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::FILM NEWS::
LE Newsletter - March 18, 2010
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Hollywood Picks Grit Over Glitter At Its Peril
Source:
www.thestar.com - Peter Howell
(March 12, 2010) Of the many conspiracy theories advanced for
why The Hurt Locker beat Avatar at the
Academy Awards,
the only one that holds water is based on terrified actors.
The actors' branch is the largest single bloc amongst the
academy's nearly 6,000 voters.
The thinking goes that flesh-and-blood thespians balked at
giving Best Picture to a movie that triumphantly featured
computers over humans.
A vote for Avatar, rightly or wrongly, was viewed as a
vote to put yourself out of a job.
James Cameron had tried to sell the line that his "performance
capture" method of making the sci-fi blockbuster is actually a
form of acting, since real people – chiefly Sam Worthington and
Zoë Saldana – made the movements that the computers rendered
into giant blue Na'vi humanoids.
At the same time, however, Cameron and his crew were accepting
awards for their brilliant animation in Avatar, which
made his "actors first" message ring hollow.
Actors have good reason for fear.
Even as Hollywood studios ring up record profits – with
Avatar leading the charge with its $2.6 billion global take
– they're axing jobs left, right and centre.
People now fear for their livelihood in the domain of palm trees
and plastic surgery, including many actors who in other years
were enjoying fat paycheques.
Members of the academy acted like the trade union they often
resemble, and voted for films and actors who they felt best
represented their newfound bootstrap values. Thus a gritty film
about bomb-squad soldiers, directed by undervalued helmer
Kathryn Bigelow and a box office weakling, suddenly became the
underdog you had to root for.
And journeymen actors such as Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock
were given Best Actor and Best Actress prizes that amounted to
lifetime achievement awards, since neither of the films they won
for, Crazy Heart and The Blind Side, were all that
great. The day before her Oscar win, Bullock gamely accepted the
Worst Actress prize from the Razzies for her work in All
About Steve, one of the most awful movies of the past
decade. She's the only person to win both a Razzie and an Oscar
in the same weekend.
In seeking to prove their flannel-shirted proletarianism, the
academy fearfuls may have inadvertently contributed to their own
irrelevancy. They forgot one thing: people are drawn to
Hollywood not by the sweat, but by the glitter.
They want to see true bona fide stars, which neither Bullock nor
Bridges really are.
Sitting in the Kodak Theatre were people who did represent the
majesty that Hollywood once effortlessly presented: Meryl Streep,
George Clooney and Lauren Bacall. They were all treated shabbily
by a show that has strayed so far from its classy roots, it
should be sued for false advertising.
Streep and Clooney were made the butt of terrible jokes by
plodding co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, who were as
funny together as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Streep and
Clooney were good sports, but I felt embarrassed for them.
Streep was nominated Best Actress for Julie & Julia and
Clooney Best Actor for Up in the Air. Both
delivered exemplary performances; in Clooney's case, I judge it
to be the best of his career. But both were passed over for
honours, and the biggest knock against them, which I heard
repeatedly, was that they already had numerous career honours.
Clooney had the additional burden of playing a suave playboy
character who seemed too true to his own life. He was penalized
for being too realistic.
Bacall, a classic Hollywood figure, was among this year's
recipients of honorary Oscars. She was required to remain in her
seat during the awards telecast, because the show producers
decided that a tribute to horror movies was more important than
watching her receive her honours.
I'm not arguing that Streep and Clooney should have been given
Oscars just because they're glamorous. And maybe there were
valid reasons for not giving Bacall and the other honorary
winners podium time, although I can't think of any.
I am observing, though, how little value Hollywood now seems to
put in the notion of stardom, that indefinable essence that
movie dreams were supposed to be made of.
When Hollywood loses its stars, it loses its reason for being. |
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::LANGFIELD
ENTERTAINMENT:: ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WITH A CANADIAN TWIST::
