The 87th Academy Awards Backlash Has Begun

The same thing happens every year.  You can almost set your clock by it.  As soon as the broadcast comes to a close for the Academy Awards, people flock to the Internet to criticize all things Oscar.  From the length of the telecast (which is actually pretty valid) and the bits that failed to the polarizing acceptance speeches, the same people that during the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony claim how antiquated and irrelevant the Oscars are immediately start chiming in on what the Academy got wrong.  And there is nothing that gets folks in more of a tizzy than the movie that wins Best Picture.  A movie could win the top prize at the Academy Awards and be a better feature than The Godfather, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind combined, but there will still be the detractors out there that claim, “That movie sucked.  It didn’t deserve Best Picture!”

 

Last year the group that rallied against 12 Years a Slave, which in my humble opinion was the greatest feature film of the year, had to preface their derogatory remarks with, “I’m not racist, but ….”  While the Academy Awards is the biggest of all the awards shows when it comes to filmmaking accolades, that doesn’t mean it is the be all, end all in deciding what is and is not the best picture, or who had the best performances/work from movies the previous year.  Sure, they are usually in the right ballpark when the announcement is made at the end of the night as to what gets to tout itself as the greatest film from that year, but mistakes are made.  I will go to my grave believing that Saving Private Ryan was robbed the Best Picture statue.

 

So it came as no big surprise that starting on Monday the criticisms of Birdman being the best movie of the year really ramped up.  A repetitive theme in the snarky comments was the win came as a result of the Academy showing love for its own group because Birdman is about the life of acting/Hollywood.  Essentially the argument is that movies about Hollywood/actors will win more because it is Hollywood/actors voting for the films.

 

At face value and without any actual evidence to support or oppose that claim, I feel like that is a somewhat ludicrous premise.  The Academy members that vote for the best picture of the year are made up of not just actors, but also directors, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers, editors, executives, producers, public relations people, sound and visual effects employees, writers, and others.  The thought that actors are only going to vote for a movie as best picture because it features their own profession would be a valid one if the majority of the voters were just that single line of business, but with 17 categories of Academy members it would take a lot more than just the actors’ votes to make a film about Hollywood the best of the year.

 

So now let’s look at past winners.  In the 87 years the Oscars have been happening, a total of six movies associated with Hollywood or the acting profession (which I am including Broadway in that category) have been crowned the best.  Those films include The Broadway Melody, The Great Ziegfeld, All About Eve, The Artist, Argo, and Birdman.  That puts movies about movies winning the best movie award at a 6.8% win rate.  In fact, there are three genres that have a better win rate, and they are war films, biopics, and epic period pieces.  Dramas about British life have also won six times.

 

It is worth noting that three of the past four winners have been about the Hollywood industry, but prior to that you have to go all the way back to 1950 to find a Best Picture winner that involved acting.

 

Looking at the eight nominees from this year’s ceremony, claiming Birdman was the obvious winner because it was about Hollywood could be a valid one if it weren’t for the films it was up against.  War films, biopics, and epic period pieces, historically, have a better chance of being named the best picture, and dramas about British life have an equally good chance.  So really, the movies that fall into genres with a similar or better winning percentage at the Oscars include American Sniper (war/biopic), The Imitation Game (war/biopic/British life), Selma (biopic), and The Theory of Everything (biopic).

 

If you want to make a case for why one of the other nominated films is the worthy winner, that is fine, but don’t disparage Birdman because of an unproven theory about Hollywood and the Academy members.

Hit And Run

The title of this post is quite the tease.  It probably made you think I was in some sort of accident recently and you are anticipating a riveting piece about how my neck cracked in three places or I chased the guy down on foot.  Sadly it has nothing to do with any of those scenarios.

 

Really I just hadn't posted anything for a little while and didn't have much to say, so this will be a short entry and then I am out of here.  Hence, hit and run.

 

This past weekend Joanna, my friend Evan, and I attended the AMC Theater Best Picture Showcase event, which screens all the best picture nominees from the upcoming Academy Awards.  Last Saturday we saw The Grand Budapest Hotel, Whiplash, Birdman, and Selma.  They were all really good.  I was anticipating Birdman the most, but I think I enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel the most.

 

The upcoming shows for Saturday will be Boyhood, The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, and American Sniper.  Following the marathon of movie watching that day, I will then make my way to Weatherford that night for some cards.  I then have church the next morning and finally the Academy Awards ceremony that night.  It is going to be a long two days.

 

That really about does it for me.  If something of great interest happens soon I will try to get it on here.



Need An Acura MDX Tire Changed? Call Me.

This past weekend I went on a couple's retreat just north of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, with the Zumwalts for a little relaxation away from the children.  It was also a birthday/Valentine's gift for Joanna and Brandy since their birthdays are in January and February.

 

On the final day of our weekend, Danny and I went to pack the car about an hour before check-out and found one of the tires to Joanna's car flat (it was actually Joanna who first noticed the problem).  While flat tires are an annoyance no matter what time of day or where you are, this ended up being the biggest hassle I have had in quite a while.

 

It should be noted, I am a tire changing master.  I've had Moby, my current Toyota Camry, since 2001 and in that time I have probably changed 10 flat tires.  While I still greatly fear the vehicle falling off the carjack and crushing the life out of me, I am quite proficient in the art of changing a tire.  However, this was the first time I had ever had to change a tire on a 2006 Acura MDX.  Well, after the ordeal on Sunday, I am now an expert for that car as well.

 

Once the problem was identified, Danny and I went into man mode.  We slowly moved the car to the paved street (since the parking area at the cabin was made of loose rocks and I really didn't want to end the trip on a bummer with a 5,500-pound SUV falling on top of me or Danny) and found most of the necessary tools needed to change the tire to the donut spare.  I say most of the tools because it turns out that Joanna's car has a special wheel nut on each tire that requires a key to loosen and remove.  Being my first time to change a tire on her car, I didn't realize this until the other four nuts had been loosened.  It took a quick Google search (because the Acura's owner's manual didn't tell us this) to learn that the key needed to remove the special wheel nut was located in the glove box.

 

So I now had all the wheel nuts removed, the flat tire taken off, and the spare donut tire put on.  We tightened everything up, lowered the car off the jack, put the tools back where they belonged, and moved the car to see if everything was working properly.  Everything was not working properly.

 

As soon as I rolled the wheel a whole revolution, Danny said the air inside the wheel completely dissipated and the tire went as flat as the original one.  The next idea was to put the original flat tire in Danny's trunk and drive to Broken Bow in order to get a new tire or patch the bad one.  About three miles away from the cabin, with another 8 miles to go into town, we decided to try something different.

 

Surprisingly, Danny's spare tire for his Kia was the same size as our Acura.  It just so happened to match up, because if the Acura had been a year younger or Danny's Kia had been a year older, things would not have worked out to where we could put Danny's spare on our car.  So we went back to the cabin, got the tools back out, jacked the car up again, replaced our spare with Danny's, and began lowering the vehicle.  As I was bringing the car down, Danny's spare tire was slowly getting flatter and flatter.  Yet, it didn't go all the way down.  That was progress.

 

There was enough air in the spare tire to get to the nearby gas station and fill it up.  I slowly navigated Joanna's car with Joanna and the Zumwalts following in their car to the gas station and we filled both Danny's tire and my spare tire up to the max pressure.  Danny and I decided having his spare, which was built for a vehicle half the size of our SUV, was probably not great to leave on for more than a few miles.  So what did we do?  It's time to change spare tires again.  For those counting, this is now the third time we have gone through this process and we still haven't gotten a proper-sized tire to go on the car.  We jacked the SUV up, got the tools out, took Danny's spare off, put our spare on, lowered the SUV back down, put the tools away, and decided to start driving to a tire shop.

 

You might not be surprised to learn that few tire shops are open on a Sunday.  The closest place we could find online was a Sears Automotive in Paris, Texas, which was approximately 65 miles away.  On the off chance that our spare tire blew out, the SUV flipped a couple of times, and I was ejected from the vehicle to my death, it was decided that I would drive Joanna's car alone and she ride in the safe car with the Zumwalts.  It was okay.  I had 50s on 5 with Sirius XM radio.

 

After an hour-and-a-half of driving we made it to the Sears Automotive in Paris.  And wouldn't you know it, the iPhone had lied to us.  The automotive portion of the store was closed.  I felt like Clark Griswold arriving at Wally World, except there was no robotic moose to punch in the nose.

 

At this point, which was 2 p.m. and nobody had eaten since breakfast that morning, we decided to just ride it out on the donut all the way to Arlington and I would worry about it on Monday.  As we were searching for a place to eat, Danny and I decided to drive the extra hour to Greenville and dine at a Chinese restaurant we are fond of.  We had found it during a friend's wedding that our wives were a part of and since then had returned a couple of times when visiting the area or passing through.

 

While driving to Greenville, Joanna found an NTB located there that was open until 6 p.m.  We dropped the car off, went and ate our Chinese food with the Zums, and returned to get our car, which would have four good wheels and new oil in the engine, at about 4:30.  The car wasn't finished yet because they couldn't find the key to remove the special wheel nut.  I had put it in the back seat with the other tire removal tools, which was neither where the key belonged nor the tools.  I had just put them there in order to get to them faster should I have to change the tire again at some point on the way from Broken Bow to the tire shop.

 

We were finally on the road in complete working order at about 5 p.m.  Our original plan was to be home about 3 to get the boys from my mom.  We didn't end up pulling into our driveway until 6:30 and she brought our children to us.

Long story short, if you need your tire changed, don't call me.  The title to this post originally was requesting your phone calls, but after Sunday's debacle I've done that chore enough for a while.

Couples Retreat: Gambling, Relaxation & Nature

Today's working hours are going to feel like forever because when the clock hits five Joanna and I are off to Oklahoma for a weekend of no kids.  We eventually will be joining the Zumwalts in Broken Bow, but our first leg of the trip will be to WinStar for some poker time and a free hotel room.  WinStar sends me free hotel nights every month, but I am never able to use them because it is only redeemable Sunday night through Thursday night.  Since I have a 9-5 job, getting to stay for free usually isn't possible unless I take a vacation day like I am doing for this trip.

 

After the gambling is over tonight and tomorrow morning, we will make our way to Broken Bow, where Danny and Brandy will be awaiting our arrival at a cabin we have rented.  We have made this trip before, but it was with the kids.  This time we are free of our parental obligations until Sunday.  It will be glorious!  Hopefully I have good stories for my other blog about my poker winnings.

 

On a sadder note, my friend Evan's father passed away last weekend.  A funeral service is scheduled Monday afternoon.  My thoughts and prayers go out to Evan and his mom while they have to work through this unfortunate transition in life.  I have not yet lost a parent and could not possibly know how hard it is, but I know that God is with Evan during this time and his friends will also help in any way we can.