CANON OF FILM: "JURASSIC PARK"

JURASSIC PARK (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Michael Crichton and David Koepp based on the novel by Michael Crichton



Alright, full disclosure on this one, I really, really don't understand why "Jurassic Park" is so highly-regarded and well-remembered. I got the appeal of it at the time, but still? We like this enough for three sequels now?

(Frustrated sigh)

Are there more Ross Gellar's in the world than I actually think there are; I mean, I know there are paleontologists and archeologists and whatnot but, I-eh- do we really like dinosaurs this much that this is still fondly remembered and recalled as one of his best films? This wasn't even his best film in 1993; I'll add "Schindler's List" to this canon eventually, but I've seen people think of it as his best. I don't think I'd even rank it among Spielberg's Top 20 features. Admittedly, that's as much a tribute to Spielberg's body of work than anything else, but this is basically just a well-made horror movie. Take out the dinosaurs and it's "Re-Animator" or "Frankenstein". Really the only reason to see the movie is because of the amazing special effects and yes, the practical and especially the CGI effects are still spectacular, even as we become more familiar and numb to effects like this, but even still, the world they create is pretty amazing. Rewatching the film, I'm actually more startled at how they got all the little details like the blinking of the triceratop's eye or the dimensions of it's tongue. It's a huge story with a giant scope and if the effects weren't this pristine, I'd argue that the film wouldn't work at all.

After that, what is there that makes this Spielberg's highest-grossing movie to date and still remain so popular that it's spawned an entire franchise that continues to this day? (And apparently is important enough that I have to now go back and watch the sequels now! Goddamn it! Why does this keep happening to me. Suddenly, I had to watch the "Mission: Impossible" sequels, I still have to watch the "Star Wars" prequels, 'cause apparently everybody did, instead of doing the sensible thing and realize "Star Wars" is of little-to-no importance and not relevant or essential to watch, even culturally [It isn't, I'm standing by that, just because something's popular doesn't equal relevance] and when the hell did suddenly become crucial that I see "Zoolander," what the fuck-, sorry, I'm ranting) Well, I guess it is basically just the spectacle of it all. There is a chance I've just become numb to it after dozens and dozens of times watching it on TV over the years. NBC, similar to what they did with "Titanic" bought the viewing rights early on and whenever there was a spare couple hours they needed to fill, they and half the cable channels afterwards, have replayed the film to death, so while I always enjoyed it, it's lost a lot of it's luster for me. Seeing it again for the first time in years, now I wonder if maybe I should be talking about "Star Wars" 'cause this does feel eerily as much a parody of George Lucas as "Spaceballs" was.

Bare with me a second, but, all the actors and performances are fine first of all, yes even Jeff Goldblum, who I think gets way too much shit; I've always thought he was a great and underrated actor, but the only really interesting character is Richard Attenborough's John Hammond. He plays this genetic scientist, I guess, but he created "Jurassic Park", and the "Park" in the title, actually refers to a theme park. His moronic idea, other then the original stupid idea of cloning and genetically creating dinosaurs was that he was hoping to take the scientific discoveries and have them be the center of a theme park. Instead of rides, games (or maybe in addition to rides and games, I didn't see the entire designs and blueprints) and Mickey Mouse, you'd be going to see the dinosaurs and envelope a "Land Before Time" and simulate the experience of the Jurassic era, complete with merchandise and memorabilia. Okay, partially this was the time period, 'cause there was a boom in major theme parks and expansions in the early nineties, most notably, Universal Studios, which I'm pretty sure Spielberg had some part in creating, but I didn't remember how much of it is in the movie, and it's all over the film. 

This is arguably the first film that's basically an entire product placement for it's own film. Now at first, I thought this might be a subtle jab at Disney but Attenborough doesn't strike me as doing a Walt Disney-type character, he definitely seems more like one of Disney's competitors, perhaps there's some Spielberg in him, but actually he remind me of George Lucas. Not just in appearance, but at how the character spends his life devoted to a single gigantic project and then immediately franchises it and it soon backfires on him completely and worst yet, he's so intertwined to this mass-marketed extravaganza that he will forever only be known for that project and have nothing else to fall back on and nothing that interests him enough to do something else if he wanted?

Alright, maybe that's me pushing it, trying to find something to justify the movie's greatness more than, "It has realistic, believable dinosaurs and dinosaurs are awesome!" And there's a fairly decent chance that any other symbolism theme park-wise that I see in it, has probably more to do with Michael Crichton's apparent lifelong fascination with,- whatever horrible experience he had at Disneyland that apparently scarred him for life. ([Shrugs] I've tried reading him before too, but, honestly I don't really get Michael Crichton either) 

But, it's got realistic and believable dinosaurs and I guess that's enough for others, but I've always found it much more hollow, but I guess if any movie has the right to be a little more lacking elsewise, it's probably this one.

MIXED BAG BLOG #12: "STAR WARS" FANDOM, TV'S MUSICALS REVIVING THE TELEPLAY, and FAIR USE YOUTUBE DEBATE, FROM A GOOGLE BLOGGERS, BLOGGER'S PERSPECTIVE

As of the moment that I'm writing the original draft of this introductory paragraph, listening to a classic rock radio station, alongside a wood-burning fireplace while writing with a pen and notepad, at, eh, ten, eleven, 12 o'clock at night or so. Why? 'Cause on top of not having a decent computer to work on, I currently don't have electricity at my house.

(Pause, angry frustration-filled growl)

Let's just say that...- well, I've never really fully understood the stereotype about writers drinking a lot, but yeah, at this moment, if I had alcohol, I'd be drinking it. (BTW, if ever I suddenly move across country to sleep on a lesbian couples' couch, um, remember this moment, 'cause yeah, it'll have something to do with this sudden move) Well, to say the least, my personal professional setbacks have been particularly annoying for me for many, (Deep growling breath) many, reasons not the least of which is that it's caused me to be unable to blog as often as I'd prefer to, and therefore, I've missed a few recent events that I wanted to discuss so... when there isn't anything going that worthy of an entire blogpost, (Or in this case, I was unable to post on it at the original time I wanted to) once in a while we do a little Mixed Bag Blog, where instead of a more in-depth analysis on a single subject, we simply touch lightly on a few different subjects that are percolating the modern entertainment world and news and we're gonna do one of those today, enjoy.


"STAR WARS": THE PHENOMENON PART 7: STILL NOT GETTING IT. 




Yeah, not a fan of "Star Wars". That shouldn't be a surprise any of my readers, when you consider that I wrote that long blog about how I was "Not a Fan" of anything, remember? This blog below:

http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-am-not-fan-there-i-said-it-and-im-not.html

Yeah, I wasn't kidding, with that blog. Being a fan is horrible,there's literally nothing good about it, opinions based on fans are worthless, blah, blah, blah. But what about "Star Wars"? Well, I haven't seen this latest film yet, or two of the prequels, because, "Star Wars" wasn't relevant, and it still isn't btw, but we'll get to that, but the movies themselves, yeah, they're pretty good. I don't consider them great, or something that's worth creating a $4 billion dollar franchise with, but yeah, they're good. Hell, I'd argue that "The Empire Strikes Back" is a great film. I even liked "The Phantom Menace", again, I haven't seen the other prequels, I'm trying to catch up with them now, as I am the "Jurassic Park" sequels, which apparently I was supposed to have watched, and the "Mission: Impossible" sequels, which I naturally skipped until suddenly the 4th one was so good, and now, apparently "Zoolander" is a great comedy, what-the-hell, everybody, why is everything that seemed easily dismissive suddenly essential!?!-, Ah, sorry, it's just annoying. Thank god I did happen to catch the "Mad Max" movies before "Fury Road'. Anyway, yeah, I don't think it was great, "The Phantom Menace", but I gave it 3 STARS, you can read the review at the link below:

http://davidbaruffi.blogspot.com/2014/12/movie-reviews-99-square-noah-monuments.html

And, no, I didn't get Jar Jar, he's horrible, but it's still a decent story and the effects we're pretty good, especially for the time. I still, don't quite get the fandom on the audience's side. I mean, I guess it was, unique for the time, and it was well-done, but...- I don't know, I don't get the obsession. I mean, the film itself is mostly a retread of Buck Rogers-era serial space opera, the effects we're done before in "2001: A Space Odyssey," although Lucas does expand upon them. It wasn't the first blockbuster, that was "Jaws", I guess now, it's a long-running franchise with continuously evolving characters, but at the time, it wasn't, I don't see how this thing made people so obsessed with "Star Wars" that they'd buy toy boxes with IOU cards in them, because the demand was so high, they couldn't actually make all the toys quick enough for them to stay on the shelf. (That's true btw). Then again, however, I don't quite understand it from George Lucas's perspective either, the fandom.

I mean, maybe it's me, has "Star Wars" ever come off as a children's film? A battle of political rebels and an evil empire, this...-, what? That's-, I mean, older kids, okay, but I've always kinda got the feeling that Lucas created "Star Wars", thinking this was always a product for kids, like young kids, and he's certainly marketed the product like they're Happy Meal toys over the years. (Hell, they probably were Happy Meal toys at some point) just shoving the product on and into everywhere. But, if you actually watch "Star Wars", you don't really get that feeling, like, at all. I think that's actually the real reason why there was such a backlash to Jar Jar Binks in "The Phantom Menace", not only is he a new original and yes groundbreaking character, but he was a children's character, like for toddlers. He was, essentially SuperGrover. (Or SuperGrover 2.0 for those watching "Sesame Street" now) and it's just a sharp contrast to the more adult themes of the movies. Religion, politics, corruption, heroism, etc.

I mean, I asked around to people older than me, and yeah, they always saw "Star Wars" as a kids product too, which confused me. I guess boys like sci-fi, or are supposed to, but...- (Shrugs) sorry, I just never obliges to trends like that. But, it does seem weird though, this story about death star being blown up, is also the franchise that spawns Ewoks cartoon, right? Well, I guess if I was George Lucas, who grew up seeing old double-features at the movies where you saw those old serials between movies, along with the cartoons and the newsreels, and whatnot, and grew up in the Golden Age of comic books and whatnot, then, I guess it makes sense, but, I don't know, this just doesn't come off as a children's product to me. I mean, I can't stand "LOTR" because the movies and the book were just terrible pieces of art, but I think what really confuses me about the "Star Wars" fandom, not only the fans perspective, but Lucas's perspective on the material itself is just strange and outdated. There's dozens of reasons why modern childrens' programming, film and television is how it is now, but I always thought it was just a little strange that not only is that this was essentially created originally almost as Lucas's response to Mickey Mouse, it basically always was thought of as a mass-marketed product to be exploited and sold to the consumer in every form possible. That's probably what makes me a little reluctant to ever embrace "Star Wars" wholeheartedly.


THE TELEVISION MUSICAL EVENT: A RETURN TO THE PAST, OR WHY MARIO LOPEZ WAS JUSTIFIED IN BLOCKING ME ON TWITTER




When I did my ballot for Geekcastradio.com's recent 100 Greatest TV Shows poll recently, "Which, you can look up by clicking on the Top Tens Tab at the top of the page) I was mostly happy with it, but I must confess there was one television genre, that I really feel a little saddened that I didn't find one spot for. (No, "Game of Thrones" fans, it wasn't fantasy; I did not forget to put it on there, it wasn't Top 100 worthy) No, actually, the genre is the Teleplay.

Yeah, that's a word that people don't really use much anymore, but in the 1950s this was actually a major television genre, and it makes sense when you think about it. Television was looking for programming in it's earliest days, so something that would be most easy to air, especially air live, would be something that's being performed, or staged, like a theatrical play. And when they figured out how to do that, the teleplay genre was born, which is what it sounds like, a television play. They're plays written for the television screen, usually about an hour or so long, and similar to the anthology genre, which the teleplay is technically apart of, like "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", I throw in "Love, American Style", each week, performers would stage a new play on live television. Often it was an abbreviated version of a current play, but it was also a great outlet for young writers to break into the business and even still, some of the biggest names in the annals of television writers like William Rose, and most especially Paddy Chayefsky, began their careers writing these teleplays on shows like "Studio One" or "Playhouse 90" among others, there were actually dozens of them at one point. Unfortunately, as the art of television got more perfected, this genre basically died out, but I bring it up, because, with television ratings, especially network television ratings, dropping to miniscule numbers of what they were at least, they've brought this genre back.

Yeah, the modern run of the networks getting together some stars, preferably ones that are at least acting and singing threats, and possibly a few that can dance as well, they've made an interesting decision to bring back, essentially, the teleplay, by doing live television versions of some of the bigger broadway musicals. NBC, in probably desperation, did this first with "The Sound of Music Live!" and then followed it up with "Peter Pan" and "The Wiz", and now this little new subgenre of event TV is being adopted by the other networks with FOX doing "Grease Live" recently, and-eh...- the-eh, the second part of the title.

(Slight pause)

Okay, I wasn't able to watch "Grease" live, so I had to watch it on Hulu.com at the library the next day or so after, and, early in the show, and during the show, they showed a lot of the behind-the-scenes of the stage production, and many of these live looks, had Mario Lopez the anchor from "Extra" on the show, and he seemed to me, to just be doing his "Extra" reporting, which, I'm not a fan of. Some of you may know my blog where I panned all the entertainment "news" shows, with the exception of "TMZ" that time, well, I'm not a fan. So I was a bit annoyed, 'cause I just wanted to see "Grease", and I was getting "Extra". So, I tweeted about it:

@DavidBaruffi_EV  Feb 2

Why the hell is @MarioLopezExtra on "Grease Live"? Yeah, I know, I'm watching it on Hulu, missed it last night, but still, why is he here?

You can go on my Twitter btw at @DavidBaruffi_EV to see for yourself that, Mario Lopez saw that tweet, and blocked me. Yes, I've been blocked on Twitter by Slater from "Saved By the Bell". Which, itself, I was mostly bemused by. I mean, the fact that he even noticed me in his tweets, is a bit weird, and to some extent, I must admit to being flattered, but thought it was an overreaction on his part. It is, buuuuuut, it isn't unjustified. You see, if the thing is still on Hulu, or you watched the musical yourself, you can probably tell me whether I jumped to conclusions or missed an obvious sign, but Mario Lopez, it turned out, actually did have a good reason to be there; he was playing Johnny Fontaine, the host of the "American Bandstand" ripoff show in the musical. Which, actually makes sense, when you realize that the Johnyy Fontaine character in the stage musical of "Grease," acts as a narrator in the musical coming in and out of the musical and doesn't just show up at the dance, so it makes sense that Lopez would play the part and be somewhat in his "Extra" persona, and honestly, I always thought Lopez was a pretty good actor and it was actually really cool and great to see him acting again, so.... Yeah, I owe Mario Lopez a big apology. Really big one actually. He was completely justified in blocking me on Twitter, so Mr. Lopez, I'm Sorry I didn't realize you were playing Johnny Fontaine in the musical, I apologize. You were really good btw. 

Okay, now that that's out of the way, yes, the teleplay is coming back and I think it's a good thing. It's actually never gone away technically, PBS especially, mostly on their "Great Performances" show has often aired staged performance, usually musicals, although much of it is opera, they do also show Broadway performances among other works, (Including my favorite version of Cyrano De Bergerac") and there's been other places where we get filmed versions of theatrical productions on television as well as film. Network television, needs more immediate products that people will flock to the television for, and this is actually a great outlet for Event TV to return, and I'm grateful for the return of the teleplay, in any form in general. Especially musicals. I know the traditional thinking is, with film, we can go outside and expand upon the worlds of the stage and not be inside those three walls, but honestly, I like seeing plays on film that resemble as closely as possible, the feeling of thes stage production. You know, there is some good theater where I am in Las Vegas, but most of us don't go to the theater regularly, especially not the Broadway theater, so for many in the country, myself included, this is often the closest we ever get to seeing theater outside of the Tony Awards on TV. I hope this new trend on network television brings the teleplay a permanent return to television, as well as anything that actually makes people turn on the television when a show is on and not simply let them turn on the computer the day after in order to watch something.

YOUTUBE AND FAIR USE, but most MY OWN ISSUES WITH GOOGLE

Well, this blew up quickly. Alright, I'm sure most of you have probably already seen the latest Nostalgia Critic editorial on Fair Use and the fight Youtube Creators have been having with Youtube and with Hollywood Complaintants. If you want an overview, watch Nostalgia Critic's video above, especially since I'm not really the most knowledgeable in regards to Fair Use Laws, and I don't really have a confirmed stance on the law side of this, but I can talk about the Google side of this. You see, Google, not only owns Youtube, they also own, Blogger, which is the site that I run this blog on. Mostly, it's fine. It's a free blog, there's usually enough things on the sight to help me post my blogs and whatnots, so I don't normally talk about them, but those parts about the internet reviewers talking about getting absolutely no response from Youtube, yeah, Blogger's the same way.

I don't know what they're doing with this, but when I have had issues with this blog, whether it be say, I get a Malware warning on my blog that I have to appeal to block, or even just minor things with the design, or my own homepage, just asking a question or appealing for anything is a pain. When there is a sudden issue, they don't have, even a part-time person on staff or chat to ask questions to for issues about Blogger. In fact, they actually have a place, where you post a question on a board, for blogger users to answer for them and respond. Yeah, we're supposed to be able to answer questions for other bloggers, in case they ever get the same problems that we have with Blogger. And btw, when you go to these message boards, if there's ever a response to anything posted, the answer's usually goes something along the lines of "I had that problem before, now I don't, I don't know what happened or why I don't anymore, it just went away. Never knew or understood why it did that."

Yeah, they need something, to let us know that, they're at least there if we need them for something at Blogger, and yeah, I don't have to fight too many Fair Use claims, certainly not as many as the Youtubers go through, and I have the same experience as they have from Blogger as they do from Youtube, nothing and if nothing else, just this feeling that nobody at Google is there to sort through and help out for problems that may occur. Look, I have no legitimate idea what's gonna happen with the Fair Use claims or how this is gonna go down, (And btw, I've been hearing Youtubers like Lady Jess constantly talking about these issues now for months, this is by no means new and not something that's being discussed only because Doug Walker's bringing it up) I will say this though, I'm pretty positive that whatever the results of this, it might not have gotten this far, or this out-of-control, if somebody at Google was actually on-hand and there, and not just a machine printing out responses. Look, I'm not against automation by any means, but something, somebody needs to be there and be able to respond when these claims are made, and really, it's so automated over there,...-, look I don't even use the fair use act much, except for occasionally quoting something, but I get frustrated, just when trying to get a simple response for a much more minor issue with Google. I'm okay with fair use people and even those who make claims when they think that they're work is being stolen, but, this is what happens when there isn't more oversight, on the part of the people running the website. (And let's not forget that since Blip was shut down, there's a lot more channels using Youtube at the moment.)

In other words, however long it takes before Fair Use is enacted or however many court cases, legitimate and illegitimate that come about from claims of piracy and whatnot, Google, you're gonna have to be more on-hand to oversee all this, and there's no real reason you shouldn't be. You're fucking Google; it's not like you can't afford to have more people on-hand to do this. Either fire whoever is supposed to be overseeing this, or get people who actually are overseeing Blogger and Youtube and all your other companies.

CANON OF FILM: "THE BIG SLEEP"

THE BIG SLEEP (1946)

Director: Howard Hawks

Screenplay: William Faulkner & Leigh Brackett & Jules Furthman based on the novel by Raymond Chandler

As numerous witnesses have verified, one day during production of “The Big Sleep,” Bogart went up to Director Howard Hawks and casually asked who pushed Taylor off the pier. Production was soon halted and after numerous discussions, they finally they sent a telegram to Raymond Chandler the author of the novel. He didn’t know either. Don’t even try to follow this film logically, it doesn’t work, doesn’t even come close to working, but a great mystery doesn’t have to work logically. I often complained about reviewers who base whether a mystery film is any good or not on whether or not they figure out who did it before the movie does, (coughs, Rex Reed coughs) because that’s not what a mystery is about. A mystery, is about the process of the solving of the crime, any mystery plot, as Raymond Chandler would probably tell you, is nothing more than just a series of places to force the characters to go in order to eventually solve the mystery. Or in the case of “The Big Sleep”, the plot is just a device to run in and out of scenes in between moments when Bogart is on screen with his then-new bride, a maybe-20-year-old Lauren Bacall.

I know, I should probably put this film in the context of Howard Hawks, who admittedly is somebody I like more the more films of his I watch, or how Hawks, who once said, to paraphrase, “If all else fails, then make it a drama,” probably knew and understood more than anybody that the best way to handle Chandler was to treat it as this absurd and comedic series of scenes, but to me, this is a Bogart & Bacall vehicle, and the best of their films at that. They met famously while shooting “To Have and Have Not,” (…You just put your lips together and blow). That film has it’s followers, although I tend to think it’s mostly forgettable and that the only reason to watch it is for the scenes between Bacall and Bogart and see how clear their chemistry is; it’s pretty clear they’re falling for each other in real life, but other than that, it’s basically a rip-off of “Casablanca”. I guess you could argue the only reason to watch “The Big Sleep” as well is because of Bogart and Bacall, but there’s way more going on. It’s a classic film noir, arguably the most classic of the genre to some, and it is thrilling but really I watch it for the comedy. The outlandishness of the plot mixed with brilliant one-liners and series of dialogues.

Bogart (After Vivian’s nymphy sister Carmen (Martha Vickers) “fell,” on him.) “She tried to sit in my lap while I was still standing up.”

And the most famous one, a scene that was added later to make Bacall look good in the film, is a conversation she has with Bogart, supposedly about horse racing.

Bacall:…”I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they’re front runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run…I’d say you don’t like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.”

In the film, Bogart, having already played Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”, is now Philip Marlowe, the other most legendary of the hard-boiled private detectives of film noir (Another great Marlowe adaptation, Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” is already in my Canon, so technically, this is the second time Marlowe has shown up in the canon, and he appeared in numerous Chandler books and he’s been portrayed in ten films total, by nine actors total including Elliot Gould, George Sanders, James Garner and Robert Mitchum, twice among others) gets hired by Bacall’s father, General Sternwood (Charles Waldron). 

That’s literally all I can ever remember about the investigation, and I think most people are lucky to remember that. There’s one person dead already, and nobody remembers what the hell he was actually investigating, but soon, one murder offscreen leads to another murder offscreen, and then about 5-8 other people getting killed in/during the movie, depending on how you count. Marlowe is observant and knows how to find clues and witnesses, which continually lead him to someone/someplace which leads to more discoveries. I’ve seen it three times, I know some who’ve seen it twice as much, and nobody, including myself can completely explain the events in the film. I remember certain scenes and lines of dialogue, and details like a gun taped underneath the front of Bogie’s car, and the apparent free time sexcapade Marlowe has with a bookstore girl, (Dorothy Malone, who steals her scene, she actually seems to almost have more sexual chemistry with Bogart than Bacall does, but that’s probably just me, I like Dorothy Malone.)

Everything happens and doesn’t happen has some connection maybe to a “gambler,” named Eddie Mars (John Ridgely), and really who cares, as long Bogie and Bacall end up in each others arms at the end of the film.

Despite the detective, the femme fatale, and the body counts, I actually consider the film too witty to even be a true film noir, but I don’t watch it for that anyway. Scenes were actually added after the original cut of the movie because they wanted more scenes with just Bogart and Bacall and that was the right decision. “The Big Sleep”, is pure exciting filmmaking and it’s full of everything we want in the classic Hollywood film. Big stars, a love story, big laughs, sharp witty dialogue, and violence, etc. They don’t really do this anymore in Hollywood, where they continually pair people in movies, just to have them paired together, especially when they’re real-life romances. I think argue Hepburn and Tracy is the all-time best of them, but Bogart and Bacall is a close second and “The Big Sleep”, by far is their best and most fun work.    

OSCAR VOTER ELIGIBILITY RULE CHANGES IN LIGHT OF THE BILL MUMY OPEN-LETTER: THE REAL PROBLEM WITH THE A.M.P.A.S.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, pound sign, OscarsSoWhite, I saw it. (Alright fine, hashtag, OscarsSoWhite) Alright, the Oscars are in full swing and I'll get to predictions later but let's get to this, the Oscars changed certain rules, effective next year, regarding the voters and their eligibility for voting for the Oscars. Okay, so, let's go through these changes one at a time, and I'm taking these off the Academy's own website if you're all wondering:


Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade.  In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award.  We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members.  In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria.  Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status.  Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting.  This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars.

At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.  

In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.

The Academy will also take immediate action to increase diversity by adding new members who are not Governors to its executive and board committees where key decisions about membership and governance are made. This will allow new members an opportunity to become more active in Academy decision-making and help the organization identify and nurture future leaders.

Okay, there's a few things here, the additional governors seat, fine, the increased in both membership and diversity, now that is important, because the Academy has been notorious for, limiting it's new membership every year and yes, they have improved upon on that in recent years, especially regarding younger members, but it is slow as hell. The Academy, overall has about, 6,000 members, give or take, and they try to add a few hundred new members each year, but the Academy is old, and some years, they end up just replacing a lot of members that passed. Also, this is something that's strange, the sponsoring of members. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is an exclusive club, and members have to be recommended by a current member of the Academy first and then there's a vote, and they they're given eligibility. Now, under normal circumstances it's easy to look at this as simply a formality, and often it is; if there's a former child star that's had even the most modicum of big screen success as an adult, there's a likely possibility that that person will become an Academy member right after they turn 18. That said, there's also numerous incidents where people don't get in, even after working in feature films for, sometimes decades. One of the reasons I often bash the Academy for not giving Werner Herzog a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, on top of the fact that there's a strong argument to be made that he's one of the oldest great living filmmakers alive, next to maybe Jean-Luc Godard, but it's because he didn't get invited into the Academy until 1999. Seriously, that's three decades of legendary films he had made, before he got in! What the fuck Academy? Look, I'm not saying that everybody should be in who even remotely works on a single movie, but if you manage to find yourself in two or three feature films over a few years time, working on them somewhat regularly...- I mean, really, it shouldn't be so difficult to get into the Academy. Seriously, at this point, once a name is recommended, the vetting process should literally just be, "Check their Imdb.com, page, look for a minute, and if it's long enough that it requires you at least two scrolling downs to see everything he/she's done, then they should just be automatically in. That said, the ten-year voter renewership policy, this one is more interesting. 

You see, pretty much in every FB group, you'll find some moronic post about "The Oscars are relevant", or "They never get it right", or "They vote for their friends", "#Oscarssuck", whatever. Look, I'm not gonna pretend the Academy isn't infallible, hell, the Academy itself has NEVER, EVER claimed that itself. Yeah, just because they've become the Oscars, doesn't mean that they claim they're always right, they've never done that. Hell, the Academy was originally started as a way of honoring people in Hollywood who were simply good to the producers systems as a way to combat the threats of the industry unionizing, oh dear, how times have changed. (If you don't know this, here's the abbreviated version, in Hollywood, the Unions run everything, and while it's a bit of a pain in the ass, we're fine with it and that's not gonna change, ever) The Academy isn't a Union per se, but it is made up of people who make the movies, which is the main reason why I've never particularly understood simply bashing the Oscars. Look, all award shows are arbitrary, whether it be, the Unions, the Critics, or whoever's giving them out, but some opinions hold more weight than others, and the people who make the movies, probably a little bit more about how good a film, or the particular skills and talents involved in the making of those films are then the average person. Yeah, they don't see all the movie, yeah, they're voting for their friends, the Weinstein's buy them off,...-, Okay, yes, that's legitimate, although stupid since it's a secret ballot, and you can simply just tell your friends and get all the free everything that Miramax sends you, and then vote for whatever you think the best films are anyway with anybody finding out, but even if you take into all that, this is still for the most part a more qualified collection of people making a decision on a subject they know about more intimately then us. Does that mean they're always right? No. Does that mean you should agree with them? No. But, you know, if Steven Tyler listens to somebody singing and he says that person's talented, do I actually need to here what the rest of the country thinks by phone-in vote to be sure the person can sing? (Yeah, I know he's not on "American Idol" anymore, but it's still...-) 

That's something that I'm not big on, the elimination of the expert opinion, or an educated opinion if you'd rather say that, in pop culture, and award shows are the biggest battleground. That said, is this idea of eliminating the voting rights of people not currently working in motion pictures a good idea or not? Um, yes-an-no, there are quite a bit of people in the Academy, your Hope Holliday's and whathaveyou's, who still vote and cause ruckuses at screening despite not working since the Reagan administration, and yes, this is actually a bit of a problem in Hollywood. I won't give out names, but I met an actor who's known for doing voice-over work, who, years ago, talked about his frustration with SAG, because they wanted to limit the ability for the voice-over section of the branch, to eliminate people from voting on issues, if they hadn't worked in five years. 5 YEARS, they had trouble getting this through. "You haven't done voiceover work in five years, then you don't get to vote," they had to struggle to get that through, and I'm not completely up-to-date on SAG politics somebody can correct me if they wish, but I'm not sure they got through. Could you imagine if you hadn't worked at McDonald's Drive-Thru Attendant for five years, but still had say over the futures of other McDonald's Drive-thru attendants? 

Ye-ah, so this isn't terribly unreasonable, right? You work on one movie every ten years and you get to keep the right to vote for the Oscars, (And even if you don't you still get Academy Emeritus status anyway) sounds very reasonable doesn't it. And I was going to not write this blogpost and go ahead with that and say that it is reasonable, until..., until I read Bill Mumy's open-letter to the Academy. For those who don't know, Bill Mumy is a very talented actor/musician/voice-over artist, etc., I think I, and most everybody else knows him as Will Robinson in the original "Lost in Space", although he was pretty well-regarded even years before that, he was on "Babylon 5", apparently, yeah, he's considered among the all-time great child actors and he still works regularly in the industry. Yet, because of these new rule changes, he was actually dismissed as an Oscar voter, so he wrote an open-letter to the Academy about it, you can read it, a few different places, but here's the Hollywood Reporter's link to the letter below: 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-dont-capitulate-a-860243

Now, you see, I don't quite know whether to agree or disagree with the Academy's stance on the ten-year-rule they're implementing, even after Mumy's article, because here's the thing that this open-letter and Mumy's dismissal actually reveals about the Academy. It's got nothing to do with Academy racism, or sexism (Which is something I consider a far bigger issue than racism I might add) or anything, it's that,... well, the Academy is too...- what's-the-word, um,... outdated? Behind the times? Eh, no. The thesaurus in my mind is failing me, but yeah, the Academy is just incapable of adapting to the modern world of films and filmmaking.

Okay, let's think of it this way. The Oscars this year are in they're what, 88th Academy Awards? Yeah, 88th Academy Awards, back then, there only was motion pictures. Even if you just made shorts or newsreels or whatever, in order to see any kind of moving pictures, you had to go to a motion picture theater. Basically movies were the update to nickelodeons. And that's fine, that's where we were at, and then television came along and while there was a certain division between film people and television people for awhile, in reality, especially today, that line is basically erased. I mean, there's just more opportunities for people working in the film industry to have work in the film industry, they're just not working on motion pictures, or theatrically-released in L.A. County ones. (In due respects, most theatrically-released pictures that don't play in L.A. County, aren't worth watching nowadays, foreign films exceptioned, usually) But, you know, this is the problem with the Academy Awards, motion pictures are just, not the special, unique product that they were and, I don't know how, this may require something drastic, like, maybe combining forces with the Emmys or something, but feature films are just not the only way people tell stories visually now, and it's already a dying art form. Okay, let's forget, internet people, streaming sources, whatever, I mean, look at last year's Oscar winners: Julianne Moore, used to play twins in a soap opera, Patricia Arquette, already had an Emmy for one drama series, now she's staring in another, J.K. Simmons was a regular on "Law & Order" and "The Closer", Eddie Redmayne, um, a couple miniseries,-, okay not the greatest example here, but basically everybody works in every medium now. The Oscars and the entertainment press tend to play up the glitz and glamour of movie business, but there aren't movie stars anymore, and everybody does everything. Steven Spielberg has a BAFTA Award for Video Games, look it up, not kidding. He also has more Emmys than Oscars, and he's been working in television even before he ever did films. Everybody has. And now there's the internet and....-

This is the problem with the Academy Awards, they have to fundamentally realize that, not only is there more to their world then, the demographics that they are, subliminally racist or sexist, whatever,- (And I do think Mumy was right about that, whatever your thoughts on the nominees, or lack of diversity thereof, I don't think it was at all anything intentional that all the acting nominees are white) the problem isn't that the Academy of Motion Pictures are out of touch with us, the problem is that motion pictures, are out of touch with the rest of the academy. And, yeah, maybe we should begin adapting a BAFTA-like catch-all group to honor everything in the art of filmmaking. That's the real problem, the Academy is based on the notion of how exclusive of the world of Hollywood and filmmaking is, and even as, arguably the era of theatrical released films are dying and turning into Broadway-priced spectacles, they're still remaining true to this exclusiveness area of theatrical films, and not only is it leading to the public being a little outraged when certain things aren't or are nominated, it's leading to the rejection of it's own members, who actually, despite our objections are way more qualified to judge movies then most really are. We don't need, a more diverse group, (Okay, we do, but that's not the problem) what we need in order to fix the Oscars, is to have finally give in, and expand their voting base beyond the limited world of motion pictures. We've moved beyond that, and now it's time for the Academy to begin doing that as well, and I hate to break it to you people, but making sure the Oscar nominees are more than just white men, that's barely step one. You see, the way I'm figuring, the more the Academy begins to expand their concept of motion pictures, at least in terms of their eligible voting base, then eventually, the more we'll not only get diversity at the Oscars, but we'll probably also get more of a diverse collection of feature films as well.

CANON OF FILM: "THE BAD SEED"

THE BAD SEED (1956)

Director: Mervyn LeRoy

Screenplay: John Lee Mahin based on the play by Maxwell Anderson from the novel by William March

Filmbook Dictionary: Cult Movie: A personal favorite film, usually low-budget film that is undeniably flawed in some way, and also includes either a cross-genre/multi-genre scenario or some other kind of weird off-beat quality that makes the film outside of the mainstream, but still has a limited but devoted and loyal following. (Borrowed from dowse.com and improved upon by myself.) 

When I was a very young UNLV film student, years ago, there was a coffee shop across the street at Tropicana off of Harmon called Cafe Espresso Roma. It's now, either a pizza place or a hookah club or something, but back when I first started college, I always wanted to go there because from what I could tell and hear, this was where all the artistic and intelligensia at the university seemed to hang out, or at least the cool artistic ones that I wanted to be apart of. I don't know if it ever actually was a place like that, but it seemed to be. Unfortunately, I never got a cup there, but one of the things they tried to do in their last days was that once a week, they would have a cult movie night, and every week they’d show a rare, weird, and sometimes rarely-seen cult film.  It didn't work, but one of the films they showed curiously to me was "The Bad Seed". I kinda found this weird 'cause I never really considered it a cult movie. Actually at the time, it was taken quite seriously.  

“The Bad Seed,” isn’t a film I would immediately think of as a cult film, although it hasn’t aged particularly well. The film was considered scary upon first release, but now plays almost ridiculous, and to some degree, comical. Also, for a quote, unquote “cult film,” I usually disqualify any movie that got Oscar nominations, especially in important categories, and this one got three acting nominations. That said, I have seen an episode of "Six Feet Under" where a group of gay men are lovingly watching and mocking the film and, yeah, I can see why. 

Based on a blockbuster play, "The Bad Seed" was known for the daring and controversial premise that a child, a little girl, Rhoda (Patty McCormack) is in fact a vicious, sociopathic killer. The film boils down, basically, to an example of the great argument of nature vs. nurture. Are you born good or bad, or can it be taught? (I'm not sure it's a great example, but...) The mother, Christine (Nancy Kelly) is sick to begin with and hears that one of the kids at her daughter’s school has been killed by an accident. This news quickly spreads, as the entire family and a few strangers await the girl’s arrival so as to comfort her. 

Well, she arrives home, and any more of the story I will not reveal, in fact I’ve already given away to many important plot points, although needless to say, she seems way less in need of comfort then any normal person would in that kind of situation. This movie is still pretty popular, a little too popular for me to believe that it qualifies as a cult film. It's obviously an early influence to films like "The Omen",  and there's been periodic talks in Hollywood of making a direct remake being made for years, although this film was technically redone about 15 years ago with Macauley Culkin and titled “The Good Son.” 

Yeah, it's a bit dated, but keep in mind that, while I guess we still debate Nature vs. Nurture, to some extent, psychoanalytically we're a little more evolved, but at the time it was an intriguing look at the concept early on, even if it mostly used the most direct and narrow perspectives on the concept. And of course, the ending was added on later because of the Hollywood code declaration of forcing people to have to suffer for their sins, but it actually still works really well. 

Either way, whether you mock it as a campy relic of an old era, or it you still can take the situation as deadly serious, if you think Damian is the beginning of devil-children, well, even that idea came earlier, and was done with a lot more fun.