![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Beware the Ides of March...(I honestly don't know why? Maybe they bite?)
Seven days before I turn 58. (I almost wrote 28 - I do not want to be 28. Once was quite enough.) This means one year closer to retirement. I plan on retiring at 62.
Considering buying a ticket to see a Broadway show currently in previews at the moment - SMASH, which is adapted from the television show of the same name, but is focused on the making of one show - and all the backstage antics that threaten to blow it up. It reminds me a little of Noises Off, or The Play that Can Go Wrong - and I adore those things. Also, it has the music from SMASH the television series, plus a really good cast.
And flirting with a few plays, and show in concert at Lincoln Center, Floyd Collins.
I'm just not sure if my knees can handle sitting that long.
I'm six foot and ninety percent of that height is in my legs - this makes sitting in theaters, which are mainly designed by short people who don't understand what it is like to have zero leg room. Can't remember what the Imperial Theater is like. I've been in ones that I no leg room, and others, in which I about an inch between my knees and the row in front of me.)
I am taking March 10th off - it's less about the Birthday and more about Daylight Savings Time, which occurs on my birthday this year. Considering taking March 21st off, and seeing the musical on the 20th, and getting the X-rays the next day.
I'd do it on March 14 - but that's National Strike Day - and I don't know what people are going to do? I'm not striking - I work for a New York State Agency, and it wouldn't help anyone. I think the people who work for all the Republican Corporations should strike?
New York State has set up a web site and started a marketing campaign to inform Federal Employees who are working and/or living in New York State that they can work for New York instead. The campaign is called: "New York's You're Hired" Campaign". New York has plenty of jobs and is more than willing to hire them, and has great benefits. (New York is hilarious. I love my chosen State.) Trump and the Federal Government hate NY, but they can't shut us down - they have tried pretty much since 1776, but NY is a rich state, with a cosmopolitan and global city that is also the financial capital of the US. And it is bouncy. Terrorists? Pfft. Blackout? Pfft. Hurricanes? Pfft. Floods? Pfft. Pandemic? Pfft. Transit Strike? Pfft. Go New York!
Oh the New Yorker wasn't thrilled with the Oscars and alas, I can't disagree entirely.
The surprises of the night were Anora winning Best Actress, Adrian Brody Best Actor, and Best Song going to El Mal. But overall? It was boring and my attention wandered.
Although Oscar night’s clear victor, Sean Baker’s “Anora,” received awards in five categories, all major—Best Picture, Actress, Directing, Editing, and Original Screenplay—its producers were the biggest winners, because the underlying subject of the evening’s festivities was production. All three of the film’s producers—Baker, Samantha Quan (his partner), and Alex Coco—made acceptance speeches, and they all emphasized that theirs was an independent production (a budget of six million dollars and a crew of about forty, according to Coco) and a labor of love and devotion. In this, it was far from alone. “The Brutalist,” made independently for about ten million dollars, won three awards; its lead, Adrien Brody, won Best Actor, and the movie also took home the prizes for Original Score and Cinematography. “A Real Pain,” shot for about three million dollars, brought Kieran Culkin the statuette for Best Supporting Actor. Even the mighty Pixar fell to an independent animated feature, “Flow,” made for about four million dollars by the Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis with what he has called a core crew of “two or three.”
A good night for independent film is not at all unprecedented; indeed, it has been a notable trend of the past decade, as evidenced by three awards out of eight nominations for “Moonlight,” in 2017, and three out of six for “Nomadland,” in 2021. But, in the context of the ceremony itself, these apparent triumphs actually highlight the paradoxes and conflicts that are threatening the economic foundations of independent filmmaking, and which pose a painful conundrum to the producers and other movie people, in Hollywood and around the world, who constitute the Academy’s voting membership. Conan O’Brien, as spontaneous and energetic a host as the ceremony has had in years, emphasized that the broadcast was being watched by a billion people around the world. Yet the only Best Picture nominees this year with box-office returns of imposing scale, “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” (each over seven hundred million dollars to date), went home with only design and technical awards, respectively—recognition for the elements that cost conspicuous money.
In other words, the most important Oscars went to movies that few viewers of the broadcast had seen. But, while the awards steered clear of glitz, the Oscar ceremony is nothing if not glitzy. Like the franchise films and crowd-pleasing I.P. that the Academy largely spurns, the show is a big-budget production so gaudy and overblown, so calculating in its precise doses of emotion and glamour, that it is by now borderline unwatchable. Just as tentpole movies are tested and managed to death, the Oscars have bent themselves into contortions to meet what executives have determined that audiences at home want. The ceremony’s running too long? O.K., speed it up: keep the presenters’ shticks short, cut off acceptance speeches with draconian force, and keep the (usually elderly) winners of honorary Oscars offstage altogether, shunting them to a rump ceremony held out of public view before the New Year. But don’t go so fast that there’s no room to put on a show. (How much fun are talking heads, however famous?) So, make sure to perform the songs and then find excuses for more and more bombastic production numbers. In one such, O’Brien sang emphatically and repeatedly, “I won’t waste time,” and it was a complete waste of time.
Off to bed. I'm tired and irritable, having slept poorly the night before.
Today, I wanted to quite my job, move to Hawaii to paint and write for a bit.
Considering buying a ticket to see a Broadway show currently in previews at the moment - SMASH, which is adapted from the television show of the same name, but is focused on the making of one show - and all the backstage antics that threaten to blow it up. It reminds me a little of Noises Off, or The Play that Can Go Wrong - and I adore those things. Also, it has the music from SMASH the television series, plus a really good cast.
And flirting with a few plays, and show in concert at Lincoln Center, Floyd Collins.
I'm just not sure if my knees can handle sitting that long.
I'm six foot and ninety percent of that height is in my legs - this makes sitting in theaters, which are mainly designed by short people who don't understand what it is like to have zero leg room. Can't remember what the Imperial Theater is like. I've been in ones that I no leg room, and others, in which I about an inch between my knees and the row in front of me.)
I am taking March 10th off - it's less about the Birthday and more about Daylight Savings Time, which occurs on my birthday this year. Considering taking March 21st off, and seeing the musical on the 20th, and getting the X-rays the next day.
I'd do it on March 14 - but that's National Strike Day - and I don't know what people are going to do? I'm not striking - I work for a New York State Agency, and it wouldn't help anyone. I think the people who work for all the Republican Corporations should strike?
New York State has set up a web site and started a marketing campaign to inform Federal Employees who are working and/or living in New York State that they can work for New York instead. The campaign is called: "New York's You're Hired" Campaign". New York has plenty of jobs and is more than willing to hire them, and has great benefits. (New York is hilarious. I love my chosen State.) Trump and the Federal Government hate NY, but they can't shut us down - they have tried pretty much since 1776, but NY is a rich state, with a cosmopolitan and global city that is also the financial capital of the US. And it is bouncy. Terrorists? Pfft. Blackout? Pfft. Hurricanes? Pfft. Floods? Pfft. Pandemic? Pfft. Transit Strike? Pfft. Go New York!
Oh the New Yorker wasn't thrilled with the Oscars and alas, I can't disagree entirely.
The surprises of the night were Anora winning Best Actress, Adrian Brody Best Actor, and Best Song going to El Mal. But overall? It was boring and my attention wandered.
Although Oscar night’s clear victor, Sean Baker’s “Anora,” received awards in five categories, all major—Best Picture, Actress, Directing, Editing, and Original Screenplay—its producers were the biggest winners, because the underlying subject of the evening’s festivities was production. All three of the film’s producers—Baker, Samantha Quan (his partner), and Alex Coco—made acceptance speeches, and they all emphasized that theirs was an independent production (a budget of six million dollars and a crew of about forty, according to Coco) and a labor of love and devotion. In this, it was far from alone. “The Brutalist,” made independently for about ten million dollars, won three awards; its lead, Adrien Brody, won Best Actor, and the movie also took home the prizes for Original Score and Cinematography. “A Real Pain,” shot for about three million dollars, brought Kieran Culkin the statuette for Best Supporting Actor. Even the mighty Pixar fell to an independent animated feature, “Flow,” made for about four million dollars by the Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis with what he has called a core crew of “two or three.”
A good night for independent film is not at all unprecedented; indeed, it has been a notable trend of the past decade, as evidenced by three awards out of eight nominations for “Moonlight,” in 2017, and three out of six for “Nomadland,” in 2021. But, in the context of the ceremony itself, these apparent triumphs actually highlight the paradoxes and conflicts that are threatening the economic foundations of independent filmmaking, and which pose a painful conundrum to the producers and other movie people, in Hollywood and around the world, who constitute the Academy’s voting membership. Conan O’Brien, as spontaneous and energetic a host as the ceremony has had in years, emphasized that the broadcast was being watched by a billion people around the world. Yet the only Best Picture nominees this year with box-office returns of imposing scale, “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” (each over seven hundred million dollars to date), went home with only design and technical awards, respectively—recognition for the elements that cost conspicuous money.
In other words, the most important Oscars went to movies that few viewers of the broadcast had seen. But, while the awards steered clear of glitz, the Oscar ceremony is nothing if not glitzy. Like the franchise films and crowd-pleasing I.P. that the Academy largely spurns, the show is a big-budget production so gaudy and overblown, so calculating in its precise doses of emotion and glamour, that it is by now borderline unwatchable. Just as tentpole movies are tested and managed to death, the Oscars have bent themselves into contortions to meet what executives have determined that audiences at home want. The ceremony’s running too long? O.K., speed it up: keep the presenters’ shticks short, cut off acceptance speeches with draconian force, and keep the (usually elderly) winners of honorary Oscars offstage altogether, shunting them to a rump ceremony held out of public view before the New Year. But don’t go so fast that there’s no room to put on a show. (How much fun are talking heads, however famous?) So, make sure to perform the songs and then find excuses for more and more bombastic production numbers. In one such, O’Brien sang emphatically and repeatedly, “I won’t waste time,” and it was a complete waste of time.
Off to bed. I'm tired and irritable, having slept poorly the night before.
Today, I wanted to quite my job, move to Hawaii to paint and write for a bit.
no subject
At the same time there was this push to get people into theaters yet the biggest productions that you'd go to a theater for (like Dune) weren't rewarded. And when it comes to Wicked the biggest story was how irritated theatergoers were with other theatergoers. So many reasons to stay on one's couch!
no subject
The Oscars often brought more awareness to the smaller independent films that struggle in theaters. But in recent years, many of these films spend maybe two or three months in theaters, and then are right to streaming. While the bigger films last in theaters longer and don't go to streaming or aren't below the cost of $19.99-$30 on streaming until they've left theaters after about six-ten months, sometimes longer.
It's not really geared to the general public or isn't supposed to be? It started out as a private function with no entertainment. And the people choosing the films? Most of them have seen the films at home not in theaters. (They are mailed DVDs of all the films prior to nominations - they studios send them DVDs, which they all watch in their home theaters. I only know this because I had an actress friend, who was a voting member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in SAG, who got them all in the mail and shared them with me one year.) The speech they gave about seeing movies in "theaters" was heavily directed to the people sitting in the audience, not just the television viewing audience - mainly because most of the people who created the films - often see them at home. Ironic, but alas, true.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Also, I saw it before the others - which paled in comparison.
It was made for far less - and is the only one that was made in a country that English isn't their first language. Latvia with French distributors. All the others were either US based, or UK (Britain and Australia).