It's About People

I had a thought earlier that went a little something like this:

“Muchacho… It’s been a while since you riled folks on your blog. Why not tackle the subject of gay marriage?”

I guess I may as well start with the crux of it, right?

I am unequivocally in favor of gay marriage. I am also straight.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot in the past week or so, because first the state of North Carolina banned gay marriage, and then President Obama spoke out in support of it. Here’s what he said:

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”
Really, I think this is beautifully said. I had someone say to me on Facebook that President Obama would say anything for votes, and you know… maybe that’s true, but I also think that he could find better quotes to work toward that goal. Far more people would be swayed by him coming out in support of looser gun laws, or by him stating that he’s “pro life”, or by him.. you know… turning white. (Should I delete? Naaahhhh). I’m not sure that being an advocate for gay rights has ever really been a swing issue. Overwhelmingly, the people who are FOR gay rights are already going to be voting for him. It’s actually conceivable that he LOST votes from the conservative, Christian African Americans.

All that is fine, but you know… for the life of me, I’ll never understand why people are so adamantly against Gay marriage. Or why they care. Or why people are so threatened by the very idea of it. So much that republicans made it a ballot issue in every swing state in 2004.. You see, they knew that the best way to get people to come out to vote was to cater to their most basic bigotry, and you know.. while they were there they may as well vote for the Republican.

I do try to understand. I try very hard.

Most people saying they’re against it say that it’s a religious thing. Or they’ll say that it “destroys the institute of marriage” or that “legalizing gay marriage would open the door to other deviant behavior (such as bestiality and polygamy).” or that “allowing gay people to get married will encourage people to be gay” or that “the bible condemns homosexuality” or that… well, that’s enough for now.. Let’s tackle them, yes?

“Gay Marriage Destroys the Institute of Marriage”

I actually heard a different variation on that. A guy I worked with long ago once told me that he was against gay marriage because that would make his marriage less special, somehow. That he viewed marriage as a special club, and that if they started letting more people in, it wouldn’t be as exclusive.

I see this as essentially the same argument, at least in spirit. What I’ve always failed to understand is that folks are more than happy to hurl the “wrecks the institution” bomb at just about the drop of a hat when it comes to gay people getting married, but they always seem to conveniently ignore all those straight people who constantly slap the precious institute of marriage right in its face. Like Britney Spears who’s been married twice, (Including once for just a shade over 2 days), and is engaged for a third time. Or Kim Kardashian who was married for a hair under 3 months, and essentially admitted it was a stunt for television. I’m just bringing up famous people because we all know the stories, but there are just as many people who run off and marry a stranger in Las Vegas after a night of heavy drinking, or they get married and divorced within weeks, or you know.. all kinds of real tributes to the institution of marriage.

I can understand why people would prefer those paragons of heterosexual virtue over two committed individuals who truly love each other. Totally makes sense to me.

Rush Limbaugh recently said “"We've arrived at a point where the President of the United States is going to lead a war on traditional marriage."

I can see his point, you know.. Rush is, after all, a huge supporter of traditional marriage. He’s been married four times.

“Legalizing gay marriage would open the door to other deviant behavior such as bestiality.”

To make this argument, you have to make the presumption that homosexuality is a perversion or a deviance on par with bestiality. That is… dumb. I’m sorry, but it is. The biggest difference between these two acts is, or should be obvious. It’s consent. A dog can not choose to have sex with a human. A dog is a creature of instinct. Humans have the free will to choose. That’s, essentially the reason pedophilia is illegal too. A child can’t make that decision. That’s why it’s abuse and not love. Two adult men or two adult women can choose just as easily and logically as one of each.

Secondly, to say that gay marriage is somehow some sort of gateway to perversion is completely baseless. I know gay men and women, and to my knowledge none of them have ever wanted to sleep with their dog, or marry their cat, or say naughty things to their parrot. Gay marriage presents no more a precedent for marrying a dog, than does so-called traditional marriage. It just doesn’t. Do you know why? Because we’re talking about things that aren’t connected. It would be just as logical to say that reading the obituaries every Tuesday will make it rain in Syracuse.

“Allowing gay people to get married will encourage people to be gay.”

That makes perfect sense. In fact, I can’t believe I never thought of it before, but I need to go hang out at the ballpark. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m throwing a perfect curveball in no time. Don’t worry.. the fact that my knees aren’t any good, and the fact that I haven’t played baseball in 15 years is totally irrelevant. If I hang around some pitchers, I’m sure I’ll end up in the majors soon enough.

“The Bible Condemns Homosexuality”

Well… That’s true. The bible also features:

The Earth is created not once, but twice.
God (the omnipotent being) gets tired
Talking snakes,
Bushes that catch fire, speak, and do not burn.
Rivers turning to blood
Men of insanely old age (Noah was 500 when his sons were born)
Giants roaming the Earth.
People getting turned into salt.

That’s all in the first 2 books.

“Wait Muchacho… Wait wait wait… Those are all stories. Allegorical or metaphorical. They’re not intended to be taken literally. But the LAWS. The LAWS are clear.”

Oh… well that changes everything.

Yes, according to the Book of Leviticus, it is forbidden for a man to lie with another man.

It is also forbidden to eat the fruit from a tree that is younger than 3 years old. It is also forbidden for a man to cut his hair or shave his beard. There’s a passage that says that if you “curse your father or mother “ you should be put to death. There’s a passage that goes into detail about how if a person is a witch or wizard and sends out their spirit that they should be put to death (This particular section is the actual support of the puritan witch trials). Also it says

- Grow two different crops in the same field
- Wear clothes made of different types of fabric
- Have sex with a woman on her period
- If a priest’s daughter is a whore, she should be killed (This also presumes that priests can have children)
- People with deformities or handicaps can’t go to church.
- You can’t eat a beetle, but you CAN eat a locust.
- If a guy has a wet dream while in the army, he has to leave camp until he re-purifies himself.

My favorite- If a guy is getting beaten up, and his wife stops the fight by grabbing the other guy’s balls… you’re supposed to chop her hand off. Seems oddly specific. I wonder if Moses was in need of a bag of frozen peas.

For anyone who says they’re against gay marriage because the bible says it’s against the rules..I would urge please go to their closet and check out how many poly-blends they have hanging on the racks.

Who is the one to determine which rules are valid and which rules are old-fashioned?

This is a fairly straightforward question. If the bible is to be taken literally, as many Christians believe, I wonder why I don’t see more heavily hairy men wandering around. If it’s to be taken and then interpreted, who’s to say whose interpretation is correct?

In the end, we can argue about religion or whatever forever, and because there are a million religions with a million different views, we’ll never get anywhere. I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe.

The question regarding why it should be YOUR religion that dictates what other people do is a valid one, and one for which you don’t have an answer. A Baptist will say the same thing as a Catholic, and they’ll say the same thing as a Jew. “Because we’re right”. Well… Prove it. There’s no unifying, official faith. People’s religions are as varied as grains of sand, and therefore governing based on religion is impossible.

If only we lived in a country founded on other principles…

Oh wait…

We live in America where there’s a very specific division of religion and government. Despite what many people believe, the USA isn’t a Christian country, at least not governmentally speaking. Some people argue that the Founding Fathers built this country upon Christian values, and they may have personally held certain beliefs, but they were very specific regarding the nature of the USA.

From The Treaty of Tripoli (Ratified in 1797, less than 10 years after the drafting of the Constitution.):

“the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”.
Thomas Jefferson was the first to overtly discuss separation of church and state when he wrote:

“America shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
There’s also a section where he talks about how religion is between a person and their God, and only them. This is essentially my position regarding prayer in public schools. There’s a great distinction between being against prayer and being against public school mandated prayer. This is a distinction that is often ignored… I’m digressing. (Full disclosure… I had 12 years of Catholic school. 8 of which included multiple daily prayers.)

My point of all of this is that marriage being legal in the United States business isn’t REALLY an issue of religion, or at least it shouldn’t be. There are two kinds of marriages, and the law is only concerned about one.

If the Tofu Muchacha and I went to a Shawnee medicine man and had him “marry us”, the only folks who need to recognize that marriage are Me, The TM, and the Shawnee people. On the other hand, if the TM and I went to the courthouse and had a judge marry us, the only people who need to care are me, the TM, and the Government of the US.

Do you see the distinction?

You see… when people get all upset about gay marriage being legal or not, I don’t understand, because it has absolutely nothing to do with them. It doesn’t have to do with their religion. It doesn’t have to do with the sanctity of their religious marriage. It doesn’t have to do with them in any way. It would be like me telling my neighbor he wasn’t allowed to put up a basketball hoop in his driveway because I hate basketball.

It only has to do with those two people having the same LEGAL rights in the United States as any other 2 people. The United States is a country founded by folks who rebelled against an unjust governing body. People who were not given the same legal rights as their countrymen across the Atlantic. Oddly, I see a lot of connection.

Look… My stance Is this:

If your religion forbids gay marriage, fine. That’s on you. If you think it’s an abomination, fine. That’s also on you.

The laws of the United States are adjustable exactly because our founders had the foresight to know that times change. They knew that the people writing the laws were human, and could not possibly be expected to be exactly just at all times. They created avenues for course correction.

- Married women were not legally permitted to own property under their own names in all states until 1900.
- It wasn’t until 1975 that married women could have credit in their own name.
- Interracial marriage wasn’t allowed in many states until the 1960s. It was illegal in the state of Alabama until the year 2000.

Times change. Laws should correct to become MORE just, not less.

My Titanic Blog

 The makings of a much more interesting film.

[Editors Note, written immediately before posting]
I haven’t seen Titanic since December of 1997. That’s on purpose. I’ve accidentally seen random scenes here and there on TV, but other than that, my memory of the film is ENTIRELY based on my recollection from that one, single viewing. I wrote this blog over the course of a couple of weeks, and I discussed some of my points with some known Titanic fans throughout the process. I’ve come to realize that some of the details of my arguments (specifically relating to the ins and outs of the specific plot) are possibly not entirely accurate. I’ve decided to leave the points as-is, and am planning a follow-up post where I re-watch the film in its 2D entirety, and adjust my opinions as needed. I promise to be honest with my re-assessment.

Okay, so it’s no secret that I think Titanic is just about the worst. I’ve stated it on numerous occasions. I’m not trying to hide the fact.

I guess I just always assumed that I’d established my full argument as to WHY I feel that way, and looking back through the blog, I realize I never really have.

My friend Annie, who has appeared as a guest blogger here before when talking about Disney, has thrown down the gauntlet, and essentially accused me of hating it only because it’s popular.

Being a Muchacho of honor, I have decided to finally and officially break it down. I assure you that Titanic’s popularity is only a small reason I hate it.

First off… I don’t hate Justin Bieber. I don’t hate Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry or Avatar. At most, I have no real opinion at all of Bieber. I can’t name a song of his, I didn’t see his movie. My only thought about Justin Bieber is that he makes me feel old. I always have this sneaking feeling that if I were 17 I would understand his deal, and I feel like I’m so far removed from knowing his deal that it sort of depresses me.

Avatar… If I’m being honest, I have to say I don’t get it. I mean… I liked it as much as the next guy, but I don’t get why this movie earned more than any other movie ever. Despite that disconnect, I have no real negative feelings about it. If it had beaten The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, I’m fairly sure my perspective on the movie wouldn’t change. I’d certainly yell and rant that it didn’t deserve to win Best Picture, but I do that with Chicago also, and I like Chicago just fine.

I guess the heart of this first point is that I’m not anti-populist. I am no hipster who intentionally seeks out only the most obscure and off-the-beaten-path movies to like. Shit… My favorite movie of 2012 so far was The Hunger Games, which is arguably targeting the same people that Titanic targeted 15 years ago.

Titanic’s popularity isn’t what makes me hate it, and more importantly, it’s not what makes me argue that it’s actually not good. It’s part of what makes me argue that it’s the worst movie ever made, but I’ll get to that…

I guess I have two separate arguments, really… The first is that Titanic isn’t a good movie, and the second is that Titanic is the worst movie ever made.

That sounds like varying levels of the same premise, but really they’re very different, because while there are a million terrible movies made every year, there’s rarely a movie, no matter how bad it is, to merit consideration in the “Worst of All Time” race.

Let’s start off with why I think it’s a bad movie…

1) The main characters are almost entirely unlikable.

Jack Dawson is a smug little d-bag who you’d likely want to punch if you met him in real life. He’s the guy who sings “I Gave My Love a Cherry” and says all the right things, and offers to draw her. Amazingly he’s awesome at guitar and he’s awesome at drawing, but certainly that is merely coincidental to his volunteering.

The Kate Winslett version of Rose is okay I suppose. Sure, she’s flighty, but she’s young and it’s Kate Winslett, so it’s to some degree forgivable. Although, the fact that she tolerates Billy Zane for even a half a second makes her unlikable by association alone. HOWEVER… that old lady version of Rose is the absolute WORST. Think about this for a second… That old crone dragged a whole team of scientists out into the middle of the North Atlantic to search for “The Heart of the Ocean”, when she really had it the whole time. And then, once they decided it was a lost cause, she tosses it! How many millions of dollars did that damned expedition cost? Just so she could hitch a ride to say farewell to the love of her life who she knew for two whole days. Blech… I hate that old lady. Thank god Britney Spears’ astronaut boyfriend retrieved it for her, or that priceless artifact would still be at the bottom of the ocean.

Oh… and maybe it’s a personal objection, but I feel like the relationship between Jack and Rose could have existed just as easily without the existence of Billy Zane at all. They could have given her some other hoity-toity rich girl issue that Jack breaks down, but instead they just make her a girl who cheats on her fiancé (odious as he may be), and that seems unnecessary and unseemly.

2) The tertiary characters aren’t much better.
The Italian guy who might as well go around the whole movie going “Thatsa bigga pizza pie!”, or Kathy Bates as Molly Brown, the most broadly painted character in history. Or the aforementioned Billy Zane, who may as well have been wearing a Snidely Whiplash mustache he was so fucking evil. There’s no grey area with any of the characters. The Italian guy is merely Italian. Molly Brown is a damned quote machine. Billy Zane is only missing the railroad tracks and rope.

3) The movie is way too long.
I’m sorry… but it is. Three hours and fourteen minutes. We’re not talking about The English Patient, a love story that spans years. We’re talking about a movie that lasts longer than the actual sinking of the ship. If the writing was good, or if the characters were super charismatic, I’d give it more leeway, but it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong… I don’t shy away from an epic. I love all three Lord of the Rings movies, and they’re all longer. Again, though… the justification for that is that the story spans months of time. It takes place in a hundred locations. The books are hundreds and hundreds of pages. What it always struck me is that Cameron was TRYING to make something big and long and epic. It was a show-off thing. It was also a lazy thing, because maybe a couple fewer loving shots of the boat (that look like matte paintings anyway) and maybe one or two fewer annoying scenes between Rose and Billy Zane… You may have yourself the start of a picture. Oh… and the framework scenes with Bill Paxton, at his absolute worst, talking to the old lying lady… terrible. I don’t care.

In the end, the only explanation for it is that Cameron is overly self-indulgent (Also potentially explaining Avatar’s GIANT run time. I mean… learn to use AVID for fuck’s sake.)

4) There are a lot of manipulative movies, none quite as overtly so.

I’ve often said that the movie is manipulative, and I stand by that. There was a counterpoint made that a lot of movies are manipulative, and yes… that’s totally true. The Pianist is a decent movie that loses points because a lot of its emotion stems from it being set during the Holocaust. That’s like hitting a ball off a tee. It’s easy to make people cry about one of the worst things to ever happen on the planet. One of my favorite movies, Saving Private Ryan, includes a scene at the end that is acutely designed to make a person weep. The primary difference is that while there are manipulative scenes in most movies, Titanic seems to be set to manipulate and steer through every scene from start to finish. One would argue that this is called “Directing” and as a theatre director myself, I can see that logic, but sometimes the better choice is to let the material do it’s own talking. Presenting something simply can be just as powerful, and not quite as overtly manipulative. I’m talking about watching Thomas Andrews setting his clock, or the old couple cuddling on the bed as the water fills the cabin, or the all of the lingering shots of the poor people drowning. I get that many of those things happened (poor people dying) or may have happened (nobody fucking knows about Andrews, besides that he went down with the ship, like most men on board, and those old people are pure fiction.)… That leads me to…

5) Something about it feels gross to me.

The Titanic was a real ship. With real people. Who really died.

“But wait, Muchacho… What about: Glory, Gettysburg, Saving Private Ryan, EVERY WAR MOVIE EVER?”

Yeah, that’s true too. Except that I kind of feel like every one of those movies is primarily about those events, or honoring those events in some way. I have always felt like Titanic was James Cameron’s project ABOUT a love story that happens to take place on The Titanic. I just feel like it’s somehow disrespectful. And when you lionize fictional (and unlikeable people) while there are real, and powerful stories to actually tell… it just feels like you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand, you want to show off how historically accurate you made the ship, and how much you care about deep sea archeology. On the other hand, you ignore a hundred compelling TRUE stories and completely make one up about a slick, boyish con artist and a overly privileged rich girl who also cheats on her fiancé.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it just feels icky.

In fairness, I also felt that way about National Treasure when Nic Cage was tossing the Declaration of Independence around, and shooting up Liberty Hall. It just gives me the willies.

So anyway… that’s the primary thrust of part one of my argument that Titanic is not a good movie. I have other, more petty, less reasoned…um… reasons, but I don’t want to like…go on and on when I’m maybe only about halfway through.
__________________________
Now, on to how I can possibly call this movie, even if we’re all accepting that it’s bad, the Worst Movie of All Time.

This is a more complicated premise, because, well… there are some horrific movies out there, and it’s very difficult to make the argument that Titanic, a movie with undeniable technical prowess, and clear talent can be worse than a movie like Manos: Hands of Fate, or Plan Nine from Outer Space. Both measurably bad movies.

In fact, almost all evidence regarding Titanic would lead me to the counter argument, that it is, in fact, the GREATEST movie ever made. It won Best Picture and Best Director. It made something like 650 million dollars at the box office. Meaning that it was both critically poplular and popularly popular, which I will grant makes my argument possibly silly. Well… it’s my argument, and I’m gonna make it.

Obviously, in order to buy into my opinion that it’s the worst ever, you have to first accept that my primary premise is correct.. that the movie is, in fact, bad. So I’ll assume we agree on that point. Or at least that I swayed you. Hooray!

As I said before, there are a ton of bad movies. My buddy Brawny Hombre would argue that Bad Movies are actually the best movies. He would also argue that movies like Armageddon are bad, and while that may be true, I don’t think he’d argue that it would be in the conversation for worst ever.

What is the difference, then?

Well… in the case of Plan Nine From Outer Space, it’s the sheer, willful, almost GLEEFUL way Ed Wood ignored every facet of the production. Writing. Continuity. Acting. Direction. These were all secondary to “Getting the movie made” and that showed in every frame. When Bela Lugosi died during filming, he merely hired his dentist to walk around with a cape over his face and simply believed nobody would notice. Scenes change from Night to Day to Night depending on what angle he’s shooting from. It’s a train wreck. It’s really, really bad.

In the case of a movie like… Showgirls, the production value was largely fine, but the writing and acting completely sunk it, as did it being fully lacking in even a modicum of self-awareness. It’s so goofy and weird and badly written and acted, but you know that they believed they were making art. It’s the obtuse self aggrandizement that makes it especially bad.

For Titanic, I believe that it boils down to 2 major things.

1) James Cameron fully believes it is the greatest movie ever made, believed it when he was making it, and made it with the intention of it ultimately being that. The mere fact that he set out to do it, and it ended up being bad (as we accepted) puts it in the conversation. I have a problem, as a director, with directors in general overstating their own importance, brilliance, talent, genius, etc… The sort of shameless self promotion turns me right off. Even 15 years later, James Cameron re-released Titanic and acted like he was gifting it on us or something.

I can just picture him saying something like : “I know you’ve been slogging your way through year after year of marginal movies by marginal directors… you know.. aside from my very own Avatar, but not to worry… I’m here to solve your boredom and lift you out of the doldrums of film watching by presenting you… with a movie you’ve already seen a million times. You’re Welcome.”

The whole attitude is off-putting. Michael Bay makes explosion vehicles. He knows it. We know it. He accepts that’s his lot, so when he makes a clunker, we laugh and it goes away, and then he makes another movie with explosions, and we either like it better or worse than the one before. Michael Bay knows who he is. James Cameron insists on telling us what kind of genius he is, and it pisses me right off. The primary vehicle for him touting his genius is Titanic, which… as I already explained, isn’t even any good.

2) The main reason I believe it’s the worst ever, is because “Worst’ is relative. And Titanic has the greatest (by a country mile) disparity between actual quality, and purported quality.

Ed Wood liked Plan Nine, but he never said it was a masterpiece. Oliver Stone would never call Alexander his best film, unless he was just being belligerent (a real possibility).

There are many movies that, in a vacuum, are far worse than Titanic, but the claims to greatness… the utter insistence from the legions of fans that it’s the BEST MOVIE EVAR, the willful ignorance of any type of disputation, the OUTRAGE and SHOCK when a person even deigns to suggest it isn’t the GREATEST movie ever made automatically makes the chasm between actual quality and purported quality so great that no other movie can match it.

So that’s my argument. Titanic is the worst strictly in terms of proportion. If Titanic had simply been presented without comment, and had lived a fairly quiet life, I may have very different feelings of it. Even if it wasn’t quiet, and still made a crapload of money, like Avatar, but didn’t hold itself out there as being so fucking fantastic…

You could say that part of this argument is that the popularity of it makes me not like it, but that’s a real oversimplification, because there are tons of movies that I love that are also popular. And books. And TV shows. I love Pirates of the Caribbean. I love DISNEY movies. I love The Hunger Games. None of those would lose a popularity contest.

I hate that Titanic is so popular because it is bad. I don’t think Titanic is bad because it is popular. So I dunno… Maybe it is exactly what it looks like.

Blogging About Blogging.

What’s strange about this particular lapse in blog updates is that I’ve been blogging my ass off.

I mean, the first and most obvious location I’ve been blogging is my Disney Blog, where I recently talked about all the latest news surrounding the closure of Epcot’s Test Track for refurbishment.

Most of my blogging has been behind the scenes, though, where I’ve been working on three huge movie blogs. It’s just that none of them are ready for print yet, so I thought I’d put a little interim blog together… about the 3 blogs I’ve been working on.

Blog 1 is the second half of my “BEST Best Picture” of the past 20 years. As of now, I’m down to eight finalists, and I’m still not totally sure how to pair them up. I think it’s gonna end up being a random tournament where I draw up a bracket and have essentially 3 more rounds of competition ending with a final round pitting to top two “Best Picture” winners. The idea is that.. there’s not really a good or bad draw for any movie, since the quality of the movies don’t change based on the matchups. If Movie A is better than Movie B, it will always win. That also would mean Movie B would not EVER win this tournament.

In fact… Let’s announce the bracket now… (The matchups were randomly determined by a co-worker who didn’t know what he was picking.

Schindler’s List vs. No Country for Old Men
Unforgiven vs. Forrest Gump
The English Patient vs. The Return of the King
American Beauty vs. The Hurt Locker

So… stay tuned for the final half of that tournament.

Blog 2 is my explanation of why I hate the movie “Titanic” so much. This one is taking a while for two reasons. Partly because I feel like I’ve made this argument so many times over the past 15 years that I almost feel like my points are too plentiful at this stage, so I’m working on narrowing it down to just a couple of key reasons. I’ve been accused of hating it for reasons that I don’t hate it also, so it’s important that I focus on my actual reasons, and not worry about refuting.

Partly, and more importantly, I keep debating whether I want to go see it in 3D in this recent re-release in order to a) give it one more chance and b) to better pinpoint the exact things I hated. I’ve only seen it one time, after all. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? The movie I tout as being the worst of all time, and I’ve only seen it once.

What I find most interesting, though, is that people seem to be less enthralled with it in this re-release. I’m kind of curious as to that too.

Blog 3 is a new one that my friend Alan (The Brawny Hombre) got me started with last night. It’s probably the longest winded one of all, and I have absolutely NO idea how this is going to work in practice, but he’s so intrigued by the Best Picture blog that he’s encouraged me to write a whole separate blog about the Best Movie Overall of that same time period.

That’s an insanely daunting task. So far we’ve started by listing our top three movies for each year, beginning in 1990 (Goodfellas, Edward Scissorhands, Total Recall) and going all the way through to 2011. We spent the whole night (He also has a third shift job, so we regularly bounce e-mails back and forth when our shifts line up), and we only made it through 2003 (Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seabiscuit). Not only do we have 3 movies listed for each year, but we have a huge list of “Also considered” movies, which is currently almost 70 movies all on its own. The idea is… once we’ve determined the best 3 for each year, and we have the giant pool of also considered, we’ll go through and see if there are any things that have to be swapped out. Then we have a good old 64 movie extravaganza.

It’s all very scientific, I assure you.

So far, some quotes from the discussion include:
Me regarding the possible inclusion of “Contact” in the best movies of 1997:
“Absolutely, unequivocally, no. Contact is not ever in the top three movies of that year. I’m almost positive that Jodie Foster would agree.”

Alan regarding the fact that the discussion lasted through till morning:
“We should probably table this for now.  It's hitting the busy morning period when the buffoons begin waking up and inflicting their ineptitude on the world around them (i.e., me). “

I’m already finding a glaring hole in the matrix (Not ‘The Matrix’), which is that Royal Tennenbaums neither made the final cut for 2001, nor was it mentioned at all. Mistakes all over the fucking place. Embarassing.

So… You’ve all got those blogs to look forward to, in some order. Almost certainly the Best Movie Tourney will be last, and potentially in a series of posts as opposed to one 50,000 word monolith. Maybe I should just compile the discussion and make a book out of it.

I have every intention of writing about something other than movies at some point, but until The Crucible is done (next week), I’m pretty wiped out creatively.

I was considering writing a blog about the HBO show ‘Girls’, which I find bad, almost to the point of being repugnant.

A Battle Royale

I recently blogged very briefly about The Oscars, and during that I mentioned the idea of having a “Best Picture Tournament” where I very scientifically determine the BEST Best Picture winner of the past 20 years.

By “scientifically” I mean “based on my own very special criteria that varies by the day, and generally boils down to my personal taste.”, but I realize that my just saying so doesn’t make for a good read, so here’s my thought process..

The Movie Enema (aka The First Eliminations)

The criteria for this level of elimination comes down to this: How does the winner compare to the other movies nominated that year? If the movie shouldn’t have won its own year, it is immediately disqualified. Seems fair right? Glad we all can agree…

Titanic, 1997.
Look…I could write a whole blog about why this is the worst movie ever made. I probably have. This is an unpopular opinion, but it doesn’t make me wrong. Let’s talk about Titanic for just a second… Bad script? Yes. If someone tried to make the argument that they were going for period camp… I could possibly get behind it if everything else wasn’t taken so seriously, or if for that matter, it wasn’t about a horrible tragedy, which isn’t exactly fertile ground for campiness. Manipulative? Yes. Any time you show old people embracing in bed as the ship goes down… there is literally no purpose behind that other than to make people cry. Bad acting? Yes. Sorry Leo fans… he’s just not good in this one. Flawed premise? I just can’t get past the part where the old lady drags all of those people out there to search for the big diamond, and she had it with her the whole freaking time. I can’t get past it. That lady would have gone overboard.

It’s all too much to take. And it’s the worst movie ever made because the actual quality, when compared to the overblown opinion people have of it, creates the largest gap between reality and perception. That’s what makes it bad. If people accepted it for just being a fun (as fun as trivializing the deaths of hundreds of innocent people can be) spectacle, I’d have far less issue with it. In this case, it was a Best Picture winner, beating more deserving movies like L.A. Confidential and Good Will Hunting, both of which had better stories, better acting, and better writing. L.A. Confidential, had it won, might have made a run in this tournament.

Shakespeare in Love, 1998
I could go on about this one too, but I won’t. I’ll simply say… In 50 years people will be talking about one of the nominated films from this year as being among the greatest films ever made. That movie isn’t Shakespeare in Love.

Saving Private Ryan was so definitively a better movie in nearly every way.

The only edge I’d give Shakespeare is with Tom Stoppard’s very clever script.

Saving Private Ryan revolutionized war movies (a longtime anchor genre in film history). I know this doesn’t really mean a lot to many people, but Steven Spielberg made war movie that makes every war movie made prior to it seem watered down in comparison, I think the most amazing thing about it is that you’re never once thinking “wow… that was gratuitous” (as opposed to a movie like… The Passion of the Christ where I spent most of it thinking “Wow… that was gratuitous”).

I’ll also say that when you have a movie about a war, where the actual veterans of the war view it as a historical document rather than an entertainment, you’ve got something important on your hands. Sometimes (Not always) historical significance needs to be considered. Especially when compared to something as silly (albeit entertaining) as Shakespeare in Love.

A Beautiful Mind & Chicago, 2001 and 2002 respectively.

These two movies are grouped together, because they’re out for the same reason. They beat the first two Lord of the Rings movies for no reason aside from the fact that the Academy was “holding back” to reward LOTR after the 3^rd installment. That’s a terrible reason.

There’s nothing particularly wrong about A Beautiful Mind or Chicago. They feature great production values, and excellent performances. In fact, I believe Russell Crowe should have won Best Actor for A Beautiful Mind, and NOT won for Gladiator (another day, Muchacho… Another day…). Chicago was being touted as the return of the big movie musical (except that nothing since then has been as good, and then they stopped again.) They’re both really good… I’m not denying.

Sorry, though… Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers are both JUST as amazingly crafted as their Oscar-Winning brother, The Return of the King. Some would argue that they’re more tightly edited, since everyone seems to point out the silly multiple endings of ROTK. If you stated that Two Towers was the actual best of the 3 movies, I’d have a tough time disagreeing.

Million Dollar Baby, 2004

This is a tough one for me, because I like Clint Eastwood (more on that later), and Hilary Swank was definitely great, as was Morgan Freeman. Million Dollar Baby is a really excellent movie. This just happened to be a year where there were a ton of excellent movies out there, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think it was the best one.

In fact, I’d say that it was the 3^rd or 4^th best of the nominees, overall.

The Aviator should have won. This is the DiCaprio Epic that stands out for me. His performance is great. Scorsese’s direction is great. The Cinematography (by the same guy who just won for Hugo) was beautiful. It’s an interesting story, about an interesting guy, featuring several high profile performances of a high quality. It’s a period piece. It hits all the buttons. It’s a great movie.

Oh, and if the Aviator doesn’t win, Sideways should have. Or Finding Neverland. I see the arguments against Finding Neverland as being the most valid. They took pretty significant liberties with the actual person of James Barrie, and glossed over a good bit of the strangeness of him. I guess if you’re making a Biopic of someone, you should probably be truthful. Either way, I readily admit it never fails to make me cry. Also, and this may be blasphemy coming from a Disney fan, but this is Johnny Depp’s greatest performance of the past 10 years. Jack Sparrow is a close second.

If you realllllly pushed me, I’d concede that if you put Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, and Sideways in a hat and pulled out one winner, I’d be fine with any of the three, but The Aviator is clearly the best of the bunch.

Crash, 2005
I won’t even dignify this with discussion. Brokeback Mountain should have won. Perhaps it’s become a bit of a punchline for homophobes everywhere since then, but this was Heath Ledger’s true break-out film. He was phenomenal in it. It’s a great movie. Sorry.

Slumdog Millionaire, 2008

I really don’t get why everyone loves Slumdog Millionaire so much, and in fact… it sure seems like there really isn’t all that much love for it. Nobody really talks about it anymore, except for Aziz Ansari, and he only mentions it as part of a joke about how awesome it must be to be white.

I really believe that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a better choice, ultimately, even if it was a little long, and the weird framework surrounding Hurricane Katrina was…well.. weird. Brad Pitt gave my favorite of his performances. Cate Blanchett was equally excellent. The story was appropriately sweeping, the effects were always effective and never too showy. There were parts of great emotion, and humor, and pathos. Interestingly, I think I like it more on 2^nd and 3^rd viewing than I did on the first. It really grows on me the more I’ve seen it.

The Kings Speech, 2010

I’m just going to chalk this one up to the apparent yearlong blow job to the United Kingdom. We may as well have just re-upped as a colony, since the Brits made the Oscars their bitch this year.

I’ve seen most of the TEN films nominated this year, and of them, here are the ones I thought were better than The Kings Speech:
The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and True Grit.

The Academy seems to have a thing against Aaron Sorkin, so The Social Network had an uphill climb. If you couple that with the idea that The Social Network was very much a film of NOW (in that it’s not timeless), it seemed unlikely to win. I think sometimes, when convenient, the Academy takes it upon them to give a nod to posterity, and I’ll grant that The Social Network wouldn’t age well, necessarily. Except that it’s amazingly written, and expertly acted. Toy Story 3 was a sequel (strike one) and animated (strike two). True Grit was a remake of a beloved John Wayne movie, and if there’s anything Hollywood loves as much as the British? It’s old Hollywood. As evidenced by The Artist. Oh… that brings me to…

The Artist, 2011

If there’s ever been a movie designed to win an Oscar in today’s environment, it’s The Artist. It’s… French, which is sort of the “in” thing (See: Midnight in Paris, Hugo, and War Horse which all at least in part take place in France). It romanticizes old Hollywood, which is like sweet, sweet kitten blood for the aging Academy voters. It features a cute dog. It features a handsome French star that eliminates the language barrier by never speaking.

I’m not saying The Artist is bad. In fact… I’d not say any of the movies I’ve mentioned are actually bad, except for Titanic. I just think it’s a silly, trivial movie that happened to find the exact perfect atmosphere to flourish. Probably the most telling thing is that it may have spoken to voters in some way, but generally it didn’t speak to audiences equally. It’s one of the lowest grossing Best Picture winners ever. (even adjusted for inflation). So… what deserved it more? The Descendants and Moneyball definitely. Probably Hugo, too, though I didn’t see it.

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So there we go. I’ve already eliminated 9 of 20 eligible movies and we’ve barely broken a sweat.

Elimination Number Two. (Too Easy)

My next “weed-out” involves Best Picture winners who rightfully beat the movies it was up against, but weren’t as good as another un-nominated movie that came out that year.. I’ll grant this opens up the discussion, potentially to a huge number of movies, so I’m limiting the “other movies” to ones that were nominated in at least one other category.

So… let’s see… We can now eliminate:

Braveheart, 1995
Sorry Mel Gibson, but even though I prefer your film to the other Best Picture nominees, I found at least 2 other movies that each are better than Braveheart. I have to believe the Academy was totally on crack this year, because here are some of the movies that were nominated for at least one Oscar, but not for Best Picture…

Toy Story (!!!!) I know… It’s an animated movie, so it stood about as much a chance as I did, but if you consider it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (that’s a huge one), and if you also consider it was the first major Pixar release, which maybe makes it more of shame in retrospect since Pixar who has completely owned the animated feature category unlike any other group in any other category. How the Academy couldn’t recognize a revolution in animation and storytelling is beyond me… I don’t know… Being a Walt Disney fan, I think a lot about animation and its evolution… Maybe it should have won something like those Seven Dwarfs statuettes they gave Walt when Snow White came out.

The Usual Suspects. This movie has one of the greatest endings in the history of movies. It also boasts an acting Oscar for the previously lesser-known Kevin Spacey. Oh, and it has about 20 great scenes. Also… One super awesome slo-mo coffee cup.

Many people would also argue Casino was better, and I won’t stop them, even if it’s not my favorite.

Honestly, this came out in a period of 2 years where I paid very little attention to The Oscars. Maybe it’s because I was a teenager, and it wasn’t cool or whatever, but I just wasn’t all that aware of what was happening… I don’t know what it was about Braveheart that captured everyone’s attention. Just seems like 1995 was a good year for movies, just not nominated ones.

Gladiator, 2000

I’ll admit that if taking in just the field of Best Picture nominees, Gladiator takes it hands down. However, to this day, I can’t understand how Almost Famous didn’t get nominated. It won for Best Original Screenplay, and had 2 acting nominations in the same category. Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies of the past 10 years, as I discussed in more detail on my January 2010 post where I talked about my favorite movies from that decade.

One could potentially champion O Brother Where Art Thou? As another more deserving film, but I won’t. I love it, and it makes me laugh, but it’s got a lot of problems.

The Departed, 2006.
Wha????? That’s right.
I love The Departed, but there are two movies from 2006 that I believe were clearly better.

Pan’s Labyrinth. Somehow the Academy decided that a win in the Best Foreign Language category somehow makes up for the insane slight of not putting it up for the big award. It’s an absolutely engaging, amazing story with beautiful imagery, haunting cinematography, spectacular acting and art direction, and one of the most indelibly creepy performances of all time (Sergei Lopez as The Captain).

Children of Men. When I wrote that blog about the best movies of the “Aughts”, I proclaimed this one the best. It wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, which is a total joke. I can’t really even get into the many, many reasons. It’s got an intriguing story. Excellent performances. My favorite soundtrack of any movie ever. One of the most insane tracking shots ever filmed. Then a whole other insane tracking shot that would take the title if not for the first. It’s really got everything. It’s emotional, political, lyrical, fluid. To this day, I don’t understand how it wasn’t nominated. Until I get an answer, The Departed’s win gets a big fat asterisk.

That about wraps up round two.

So… we now have a more manageable field of films to work with…The Semi Finalists are:

• Unforgiven
• Schindler’s List
• Forrest Gump
• The English Patient
• American Beauty
• The Return of the King
• No Country for Old Men
• The Hurt Locker

To be continued… maybe next week? I’m not sure, but I do need to come up with a more clear set of criteria to start eliminating these final eight movies, all of whom were the deserved winners in their respective Oscar races.

Harried Muchacho

I’ve been so consumed with the production of The Crucible I’m directing, that I’ve found it difficult to get fired up about anything enough to make a blog out of it, and when I do think of something to write about, I’ve been having a difficult time really pinning it down in a logical way. For this blog alone, I’ve thought about the following:

- Favorite fictional characters from Television
- Favorite shows I watch while working overnight.
- Things I hate about renovating.
- The weird feeling I have when people I know, or have known for years, show up in national commercials, or when they show up in movies. This has been happening quite a lot lately. Enough, in fact, that the TM keeps asking me “Do you know that person?” whenever I perk up at a thing on TV.
- A Reds season preview/another meandering blog about baseball and the importance of it in my life.
- The phenomenon of celebrity.

I mean… some of these have legs, and some of these don’t, but I’m not super inspired by any…so in true Muchacho tradition, I’ve decided to write a quick update about various things in my life. Nothing like culling my day to day for material, right?

Vegetarian Stuff…
In case you wondered, I am still a vegetarian. I’m still allowing myself fish/shellfish/seafood so it’s sort of a loose vegetarianism, but I haven’t had red or white meat for a full 3 months now, and I actually no longer even remember what the last meat I had was…
Do I miss meat? Sort of… I miss it more as an idea than I do in practice. I haven’t been a big meat eater for several years, but I find myself frustrated by not being able to even have most “Soups of the Day” or having to pick off the delicious bacon that comes on the top of cream of potato soup. (Not loaded baked potato soup, where you’d expect bacon). That was sort of heartbreaking…to fastidiously remove the bacon. I’ve been careful to ask beforehand now, because that was fairly torturous, and was certainly the closest I’ve come to saying “fuck it.”
When we’re at home, the TM and I are pretty good about making various vegetarian foods and keeping it pretty interesting. She’s developed a fantasic recipe for bean enchiladas that continues to evolve. I made some pretty decent vegetarian chili. I’ve eaten tofu hot dogs at least a couple of times without wanting to kill myself.

Progress…

Could I do it forever? I dunno… I think I could definitely do like… 80-90%, but damnit do I miss bacon. It’s not even that I had bacon that often, but the prospect of bacon is appealing in itself. It’s also pretty depressing to go to the local barbeque places and not even be able to enjoy the fucking baked beans because they’re made with ham hock.

Wood Working Stuff…

I succeeded in completing my first project in February… a manly as hell workshop light that wasn’t particularly complicated, but definitely required some muscle. It took me a solid 2 days to make it, and I really do like it. It’s created a very bright workshop for future projects.

As for those future projects… I feel like it’s a bit of a cop-out to even say this, because I should have spent more time researching the hobby ahead of time, but damnit is this an expensive way to pass the time. Tools are really pricey, and it seems that each project requires like… 5 tools that are specific to that one kind of project only. I had been registered for a dovetail joint workshop, but ended up having to drop out, because even though the workshop was listed as being 110.00, which I paid… once I started reading more about it, I realized that I also had to bring like… 4 pieces of equipment I don’t already have. It would have ended up costing about 300.00 to do this 100.00 workshop. So…I canceled. It, admittedly, has taken the wind out of my sails at least a little, though I am working on something now that I hope to be completed by the end of the month. At this point, I’m a month behind on my projects, and maybe some of my readers were right… 11 pieces was optimistic. Not in terms of workload, but in terms of cost.

House stuff…
The TM and I have spent the last 3 months having stuff done to our house, and I’ll be honest with you…. As nice as many of the things are, and as necessary as the rest was… I’m so fucking tired of having people in the house. No offense at all to the contractors who are super nice and very professional, but I just want to sit around the house on my off days without my pants on, and your presence has hindered that a great deal.

That said, though… We have at least 3 super fantastic upgrades to the house that will increase the value if we ever decide to sell, and will certainly increase the enjoyment we have while we stay.

First, we re-did the deck in the backyard. This was a huge deal, since the old deck was nice, but was also rotting and falling down. The new deck is a good deal bigger, and has some cool features like a cutout for a tree in the middle, with a great bench surrounding it. I LOVE the new deck.

Also in the backyard, we removed all of the pieced –together sections of fencing and installed a 6 foot privacy fence all around the yard. This sounds so isolationist, but we’re getting a dog in the fall, so dog-safety is paramount. Also it does look so nice compared to the old fence.

Lastly (of my favorite upgrades), we knocked out the windows in our dining room, and had French doors installed in their place. These open up onto the deck, which now extends over far enough for that to actually work. Previously, the deck ended a good 10 feet to the left.

I guess what I’m saying is that our back yard is now really fucking awesome. We managed to take a largely forgotten space (also featuring some of the most hellacious weeds on the planet), and turn it into a really nice, extra living space that will be great for us, for our future dog, and for future residents if we decide to leave.

I mentioned the weed issue… well… through no real fault of anyone, and largely because last Summer was so insanely busy, the back corner of the yard (more like the back right QUARTER) became completely overgrown. Like… unpassable. So last Wednesday, I also managed to adhere to one of my resolutions, and did some house improvement work by tearing that shit down. It was hard, and it was hot, and I may have dulled the blades on the lawn mower, but I have to say I’m pretty pleased at the result.

I can also wager a guess that this corner of the yard will continue to be problematic. The yard slopes downward toward that corner, and water seems to flow that direction. Away from the house, which is good, but toward that corner… tending to make it a muddier, swampy area. This is bad for walking and enjoying, but really really good for plants. Those irksome weeds especially. Expect more updates on this once the play is over, and we’re back from our vacation.

Oh… That blogging thing.
My other resolution was that I’d be blogging more this year… I am pleased to say that I’ve pretty successfully stuck to my one-blog-per-week routine, though I’ve been delayed in posting until later in the week a couple of times. I am giving myself a pass on that.

In fact… I have basically committed to blogging EVEN MORE because of my new Disney-themed blog, which launched last week. If you’re interested in just my Disney blogs, check it out. I’ll post a link here every time I blog over there, so don’t worry… but if you want to add it to the blog roll now, the URL is:

http://beefydisney.blogspot.com

This has turned into a lot of babbling, so I’ll cut this off now… Some blogs to look forward to:

Imagineering Disney - A (hopefully) recurring segment on rides or attractions I’ve thought up. To be posted on BeefyDisney.

The Muchacho Tattoo… My resident Muchacho Artist, Tony Doench has completed my tattoo design, so now I just have to find a time to schedule the session. I’m hoping Jake (the tattoo artist) will let me time lapse the process. Either way, I’ll blog about it.

The Reds/Baseball blog. I just have to think of a good angle.

I’m always thinking about posting serialized original fiction as I write it…sort of like a workshop. We’ll see if that comes together.

Happy April!