THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE: An Oscar for best ground game.

In America, every child may dream of becoming president. That’s regardless of race, sex, and social standing. Yesss, folks, but not without big money and a good GROUND GAME, as Glenn Whipp explains (LA Times, 25 Feb). He wasn’t talking about Obama, mind you. He was talking about LINCOLN, and why it didn’t make Best Picture.A GOOD GROUND GAME?? You mean QUALITY isn’t the only factor that sways Academy Awards judges? Hey, sorry to destroy your innocence and break your heart, but here’s what the judges are looking for:

HOLLYWOOD. It helps if a picture is about The Industry. Those movie people playing movie people in ARGO -- can it get any better? And it’s gotta be

FEEL GOOD STUFF. Like the great American narrative, LINCOLN? No, no. That was like a high school lesson: bo-ring. How about ZERO DARK THIRTY then? Pu-leeze! It sure didn’t make senators McCain, Feinstein, and Levin feel good. It was false! they said. Grossly misleading! Inaccurate! -- Excuse me, senators. Since when do historical movies have to be accurate? It’s all about

ACTION. That’s what counts. Don’t let the movie drag on, just to make it factually accurate. Look at ARGO, which dealt with a rescue involving the Canadian embassy. Well, you know those Canadians. So low-key. So boring. So the screen writers came up with that bit about the problems at the airport, and WHAMMO: high drama. Those LINCOLN people don’t know sugar from shit. A quiet assassination doesn’t sell. Why didn’t they end the film with a shoot-out between Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth?

SEX. You know why Oscar host Seth MacFarlane got bad press? Because he wasn’t funny enough? Because his jokes were tasteless? Nah. Because he gave away the secret of Hollywood success with his totally uncalled-for song WE’VE SEEN YOUR BOOBS. The rat!

But here is what make a movie a sure winner --

THE GROUND GAME, the arduous job of manipulating opinion: maneuvering behind the scenes, glad-handing here, snubbing there, mass tweeting, huge ads, ear-shattering trailers, posh screening parties, extravagant promises, sweat, lies, and tears. The Academy Awards would be nothing without the men and women who have dedicated their lives to hype.

So, I’m asking you: why is there no OSCAR FOR BEST GROUND GAME?

TRAVEL DESTINATIONS. Rummel’s Trip Hazard Advisory.

 

Acapulco: Do not venture more than two blocks from the beach. That’s the advice of travel.state.gov, but to get the real dirt on travel hazards, read on:

West Coast: FLYING BULLET HAZARD. LAPD hunting a murderer -- Christopher Dorner, black male, driving a gray Nissan Titan -- shot two women in a blue Toyota Tacoma by mistake. After that the murderer abandoned his vehicle. I guess he didn’t feel safe. So take a hint. When in LA, don’t drive a van/pickup of any color. And duck when you see an LAPD car.

East coast: WEATHER HAZARD. Don’t drive a van on the East Coast either. I suggest renting a snow plough sleeping four.

Teheran: UNPREDICTABLE, but watch ARGO for survival tips.

Beijing: INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION HAZARD. Stock up on Chen Guangbiao’s canned air from the pristine regions of north-west China.

Rome: UNDETERMINED POLLUTION HAZARD. Something in the air makes old men give up. Don’t suffer the fate of Pope Benedict. Take along Cheng’s canned air. No, make that Damascus air -- Assad isn’t giving up, right?

Note to GOP: Send Clint Eastwood to Rome ASAP.

GETTING TO YOUR DESTINATION:.

By air. If travelling on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, remember: Working BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED.

By car. Watch for VERTIGO introduced by gas prices, as you enter California. They’ve shot up from 3.69 to 4.19 in one month.

By rocket. Check out spaceadventures.com. It’s not happening yet, the cost is stiff, and coming back is dicey, but take my advice:

Start your funding campaign now and send your favourite politician/cardinal/relative on a long trip.

 

THE PERFECT AMBIGUITY. From Cortez to Kubrick.

How do we know that things are real?

I’m asking that existential question after reading about Manti Te'o's avatar girlfriend. Answer: If the love is real, the girl is, too? Then what about CORTEZ, a restaurant that epitomizes the tiny portion trend in LA. The menu sounds unreal. A saffron-tinged cauliflower, a tiny mound of greens moistened with sesame paste, a rabbit morsel, and other food tokens. The moment of truth arrives together with the bill, when you say to yourself: If it costs that much, it must be real. 

The same reasoning applies to art. Last year I saw an exhibition of Evan Penny’s sculptures at the AGO in Toronto. Penny creates life-like silicone heads. On a video you can watch him making pin pricks into the plastic skin of his sculptures and insert real facial hair. Question: How real are these heads? if I buy one, do I need to take him to the barber for a trim?

Sometimes you have to create your own reality. Architects Thorsen and Dykers, partners in the firm that is redesigning Times Square, furnished an apartment with items from a prop supplier, USING THEM FOR THEIR REAL PURPOSE (NYer 21 Jan). I feel all warm and fuzzy. Those poor neglected prop-things finally got a real furniture life.

Meanwhile two pink seats, props from Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, have been promoted to museum pieces and are presently on view at LACMA. Doesn’t sound like much of a promotion? Well, at least they are allowed to be three-dimensional.  

But perhaps it’s better to stick with ambiguity. As Stanley Kubrick put it (Exhibition Catalogue, p 22), a really perfect ambiguity is something which moves the audience in the general direction you want them to be moving. Okay, now I get it. That’s what David Klawans had in mind when he made the movie ARGO. The story is certainly the all-time champion of real/unreal puzzlement. It’s based on the (REAL)1979 rescue of American diplomats in Teheran, who stayed at the (REAL) Canadian embassy posing as (UNREAL) Canadian film makers. It was made into a film (does that count as REAL or UNREAL?) financed by Smokehouse Pictures because the story is so unreal, YOU CAN’T BELIEVE IT WOULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I’m quoting the LA Times here, which every day publishes reports of murder, violence, and corruption I can't believe would actually happen.

Will they be made into a movie eventually? Is that how I can tell they are true?