10 Serious Academy Award Blunders

oscars This weekend, I’m going to watch the Academy Awards. Why? Nostalgia, I guess. Frankly, over the years, Oscar’s record for picking good movies is hit-and- miss, at best. And at worst, he’s made some horrible blunders. For example, here are 10 incredibly good films that never even got nominated — for anything — not even the crappy awards nobody cares about, like Sound or Cinematography.

Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin was at the height of his powers. This is his best movie. Unfortunately, Hollywood didn’t like Charlie’s politics in those days. However, political fashions change, and these days, Chaplin is a genius again.

To Have and Have Not

I don’t need to say anything else.

The Lady From Shanghai
The only person snubbed by Oscar more often than Orson Welles was Alfred Hitchcock. Think about that for a moment.

Kind Hearts and Coronets
Oscar didn’t even notice. Fortunately, ordinary people love this movie and it’s been playing the dusty, funky little film theatre circuit ever since.

Paths of Glory
One of the greatest anti-war films — ever. Paths of Glory was released at the height of the Cold War, ten years before Vietnam made anti-war fashionable. And if Hollywood is anything , it’s fashionable.

Touch of Evil
Here’s that Orson Welles fellow again, and this time he’s with Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Akim Tamiroff and even Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich. How groundbreaking is Touch of Evil? Any film nerd will tell you the opening scene is one of the first and finest “continuous takes” in cinematic history. (Hitchcock tried it in Rope, with limited success.)

Mean Streets
Martin Scorsese is the Rodney Dangerfield of movie making. For 50 years he’s been making great movies, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Good Fellas, and on and on and on. However, he only has one Oscar to show for it: Best Director, The Departed (2006) Mean Streets is just one of the first times Martin made a movie and Hollywood looked the other way.

Miller’s Crossing
Hollywood didn’t get on the Coen Brothers’ bandwagon until the Bros were impossible to ignore. As a gangster flick, Miller’s Crossing is worthy of anything by Scorsese — uh — oops! Since then, though, the brothers could put their names on the Burbank Telephone Directory and it would be Oscar bait. (I’m looking at you, True Grit — 10 nominations? — I’m laughin’.)

Heat
Al Pacino AND Robert DeNiro. And this in a year when Nicholas Cage won the Oscar for Best Actor.

In The Mood For Love
The most sadly sensuous movie of the 21st century. If this thing doesn’t make you cry, you’ve recently died.

Now, A Word About Snow

Meanwhile in Vancouver, Canada, a couple of days ago, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter got together in a romantic embrace and — Bullshit! Last Thursday night, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter had spectacular, incredible sex — and they went at it all weekend like a couple of perverted porn stars. The result was (and still is) a snow storm of biblical proportions. The roads are icy, the sidewalks are impassable, buses are as rare as unicorns and you need to produce holy relics to get a taxi. In short, my town has turned into an illustration from the Book of Revelation.

FYI — There is a universal myth that my country, Canada, is a gigantic vertical refrigerator sprinkled with igloos and Inuit, while the rest of us cling to the 49th parallel as if the USA were a bowl of hot soup. The fact is, 99.99% of that myth is true, except for my town, Vancouver (Vangroovy, as it is affectionately called) where the local word for “bad weather” is — well — we don’t actually have one. Normally, we have the kind of weather California used to brag about — before the droughts, fires and pestilence. Our golf courses are open year round, it’s not recommended but you can wear shorts all winter and — on most days — play tennis in them. Trapped between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, Vancouver has weather so different from the rest of Canada that the children here think Disney’s Frozen is a horror movie.

And that’s the problem. We are not prepared for this white crap. We have no idea what it is. On Thursday evening, the snow was beautiful, drifting in the dark, covering everything in a crystal blanket that sparkled in the quiet light. But by Friday morning, it was showing its teeth — growling and snarling at anybody who ventured out — driving them into the ditch and shoving them off the sidewalk. Then on Saturday and Sunday, things just got nasty. It was as if Jack Frost was channeling Jack the Ripper and they were both trying to decide where to stick the icicle in next. Vancouver’s snow removal crew (three guys with two shovels) finally gave up and hid out in a bar, and the only thing left for the good citizens of Vangroovy to do was lock the doors and pray.

Now it’s Tuesday with no relief in sight. So would everybody who reads this please pray for rain in Vancouver — so we can get back to normal and the rest of Canada can start hating us again? Thank you!

Employment Opportunity – Austria

hermit I love the British Broadcasting Corporation! In a time when 99% of the gutter-feeding media are giving the other 1% a bad name, the Beeb (as it is affectionately called) is a bastion of reasonable thought. For example, last week they reported that the village of Saalfelden in Austria was in the market for a hermit. Apparently, the hermit they had retired last autumn, and they haven’t been able to fill the position. This is real news — the kind of news that not only informs us but also makes us think. Particularly, I was thinking, “Wow! I didn’t know the world still had hermits. I thought the old guy down the road, talking to his vegetables, was just nuts.” It surprises me that being a hermit is a genuine profession from which some people do retire. And that knowledge opens up a whole can of other questions; not the least of which is, for a hermit, what does retirement look like?

Is there a pension plan? Do they get dental? What about seniors’ housing? Most retirees want to go live in a quiet place in the country; do hermits find the nastiest, noisiest tenement in South Philly and move there? Do they spend their days hanging out at the mall? Taking public speaking courses at the community college? Jazzercise at the gym? What about eHarmony?

Then there’s the whole question of how and where does the village of Saalfelden find a replacement for the hermit they lost? The problem is the nature of being a good hermit actually precludes networking or strutting your stuff on craigslist or LinkedIn. Plus, if the citizens of Saalfelden do find a hermit (I’m assuming by word-of-mouth) how would they tell if he’s unhappy with his present situation? Or how do they convince him that Saalfelden would be a good career move? This would be tough, considering hermits, in general, are not susceptible to reasonable arguments. It would probably be a lot easier to just start fresh and print up some flyers.

HELP WANTED: No Experience Necessary.
Picturesque alpine village south of Salzburg seeks an older gentleman to fill a long-term position as the local hermit. Compensation commensurate with soul-eating poverty. Hovel provided. All applicants must be able to relocate and be willing to work evenings, weekends and holidays. The successful candidate will be a self-starter who is able to think inside the box and work with minimal supervision. Ideally, he should have no Facebook profile, no Instagram or Twitter account, no friends, a distant, disagreeable family and a burning distrust of all other people. Special consideration will be given to introverts, orphans and failed holy men. Saalfelden is proud to be a gender neutral, equal opportunity employer, so bag ladies and crazy cat ladies are also welcome. Do not apply in person; just move into the hovel and we’ll see how it goes.

Good luck, good citizens of Saalfelden! And God I love the BBC!

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