So the Golden Globes were awarded yesterday and once again I find I really don’t care about any of the films that won. I actually do agree with many of the acting awards, because I like Colin Firth (though not in the totally lame costume drama for which he won) and Natalie Portman and I’m very glad that Steve Buscemi finally got an awards nod, even if it’s for a TV show. And while I think Glee is dreadful, I’m happy that Jane Lynch got to take home an award, because I really like her as Spencer Reid’s schizophrenic mother in Criminal Minds. But as for the honoured films and shows themselves, I really don’t care about any of them.
The Atlantic recently had an article about the two different Hollywoods, one that makes big budget slam bang action flicks and other guaranteed blockbusters and another which makes low budget independent films “for adults”, which win awards and tank at the box office. Three guesses which Hollywood the author prefers.
My problem is that neither Hollywood really serves my needs and tastes. Many of the big budget blockbusters are simply too silly for my tastes, privileging cool effects and 3D (oh, how I hate 3D) over plot and character. As for the “grown-up” films, I almost unianimously wind up hating them, because they tell dull and conventional stories about dull and conventional people whose lives and problems don’t interest me. As a matter of fact, seeing a film advertised as “for adults” is a huge red flag for me that says, “Beware! Really painfully earnest Oscar bait!” A friend suggested going to the movies recently and I said, “Now? Are you crazy? It’s Oscar bait season – there’s nothing decent on.”
Honestly, it’s no wonder that cinema in general and Hollywood in particular is in trouble and only sustaining itself by raising ticket prices for gimmicks like 3D or IMAX, if it only leaves the audience a choice between badly written but nice looking blockbusters, unfunny gross-out comedies and dull Oscar bait films that pretend to be “adult”. Is it too much to ask for a smart action or SF film, something that my 7th and 8th graders will enjoy and that I can enjoy on a different level. Or maybe an “issue” film that actually has a sense of humour and isn’t so painfully earnest? A historical drama that doesn’t feature stiff looking actors in stiff costumes reciting stiff lines?
And since we all know that gawking at beautiful gowns is the real reason most of us watch award shows, check out Barbara Ferrer’s Golden Globe fashion commentary with pictures here.
And now for some links:
Shanna Swendson has a great post on shipping her own characters and the perils of love triangles. For some unfathomable reason, I tend to write love triangles and I’ve run up against the “Don’t demonize the other guy without reason” issue before.
And here is a great photo essay on corridors in SF films, mostly from the 1960s to 1980s. Some great examples there, though I must confess that I also have a weakness for the many corridors of classic Doctor Who, which all too often were basically dressed up hallways in the BBC building. The new show isn’t all that different in that respect, there is a utility corridor as well as a double elevator, both presumably at the BBC facilities in Cardiff, which shows up over and over again in Doctor Who, the spin-offs and several other BBC dramas.
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Since I got broadband internet I’ve been to the movies… not at all? Then again, I don’t have friends who enjoy the same movies, so that might have something to do with it. I do collect stand-up comedy or comedy series of my favourite Brits, and I have a large collection of animes ^^. Also stuff from the 40s and 50s, especially MGM musicals.
By the way, I created a feed for your blog on LJ – now I get to read you on my friends page ^^. http://syndicated.livejournal.com/corabuhlert/
Great that the livejournal feed works. I thought I had to do it myself and not that any livejournal user could do it.
I think I have been to the movies only once last year to see Eclipse, and that’s work, sort of, because I need it for the PhD. The year before that, I’ve also only been once or twice. And with so much great stuff easily available via the internet or on DVD, I don’t really miss it either.
Very true. As to feeds, any paying LJ user can create them (it’s basically using LJ as a feed reader, and as long as the blog has a link to the RSS this works for other people who might subscribe to you via their News Readers, too), and since I wanted to read some other blogs on my friends page, too, I simply enrolled for two months.
They don’t delete those feeds, as far as I know, because even as a non-paying user I can subscribe to any feed that has been created and that has one subscriber on LJ – they just don’t have a good search for them :P.
………………Whether you choose to believe them or not and speaking for myself I don t quite the media powers that be have currently reduced the 2010 Best Picture race to just two titles and That s entirely and hopefully lest things get too dull too soon subject to change over the next four months but given what we ve seen at this point it s difficult to devise a could-win theory for many of the films most fancied for the remaining eight slots be it or .I don t really blame those in the blogosphere who are narrowing things down to this pair of films after a lackluster Toronto fest failed to turn up a hidden dragon along the lines of the slate of contenders looks much as it did before the fall festival season began. It s the time-capsule piece versus the time-warp piece snarked one friend of mine recently anticipating a narrative that will likely run all season even if other frontrunners enter the fray..Having not seen either film yet I have no horse in this race right now though I d be lying if I said isn t the one that has me really champing at the bit. With both films just theoretical entities to me at the moment however the thing that strikes me as most interesting about this potential either-or scenario is that the films represent two very different schools of Oscar bait one of which seems to have lost its pulling power in recent years..Ever since was announced as Harvey Weinstein s weapon of choice for this year s awards season accusations of calculated baitiness have trailed it with varying degrees of irony.
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