Keith Keener's
Positive Movie Roundup
The 74th Oscars
AT LAST!!! I have been waiting for months for tonight,
the night when people in Hollywood finally take a break from their
hard work in order to recognize their importance to our country and
perhaps even the world. I was so excited when I heard that Whoopi
Goldberg would be hosting it that I pretty much forgave her for using
potty language twice the last time she hosted. The show began, and I
thought momentarily that Whoopi had become a short white man, though
it turns out it was Tom Cruise. In his moving opening monologue, Tom
said that an imaginary actor friend of his had asked him, after the
terrorist attacks of September 11th, "Is our work important?" Tom
replied, "Yes, now more than ever, it is. Movies can break down
cultural walls and help people understand each other." This is true,
and I can't help but feel that everyone in the world would love
America more if they finally got to see some of our movies. Whenever I
see a Hollywood movie, I think, "Wow, that really captures my
experience as an American – in a positive way! They should make people
in other countries watch that!" Especially something like Die Hard,
which on one level should serve as a warning to international
terrorist groups, but on another level is a powerful film about
families.
To prove the point, they had a little documentary
(don't worry, it was short; I agree, I hate them too) in which a bunch
of people who are kind of famous talked about their favorite movies.
One guy mentioned Ernest Goes to Jail, though I think he was
joking. Laura Bush said her favorite is Giant, which I think
takes place in Texas. Osama bin Laden surprisingly chose Amelie.
Tom Cruise himself picked anything with Rock Hudson.
I had just about given up hope on Whoopi ever showing
up, but then she finally appeared, and she is as sharp as a tack!!!
She made jokes immediately about how ugly the Oscar race was, saying
that there's a rumor that "Frodo Baggins was an anti-Semite." The
thing is, there weren't any Jews in the medieval elf world, so she's
just kidding!!! She also made jokes about Anna Nicole Smith and her
having sex with rich old men, and then – in the most hilarious moment
of the evening – said that there are more fights in the movie In
the Bedroom than on the Jerry Springer show! You know, when I saw
that movie, I didn't think of the whole thing about the parents losing
their only son in a senseless act of violence as being ha-ha funny,
but now I will always imagine what it would be like if Jerry Springer
were there and the parents were throwing chairs at each other on his
show in their grief. That's a great comic mind – you take something
from one thing, and you put it together with another unexpected thing,
especially something that people kind of stopped talking about 3 or 4
years ago, and you can just make people laugh!!
The Oscars handled the September 11th attacks just as
tastefully as you would expect. In a moving tribute, there was a 10
minute montage of movies filmed in New York, mostly John Cassavettes
movies, but there were also a few snuff films, including one
apparently filmed just after Liza Minelli's wedding. The woman you
think is Liza today ... well, if I saw what I think I saw, Liza's
dead. The one on the honeymoon is some kind of an impostor, just
showing what kind of a sick, depraved world we live in. Also, Cirque
de Soleil did a five-minute performance that I think was a tribute to
New York, especially when the two families of Chinese acrobats formed
themselves into towers, and the Polish dwarves were tossed at them in
a moving display of resilience and courage. In a touching tribute from
a foreigner (who, thank God, speaks English), the screenwriter of
Gosford Park, Englishman Julian Fellowes, said "Thank you. I think
this must be the most generous country on earth." Two minutes earlier,
when Akiva Goldsman won the adapted screenplay award for A
Beautiful Mind I had been thinking the exact same thing.
But the biggest topic on the Oscars tonight was the
issue of race. Sidney Poitier was given a lifetime achievement award,
and it's clear that Hollywood was very happy for his victory. The five
working blacks in Hollywood (Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Cuba
Gooding Jr., Halle Berry, and Will Smith) all appeared in the short
documentary to honor him, and the 2,000 whites in the audience rose to
their feet to honor him and also to ask him to keep his speech short
to give some more camera time to Julia Roberts.
When Halle Berry became the first African-American
woman to win Best Actress in 74 years, she managed to contain her
crying fit to only 12 minutes before graciously accepting the award on
behalf of every African-American actress who has ever lived. By the
time she got around to referring to the mystery of Jada Pinkett-Smith's
never winning an Oscar, unsuccessful Best Actress nominee Nicole
Kidman was mouthing "Shut up shut up shut up shut up." Then Julia
Roberts was going to read the nominees for Best Actor, but instead
took the opportunity to point out helpfully that she had kissed Sidney
Poitier. I love that little pixie – she is so delightful!!! After
making this announcement, she read the names of the five nominees,
started to open the envelope and said, "This is so much worse than
last year. I love my life." Oh, Denzel Washington won, but they had to
cut to a commercial before he read his speech.
Ron Howard won two Oscars – best director, and
director who most closely resembles an Oscar statuette. He then, in
the evening's only real gaffe, thanked "our brilliant screenwriter,
Akiva Goldsmith...er...Goldsman...er, that Jewish fellow." At that
point, the camera cut to John Nash, who looked visibly unnerved,
jumped out of his seat, and ran for the door in terror. And in one of
the most heartwarming moments in years, A Beautiful Mind
managed to overcome a disgusting smear campaign, and triumphed because
of its artistic mastery, its subtlety, its recognition that
schizophrenia means that you have invisible friends, its understanding
that love is more important than medication or therapy, its firm grasp
of the meaning of the Nash equilibrium, its haunting six-note score,
and its basic emotional truthfulness. As Best Picture, it rightly
takes its place alongside such winners as Memoirs of a Gladiator,
Forrest Gump, Dances with Wolves, and Rocky. This
is another choice that the Oscars can be proud of.
A couple of other points: It was nice to see a
presentation by former Best Actress Helen Hunt, who is such a loyal
family woman that she followed her ex-husband, Hank Azaria, into
obscurity. Also, someone named "Jim Broadbent" won an award called
"Best Supporting Actor" for some movie called "Iris"? I've never heard
of any of these things, and I'm pretty sure that there is something
very fishy going on. Shortly after the ceremony, representatives of
Price Waterhouse, the Academy's accountants, were seen shredding
documents that might have shed light on this sham.
You know, I just realized, Tom Cruise is even more
right than I thought he was. Instead of just showing movies to foreign
audiences – and I think they should be mandatory for citizens of other
countries, as long as they still have to pay for the tickets – I think
we should show the Oscar ceremony itself. Tonight made me damn proud
to be an American. Although I have never met a foreigner, I am sure
that the first one I do will want to thank me for what my country's
movies have meant to them! It just breaks my heart that I will have to
wait a whole year for the next Oscar show. But at least I can rest
secure in the knowlege that Patch Adams 2: Mending the Funnybone
will win the big awards in a sweep like A Beautiful Mind did
tonight, once again giving me reassurance and comfort about the state
of our great nation.
Earlier positive movie reviews can be found at
home.earthlink.net/~dleheny
