{"id":5251,"date":"2013-03-11T15:10:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T22:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=5251"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:10:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T22:10:37","slug":"oscar-choices-fail-to-surprise-or-satisfy-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/oscar-choices-fail-to-surprise-or-satisfy-critic\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar choices fail to surprise \u2014 or satisfy \u2014 critic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Quvenzhan\u00e9 Wallis (far right), best actress nominee, is joined by (from left) Jonshel Alexander, Kaliana Brower and Amber Henry on the set of \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Whenever my wife wants to coerce me into doing something, she doesn\u2019t threaten to cut me off sexually. She does much worse.<\/p>\n

She threatens to stop cooking.<\/p>\n

As a result of my acquiescing to her beef bourguignon blackmail, she drags me into the bedroom once a year to watch the almost-four-hour Oscar trek from Hollywoodland to Boredomland.<\/p>\n

Not only don\u2019t I give a flying Fig Newton which female star is wearing which conventional designer\u2019s gown on the red carpet, or showing how much rumpskin can be bared, I couldn\u2019t care less which male actor has new stubbly facial\u00a0hair or silky tux \u2014 or a shiny new rug covering his otherwise shiny pate.<\/p>\n

So I stretched out under the covers keeping myself awake by thinking not about Barbra Streisand poignantly singing \u201cThe Way We Were\u201d for the hundred-thousandth time or Daniel Day Lewis\u2019 articulate and witty acceptance speech as best actor but about the Academy Awards show even at its best being just a bland bowl of cherries jubilee.<\/p>\n

And I squirmed at Kristin Chenoweth\u2019s obnoxious, incessant chatter on the crimson runway, and cringed at Michelle Obama\u2019s inappropriate, tasteless flipping open the best-flick envelope in front of a decked out military contingent that looked like it came straight from central casting.<\/p>\n

This year, I actually had a favorite, \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild,\u201d that I knew couldn\u2019t possibly \u2014 and did<\/p>\n

n\u2019t, despite a few raucous shouts and applause \u2014 beat out the \u201csafe\u201d choice, \u201cArgo,\u201d a tense, extremely well-directed but totally predictable thriller, for best picture.<\/p>\n

Nor did the lead performer of the independent \u201cBeasts,\u201d nine-year-old Quvenzhan\u00e9 Wallis, or its intrepid director, Benh Zeitlin, stand a chance against two other benign selections, perky Jennifer Lawrence and politically correct Ang Lee.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it, the quasi-post-apocalyptic film about child survivor Hushpuppy in the Louisiana bayou is a complex, multi-layered film I adored but was unable to convince many of my closest friends was worth seeing.<\/p>\n

Not all of the gold statuette-athon was horrible.<\/p>\n

I was glad Quentin Tarantino won a screenwriting award for \u201cDjango Unchained,\u201d which I found incredibly funny (despite the manifold cartoonish blood-gushing sequences and voluminous use of the n-word that some non-film buffs found repulsive without having seen the film).<\/p>\n

Christoph Waltz\u2019 unexpected victory for \u201cDjango\u201d in the best supporting category award also pleased me.<\/p>\n

And I was happy to see a tie occur in the sound editing race.<\/p>\n

But one of my favorite films of the year, \u201cQuartet,\u201d didn\u2019t make any a dent in Academy voters\u2019 lists for best anything. Those balloters apparently share most critics viewpoint that sentimentality is bad, a sentiment I don\u2019t share at all.<\/p>\n

Since the Academy keeps pursuing younger demographics (witness the choice of \u201cTed\u201d creator Seth MacFarlane as host), there was no surprise in it overlooking a film about nostalgic seniors on the brink of Alzheimer\u2019s or death.<\/p>\n

For me, it felt cleansing \u2014 and good \u2014 at that movie\u2019s end when I cried, fully content that I\u2019d frequently laughed and chuckled and smiled before that juncture.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d reveled, too, in the performance of Dame Maggie Smith, who embodies a broke but not broken retired opera singer relegated to a financially strapped retirement home for musicians.<\/p>\n

After Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s unfunny post-Oscar show ended with a disappointing sequel to his spoofy \u201cMovie Movie\u201d and Jamie Foxx singing nonsensical yet slightly salacious lyrics about sprinkling Channing on his Tatum, I was left with only one question: What can I do to convince my wife to substitute the Spirit Awards next year for the Oscars?<\/p>\n

No, wait a minute. Didn\u2019t that organization\u2019s voters recently pick the sanitized, feelgood star-studded \u201cindy\u201d film \u201cSilver Linings Playbook\u201d as best picture of the year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever my wife wants to coerce me into doing something, she doesn\u2019t threaten to cut me off sexually. She does much worse. She threatens to stop cooking. As a result…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"