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I always find the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards amusing. It's now that all the "prestige" pictures - each studio's grope for an Oscar - are released nationwide (although they had brief runs in November and December in NYC in order to qualify for the 2001 awards), each replete with a full dose of over-the-top, sentimental pathos. So we have "Beautiful Mind," "The Majestic," and, lest I forget, "I am Sam" making the rounds of the local cineplexes right now. And geez, such crap! It's so bad, it's almost funny. Almost.
What keeps it from being truly funny is that there are talented filmmakers out there whose projects aren't being produced because these prestige pictures are draining studio resources away. That's really sad. Actually, it's immoral, too. I don't know whether to feel angry or sorrowful about this state of affairs - or if I should just write it off as an absurist nightmare occuring in that parallel comedic universe that occasionally intersects with ours. That's how this time can "almost" be funny. Most of the time, I have to take the laughter route; otherwise, the suffering is just too much to bear.
So when I was sitting through the previews right before my second viewing of Wes Anderson's wonderful "The Royal Tennenbaums" last week and the "I am Sam" trailer came on, I couldn't tell at first whether the film advertised was supposed to be drama or satirical comedy. I started laughing uncontrollably when a painfully stupified Sean Penn yells "Lucy!" repeatedly at the top of his lungs and my friend Marius had to jab me in the ribs. I thought it was a parody on the Oscar-grubbing "mentally retarded" schtick. Oops - I guess this one's for real.
These films pretend to be good by showing off all the trappings of a modern Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia: fine cinematography, immaculate sets, period costumes, lush orchestral scoring, and tradgic dramatic plots. Spare me. And why exclusively drama? Why not action, comedy, mystery? My theory is that Hollywood sees their prestige pictures as an annual catharsis for all of the fun, raucous entertainment they've made and we've enjoyed earlier in the year. But, it never works because the productions that Hollywood stages are so self-righteous, labored "productions" as to be insulting to an intelligent (or at least awake) audience. Instead of experiencing a moral cleansing we just plain suffer.
For some reason, the Academy has got it into their heads that Really Fine Acting is when some wonderfully gritty actor pretends he's retarded or a sultry actress plays a prostitute. Maybe its an actor-specific component of the catharsis theory. Some people think it's profound stuff to see a glittering screen star exploring his or her alter-ego, to watch media royalty walk in the virtual shoes of the downtrodden as the ultimate recognition of their great fortune. Whatever. I'm really surprised no one has combined the two together and made a movie about a prostitute who falls in love with a mentally retarded man. That'd be some fine viewing. Now I'd better watch what I say ... it may be misunderstood as a serious movie idea.
Which reminds me: a friend and I went to see "Gosford Park" last week, and in the opening credits, where the titles usually say something like "Based on a novel by ....." it said "Based on an idea by Robert Altman." Geez. Spalding Gray must be right. I guess ideas must be in such short supply in Smog City that you can get a screen credit now just for coming up with one over lunch. I can just see it now: Me schmoozing with Jerry Bruckheimer at a West Hollywood restaurant. "Wouldn't it be cool if we did a movie about a prostitute and a crazy man," I'd say. Man, I could get rich off of this. Must look into that.
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