And then the sun itself will turn us all to sand

[sovay]

Spurred by a gloomy desire to know what the hell movie Spike Lee's era-defining Do the Right Thing (1989) lost Best Original Screenplay to at the 62nd Academy Awards, spatch and I just spent the last hour reading Oscar nominations and results from 1990 onward, an activity punctuated by frequent cries of "[X] was robbed!" "[Y] should have been nominated!" and "That was poop!" I had forgotten how many years I had opinions about. I've seen even more of those movies now. I have more opinions.

The answer to our original question, by the way, was Dead Poets Society. My opinion about that is: "That was poop!"

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

... that does sound like rather a guaranteed exercise in frustration!

[sovay]

... that does sound like rather a guaranteed exercise in frustration!

It was actually an entertaining and instructive use of an hour, because it reminded me that the Academy has always had its own weird system of preferences that don't at all reflect what I consider the point of the awards, and every year there is at least one something that's well-deserved and one something that is incomprehensible by normal human standards of talent and taste. Which does not stop me from crying poop on the latter, of course. Often.

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, well, that is okay then! ;-)

[shewhomust]

Dead Poets Society may have been poop, but it was eminently Oscar-worthy poop, don't you think? These are industry awards, and they do reflect industry attitudes.

As you know, of course. Sorry.

[sovay]

These are industry awards, and they do reflect industry attitudes.

See above to thisbluespirit: of course! But I keep forgetting that the industry attitudes in this case are so often from Planet Mongo.

[nineweaving]

Poop is Oscar bait.

Nine

[sovay]

Poop is Oscar bait.

I just think I like the Academy best when it doesn't bite.

[asakiyume]

I want to know if your poop expletive was prompted by rachelmanija's recent entry, or whether it would have been the expletive of choice anyway.

[sovay]

I want to know if your poop expletive was prompted by rachelmanija's recent entry, or whether it would have been the expletive of choice anyway.

It's a reference to The State's "Tenement" sketch, which I would link if I could find the original on YouTube; the conceit is that it's a hard-hitting, unvarnished, Arthur Miller-esque drama of working-class life which the cast is being obliged to perform in a G-rated version for TV, so that among other euphemized surrealism one character gives vent to their existential angst with a great howl of "POOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

[choco_frosh]

There's a hilarious scene by Frye and Laurie where they've been forced to invent their own swearwords to make the sketch safe for television. I couldn't find a full video off-hand, but on the other hand I did find Frye musing more generally on the subject of swearing:

On the joys of swearing

[sovay]

There's a hilarious scene by Frye and Laurie where they've been forced to invent their own swearwords to make the sketch safe for television.

Okay, that's brilliant.

On the joys of swearing

"The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just fucking lunatic."

[ethelmay]

I remember my mother telling me when I was a kid that gangster movies in the days of the film code had to employ all sorts of snarling accents in order to disguise the fact that their "swear words" were things on the level of "My stars!" and "Heavens to Betsy!"

[sovay]

I remember my mother telling me when I was a kid that gangster movies in the days of the film code had to employ all sorts of snarling accents in order to disguise the fact that their "swear words" were things on the level of "My stars!" and "Heavens to Betsy!"

I once read that David Milch started writing Deadwood with period-accurate minced profanity like "tarnation" and "consarnit" and had to give it up because, as he told the interviewer, to a modern ear it just sounded like Yosemite Sam.

[asakiyume]

Hilarious--I hope they were playing it at least a little for laughs.

[sovay]

Hilarious--I hope they were playing it at least a little for laughs.

Oh, yeah.

[drwex]

Why is Dead Poets Society "poop"?

I agree that DtRT is a better movie, and that to some degree Williams's death has caused post-mortem elevation of his movies but at the time DPS was well-regarded. I thought it was particularly resonant, appearing at the end of the Reagan era (nightmare) as an allegory about what the last decade had been like in America. Do you think it just didn't age well?

[sovay]

Why is Dead Poets Society "poop"?

Dead Poets Society itself is an inspirational teacher story that I bounced off in high school; I have no especial animus against it, though I do prefer The Browning Version (1951). It is poop that Do the Right Thing received almost no Oscar attention and it is poop in the extreme that it lost what should have been its one no-brainer nomination to a movie that, whether I think it aged well or not, was neither as politically nor personally complex as Spike Lee's film to begin with and I certainly don't think defined its year in the same way as Do the Right Thing. They're not even competitive for me. Do the Right Thing should have been up for Best Picture. If the Academy wasn't able to stretch that far in 1990, it should at least have walked away with the screenplay award.

[drwex]

Ah, so the assertion is that the Academy were poop. I can agree with this.

[sovay]

Ah, so the assertion is that the Academy were poop.

I didn't like Dead Poets Society, but I would probably categorize it as "schmaltz" rather than "poop" if we had to get technical.

[drwex]

I would agree that it's very dramatic, but I experienced the decade that way. I don't know how others felt, but it seemed in tune with its times and my experience. De gustibus non disputandem est, I suppose.

[sovay]

De gustibus non disputandem est, I suppose.

I believe that it resonated with you. It didn't for me. Everyone's different.

[larryhammer]

I was disappointed that year, too.

[sovay]

I was disappointed that year, too.

At least The Little Mermaid took Best Original Score. But a lot of the rest of that year is frankly confusing.

[moon_custafer]

I once saw The Emperor’s Club (2002) as an in-flight movie for which I hadn’t bothered to get headphones – from what I could still follow of the story, it struck me as better than Dead Poets’ Society, but also in some ways dependent upon it -- Williams again plays a pre-school teacher, but the ultimate lesson is that while his teaching still had a positive effect on most of his students, he probably could have done even more for them if he hadn’t focused on giving extra chances to the “misunderstood” senator’s son who was really an entitled douchebro.

[sovay]

but the ultimate lesson is that while his teaching still had a positive effect on most of his students, he probably could have done even more for them if he hadn’t focused on giving extra chances to the “misunderstood” senator’s son who was really an entitled douchebro.

That sounds fascinating and definitely like a corrective, if not to Dead Poets Society itself, then to the inspirational genre it's part of.

[moon_custafer]

...And of course I meant "prep school." Robin Williams teaching pre-school would have been a different, possibly funnier movie.

[sovay]

Robin Williams teaching pre-school would have been a different, possibly funnier movie.

I'm sure there are entitled douchebro babies.

[ethelmay]

I am sure it would have been better than Kindergarten Cop. Incidentally, my husband's aunt was a preschool teacher in Los Angeles and taught Marlon Brando's son Christian. We have a thank-you letter from him around somewhere. (It's rather wordy. I think M.B. may have been a bit drunk when he wrote it.)

[sovay]

(It's rather wordy. I think M.B. may have been a bit drunk when he wrote it.)

Still cool.

[kore]

'Kindergarten Clown'....?

[alexxkay]

It occurs to me that The Shape of Water probably did so well with the Academy due to it being a love letter to classic Hollywood, in among its more notable (to me) virtues.

[sovay]

It occurs to me that The Shape of Water probably did so well with the Academy due to it being a love letter to classic Hollywood, in among its more notable (to me) virtues.

Interesting! I agree that it's in dialogue with movies, and Giles watches a lot of musicals, but I had not thought of it as a Hollywood love letter in the same way as, say, The Artist. (A love letter to creature features, yes.) You may be right.

[alexxkay]

Giles' television is the least of it. Protagonist lives above movie theatre. Multiple (if brief) scenes set within that theatre while Technicolor epics play. An extended pastiche/homage B&W dance number.

[sovay]

Protagonist lives above movie theatre. Multiple (if brief) scenes set within that theatre while Technicolor epics play.

That's what I mean by "in dialogue with movies."

An extended pastiche/homage B&W dance number.

In which Elisa is given voice by no less than Renée Fleming, one of whose signature roles is the protagonist of Dvořák's Rusalka. I agree that all of these elements exist in the film and contribute to its themes and its characters, but they do not seem to me the point of the film, which is why I do not think of it as a love letter, any more than I'd call Truly Madly Deeply a love letter to classic Hollywood just because it involves a lot of people (dead, but who's counting) ardently watching old movies.

[alexxkay]

We are agreeing more than not. I think my main point is that the Academy would see it as a love letter.

[sovay]

I think my main point is that the Academy would see it as a love letter.

That's fair. I have, as was the point of this post, a lengthy history of thinking the Academy was off track.

[kore]

....omg, that's kind of depressingly plausible. At least this time it went to a good movie (looking at you, fucking La La Land).

(I love movies about movies, but I don't want to give them ALL the awards.)

[handful_ofdust]

"That was poop!" pretty much sums up my own feelings on the subject.;)

Yeah, the Oscars are, in the main, political--not political so much in terms of current presidency or whatever, but political in terms of who votes and why. That's why you so often get at least one instance of the You're Old And You're Gonna Die award (the Don Ameche in Cocoon special) per session, occasionally known as the Okay We Get It, You're Good, Shut Up Already award. I think that Gary Oldman won under the latter proviso. That's also why we got that fairly amazing article where a bunch of older Academy members admitted to just not having watched Get Out, because they decided it simply wasn't "an Oscar film."

[sovay]

"That was poop!" pretty much sums up my own feelings on the subject.

It's a remarkably applicable phrase.

occasionally known as the Okay We Get It, You're Good, Shut Up Already award. I think that Gary Oldman won under the latter proviso.

I'd been figuring Oldman and Deakins were something like that, but it's still nonplussing when it happens. (Especially since I wouldn't have minded in the case of Varda, but nope!)

That's also why we got that fairly amazing article where a bunch of older Academy members admitted to just not having watched Get Out, because they decided it simply wasn't "an Oscar film."

Whoa whoa whoa, I'm not surprised they felt like that, but they said it on the record?

[ethelmay]

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/03/oscars-sausage-gets-made has a discussion of an article about one such voter.

[sovay]

a discussion of an article about one such voter.

Oh, God, spatch read me parts of that article! It made me want to join the Academy just because I'd do a better job watching, voting, and thinking than that example.

[gwynnega]

Also, the only actor nominated for an Oscar for Do the Right Thing was Danny Aiello! I'm still very annoyed about that, all these years later. (Though my ultimate Oscar gripe will probably always be Crash winning Best Picture.)

[ETA: Now it occurs to me that my ultimate Oscar gripe has been revised to Crash winning Best Picture while Get Out did not.]

[sovay]

[ETA: Now it occurs to me that my ultimate Oscar gripe has been revised to Crash winning Best Picture while Get Out did not.]

Both spatch and I had mercifully forgotten all about Crash until we got to the relevant year and screamed.

(That was the year I wanted Good Night, and Good Luck to win at least one of its nominations, had braced myself for it to get wiped off the map by Brokeback Mountain, and had to watch Brokeback Mountain get wiped off the map by Crash. It seems I'm still burned about that.)

[kore]

It's a stinking shame Mountain and Right Thing just didn't sweep every category. Like, they ought to be actually ashamed that's Academy history.

[kore]

CRASH, AUGH.

[kore]

Ahaha, I went down that rabbit hole a bit, but had to stop because it was too enraging/depressing. (Remember Maurice getting ONE nomination?)

[sovay]

(Remember Maurice getting ONE nomination?)

I ALWAYS FORGET BECAUSE IT SHOULD HAVE WON (most of) THEM ALL.

[kore]

IT REALLY SHOULD HAVE! W.T.F. (The book is really good too.)