The Oscars Don’t Matter & Are No Longer Relevant And You Should Stop Caring About Them, Too

I watched the Oscars this year with the same sense of irony and agony that I do every year. It’s torturous to me because, much like Neil Patrick Harris, I love movies. I still do, even though I work in the industry now on its lowest, and least respected, rung. It should have beaten me, but it doesn’t, and it likely never will, because when a movie is very good, it’s inevitably a triumph of personal vision and teamwork in a way that has nothing to do with its draconian and graft-riddled delivery system. Thankfully, I can separate the two quite nicely and hold a seemingly hypocritical concept in my head that while I hate Disney Studios and always have and always will, I can love Toy Story, The Incredibles, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Fantasia without missing a beat.

But I digress. I watched, too, the fallout from this year’s Oscars: someone always hates the host and thinks they did the worst job ever; someone complains loudly that the movie they wanted to win best picture didn’t win; someone always mocks the whole process, from the dresses some women wore to the lack of diversity, or lack of equality, or lack of whatever this year’s hashtag activism would have us tsking about. Usually, these articles can all be found on Slate.com (I kid, I kid...mostly).

Even if I agree with the general consensus that, for example, Birdman shouldn’t have won Best Picture over something like Boyhood, I’ve stopped feeling real emotion over it. Sure, my predictions this year were in the toilet—they always are. I tend to be very egalitarian with my choices, much as if I were actually voting. I won’t heap every award on the flavor of the month. Instead, I ask myself what best fit each category and let the chips fall. Example: is there anyone in the room who didn’t think Birdman would win for Best Cinematography? Right, didn’t think so. But in the category of Best Picture (read it as “Best Production,” and remember it’s the producers who come up to take the award), Boyhood was robbed. That production was 12 years long, and never looks patchwork or disjointed. Linklater filmed several movies in between doing Boyhood, and each time he came back to it, he had to pick up where he left off. On screen, it’s a very subtle magic trick, and he should have been rewarded for it.

But the voting body instead chose to recognize a movie that spoke to them on a very personal level: a movie about ego, fear of failure, lack of relevancy, fantasy, and the perils of fame. In other words, they chose to recognize themselves. And why not? It’s their award show, right? I mean, did you get to vote? No, that’s the People’s Choice Awards, not the Oscars. And the foreign press award? Nice, but well...no, it’s the award given to you by your peers that matters the most. It’s the grudging respect that you earned, if not the outright “Screw you, man,” from your fellow actors and actresses. That’s the award you savor.

Make no mistake, here: the Oscars have ceased to be relevant to American Culture, and will probably never be relevant again. Oh, they used to be, a long time ago, back when the studios were in charge of everything. They made the Oscars a big deal through canny promotion, lots of glamor, high fashion, and pageantry. Also, remember this was back in the day when newspapers, magazines, and radio ruled the roost. TV was in its infancy. The message was carefully controlled. There was an aura of mystery about the whole thing. Those images of stars walking the red carpet was one of the few pictures you’d see of them outside of their film roles. And, also, there were fewer movies, fewer categories, and less competition all around. It wasn’t perfect, and I’m not saying it was, but that’s the myth that the modern Academy Awards have been trading on for years: the glamor of Hollywood.

Talk about a fairy tale. Twitter and 4Chan have replaced newspapers and magazines. Memes are generated faster than they can be absorbed. Scandals break in seconds, are over in minutes, and linger for days, like when you overcook fish in your house. We see these people All the Bloody Time, thanks to the Internet, the Talk Show circuit, and whatever else they may have going on that has sucked up bandwidth for the day.

This is just one of the memes that was
generated about John Travolta. Again.

This is the world in which the modern Oscars exist, and it’s poisoned the well completely. Here’s why: Hollywood reads tweets. They scour blogs. They say they don’t, but someone in the organization does. When we as a people are displeased with them, they hear it loud and clear. Granted, they hear it much in the same way that the Plebeians shouted at Nero that he was overdoing it, but they DO hear it. And it totally influences what they do, even if they say it doesn’t.  That’s where the opening monologue and other material comes from these days. Gone are the Billy Crystal song and dance numbers where he does a Mad Magazine style summary of the movies nominated for best picture. Just about everything out of N.P.H.’s mouth was a wink and a nod, if not an outright apology to, all of the criticisms levied on the ceremony from social media.

This is how they used to do the Oscars. Ballots would go out to all of the voting members, and they would check of their picks in every category. They send them back. Someone, probably Price Waterhouse, tallies them up and from that aggregate list they take the top several in every category and that’s the nominations list. That list went public, and while the boys in Vegas set to making odds on who would win, the voting members would again choose their favorite—or maybe they’d switch it up, depending on who they just talked to at the country club or the studio—and the votes would go back to Price Waterhouse and the winner would be announced on Oscar Night and everyone would clap and cheer and there you go. The next day, around the water cooler, the women would discuss who had the best dresses and married couples would vow that if the best picture winner, which they missed when it was in the theaters because of the family vacation, ever came to television, that they would definitely watch it. Sometimes, there would be a gross mistake, a whoops, that the voting body would correct next year.  These were usually pointed out in articles written by syndicated columnists like Gene Siskal or Roger Ebert, taking a break from reviewing movies to express an opinion on what went wrong that year. And sometimes it would be a good enough argument that there would be a kind of discussion about it, and it might get filtered back to Hollywood, and appropriate steps would be taken. Maybe it would be in the form of a Lifetime Achievement award next year, or maybe it would be to vote in this year's snubbed actor for his next performance, which was nowhere as good or as meaningful as the movie he was in last year, but anyway, here’s your statue.

This is how they do the Oscars now. Ballots would go out to all of the voting members, and they would check of their picks in every category. They send them back. Someone, probably Price Waterhouse, tallies them up and from that aggregate list they take the top several in every category and that’s the nominations list. They make a big point about releasing the nominees in an early morning (for them, remember, the West Coast is three hours behind New York) press conference, and while the boys in Vegas set to making odds on who would win, the Internet explodes with faux outrage and disbelief that, ONCE AGAIN, there’s no movies about people of color in the Best Picture category, or that they CAN’T BELIEVE that this geek-nation favorite didn’t get nominated for every single award, or that So-and-So was good in that movie, but certainly not Best Supporting Actor Good in that movie, and so on, and so on.  The 24-hour news machine and every late night talk show ramp up the usual jokes, and the list is sifted over with a fine-toothed comb, analyzing it in every direction as if a subjective choice made by spoiled millionaires actually means something about our society at large. Oh, and every one of those spoiled millionaires sees and reads those comments, because they can’t help but look.

Now the final ballots come back to the voting members would again choose their favorite—and now they’ve most assuredly switched it up, depending on what the temperature of Twitter is at the moment. Then again, maybe they don’t; there are a few of them who no doubt double down, vowing not to be influenced by a bunch of screaming 20-somethings on social media. Those votes would go back to Price Waterhouse and the winner is announced on Oscar Night and while everyone is clapping and cheering, the Internet is exploding with more fake rage or praise, depending on what cause was name-checked in the acceptance speech. The next day, the Internet is full of how stupid the Oscars are and how horrible that dress looked, and every gay man under the age of fifty and teenage girl under the age of twenty has logged in to snark at the singing or the musical number (well, maybe not this year), and Hollywood in general gets sullen and angry and closes ranks for a couple of weeks and tells itself that it doesn’t matter what people in Kansas and Arkansas think about them because THEY are the taste-makers, not the city commission of Little Rock.

And we wonder why they’re in a bubble.

I won’t go so far as to suggest that the Oscars are tainted, because that’s giving The Internet and the New Media Machine too much credit, but I will suggest that because of the Internet and the New Media Machine, they can go back to being a private local award, given out to members of the club, and we don’t have to care about them the way we used to. Old Hollywood is gone. We’re saturated with stars and celebrities in a way that is frankly suffocating. And really, how many of you are using the Oscars to determine your Netflix cue these days? You know after opening weekend if it’s a movie you want to see. Your friends have cross-posted interesting blog articles about the film, or written thoughtful critiques on FaceBook. You don’t need the Oscars for anything, except maybe to dictate your choice of classic films before 1970. The Best Picture list (and its nominees) are still a pretty good barometer for those.

But now? With Rotten Tomatoes in place? Pfft. Forget it. You don’t agree with the winners most of the time, anyway. For a lot of us, the Oscars are a backboard to slam against, a whetstone for our wit, and not any kind of standard for excellence. This is sad, because that’s what the awards were meant to be in the first place.

The best barometer for what movies will stand the test of time is, in fact, time itself. For every injustice heaped upon films at the Oscars, the passage of years (and film studies classes around the world) has a way of evening out the score for us.  Let’s look at a classic example from the 1980s.

Exhibit A—Best Picture Category, 1981

Here are the nominees:

Chariots of Fire

Atlantic City

On Golden Pond

Reds

Raiders of the Lost Ark

(I’m not including a hyperlink for Raiders of the Lost Ark because if you need to know what that movie is about, I want you to stop reading this blog and don’t come back until you’ve watched the movie. I’m serious. If this is you, go. Go now. I ain’t playing.)

And the winner was...Chariots of Fire.

I’ll let that sink in.

Now, regarding Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond, and Reds, these are the kinds of movies you see all the time at the Academy Awards. Thoughtful movies, compelling dramas, great actors and directors... and so, if they are all so great, how many of them have you actually seen? Most Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers have likely seen three or four of them. But there’s one movie that we’ve all seen, and it sure as hell ain’t Chariots of Fire. If you know anything about Chariots of Fire, you know the song in the movie was re-used in National Lampoon's Vacation when Clark and Rusty are running in slow motion up to the gates of Wally World. That's it. That's the sum total of Chariots of Fire's contribution to your life. And that lampoon tells you everything you need to know about Chariots of Fire. It's about running in slow motion. 

But them’s the breaks.

It happened before, as well: Annie Hall beat Star Wars in 1977. My Fair Lady beat Dr. Strangelove in 1964. The Best Years of Our Lives trumped It’s a Wonderful Life in 1946. And we know it’s happened since then. It happens a lot.

The whole list is here, thoughtfully hyperlinked, for your perusal: Academy Award for Best Picture. Go for it. See how much of a film buff you are. Or, better yet, if you’re not a film buff, see how many movies in that category you’ve actually seen since, oh, I don’t know, 1994. That was Pulp Fiction’s year to lose. Start there and go forward. Whether you agree or disagree with the winners, how much of your personal taste is reflected in the nominees?

So, that’s it. I don’t need these awards anymore. They don’t matter to me like they used to. I still enjoy the movies, and I love seeing good ones and turning people on to films they’ve never seen before, and watching the light come on in people’s eyes when they talk about their favorite movie. And as much as Hollywood seems to want to involve me in the process, it’s really through a three inch thick pane of safety glass. They are in the bubble, and it’s a closed feedback loop. They hunker down over the Internet like an oracle and try to discern what the masses are revolting about, and for 90% of it (or more), I just don’t care. All I want is for people to do their best work and make an interesting story that’s well written and well acted. If it’s a giant spectacle, that’s cool. If it’s a quiet character piece, I like that, too. And if something I like is something that everyone else likes, too, then that’s okay with me. But I’ve never really watched movies based on what other people say I should watch, and neither should you.

My challenge to you is this: Next year, skip the Oscars altogether and just rewatch Raiders of the Lost Ark. I promise you, it’ll be more fun than the whole awards ceremony. Any highlights you miss will be streaming the next day, and you can catch the ten meaningful minutes of the three hour show and be just as caught up as the rest of the world.

My Journey into Boyhood

I thought I'd covered this already in my various social media channels, but the question keeps coming up, and so I thought I'd drop a few lines here to answer some of the incredulous and excited queries flying my way.

Yes, that's me in Boyhood. Eleven seconds of a major-indy-Hollywood-Third Coast-Richard Linklater movie, and I've even got a speaking part. I won't give it away if you haven't seen it, because you'll be profoundly disappointed if I tell you about it beforehand. Instead, I'll tell you a little of what I remember of that night, some eight years ago.

The year was 2005 and I was one of the floor managers at BookPeople, in Austin, Texas (the largest independent book store in Texas). The store is very well thought of, and at the time, we were positioned right in the heart of the Keep Austin Weird movement. We were known for throwing very large, very hard-to-beat Harry Potter parties. This was the sixth book coming out. The last party was huge, and so the pressure was on to top ourselves. Six months of planning. We were making ourselves cheerfully crazy.

With maybe two weeks to spare, the marketing people popped into one of the strategy meetings and told us that Richard Linklater was filming some sort of documentary film wherein he is following four kids around for twelve years, chronicling their growth. Well, those kids wanted to come to OUR Midnight Book Release party, and so, can they come film our shenanigans? Like any good retailer, we said "Yes" first, and then thought, "Lord, what have we signed ourselves up for?"

My job in the midst of all this chaos was Ringmaster, which was a very polite term for "crowd control." My job was to keep the masses happy; make sure they were up-to-date on the lastest information, introduce each new act on our "main stage," remind others about the booths and carnival refreshments to be had at our home-made "Diagon Alley," and whenever necessary, fill the dead time with banter and snappy patter. In other words, my usual gig.

A small picture to give you a hint of the size
of this particular endeavor. Yeah, that's the
maze there in the lower left hand corner.

Harry Potter's birthday dawned (when the books were released each year), and we were all amped up beyond belief. Imagine five thousand people in a parking lot, many of whom will have been there since 8 a.m. waiting for the Midnight release. We had carnival booths, fire dancers, a magician, and the Alamo Draft House's Rolling Road Show set up showing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. There was even a maze made out of haybales. Sorting hats. Coloring stations. My God, it was an enormous undertaking. Most of the staff was in costume. The books were in the building, but we couldn't open the boxes. Oh, and did I mention this was in the middle of July? That might be lovely weather in Merry Olde England, but in Texas, during the Summer, it's profoundly miserable.

There's one other pertinent fact I left out: a week prior, I had dislocated the middle tendon in my right hand. It required minor surgery to repair, and while it was technically no big deal--a very simple operation--I had never been under before. Never had a broken bone, or anything like that. Oh, I had my tonsils out when I was four or five, but I really don't remember any of it. So it was a little nerve-wracking, and it left me with a throbbing hand, wrapped up just like a lobster claw, and a prescription for Vicodin for the pain.

Have you ever had Vicodin? Man, that's good stuff! I wake up in the morning, my hand is throbbing and aching. I eat breakfast, take a pill, and then suddenly, I don't care about my hand anymore. It's like the volume got turned down on the whole world. Lovely drug, simply lovely. However, it turned my brain into chunky pea soup. I knew I couldn't take the pill during the party, or I'd screw it up. I had to read cue cards, answer questions, think on my feet--no, it wouldn't do. So I took a vicodin at lunch and decided to go long.

Linklater at the BookPeople Harry Potter Party.

Now, it's hours later, and the party is in full swing, and it's crowded and hot and miserable. There's a steady stream of people going to the bathroom like carpenter ants. The kids and parents are gathered around the main stage, watching the goings-on, and the whole staff is jumping through hoops. I'm making my announcements, and I'm even getting some laughs with the bit. "Attention, everyone, would whoever parked their hippogriff in the parking garage please tend to your animal. It's broken loose, and guarding an SUV right now." I had another joke about a mix-up at the broom closet. You get the idea.

Suddenly, there's cameras. And people with clipboards. And Richard Linklater. And I'm being flagged down by one of the production assistants. Now, I'm acting as a liaison to the film crew--the P.A. to the P.A. I don't remember much of what I had to do for them because they were there when things were in full-swing, and by this time, the Vicodin had long worn off and my lobster claw was throbbing like a doghouse bass.

At one point, I was making announcements and remembered distinctly that a camera was being pointed at me, so I did my best to be clever and articulate. Of course, I assumed it a camera from one of the news trucks that was covering our party. The P.A. was back, now, and they had a question for me: would it be all right if the four kids got their books first? You know, at Midnight?

My first thought was to protect the integrity of the line that had been waiting for eighteen hours, but I knew better than to try it. There was a quick conference, and sure enough, they got the clearance. By this time, I'd seen Linklater a couple of times. He and his people were running around, guerrilla-style, shooting whatever they could. It looked like fun, save for the God-awful heat.

At last, Midnight came, and I counted the crowd down and we all cheered. The band resumed, and the movie kept playing, but make no mistake, the star of the evening was that big-ass hardcover book. Well, that and the four kids being filmed. They got a shot of the kids walking up and getting their book, and then, amazingly, Linklater asked, "Can we get another one?"

Patricia Arquette reads to the kids from Harry Potter in the
movie Boyhood. Not pictured: me, off-camera, rubbing her
feet, because that never happened, no matter how many
notes you send, and singing telegrams...

"Some documentary film," I thought to myself, but sure, what the heck. The people in line were amazingly understanding that they had to wait two whole extra minutes to get their books, but they did it. The line started moving, and within ten minutes, we'd gone through all of the event books, and the crowd magically bled off. It was surreal; there were kids on the ground, twelve-fifteen at night, reading the book by flashlight. The staff was completely spent. We were all numb and kinda shell-shocked. But of course, the whole thing was a complete success. There's a ton of pictures on Flickr if you want to go check them out.

I walked up to Linklater, who was wrapping things up, and asked him if he got what he needed. We chatted very briefly, and I wished him luck with the rest of the shoot. Then I went inside and popped a Vicodin and drank a liter of water.

And that was it. I didn't give it another thought until late last year, when I got a call from someone in Richard Linklater's office, telling me that the 12 year project was finished and I'd made the cut of the movie.

I did what, now?

My mind raced back to the party, and I gave them my information, as well as how I'd like to be listed in the credits, and they sent me a check, and a S.A.G. membership application, and the next thing you know, I'm in the movie. It was really that easy. And it wasn't a documentary, after all. Whoops!

If you live in Austin, it's not THAT hard to end up in a movie. I'm surprised more of my friends aren't in them. At BookPeople, we were regularly inundated with actors and rock stars coming in to buy books. No, seriously. I helped Ted Dansen pick out mysteries for his plane ride, gave Kevin Spacey directions to the bathroom, told Carla Gugino that there were no American editions of Elmore Leonard's book Out of Sight, and had several conversations with Luke Perry. Sandra Bullock. Matthew McConaughey. That shouldn't surprise anyone, really. Austin has always been a town for Starfu--well, let's just say, if you want to cozy up to someone famous, you can do it.

They don't even have to be famous; just notorious. I spent my first Thanksgiving in Austin with a friend of mine who's father happens to be local character actor David Blackwell. All through dinner and afterward, he called me "young lad." Fun stuff. One of my co-workers actually ended up in the movie Grindhouse. She even had a speaking part. It was crazy. It's all "right place, right time" kind of stuff; it's just that, in Austin, there's a lot more right places and a lot more right times than most other cities.

I did get to attend the premiere in Austin earlier this year and I really liked the movie. I like the vast majority of Linklater's films anyway, and so this was no exception. I also met my co-star Ethan Hawke years ago at a BookPeople signing. See? Easy peasy. Starfu--I mean, ripe with opportunities.

Boyhood is still playing in art houses across the country. It's a good movie, very interesting to watch, and if you're diligent, you can spot me (oh, who am I kidding? You can't MISS me) in the movie. Please, no autographs. For all other requests, see my agent.