Who's With Me?

“I’m just a girl who had a dream.” – Hilary Swank, Best Actress, 77th Annual Academy Awards.

A dream to what? To self congratulate yourself for getting a job and doing it well in front of millions of people?

While the 78th Annual Academy Awards kick off on Sunday, March 5th, I’m not going to be watching them. No really, I’m not. What’s the point? This year, for the first time ever, I’m going to sit at home and not watch the Academy Awards.

The reason is simple. The Oscars, as they are known in slang, are nothing more than an exclusive group of people getting together and patting themselves on the back because they make millions and millions of dollars.

While obviously this entertainment journalist is biting the hand that feeds him, it’s about time somebody stood up and told the truth. The Academy Awards are a pointless display of frivolity. It’s an awards ceremony that has become more than it ever should have been allowed to become.

What really are the Academy Awards? In reality, they are nothing. They are awards that reward an industry that is in love with itself. An award that is somehow supposed to justify why actors, actresses, directors and everybody in between makes millions of dollars a year while us little people must grovel at their feet and most of the time, perform a job that is both more important and more rewarding.

In all honesty, any secretary or person working at McDonalds works harder than an actor. What does an actor do all day anyway? “Prepare” for a role in their trailer? Don’t let any actor blow smoke at you and tell you that their craft is hard. It isn’t. Either you’re a great actor or you’re not and these people get awards for pretending to be somebody else. Last time I checked that’s called multiple personality disorder. Aren’t people supposed to see a shrink for that?

Where are the volunteer awards? Maybe they should broadcast those, where volunteers from all over the world are nominated for helping others or creating a positive change. Or, what about the plumbing awards? A bunch of plumbers could get together and whoever’s done the best plumbing this year and charged the most amount of money, to a ratio of letting their bum crack hang out for the prospective receiver of the plumbing to see. It sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? Well, the Academy Awards are just that.

Basically, a group of people who are fellow actors, actresses, screenwriters and the like nominate each other for a job well done. To be able to vote, people have to be exclusive members of a “guild” in Hollywood. These people then walk around patting each other on the back, exclaiming how its always been their dream to get into this exclusive club and win a pointless award.

Maybe it sounds like I’m bitter. Well, I am. I’m bitter because of the level of stock that is continuously put into getting nominated or winning one of these awards. They don’t make you important. It’s a statue that’s been given to you by a co-worker because you did better work than them last year.

The people that should be voting for these awards, us, the people, don’t have a say. We just have to watch and be told who did a great job. The audience doesn’t have a choice because in their eyes, we are far too stupid to know what art really is. I mean, our wallets reward bad movies so there’s no way that we’d be able to comprehend the difference between film editors or special effect supervisors. I mean, you’ve seen one computer graphic, you’ve seen them all, right?

Folks, it’s all an elaborate setup of smoke and mirrors to make you think you are watching history unfold when in reality you are watching the con men of our time. Instead of going door to door to sell their wares, we go to the theatre to voluntarily give them our money.

And then, by giving them all this money and by heaping on them awards that they think are important, these Hollywood types think it gives them free reign to be political and speak their minds. What an oxymoron that is. You’re actors. You get paid to not be yourself for a reason.

Check in next week and I’ll tell you exactly who’s going to win and why. Just because I’m not going to watch the awards doesn’t mean I can’t write about it. Ahh, who am I kidding. I’m going to watch them and I’m going to love them.

The Downfall of Steve Martin

The edgier comedians of the past have officially been tamed. The opening of The Pink Panther with 21 million dollars this past weekend, made the number one spot at the box office. The problem though, is that the great comedians of yesteryear (yesteryear being the late 70s/early 80s, hey, I’m young) have gone out to the pasture to graze. They are content with sitting back, making safe family comedies and laughing their way to the Hollywood old folk’s home.

The Pink Panther is a poor man’s comedy, devoid of intelligence and made with the skill and vision of lazy filmmakers and actors. The Pink Panther struggles as it attempts to recreate the magic that Peter Sellers brought to the role while appealing to a whole new generation of movie goers. The result is a film that hits a few funny moments but lacks a firm direction and fails to carve itself a new identity.



Steve Martin used to be something special, a slap stick comedian with unbridled talent and raw humour. He used to have an identity that meant something, starring in a string of films that only became funnier as time has passed. Films such as The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels were pure comedy classics. He was downright masterful in these starring roles, taking the audience on a ride of stupidity that made them smarter in the end.

But Martin wasn’t just capable of comedy. Grand Canyon, a film by Lawrence Kasdan, stretched Martin’s acting chops. It was a tour de force about the racial animosity in Los Angeles. It’s been argued this year that Crash, which is nominated for the best picture Oscar, is almost a remake of the film (Grand Canyon is something you should definitely rent if you want to see a great movie).

Then Martin went away. He didn’t actually go away, per say, but he stopped making movies people cared about. That led to Bringing Down the House, the point where Martin’s career officially, to borrow the often used television term, jumped the shark. The movie was a complete waste of time but it didn’t stop it from becoming a huge hit. That led to other futile, unfunny films such as Cheaper by the Dozen, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and eventually, the ill fated remake of The Pink Panther.

Sure, Shopgirl is a great deviation on Martin’s late career resume but it’s not enough. He’s officially lost his edge, the mojo or moxie that led to his stratospheric rise to the top. Instead of bilking females for all they were worth in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, he’s bumbling around Paris, crafting a character so stupid and unfunny that he doesn’t even notice when he repeatedly runs in a car while trying to park. That’s not funny, it’s lame.

It’s sad to watch such an all time great actor sink to the lowest form of cinema, the bad family movie, to pay the bills. Now, if he could find a great family flick like Zathura, (which just came out on DVD), then this article would serve no purpose. But he can’t and it doesn’t look like he’s going to try to avoid them in the future, either.

Steve Martin, though, is not the only comedian who’s lost his touch. Ironically, before The Pink Panther even started, there was a trailer for a new family comedy that looks just atrocious. The say never judge a book by its cover but in Hollywood these days, you can almost always accurately judge a movie by its trailer. The movie in question? RV, starring Robin Williams.

Now here’s a guy, who in his prime, could do it all. One minute he’s running around a stage, swearing his head off and making yours laugh until it hurt and then starring in great comedies and dramas (Almost 75% of what Williams has made is worth watching at least once) but now he’s reduced himself to a bad family movie. The type where the main character gets hurt, again and again and its supposed to be funny.

Somehow, Williams has even managed to get himself roped into an upcoming sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire. Why? Was the first movie not enough? If I remember correctly, it ended just fine and didn’t really leave itself open for a sequel. And Hollywood wonders why nobody wants to go to the movies anymore.

Big name actors such as Steve Martin and Robin Williams exclusively rely on their previous successful string of humorous movies to glide their way into success. Sooner or later, with a new chain of tedious movies at their backsides, the old one worthy of praise will be quickly forgotten.

$7.95 - All the Time

So, as many of you Nanaimo readers probably know, it now costs $7.95 to see a movie at the Avalon in Nanaimo. That means that 7 days a week, for every show, for everybody, it costs $7.95.

It’s $7.95 for adults.

It’s $7.95 for children.

It’s $7.95 for seniors.

There are no more matinee prices and, I’m sure this is going to take a lot of getting used to, but, there are no more cheap Tuesday’s.

Now, this blanket pricing is not a new thing. Most of the major Canadian cities have already adopted this pricing plan as a way to combat the declining box office receipts. Lowering and raising the ticket prices, like they’ve just done, increases revenue quite a bit.

For me, I don’t pay to see movies often but the fact that I’m only paying $8 now is a blessing. I’m fine with doing away with matinee pricing as, well, I don’t usually get to go to matinees, so why should I have to pay more to go at night?

I also think, well, I pray to everything that is holy, that the raised children prices mean that we’re going to see less teenagers being complete doorknobs in the movie theatre? I mean, mommy and daddy might not want to shell out for their sons and daughters to go to the movies anymore with the raised ticket prices, right? Sadly, it’s only like a $1 more expensive, so they’ll be there in full force to talk through movies.

And, although the seniors are sure to whine (along with the parents), think of this. As an child or senior, you’re paying to see the same movie that a adult used to have to pay more for. Why should you get a special price? You don’t get a special price if you’re ordering a PPV off of cable. They don’t have seniors pricing there, do they?

I embrace this new pricing structure, mostly because it doesn’t effect me and when it does, it effects me for the better.

What does everybody else think? Does a one-tiered pricing structure make you happy? Or, should it be different prices for different people?