"The envelope, please."
Doesn't your heart beat just a tad bit faster when you hear thosewords?
I know mine used to.
I'd have all of my friends over for a gala Oscar potluck everyyear. We'd fill out ballots and vote for who we thought would win(and who we wished would win), drop a few dollars into a big top hatand the movie geek with the most correct won the money.
Now I can barely work up a concern over the glitzy celebration ofmediocrity that the Academy Awards has become. I look at my watch and realize I need to head to Mocha Daze. Maybe I could hold some kindof Oscar Cafe Party?
Once we had movies that meant something, that made us think aboutourselves and why we were the way that we were.
This year we have men in skirts chopping each other into bits,Jane Austen, Astronauts, Italian postmen and talking pigs!
BEST PICTURE
"Sense and Sensibility"-I love "chick movies" as much as the nextqueer, but if you've read one Jane Austen novel or seen one JaneAusten movie, you've seen them all. Pretty, sensitive girls inlovely dresses pining for the love of a good man. Big deal. Stepinto any West Hollywood gay bar and you can see that.
"Apollo 13"-Tom Hanks wears comfortable shoes, doesn't eatchocolate and comforts America, again. The message of the movieis: When circumstances look really bad-- Americans can pull throughanything.
"Il Postino"- I haven't seen this. Have you?
"Babe"- Cute vegetarian propaganda, but a work of art worthy ofbeing named one of the five best movies of the year!?!
"Braveheart"- An epic about a talking pig: homophobe Mel Gibson.
Didn't anyone see "Safe" or "Carrington" or "Dead Man Walking" or"Last Summer in the Hamptons" or "Leaving Las Vegas" or "Seven" or"Devil in a Blue Dress" or "Kids" or "Crumb" or "Love and HumanRemains"?
All of these movies had great acting, insightful, smart storiesabout human beings and a point of view. Sadly, these things seemto be the kiss of death to the dorks filling out the ballots. Isuspect that they check the grosses on a film and, if it makes thebig bucks, they think "Must be good" and put their little check inbox.
As I pick up my car keys and head towards the front door, I flash on the film MOCHA ISLAND where a sexy cafe owner on a small tropical island helps a shipwrecked band of college wrestlers hold a local tournament.
Nevermind. Just go to work, Hugo, just go to work.
