Meals From The Marketplace

            The Academy Awards are fun if you don’t take them too seriously.  Over the years many a completely forgettable film has gotten the top award while others that live on decades later have been rejected by the fickle voting members of the Academy.

            This year the entire process of selecting the best film got shaken up yet again, with not five, not ten, but nine films nominated.  If you didn’t know the reason, you might have thought Herman Cain had dictated the number.

            Actually, the nine nominations were the result of a complicated new nominating system that recognized both films that had wide support (having received a lot of votes in the initial balloting) and those that had what might be called a fervent, if less widely appreciated, following (having received a sizeable number of first-place votes).  I could go into greater detail on the process that was used this year, but you aren’t reading this column to learn higher math.

            Rather, I want to offer, as I do every year, how I would have voted, assuming the nine films that were nominated were my only choices.  And, just to complete my entirely subjective take on the year in film, I’ll finish by noting the one film that wasn’t nominated that might have really been the best of the bunch.

            So, to take the nine in reverse order, let me first dispense with the four that really weren’t deserving of the recognition they got with the best picture nomination.

            “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” was the worst of the lot.  I assume the book is a lot more interesting and meaningful, but the movie struck me as a 9/11 story that cheapens the historical event and doesn’t even contain a meaningful payoff for the story it does tell.

            I could (and will) say the same thing about “The Help” and “Moneyball” (having read neither of those as well).  The former may have been well-intentioned, but it was really just a glorified soap opera built on a serious topic.  The strong acting by the fine cast wasn’t enough to overcome a weak script.  And “Moneyball” wasn’t inside baseball enough to work as a thinking-fan’s film and wasn’t exciting enough to appeal to non-baseball fans.  Nice work by Brad Pitt didn’t elevate the significance of the film.

            Woody Allen has made a slew of great movies, but “Midnight in Paris,” despite its surprising box office success, isn’t one of them.  I am a devotee of Allen and would never besmirch his genius, but this film, thoroughly enjoyable and even inventive as it is, doesn’t come close to the pathos of “Annie Hall” or Manhattan,” or the brilliance of “Crimes and Misdemeanors” or “Match Point,” or the charm of “Hannah and Her Sisters.”

            Of the five that did deserve their nominations, I’d place “The Artist” as the least impressive.  Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoyed the film, found it delightfully inventive and loved the closing dance scene.  But it’s pretty much a one-note samba as movies go, light, very light, on plot (unless you’ve never seen “All About Eve” or any of its many remakes) and while nostalgia is hardly a bad thing, nothing about the silent film era was captured with anywhere near the depth of understanding that Martin Scorsese explored in “Hugo.”

            “War Horse” is cinematically majestic, with the look and sound of Spielberg all over it.  That’s both a good and not-so-good thing.  The good is just watching it, as the great horse of the title passes from one owner to the next while the First World War is shown from all sides.  Some scenes are absolutely exquisite, even breath-taking.  But the not-so-good is the over-bearing John Williams score (yes, it’s great music, but can we not notice it in every scene?) and the sappy ending that makes it just another feel good movie that could have been much more.

            Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is the most frustratingly ambitious and brilliant attempt at breakthrough film-making in years.  At its best it is awesome, a personal reflection on everything about our existence that is both terrifying and glorious.  But the family story, such as it is, that forms the heart of the film, is unfocused, and the bookends around it can easily be labeled pretentious.  Still, it’s a work of art, flawed but worth great praise nonetheless.

            And that leaves Scorsese’s “Hugo” and Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.”  Either would have been completely acceptable choices as the best film of the year, but my vote would have been for Payne’s heartfelt masterpiece.  While Scorsese’s film is brilliantly conceived and produced and is a much more sincere paean to the early days of film-making than “The Artist,” it is just a little too easily wrapped up and sweetened, which may be why it was foolishly marketed as a children’s film.

            “Descendants,” on the other hand, tells a real story with real people who are shown with all their flaws as they struggle with real-life drama.  And its ending, while not sorrowful by any means, just feels right, natural, and therefore beautiful.  “The Descendants” is a film to cherish more than admire, which is how I’d describe “Hugo.” 

            I’d happily see either one again, and certainly hope to add both to my library when they are released on video.  But where “Hugo” goes for the head, “Descendants” hits at the heart, which, for me, gives it the edge.

            So that’s how I’d rank the nine films the Academy did end up nominating and how I would have voted for the big prize.  But I promised to name the film that should have been nominated and maybe even been picked as the best of all.

            And that film is “Beginners,” the little gem by Mike Mills that starred Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, and the great Christopher Plummer.  This one came and quickly went last spring and thus wasn’t appreciated by a wide audience.

            It’s a story about growing up, whether you’re in your thirties or your eighties, and I loved it.

(Note: This column was prepared by E. Haig, the Sacramento-based performing arts critic whom Ed Telfeyan most admires.)

            The annual Hollywood love-fest, otherwise known as the Academy Awards Show, brought back host Billy Crystal (for the ninth time, but first since 2004), and made the most of his presence by playing up the comedy while discounting the massive production numbers that have made it so bloated in recent years.

            The need for a change was obvious.  The ratings for the show have been in decline, and with the movies nominated for the big awards also not gaining much traction with mass audiences, the fear was that the show would fall from its perch as the most watched prime time show of the year.  (The Super Bowl doesn’t figure in this category, since it is primarily a Sunday afternoon event.)

            As awards shows go, Oscar is still the biggie, but last year’s effort to draw in a younger viewing audience (with co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway putting viewers to sleep with their boring attempts at repartee) was a complete flop. 

            And so, after first choice Eddie Murphy withdrew as the announced host, Crystal was hurriedly called and whisked out of “retirement” to renew the routine he had perfected in his earlier turns at the job that Bob Hope owned back when Oscar was the only significant awards show.

            The show began with Crystal again injecting himself into key scenes from the best picture nominees.  This trademark opening montage is always a hit, and this year was no exception, with the George Clooney kiss to Crystal (in place of the dying wife in “The Descendants”) the funniest of the redone scenes. 

            He then appeared in person on the big stage, where he repeated another bit that has become a Crystal tradition – singing made-up lyrics that spoof many of the nominees.  It was a great start to the show, and that level of humor and good feeling was continued for much of the night.

            The show benefitted greatly from the apparently conscious decision to drop the big song and dance numbers.  Not having to perform the nominated songs (curiously, there were only two this year, both from animated films) certainly helped.  While some songs from movies have become standards (“Moon River,” “Over the Rainbow,” “The Way We Were”), we could certainly have done without the performance of “It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp” (the 2005 winner), and most recent winners have been eminently forgettable.

            The one big production number this year was provided by the Cirque du Soleil folks.  Their rendition of a “typical night at the movies” was a real showstopper, although, for our tastes, it would have been more impressive if the camera had stayed focused on the full stage, instead of intermittently trying to highlight certain parts of the three-ring performance to the exclusion of others.

            Another camera snafu occurred when the honorary Oscar recipients were recognized.  All three (Oprah Winfrey, this year’s winner of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award), actor James Earl Jones (lifetime achievement award) and Dick Smith (long-time make-up artist) were all seated together in one of the second level loges in the big hall.  The camera briefly showed them acknowledging the standing ovation they received, but then it quickly panned the audience, never to return to the three honorees.

            Crystal reappeared throughout the evening to offer more humor.  Of these bits, the best were his improvisational “what they’re thinking,” where he gave funny thoughts to the stars shown on screen.  The pre-taped “first focus group” (of the initial reaction to “The Wizard of Oz”) also engendered a few chuckles.

            Among the presenters, Robert Downey, Jr. had a good bit with Gwyneth Paltrow.  Downey came on stage with a camera crew following him and claimed he was making a documentary while Paltrow feigned first confusion, then frustration and finally dismissive disgust.  Another funny pairing featured Emma Stone and Ben Stiller, with Stone acting like a star-dazed rookie and Stiller an impatient veteran at presenting an Oscar.  Stone got the last laugh, reminding Stiller of the ridiculous Na’vi (from “Avatar”) make-up he wore when presenting the best make-up award two years ago.

            Other highlights and items to note included the interspersed pre-recorded comments by recognizable actors on a variety of subjects (including their memories of their first movie-going experience and what makes a memorable movie); Sandra Bullock’s two sentences in Mandarin Chinese (with a German accent) introducing the best foreign film nominees; the exquisite dress donned by Jennifer Lopez (boldly featuring a V-cut décolleté that was eye-popping); and the lovely rendition of “What a Wonderful World” by Esperanza Spalding and the California Children’s Choir while the “In Memoriam” segment played on the giant screen in the hall.

            The acceptance speeches were notably shorter this year, with Meryl Streep delivering the most articulate and Octavia Spencer the most emotional.  Thankfully, there were no heavily partisan political speeches, and the seven-second tape delay was only needed once, when an apparently inebriated co-producer of the feature-length documentary winner (“Undefeated”) had a run of words made inaudible by the network censors.  (Whatever he said was not detectable to our lip-reading efforts.)

            As for the rest, there were a bunch of awards, as Ed Telfeyan reports and comments on elsewhere this week.  For our part, let’s just say this wasn’t the worst Oscar show we’ve seen, and, in fact, was far better than it has been in recent years.

            Call it progress and hope the trend continues.

            My sense is that shortly after our earliest forebears discovered God (or discovered his existence, if you prefer), they determined that sex was evil.  And from that moment in our evolution, the act that for all other species is as natural as eating became our forbidden fruit.  Except for the fact that the act of coupling sexually was also necessary to procreate the human race, that particular activity and all of the other forms of sexual gratification associated with it may never have been tolerated.

            The Christian view of sex (at least the most rigidly doctrinaire version of it) is remarkably intolerant.  How else can the Biblical story of the birth of Christ be rationalized?  It isn’t so much that he was born without a biological father.  It’s that his mother had to be a virgin, and as viewed specifically by Roman Catholics, remained a virgin for the entirety of her life, to the very day that she ascended to the heavenly reward her son and his father had waiting for her.

            I’m only intending here to be mildly mocking of the Blessed Virgin and the tales surrounding her part in the Jesus story.  Having her impregnated by God the Father, thereby carrying in her womb and ultimately delivering God the Son, is essential to the entire idea that is at the heart of Christian faith (that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son,” as the Gospel of John describes it).

            But why must she have been a virgin?  Why, at the least, couldn’t she have gone on to bear humans who were conceived in the “normal” human way?

            Clearly, the writers of those pages of the scripture were accepting of, if not promoting, the idea that sex, the kind that results from the penetration of the erect male phallus into the female genitalia, was dirty or shameful or evil or all of the above.

            And so it has remained in the minds of those with a belief system that accepts the basic thrust (pardon the pun) of Biblical verse.  (This stuff is also in the pre-Christ portions of the Bible, the Old Testament as Christians refer to it, although there is less of a sense of filth attached to the act of sexual intercourse in those pages.)

            Over the eras of human development, sex has been in and out of favor at various times and in various cultures.  America’s attitude about it has also waxed and waned.  The big change took place with the advent of the birth control pill, which in many ways led to the women’s liberation movement.  With women now able to control whether they would become pregnant (or risk becoming pregnant) by engaging in sexual intercourse, they were free to explore more fully the pleasures of sex and to make the act of sexual intercourse much more two-sided, demanding their own physical gratification, just as their male partners almost invariably had theirs.

            Sex in the latter half of the twentieth century came out of the closet, with couples engaging in it for the pure mutual pleasure it provides and without the least concern about its sinfulness. 

            But some have been troubled by the sexual freedom the pill allows.  And, ironically, those most troubled (to the point of being condemnatory) are the same folks who demand freedom in their own lives with respect to what they believe and how they act.

            Rick Santorum is the current leader of that gang.  He espouses the sex-is-dirty-and-sinful-and-evil line, albeit not quite as blatantly.  But don’t doubt for a minute that this man hates sex for the pure pleasure of it.  How can he feel otherwise when he condemns contraceptives in such clear terms?

            “I think the dangers of contraception … the whole sexual libertine idea … It’s not okay, “ he said recently, “because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.  They’re supposed to be within marriage for purposes that are … procreative.  …  And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point that it’s simply pleasure.”

            Simply pleasure?  As if that’s a bad thing?  He then went on to say, “I’m not running for pastor” (where did that reference come from?) “but these are important public policy issues.”

            Contraception is an important public policy issue?  Limiting sex to procreative purposes is an important public policy issue?  Really?  Based on what reading of the Constitution?

            Is it too much to say that this man hates sex?  Perhaps, but not by much.  He certainly hates protected sex and extra-marital sex and as for same-gender sex, oh, don’t even get him going on that subject, unless you want him to start talking about how close we are to countenancing sex with animals.

            Santorum hasn’t spoken about masturbation yet, at least not that I’m aware of, but if he were to be asked (and I’d love to have a reporter ask him), he would honestly condemn it as a violation of God’s plan and directives.  The act is referred to negatively in Genesis and Leviticus, but again it is the Christian view of sex that most clearly regards the act as sinful.  The most devout Christians abstain on the grounds that it is wasting (killing?) potential souls.

            These are the folks who believe that life begins with the fertilization of the female egg by the male sperm.  They recognize those tiny single cells (and the soon-to-be eight cell zygotes) as human beings, but what they are really concerned with is the soul that they believe attaches to these cells.  Hence, the abhorrence of abortion and, in more extreme views, of contraception, for the pill destroys the egg after it has been fertilized (but before it implants in the uterus), don’t you see?

            I could go on, but you get the point.  The man hates sex unless it is done as only good servants of God understand it’s “supposed to be” done.

            And this is the guy the Republicans want as our next president?  God help us.

            Rick Santorum doesn’t like feminists.  He also doesn’t like homosexuality (he loves homosexuals, just hates their acts).  He vehemently opposes abortion, child killing in his view.  He also condemns birth control.  He considers any pre-marital (and, of course, extramarital) sex a sin and, presumably (if he is true to his Catholic faith), only condones marital sex when engaged in for the purpose of conceiving children (whether the completed act itself is fruitful being out of his hands, i.e., God’s will).

            Mr. Santorum would have all of these views portrayed as family values.  And when he refers to that term, he contemplates the traditional nuclear family—a husband/father who works at an income-producing job, a wife/mother who is the principal child-care provider and homemaker, and any number of children (see above as to how many, the number being dependent on the fruitfulness of the marital acts of loving coitus and God’s will)—as the best way to recognize the country that God intended America to be.

            And this is the man the base of the Republican Party is currently “dating” as the “anybody but Romney” candidate du jour.  And they better find him acceptable, because after considering and ultimately discarding Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and presumably Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, along with Donald Trump, Tim Pawlenty and Sarah what’s-her-name, he’s about all they have left.

            All right, so it’s all too easy to make fun of the mess the Republicans have on their hands.  But the fact that Rick Santorum, so out of the mainstream that when he ran for re-election to the Senate in 2006, Pennsylvania voters rejected him by a whopping 59-41 margin, is their last option says everything about their plight.

            But, okay, what if they actually do nominate this guy?  What would the real policy debates be like?  How might President Obama legitimately engage the Santorum world view without openly demeaning it as if it were unworthy of an intellectual response?

            For starters, Obama could suggest why the traditional nuclear family is no longer the model for most Americans.  Most women, for the last forty years or so, have regarded the life that Santorum so admires of staying at home to tend to the children and take care of the home-making chores as absolutely unacceptable.  They have brains and talents that deserve actualization, and they are not about to be relegated to the stereotypes from the 1950s and ‘60s so well epitomized in “Mad Men,” that delightfully retro soap opera that portrays a man-dominant world that women were forced to endure.

            Women in America have achieved equality with men, if not yet in terms of the income they receive, then at least in the goals they can legitimately aspire to. 

            More women than men are now earning advanced scholastic degrees and their numbers are growing appreciably in the fields of law, medicine and academia.  Even in politics, more women are evident, as witness the near successful presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2008 and the short-lived ascendency of Ms. Palin (that’s her name) before she found her niche as a media pundit (or political king-maker if you buy her view of herself).

            So while Santorum may claim, as he does in his 2005 book, “It Takes a Family,” that “in the 1960s … radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family … ,” today’s liberated women are not about to roll back the clock to once again be enslaved by accepting their place in Santorum’s traditional nuclear family.

            But apart from the lack of sensitivity to the aspirations of the new millennium’s woman in America, Mr. Santorum also fails to appreciate the other reason the traditional nuclear family is long gone from the American scene.  It’s all about the economy.

            Two income couples are not just a consequence of women’s liberation, they are also a necessity in the real-life struggle to make ends meet.  And the lower down the economic scale we go, the more severe that reality becomes.

            Thus, while Santorum deplores the lack of parental interest in the education of their children, he ignores the fact that in most lower-income families, the struggle to feed and clothe their children requires that both parents work.  And with minimum wage incomes well below basic subsistence levels, those families that are at or below the poverty line may have both parents working two jobs.  It’s pretty hard to attend PTA meetings and help Johnny and Judy with their homework when you’re holding down two full-time jobs.

            And that scenario describes the two-parent households.  In single-parent homes, the situation can be even less child-oriented, with many pre-teens living latch-key existences while single moms work full time for meager wages and then try to feed their children (often using food stamps to fill out the month’s meals).

            And, of course, when the economy is struggling, as it is now, the plight of the poor and near-poor is even more pronounced, further diminishing the possible benefits of the nurturing parenting that Mr. Santorum envisions in his version of family values, especially when the inevitable emotional stress and resulting marital discord is added to the picture.

            But let’s assume the best of economic times, the kind of boom that Mr. Santorum and his pals on the right think will result if we just balance the budget by reducing the amount of government support in areas like school lunch programs, head start opportunities, day-care facilities, Medicaid and SSI, unemployment insurance and minimum wage laws.

            Assume that those reductions in government “largesse” do truly lead to economic prosperity for the country, with good employment opportunities for everyone who wants a good job.  What would the traditional nuclear family for the lower economic classes look like then? 

            Would parents who had never read a book themselves and barely completed high school then spend more time with their children, perchance helping them with their homework or even reading a book with them?  Would teen pregnancies be reduced because parents would teach their children the perils of unprotected sex?

            The real world is not nearly as bright and sunny as Mr. Santorum thinks it is, nor, in truth, was it ever.