I never watch the Oscars, even with the promise of celebrities getting slapped. It's supposed to be about awarding people for their entertainment talent. That's great, but those people have concluded that being able to put on a show makes them experts in politics and world affairs, when all it really shows is that they can lie well enough to inspire awe.

Come to think of it, maybe they do understand politics.

But if I want to hear a political speech ... well, I don't. I follow politics because it's important, but it's not where I go for entertainment: I don't care for tragedies.

The truth is, when I watch a movie I just want to have fun. Most of the motion pictures that get nominations for the Oscars are the movie equivalent of literary novels: They may be well made, but their ultimate purpose is to make the viewer feel depressed and hopeless.

Or so I thought.

When my wife and I saw the first trailer for "Everything Everywhere All At Once", I turned to her and said, "We HAVE to see that", and she readily agreed. That should have been the kiss of death for the movie's Oscar chances. If I think a show looks that good, the Academy will surely hate it.

I mean, "EEAAO" is a martial arts science fiction/fantasy/comedy featuring alternate dimensions. It's the perfect kind of flick for me, but it's not Oscar material. Come on. Sex devices are used in a fight scene for their intended purpose. One of the characters experiences a world where everyone has hot dog fingers.

Not an Oscar movie.

 

See? Hot dog fingers.

 
When I started hearing talk on social media, I finally checked, and yes--of all the movies I saw last year, my favorite one won the Best Picture statue. Not only that, but the stage was clean when it was done sweeping.

 

Granted, I didn't see that many movies last year. I can't say whether it deserved the awards or not: Of the ten nominated movies, it's the only one we got around to seeing. There were only two others I was interested in--I didn't even know they did another remake of "All Quiet On the Western Front".

Still, the win for "EEAAO" gives me hope that maybe the highfalutin crowd in Hollyweird have finally figured out a movie can be both excellent and fun. Maybe I'll actually want to watch the Oscars next year.

But I doubt it.


I guess my favorite movies are like my books: Fun drive-in type entertainment with a happy ending.

 

(Remember: Every time you don't buy a book Michelle Yeoh beats up Chuck Norris. You know she can, so spare him the embarrassment.)

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

 

 

 R.I.P. Adam West

 

The death of Adam West immediately resurrected the old argument: Who's your favorite Batman?

It's ironic that Roger Moore passed away so close to the same time: His death, of course, caused a chorus of favorite James Bond arguments. They both held similar positions in their perspective portrayals: They were the lighter, more colorful ones who weren't afraid to poke a little fun at their genres.

 

That being the case--especially with West--the argument becomes apples and oranges. What, I can't have both? A big navel orange, followed by a nice Red Delicious? Comparing Adam West to, say, Christian Bale is like comparing ... hm. Oh, I know: Like comparing "Battlestar Galactica" to "Battlestar Galactica". Love or hate the reboot, it just wasn't the same show as the original.

 

I've probably just started arguments that would rival fights among British football fans, but there you go. 

 

 

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." -- Batman

 

Look at the above quote, and picture Michael Keaton's Batman saying that. Look at the photo, and imagine Christian Bale's Batman cavorting with a purple Batgirl or a bright red and yellow Robin. Ain't gonna happen. For that matter, imagine Ben Affleck making fun of his Batman on an episode of Family Guy. (Clooney would probably do it.)

 

My point is, you can like them both, or all, even Val Kilmer if you want. If you're a sports fan, the analogy is that you can like both the Cubs and the Bears: They're both in the same city, but they're two different animals.

 

So embrace and remember the fun that was Adam West. We should all be so lucky as to bring that much joy to such a wide audience.

ozma914: (Astrid and Walter)
( Feb. 28th, 2015 05:07 am)

 

I don’t idolize people in the entertainment industry. It’s so hard to make it to the top that most talented celebrities tend to be out of touch with the rest of the world, and for some reason the people who gain celebrity without talent seem even more vacant. By all accounts, celebrity also seems to make people … how can I say this? … dicks.

Leonard Nimoy was not, by all accounts, a dick. He was also anything but vacant. He had a Master’s degree, served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army, was an accomplished photographer, director, writer, and producer, and invented the Vulcan nerve pinch and salute. Plus, he was a Transformer. 

Just the same, it wasn’t the death of Nimoy that sent me into a three day funk. It was the death of his most famous creation: Captain S'chn-T' Gaii Spock, son of S'chn-T' Gaii Sarek, son of Skon and Solkar, of Vulcan.

We’ll just call him Spock.

In his younger days Nimoy wrote a book called “I Am Not Spock”, which was true enough (although he wasn’t as negative about it as the title suggested). He corrected that  twenty years later with “I Am Spock”. By that time, ironically, I had come to realize he was not just Spock.

I wanted to be Spock. Not Kirk, not Scotty, not even McCoy. I got a Spock haircut, and ankle boots that more or less resembled those from Starfleet, and I even had a blue long sleeved shirt with a little symbol thingy in the right place for Spock’s uniform. It was actually a symbol for the shirt manufacturer, but close enough for imagination to take over. I wanted to be a scientist, and an astronaut, and surely by the time I hit my mid-twenties I’d be stomping around on Mars with the rest of the crew.

None of this improved my standing at school.

But that’s the point, that’s why I empathized with Spock. As a kid I felt like I didn’t belong, like I was someone from another world. We were both out of place, misunderstood, and trying to hide emotions we didn’t want others to know we had. We were both tall and thin, and a little alien looking. Neither of us ever seemed to get the girl, because we were surrounded by charming adventurers like Kirk and Sulu. (It turns out Sulu never got the girl, either.)

We were both … different. In the rural Midwest of the 70s, that was a bad thing. But in the long run, Spock jumpstarted my interest in science fiction, writing, science, and learning in general.

To me, of all the souls I’ve ever known, his was the most human. All of this came from the creative genius of Leonard Nimoy … who lived long, and prospered.

 

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