Oscar Cheers and Jeers for the year
of the down-on-his-luck pimp.
Hey, loyal readers! I'm sure most of you are celebrating spring break far from a computer, but I felt I'd be remiss if I let this week pass without a comment. So I figured I'd post a few things I felt like cheering and jeering about in regard to the Oscars last Sunday. Here goes ...
Cheers go out to Dolly Parton for her wonderful song Travellin' Thru, which was nominated from the film Transamerica. Parton crafted a thoughtful song in the gospel tradition that dared to say that salvation and redemption can come to everyone, sexual affiliation nonwithstanding. "God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain," she sings. "Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain." Dolly put it succinctly in an interview she gave to USA Today. "Having a big gay following, I get hate mail and threats," she says. "Some people are blind or ignorant, and you can't be that prejudiced and hateful and go through this world and still be happy. One thing about this movie is that I think art can change minds. It's all right to be who you are."
Jeers to the Oscar orchestra playing through speeches this year. I found it tacky and distasteful that the bandleader and organizers of the Oscars decided that the best way to speed up speeches was to force everyone to attempt to give a :45 speech while attempting to speak over a gigantic orchestra. Particularly for the people who won technical awards, it appeared it was all about speeding them offstage so we could see another Hollywood montage about Hollywood.
Cheers should go out as well though to the members of Three Six Mafia. The surprise winners of song of the year honors for their song from Hustle and Flow titled "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp." The song might not have seemed worthy of the award, but their performance was pure crunk and their acceptance speech gave Jon Stewart plenty of jokes for the later moments of the night. The song was also everything an Oscar song should be ... integral to the film. Hustle and Flow features the song being written from scratch, from original conception to its final performance. It wasn't just thrown in to the credits, or added as a last ditch effort to get at least one Oscar nomination. And cheers also for the fact that the academy didn't overcensor. The main chorus (including the line "Because a whole lot of bitches talkin' shit") was uncensored, which may net ABC some fines from the FCC, but at least the song wasn't bastardized or bleeped to the point of being unintelligible.
But Jeers should be directed at those who nomiated songs this year. Only three were nominated -- Parton's, "Pimp" and "In The Deep" by Kathleen York from "Crash." Several major songs were overlooked, including "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" by Bernie Taupin (from Brokeback Mountain), which the Oscar nominating team decided wasn't in the film for "long enough" to be considered.
The Oscars have made a lot of mistakes in the past, and I'm glad that this year's performance was better than last year, when Beyonce Knowles performed most of the nominated material (and badly, I might add). They'd also gotten Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana to play the song from Motorcycle Diaries, despite the fact that songwriter Jorge Drexler (of Uruguay) who sang the song on the soundtrack had a respectable Spanish following -- which reeked of a slam at a true artist in the hopes of gathering ratings (better that the non-Latino community be familiar with the performers, even if Banderas isn't a singer). So at least this year they let the songs be played by the real artists. But perhaps next year they'll allow a few more songs to be showcased, rather than presenting such a limited portfolio.
Hey, loyal readers! I'm sure most of you are celebrating spring break far from a computer, but I felt I'd be remiss if I let this week pass without a comment. So I figured I'd post a few things I felt like cheering and jeering about in regard to the Oscars last Sunday. Here goes ...
Cheers go out to Dolly Parton for her wonderful song Travellin' Thru, which was nominated from the film Transamerica. Parton crafted a thoughtful song in the gospel tradition that dared to say that salvation and redemption can come to everyone, sexual affiliation nonwithstanding. "God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain," she sings. "Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain." Dolly put it succinctly in an interview she gave to USA Today. "Having a big gay following, I get hate mail and threats," she says. "Some people are blind or ignorant, and you can't be that prejudiced and hateful and go through this world and still be happy. One thing about this movie is that I think art can change minds. It's all right to be who you are."
Jeers to the Oscar orchestra playing through speeches this year. I found it tacky and distasteful that the bandleader and organizers of the Oscars decided that the best way to speed up speeches was to force everyone to attempt to give a :45 speech while attempting to speak over a gigantic orchestra. Particularly for the people who won technical awards, it appeared it was all about speeding them offstage so we could see another Hollywood montage about Hollywood.
Cheers should go out as well though to the members of Three Six Mafia. The surprise winners of song of the year honors for their song from Hustle and Flow titled "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp." The song might not have seemed worthy of the award, but their performance was pure crunk and their acceptance speech gave Jon Stewart plenty of jokes for the later moments of the night. The song was also everything an Oscar song should be ... integral to the film. Hustle and Flow features the song being written from scratch, from original conception to its final performance. It wasn't just thrown in to the credits, or added as a last ditch effort to get at least one Oscar nomination. And cheers also for the fact that the academy didn't overcensor. The main chorus (including the line "Because a whole lot of bitches talkin' shit") was uncensored, which may net ABC some fines from the FCC, but at least the song wasn't bastardized or bleeped to the point of being unintelligible.
But Jeers should be directed at those who nomiated songs this year. Only three were nominated -- Parton's, "Pimp" and "In The Deep" by Kathleen York from "Crash." Several major songs were overlooked, including "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" by Bernie Taupin (from Brokeback Mountain), which the Oscar nominating team decided wasn't in the film for "long enough" to be considered.
The Oscars have made a lot of mistakes in the past, and I'm glad that this year's performance was better than last year, when Beyonce Knowles performed most of the nominated material (and badly, I might add). They'd also gotten Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana to play the song from Motorcycle Diaries, despite the fact that songwriter Jorge Drexler (of Uruguay) who sang the song on the soundtrack had a respectable Spanish following -- which reeked of a slam at a true artist in the hopes of gathering ratings (better that the non-Latino community be familiar with the performers, even if Banderas isn't a singer). So at least this year they let the songs be played by the real artists. But perhaps next year they'll allow a few more songs to be showcased, rather than presenting such a limited portfolio.
posted by Jonathan Sanders @ 1:02 AM
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