Only two weeks out, the Oscars are already trivia. Fairy dust in the wind. Who wore what, said what, won what don't particularly matter; that is true. Haranguing the host for having done a tepid job is as perfunctory as any chore; vanilla ice cream is wont to melt. But even if the institution sets a dubious agenda, and even if all its pageantry is a relic of some less jaded era that we hate on almost as hard as we try to rekindle it, I want to thank the Academy for setting any agenda that occasions talk about film, and, better yet, films worth talking about.
With the envelopes now opened, the "urgency" of my observations has escaped. So, lest fuller pieces never come to fruition, I'd like to commit a few final notes to the heap before they're as stale as N.P.H.'s jokes . . .
With the envelopes now opened, the "urgency" of my observations has escaped. So, lest fuller pieces never come to fruition, I'd like to commit a few final notes to the heap before they're as stale as N.P.H.'s jokes . . .
