Bubbly Swoony
On 1.29 a National Public Ratio "Weekend Edition" interview between Rachel Martin and Awards Daily Sasha Stone aired. (And was posted.) It's a short piece about the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, and about as simple-minded as an interview of this sort could possibly be without attempting to satirize.
We all think of NPR as a haven for bright and informed conversation, but this piece was assembled for the slowest ADD person in the room. I guess the NPR motto has always been "keep it simple and peppy and above all not too long." (Kim Masters' pieces are like this too.) After all, they don't want to lose any eighth graders who might be station-surfing and stopping on NPR for a few seconds. Really, listen to this thing. Audio clips, audio clips and more audio clips. Keep the commentary down to the bare minimum. Assume your listeners are borderline idiots and you can't go wrong.
Stone elaborated today on what she was trying to convey to Martin...if Martin had any interest in discussing the subject at any length.
Key point #1: "It surprised host Rachel Martin that the screenplay race, it turned out, wasn't so much about the individual screenplays as it was about the Best Picture category. Key point #2: "She was also surprised to hear that those voting for adapted screenplay don't have to have seen all of the films nominated. Heck, the year Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash many Academy members came out and admitted they didn't see the movie. This year, if you polled Academy members I bet you'd find that there are those voting members who still haven't seen all nine of the nominees.
"Voting is buzz and perception. When you fall in love with a pretty girl across the room not only do you not see anyone else but you don't even want to look at anyone else. Such is the conundrum of choosing 'best.'"
This is why I spit on the 2011 Awards Season consensus picks among many of the critics groups, the guilds, the HPA and the Oscars. In terms of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, I mean. I don't mind that people have crushes on this performance or that film. I find nothing wrong with a little swooning from time to time. I do mind when the most popular kid in the room is by far the shallowest and most smiley and superficially charming without any corresponding depth or intrigue or complexity.
I used to hate guys like this in high school. Hunky jocks and grinning student council officers in their fucking slacks and loafers and Brooks Brothers shirts. They had next to nothing going on upstairs -- certainly none of the depth or wit or soul that I was secretly harboring -- and yet all the pretty girls loved them because they were cute and charming and "sincere" and...I don't know, comforting or whatever. I've had the last laugh, of course. Right now many of those guys are enduring lives of comfortable middle-class tedium and boredom while I'm galavanting around Hollywood and Cannes and rubbing shoulders with hot girls and schmoozing with all the cool people. But I still hate them for all the "like" they received in our junior and senior years.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on February 9, 2012 at 10:18 AM
comment #1
FlashDust
says ...
Damn, you are in a mood of all moods today.
Sasha does a "simple-minded" interview and you have to rant about high school?
What is eating Gilbert Jeff?
Posted by FlashDust
at February 9, 2012 11:31 AM
comment #2
Floyd Thursby
says ...
NPR has long been superficial and condescending in its arts coverage. That's why I haven't listened to it in years.
Posted by Floyd Thursby
at February 9, 2012 11:39 AM
comment #3
LexG
says ...
Yeah, but... those dudes with boring lives and families DON'T CARE about Hollywood or movie stars; This is one thing YOUNG ADULT got SO right-- everyone who heads to the BIG CITY to SHOW UP the hicks in their town, it's a DOOMED proposition, because squares and "normal" people in their loafers and hiked up shorts with tucked in shirts on the golf course running a tire franchise married to their high school sweetheart with six doughy kids going to church on Sundays in Ohio or Michigan or wherever are HAPPY...
...and with the exception of the handful of Pitts or Jim Carreys who come from humble beginnings and strike it big, most of "us" who left Shitsville to be King Dick are NOT happy. These married boring midwest Republican types Jeff hates don't envy his Cannes trips, don't know or care who David Fincher is, and think YOU'RE the weird one. There's no REVENGE in leaving a small town or shitty beginnings, because those people would be more impressed with you if you ran restaurant and guzzled beer with them two houses away than any of your/our Hollywood "dreams."
Posted by LexG
at February 9, 2012 11:44 AM
comment #4
JLC
says ...
Man, I wish War Horse had turned out to be a better film. This awards season is already turning out to be a delicious toxic stew of resentment and hostility. Equating The Artist's chances with being overlooked in high school? Sweet fancy Moses. Some good Spielberg hate could push us into untold heights/depths of depravity. A cherry on a sundae of sewage.
Posted by JLC
at February 9, 2012 11:59 AM
comment #5
MooType
says ...
I really like how much Jeffrey reveals of himself here. All the screen-ratio crap is just so much cover, and his alleged love of film is really just an excuse to imagine that he's some kind of swinging success--who, of course, had to live in the sticks instead of Manhattan, and is obviously troubled that his current financial situation is only stable because of an inheritance from a father that he considered to be a failure. And, of course, now we know why Jeffrey's main film obsession is just the Hollywood version of a high-school popularity contest. Jeffrey can't allow himself to admit that guys like Brad Pitt were exactly the kind of high-school student that young Master Wells used to dismiss as beneath him. Now, of course, Wells gets to fellate Mr. Pitt for a living.
Posted by MooType
at February 9, 2012 12:08 PM
comment #6
VoiceOfReason
says ...
Oh christ, Jeff. This 6minute piece is from a Sunday morning show and about a subject that is completely inside baseball as far as the general public is concerned. What are you expecting? A groundbreaking expose?
Posted by VoiceOfReason
at February 9, 2012 12:12 PM
comment #7
Rashad
says ...
Lex is spot-on. Outside of the insular internet environment, no one gives a shit about any of this. The most they'll care is when the morning talk shows mention it, or when the actual show is on. I guarantee the majority of the people who watch the Oscars, think it's up for grabs until the night of. Completely oblivious to guilds or critics groups. It's just a passing curiosity that comes once a year.
Posted by Rashad
at February 9, 2012 1:50 PM
comment #8
Sasha Stone
says ...
Oh now. Why the hate? I was totally geeked out getting to go on NPR. I'm a lifelong listener and I can't say a bad thing about it, sorry. So it was a big cool thing for me to drive down there, sit at that mic - and I thought Rachel Martin did a great job. Most people have no idea how the Oscar race actually works. And they're always shocked to find out, when you really sit down and tell them. I'll never forget sitting in some meeting and everyone saying, "Oh, Lord of the Rings is going to win," and I had to say, "No, A Beautiful Mind is going to win and here's why." Happens a lot. Last year it was pretty easy because everyone knew King's Speech was going to win. Right Jeff? Good times! XD I'm calling you on the phone right now.
Posted by Sasha Stone
at February 9, 2012 2:43 PM
comment #9
jujuju
says ...
jw
wow. sometimes you go off the deep end.
wait. you secretly harbored depth, wit, and soul when you were in high school? really? i don't mean 'really, you did that' i mean 'really? you'd actually say such a thing?'
wow.
wow.
totally fucking wow.
ps -- ditto what mootype said
Posted by jujuju
at February 9, 2012 3:07 PM
comment #10
Raising_Kaned
says ...
Wow, that last paragraph is a WHOPPER. I really have no idea what any of that has to do with anything.
" 'Oh, Lord of the Rings is going to win,' and I had to say, 'No, A Beautiful Mind is going to win and here's why.' Happens a lot. Last year it was pretty easy because everyone knew King's Speech was going to win."
Except for you, right, Sasha? I also don't recall anybody saying the first LotR movie was going to win BP outside of maybe those people who were playing with those metal tabletop figurines.
Posted by Raising_Kaned
at February 9, 2012 5:08 PM
comment #11
Pete Apruzzese
says ...
Lee Marvin was never jealous of the other guys in high school...
Posted by Pete Apruzzese
at February 10, 2012 9:03 AM
comment #12
Sasha Stone
says ...
I hate to have to keep pointing this out because I know no one is paying attention to the ins and outs of what we Oscar bloggers say and do but no. I hoped Social Network was going to win but you don't win the DGA/PGA and SAG and not win the Oscar. It just doesn't happen. So yeah everyone knew TKS was going to win. Jeff and I stuck to our Social Network prediction as a matter of principle. Neither of us were going to play the game but yeah, we're not total idiots. We knew how it would shake down. Fought it, but were resigned to it.
Posted by Sasha Stone
at February 10, 2012 11:11 AM