious talent!' Directed by Academy Award Winner Ang Lee? Surely this will be as sensitive and beautiful as Brokeback Mountain! Starring Reese Witherspoone and Nicolas Cage? Wow! This will combine the emotional journey of Walk the Line with the psychological truthfulness of Leaving Las Vegas! This is going to be the greatest movie in the history of the world!


But is it? What if Ang Lee does the kind of ham fisted job he did with Hulk? What if Nic Cage brings his Ghost Rider form and Reese Witherspoonse thinks she's in Legally Blonde 3? What if this is Legally Blonde 3? Ang Lee's Legally Blonde 3, starring Nic Cage as a crazy OCD lawyer with straggly hair?


It's like saying "You like Wispas! You love Carlsberg! You're very fond of hamsters! Well, good news! We mixed them all up in a blender to make new WispyLagerFluff! What do you mean you don't like it? Why are you crying and being sick? You ingrate! These are your favourite things!"

Googling pictures of hamsters delayed this blog by 2.5 hours.

(Does anyone know who owns this excellent picture? If it's
you, please get in touch. I like using it.)

Finally, a small point I noticed yesterday in the trailer for True Grit - another film festooned with Academy Award winners and nominees. Among them is Matt Damon, who is flagged up as an Academy Award Winner. Hmm.

Now I like Damon, and I think he's a top actor, but this is a bit disingenuous. Damon may well have won an Oscar, but it's not for acting. He won it, along with Ben Affleck, for Best Screenplay, for Good Will Hunting in 1998. So, yes, technically he's an Oscar winner and yes, he's in this film, but is it really relevant? He didn't write True Grit (that would be Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen), he's acting in it.

It's a bit like me making a bid to be the next Pope and claiming that I'm very well qualified. While technically true - I've got all sorts of degrees and certificates - it's not at all relevant to the job in question (all my qualifications are in Language, Media and Culture, rather than, say, Theology or Advanced Hat Wearing).


Anyway, that's enough for now. Soon I will confidently make my powerful and wise predictions on who will win what Academy Award. And that will be worth waiting for.