Somehow, Hollywood managed to appease its writers in time to prepare this year's Oscar telecast. Writers may be underpaid and treated like dirt, and movie stars may shed crocodile tears in solidarity with the world's underprivileged, but NO ONE stands in between movie stars and their parties.
I'm not sure that I've ever watched an Oscar telecast. Or a Grammy awards show (except to catch a fleeting glimpse of one particular musician or another -- usually the musicians I am interested in are cut out of the televised show entirely, or they are offered a paltry 30 seconds before the show dissolves into a commercial break) or any of the other endless imitators that have popped up during the last two decades.
I'd rather just read the winner's list the following morning.
But something about this year's Academy Awards list caught my eye. First off, here, in order of box office earnings, are the top twenty films of 2007:
1. Spiderman 3
2. Shrek The Third
3. Transformers
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. I Am Legend (still in theaters)
7. The Bourne Ultimatum
8. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (still in theaters)
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks (still in theaters)
10. 300
11. Ratatouille
12. The Simpsons Movie
13. Wild Hogs
14. Knocked Up (still in theaters)
15. Rush Hour 3
16. Live Free or Die Hard
17. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
18. American Gangster
19. Bee Movie (still in theaters)
20. Enchanted (still in theaters)
Now, here are the nominees for best picture, followed by their box office rankings (all these films are still in theaters):
Atonement (2007 #54, opened 12/5)
Juno (2007 #21, opened 12/5)
Michael Clayton (2007 #55, opened 10/5; 2008)
No Country For Old Men (2007 #41, opened 11/9)
There Will Be Blood (2007 #82, opened 12/26)
I included the opening date because studios routinely hold the films judged to be Oscar-worthy until the end of the year, and then keep them in theaters until after Oscar weekend, hoping that these films still retain some "freshness" at the time the Oscars are given out.
If you look at these two lists, you can immediately spot the problem. "Juno" is the only Best Picture nominee that a reasonably large group of people has seen. And look at the dismal box office for "Michael Clayton," which was released 5 1/2 months ago but cannot break into the top 50. Or to put it another way, for every person who saw "Michael Clayton," four saw "Wild Hogs."
And the lists for best actor/actress/supporting actor/supporting actress/director aren't any better. "Juno" is the only film with multiple nominations that made the 2007 box office top 40 list.
So what happened this year? Has Hollywood forgotten how to make a picture that can stand both as an artistic achievement and a crowd pleaser? No doubt conservative media critics are already polishing up their "Hollyweird is out of touch with America's heartland" boilerplates. But there's got to be something more to it than that.
What is it?
In the world of jazz, you have the true visionaries -- the prophets, the geniuses. And then you have their disciples and torchbearers, exciting musicians, headliners that virtually every jazz fan knows. And then you have guys like Kenny G, who has probably sold more records than every struggling jazz artist on every independent jazz label, combined. As a jazz musician, he stinks. His playing should have damned him to spend his life playing for disinterested senior citizens in a moldy supper club somewhere in South Dakota. Yet people buy his records by the millions. And they buy similar amounts of everything that Norah Jones records -- although Norah has genuine talent to go along with her sex appeal.
When the Grammy's come along, it's a sure bet that all the nominees for jazz-related recordings will be the aging prophets and torchbearers, major label artists (Blue Note, Verve, etc. *ahem* EMI, Universal, etc.) no younger than 60. I may be wrong, but don't think that an any album or artist recorded by Criss Cross or High Note or Nagel-Hayer has ever won a jazz Grammy (although a handful have been nominated).
People say that this is just the way the business works. Awards go to the old guard, the artists who can be counted on again and again, decade after decade, to deliver top-quality, inspirational work. It's a legacy-building thing. They have earned it. The money goes to the pretty faces and the plastic banana crowd. And that's good because their record sales put money back in the bank accounts of jazz record labels, which in turn allows them to record and release work by the younger artists and headliners whose records sell, but just not enough to keep those labels operating in the black.
And so you have a brief description of an entertainment system with roots that go about as far back as the motion picture industry. Maybe there is a parallel, maybe there isn't. All I know is that I won't be watching the Oscars Sunday night.
I'll just check online Monday morning to see who won.
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