Thankfully there will probably be no more Weiner’s wiener pictures released (even though the nightmares remain), and after a leader of the anti-circumcision movement published a blatantly anti-Semitic comic book (called Foreskin Man), the ballot initiative to ban childhood circumcision Santa Monica was dropped. The San Francisco initiative still remains on the ballot.

Sadly the movement against circumcision is not over and Academy Award winning actor Russell Crow, has decided to join in on the “fun” with an anti-circumcision rant on twitter.

A Crowe follower told the Australian celebrity that he was expecting a son soon, and asked for his input on whether he should have his baby circumcised.

Crowe responded harshly, saying that “circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature? Is it real that GOD requires a donation of foreskin?”

The actor added that “babies are perfect” when they are born. Crowe later said that he “will always stand for the perfection of babies, I will always believe in God, not man’s interpretation of what God requires.”

Mr. Crowe should know that throwing a telephone at an employee of the Mercer Hotel is barbaric and stupid, circumcision is not, it is part of a both Jewish and Muslim religious practice.

Many Jewish practices do originate from Rabbinical interpretation of what is written in the Torah, such as not eating milk with mean (Rabbis got that from the Torah saying “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk)

On the other hand circumcision is directly commanded in the Torah, the five books of Moses. The command for circumcision is in the appears  in  Bereisheet (the Jewish name for the book of Genesis)

You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, as a sign of the covenant between Me and you. At the age of eight days, you shall circumcise every male child born to you throughout the generations …Bereisheet 17:11-1

This is not as Mr. Crowe says an  interpretation of what God wants, but according to Jews and Muslims it is a direct order right there in ink and parchment. From what I understand from my Christian friends,  they too believe that the Torah is the word of God (but order’s such as circumcision apply only to Jews in the “old Testament”)

Where there is interpretation is why God ordered Jews to circumcise their son’s at eight-days-old. One interpretation given by the Rabbis is that males are  not born perfect on purpose.  The reason for circumcision is to give fathers (the parent who is ordered to conduct the ritual) is to allow them to have a greater participation in the act of creation.  We believe that God has a huge role, and the mother’s obviously have the role of developing the baby within her body, through the act of Brit Milah (the circumcision ceremony) dad has the role of adding the final touch, making the boy perfect.

Several followers responded to Crowe’s remarks, using scientific and hygienic explanations to justify circumcision. The actor rebuffed them, saying that “‘human’ science has caused too much damage,” calling the follower “a moron”. In response to claims that circumcision is hygienic the actor scoffed, saying “why don’t you sew up your ass then?”

Maybe Mr. Crow should sew up his fingers before his stupidity continues. It is an established scientific fact that circumcision helps prevent HIV.

The actor pointed out what he believes to be a double standard, saying it is “interesting that female circumcision is widely considered barbaric, while male circumcision is so widely accepted.”

Perhaps it has been a long time since Mr. Crowe saw a woman naked (which may be why he is so cranky), so allow me to refresh his memory….females parts are different than male ones.

The female circumcision argument is often presented by the anti-circumcision forces. Female genital cutting, a controversial practice that usually involves the removal of the clitoris, is illegal in the United States.  Female circumcision  is designed to take away sexual pleasure from women, male circumcision does not reduce sensation (you will have to trust me on that one).

Per the explanation I gave above, according to the Rabbis, it is males who are born imperfect, not females so there is no need for female circumcision. As far as permanent injuries during the practice, thankfully they are very very few and far between (although after my Bris at eight days old, I could not walk for over a year, the same thing happened with my son).

Crowe clarified that he is not anti-Semitic, saying he loves his Jewish friends with their “apples and the honey and the funny little hats”. However, he implored them to stop “cutting” their babies.

He may not be anti-Semitic but he is certainly insensitive. The reader is half expecting him to say  ”some of his best friends wear those funny little hats.”

Crowe’s argument is reminiscent of the Hellenist philosophy behind the Chanukah story.  The Hellenists “worshiped” the human form, it was the essence of perfection. The story of the Maccabees begins with the  Greeks banning circumcision, which led to a bloody revolt. The Romans banned circumcision after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.

Whether they were meant to be anti-Jewish or not, both the SF Ballot initiative and Crowe’s rant,  are fundamentally anti-Semitic,  as is the Dutch ban on kosher slaughter and the movements across Europe to ban kosher meat.

Although I would argue that their intent is more nefarious, even if you give them the benefit of the doubt and believe their intent to be Humanist or Hellenistic the end result is banning key Jewish rituals and practice.

As for Crowe, if he is truly not anti-Semitic,  he should do research on the issue and understand, prior to starting to rant against it. Based on his tweets he either a hater, too stupid to think before he tweets, or simply jealous because he cannot be circumcised.  Because his recent twitter behavior has proven he cannot be circumcised because there is no end to that prick!

Furthermore, by manipulating us to take Flynt’s side we then start to excuse his despicable behavior and look at the way in which he coarsens our culture and exploits, objectifies, and denigrates women (two goals Leftist Hollywood has been pushing for decades) as patriotic pursuits of liberty — as opposed to what they really are.

Below is a look at the demonic heart of the real Larry Flynt, an anti-human nihilist with a cruel streak that takes your breath away just as it did the person interviewing him:

Sarah Palin is the dumbest thing. But I made a fortune off of her. [He made a porn film called Nailin' Palin, based on her],” he said.

Then, he went after Trig, saying, “She did a disservice to every woman in America. She knew from the first month of pregnancy that kid was going to be Down’s Syndrome. It’s brain dead. A virtual vegetable.”

Flynt followed up on the Wonkette theme — that Palin is supposedly exploiting Trig by having him with her at some political events — by saying, “She carries it to all these different political events against abortion, she did it just because she didn’t want to say she’d had an abortion. How long is it going to live? Another 12, 15 years? Doesn’t even know it’s in this world.”

“So what kind of compassionate conservative is she? I don’t think anybody will want her near the White House,” Flynt added.

The London Independent reporter, Johann Hair, was left speechless:  “I am so thrown by the unpleasantness of all this I don’t even interject.”

Full article is here.

Of all people, should Larry Flynt really be denigrating the dignity of those who don’t meet some arbitrary standard of physical perfection? 

Anyway, we now know why Wonkette was able to accomplish this. While most of their advertisers fled in droves, one kindred spirit reached out to help another. How sweet.

I may go to Hell, but I’ll have better living quarters than these two.

The nominees:

Dances With Wolves: I love it, but then my Indian name is Struggles with White Guilt.

Ghost: I distinctly remember thinking, really? Ghost? Really?! I don’t dislike it, but it wasn’t exactly Oscar bait. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Awakenings: Mmmmmm, L Dopa. Yummy, delicious L Dopa.

Goodfellas: Scorsese’s career seemed to build to this and plateau with this. I love some early Scorsese, and I love some later Scorsese. But this is the centerpiece of his career, in my opinion.

The Godfather Part III: Okay. Really? Really?!!! There were about a hundred gangster movies released in 1990, so it was practically unavoidable that two of them would wind up Best Picture Nominees, but seriously?

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED

Dances With Wolves: Probably my dad’s favorite movie. He dragged me to it, I didn’t want to see it. And while I don’t think it should have won, it’s not the blow-out that some people make it out to be. It’s a legitimately great movie, as noted by Nolte.

Total Recall: Get. Your ass. To Mars.

Miller’s Crossing: Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.

Goodfellas: From the first line (“The f*%k is that?”), Scorsese’s masterpiece sucks you in and never lets go. Scorsese tells the story of Three Decades of Life in the Mafia through the eyes of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), an Irish-Sicilian kid who longs to be a part of the Lucchese crime family. His Sicilian blood allows him access to the family and he becomes an earner, but his Irish heritage prevents him from ever advancing to any sort of official leadership in the organization. As such, he provides a perspective on the mafia that we didn’t get in “The Godfather” saga. He’s a blue collar guy, working for the man, whereas Michael Corleone was the man.

Surrounding Henry are thugs and assassins, many of whom we get to know on an intimate basis. You just knew watching this movie that no one involved would probably ever be this good again. Lorraine Bracco. Ray Liotta. Frank Vincent. But Joe Pesci’s performance is an example of the perfect actor finding the perfect role. His Tommy is menacing and hilarious, his dialogue endlessly quotable. Of course there are exchanges and lines that became instantly famous, like, “Whaddaya mean I’m funny?” and “No more shines, Billy,” but the movie is also jam-packed with throwaway, inconsequential lines that add authenticity and never fail to make me laugh.

• “Maybe I should let him drive.”
• “Trying to make me think what the fu*% I did here.”
• “Can you believe that? A Jew broad, prejudiced against Italians.”
• “No, you ain’t alright, Spider, you got a lot of f*%in’ problems.”

As a rule, I try not to get too pretentious, but this is exquisite filmmaking. Scorsese invented neither the freeze frame, nor the extended tracking shot, nor the use of pop songs in place of a score, but he uses all of these tools and techniques to the greatest effect possible.

The violence is always brutal, often horrifying, and more-than-occasionally funny. Most of all, it’s casual. It just happens. Guys are smiling one minute and getting whacked the next. Sometimes without cause. Notice, though, that Henry is rarely in on the violence. He’s often at least mildly horrified by it. He pistol whips a guy for attempting to put the moves on his wife, but this act of violence is portrayed as darkly chivalrous: he was protecting someone. During  a jaunt to Florida, Henry and Jimmy (Robert De Niro) hassle a guy who owes the mob money. Henry definitely participates, but it’s an act of violence that’s on the record — Henry serves time for it. But the rest of the time, he’s an observer. At the end of the movie, we learn that his narration has been courtroom testimony — Henry has wisely painted himself as less involved than those who are on trial. The revelation gives new meaning to earlier narration, for example, his description of Jimmy:

He liked to steal. He actually liked it. He was the kind of guy who rooted for bad guys in the movies.

For all we know, Henry also liked to steal and also rooted for bad guys in the movies, but the circumstances of his narration dictate a need to make everyone else out to be the bad guy.

The key scene in the movie, for me, is the one where Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry go to Tommy’s mom’s house in the middle of the night to borrow a shovel so they can bury a nearly dead gangster wrapped in tablecloths in the trunk of Henry’s car. Over a sumptuous meal, the boys engage in a casual, friendly conversation with Tommy’s mom. They discuss her paintings (noting that one of her subjects looks like the guy in the trunk), Tommy asks to borrow a knife (“Well. Bring it back,” his mom responds), and the mom notices that Henry isn’t very talkative.

“I’m…just listening,” he stammers.

The mom goes on to relate a story about a quiet guy who never talks. When asked why, the guy responds, “What am I going to say? That my wife two-times me?” To which his wife responds, “Shut up, you’re always talking.” Tommy reveals that in Italian, it sounds better, and that the guy’s true nature is lost in the translation, explaining, “He’s content to be a jerk.”

This perfectly describes Henry, as he’s seen on the stand at the end of the movie, casually identifying Jimmy and Paulie (Paul Sorvino) for the prosecution.

It’s my favorite movie. It never fails to entertain or suck me in. Others in my personal top five or ten change places depending on my mood. But “Goodfellas” leapt to the top of the list around 1991, and has stayed there. So it goes without saying that I believe it should have beaten “Dances With Wolves.”

“I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar trophy and I am glad she will marry her baby’s father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not “slam” or “attack” Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country.”

I agree that the use of the terms “attack” and “slam” go too far — which is why I was careful to use “criticize” in the headline. I also agree he didn’t criticize her or anyone else for being a single mother. I didn’t criticize either the Governor or Medved for that. My issue was their contention that Portman was somehow promoting single motherhood. Furthermore, I also think singling the Governor out as most outlets have done is unfair, which is why I included Michael Medved in both the story and the headline. However, if you read the transcript, Huckabee does make it sound as though Portman “boasted” about her situation, which I found unfair and which lays the rest of his statement at her feet, at least in part. This was the focus of my criticism.

***END UPDATE

In the past and with great relish I’ve criticized Natalie Portman on this site for her political musings, and I couldn’t agree more that glamorizing single motherhood and downplaying the necessity of the father is as destructive to our society as anything. Dan Quayle was absolutely right in criticizing “Murphy Brown” and after all the snotty left-wing snarking quieted, I think we can all agree that history acquitted Quayle — even Murphy Brown herself admitted the former Vice President was correct. Natalie Portman, however, is not Murphy Brown. She never glamorized single motherhood. If anything, she glamorized motherhood, and that’s all the difference in the world.

And so, as much as I respect and personally admire Michael Medved and Governor Mike Huckabee, it’s impossible for me to defend either against the criticism they’re facing. Their misguided attack on Ms. Portman wasn’t only unfair, it played right into the hands of almost every negative stereotype of the social, religious conservative there is.

—–

For starters, unlike Murphy Brown, Portman is not a fictional character. She’s a living, breathing human being who has just been unfairly singled out and held up for a public shaming. Secondly, she’s been with the father of her child for two years now and the two of them are currently engaged and appear to be very much in love. Only in its narrowest meaning does the term “single mother” even apply here. In the real world, Portman is not on her own and the child does and will have a father in its life. 

Finally, nothing Portman said or did during Sunday’s Academy Awards’ telecast resembles Monday’s exchange between Huckabee and Medved on Medved’s nationally syndicated radio show:

MEDVED: [T]here was one moment where a very brilliant and admirable actress named Natalie Portman won Best Actress, and she won for a movie which I loathed called Black Swan. But in any event, she got up, she was very visibly pregnant, and it’s really it’s a problem because she’s about seven months pregnant, it’s her first pregnancy, and she and the baby’s father aren’t married, and before two billion people, Natalie Portman says, ‘Oh I want to thank my love and he’s given me the most wonderful gift.’ He didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.

HUCKABEE: You know Michael, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’ But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

Medved’s factually wrong here.  Again, Portman’s engaged to be married, so she already has the promise of the wedding ring and she also didn’t thank her “love” for a “wonderful gift,” she thanked the man she’s going to marry for giving her the “most important role of my life” — meaning motherhood.  She also thanked her parents for giving her life. As a social conservative, I personally beamed upon hearing this, upon hearing a lovely young woman enjoying one of the very peak’s of her success and using the opportunity to give life a shout-out. What Portman did Sunday night was very un-Hollywood. In front of the biggest audience she’ll likely ever face, she let the world know that motherhood is her most important role, her highest priority.

For some reason, Medved says he found that message “problematic.” But in what way? Again, Portman was in no way glamorizing single motherhood, if she was glamorizing anything it was motherhood. We need more of this, and when the joyless, totalitarian feminists attacked Portman the following day, the fact that all the right people felt so threatened only confirms the beauty of Portman’s message.

Governor Huckabee’s piling on is equally wrong-headed. I’m no theologian, I just know what I know, but the public shaming and singling out of a woman for getting pregnant out of wedlock feels the opposite of Christian to me. Again, Portman is not Murphy Brown, she’s a living, breathing human being with feelings and making the very best out of her situation – and doing so, in my opinion, with dignity and class. Furthermore, this shaming is based on something that isn’t true. Huckabee accuses Portman of boasting over her situation when all she boasted over was the importance of motherhood in her life.

Medved and Huckabee’s underlying message here is correct but within the context of Ms. Portman it falls on its face. And I get that you can be on live radio and the conversation can get ahead of you. I’ve been in that situation and can think of more than a few things I’d like to take back — which is what I would do if I were Huckabee and Medved, I would apologize.

Just a couple weeks ago Michael Medved publicly criticized Rush Limbaugh and others for, in his opinion, going too far with their criticizing of Obama, claiming it hurt the movement. Well, I think Monday both he and the Governor did our movement no favors. Many of Natalie Portman’s political opinions deserve criticism and even mockery, but she’s a human being in a very human and imperfect situation that she’s handling as well as anyone could. From what I’ve seen, she’s going to be a terrific mother and deserves only support and best wishes from those of us who believe in life and that motherhood is the most important role in life.

The world needs more Natalie Portmans in Hollywood, and I regret not saying so at the time. I’ve been awfully quick to criticize her and it shouldn’t have taken this situation to give credit where its due.

We are all so imperfect.

The Hosts:  You had to feel for Anne Hathaway, who was obviously trying her best to get through this third-grade Olympics presentation with a modicum of class.  Her cutesy charm wore as the night went on, and no number of outfit switches could disguise her discomfort with her position onstage.  Hathaway, more than anyone else in the building, knew she didn’t belong up there.  Too bad she didn’t figure that out before accepting the host role. 

As the evening dragged itself on like a wounded baby seal clubbed repeatedly with Keira Knightley’s jaw, James Franco became more and more fascinating.  Was he high?  Was he drunk?  Was this another piece of odd performance art by an elitist “artiste” who bears a stronger resemblance to Ashton Kutcher than to a real actor?  

Leaning back on his heels, his beady eyes darting side to side with creepy glee, Franco bore a striking resemblance to Muammar Qaddafi.  To be fair, he wasn’t given decent material to work with, but he butchered the material he did have to work with.  Each time the camera trained on him, his oddly self-satisfied smirk plastered across his mug, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically.  Eventually he had to break character, didn’t he?  

Or was he the character?  Is Franco that colorless, that arrogant, that weird?  The mystery continues. 

The Awards:  No shocks here.  But let me make a reasonable suggestion: let those who specialize in a particular area of the industry vote on that category in the Oscars.  Nowhere was the ignorance of the Hollywood crowd more evident than in the music categories.  There were three tremendous scores this year: How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, and The King’s Speech.  Perhaps the best of them was Dragon.  The worst – and this wasn’t even close – was The Social Network.  Naturally, The Social Network won.  Asinine doesn’t begin to describe this win.  Travesty comes closer.  As bad as Sofia Coppola in Godfather III is almost there. 

The same held true in the Best Song category.  None of the nominees were anything spectacular – the prettiest song was clearly “I See The Light” from Tangled (also the most classily performed).  But for Randy Newman to win nomination after nomination for the same song year after year is inane.  Nobody understands a word he sings – Newman is to singing as Jeff Bridges was to talking in True Grit – and his plodding 4/4 compositions are more Barney than Irving Berlin. 

Then there’s the ongoing ridiculousness of the technical awards being decided by people who have no idea what cinematography is, let alone what good cinematography is.  Last night, they got it right with Inception.  But film editing goes to The Social Network?  Remember a few years back when Return of the King wasn’t even nominated for best cinematography?

 Instead of this hodgepodge of Hollywood insiders deciding what constitutes good film editing, let’s ask film editors.  Let’s ask composers and musicians which is the best score.  Why would anyone care what Cameron Diaz thinks of musical composition? 

The Structure:  What the hell was going on here? 

Disjointed.  Confusing.  Bizarre.  It was the South Park theory of Family Guy at work. 

The manatees picked Gone With The Wind, followed by Tom Hanks, followed by Best Cinematography.  Huh?  

The best moment of the evening lasted approximately 3 minutes, when the orchestra began playing a medley of greatest movie hits.  It made me nostalgic for a time when great scores were appreciated (must … kill … Trent … Reznor …) and a time when there was still glamour to the Academy Awards.  

The most suspenseful moment of the evening came when Hathaway and Franco introduced Jeff Bridges.  Would Franco and Bridges be able to pretend they had never before met in their pot dealer’s basement?  Unfortunately, the camera cut away from Franco too soon for us to learn the truth.

The worst moment of the evening was the interminable announcement of the nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress.  This new tradition is the worst of Hollywood.  The rest of the world thinks Tinseltown is self-aggrandizing, obnoxious, and self-centered.  Having one actor talk about how incredible other actors are justifies those beliefs.  Just mention the actors nominated and move on – nobody cares what Sandra Bullock thinks of Jesse Eisenberg’s acting, or what Jeff Bridges thinks of Michelle Williams (if he thinks anything).  

Obama:  So President Obama showed up at the Oscars to announce that his favorite movie song was “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca, which is about as believable as him saying he likes capitalism.  By showing up during this broadcast, Obama basically labeled himself a political version of the Salahis – or of Anthony Michael Hall from every 1980s movie where he shows up to bug the cool kids. 

Here was my abbreviated reaction (yes, I did shout this out loud): 

“Get the hell off my TV.  Get the hell off my TV.  Get the hell of my TV.  You have nothing to do with the Oscars.  Nothing to do with any of the nominated movies.  Why can’t you leave me the hell alone?!  Final Four.  Super Bowl.  World Series.  Little Miss Nevada Contest.  It doesn’t seem to matter.  I know your parents didn’t love you as a child, and now you need unending streams of attention, but you have nothing to do with this event, and you’re invading my living room … again.  So get the hell off my TV!!!” 

By the way, President Bush never appeared on the Oscars.  Couldn’t be that Hollywood adores Obama and hates Bush, could it?

Conclusion:  The problem with the Oscars lately is that they’re boring.  It’s that simple.  Partially, that’s because of the overexposure of Hollywood stars and starlets – years ago, people only glimpsed actors out of character during the telecast.  Partially, it’s because the hosts have been awful; partially because in past years (not this one, thankfully) the movies have been mediocre; partially because Hollywood takes itself so seriously (the backlash against Ricky Gervais, anyone?).   

In large part, at least, it’s because Hollywood doesn’t get the rest of America.  Not everyone in TV land likes lesbian jokes, James Franco in a ball gown, James Franco making sexual jokes about movie titles, or obnoxious mentions of unions.  Hollywood entertainment and celebrations of it should be classic Americana, not insular ceremonies designed to alienate the vast unwashed.  Until Hollywood gets that – and gets some decent producers to put these things together – the Oscars are going to remain a snooze punctuated by occasional moments of entertainment, rather than vice versa.

The problems with last night’s show were legion, and much of the media agrees that what we might’ve witnessed could well rate as the worst  Oscar telecast ever.  My memory isn’t good enough to say that for sure, but that the show was dreadful isn’t in dispute and while a post-mortem isn’t what this write-up is about, I will say that James Franco’s arrogant, sleepy, cooler-than-thou attitude that forced the usually delightful Anne Hathaway to over-compensate with the cute factor, was only half the problem. The other half was in the producing (and writing). This was a horribly produced three-plus hours. But rather than complain further, I’m going to offer constructive suggestions. No one cares what I think. I get that. But I’m going to offer them anyway.

1. The Host

The host is crucial, not only to the success of the overall show but also to the ratings. The cynical grab of Franco and Hathaway in an effort to attract younger voters was beyond stupid. Neither is a standalone box office draw, neither has captured America’s imagination, and both are inter-changeable as a dozen or so other actors in that same age range. I hate to tell Hollywood this, but (and the ratings back me up) young people aren’t stupid. They really don’t want to “watch people their own age” host the Oscars. Like the rest of us, they want to watch a good show. Upon hearing Franco and Hathaway were hosting this year, even the squealiest of teenagers was likely as confused  by that choice as the rest of us.

There’s two ways to go with a host.

 You make the Oscar telecast the host’s show —  The Billy Crystal Show or the The Johnny Carson Show or The Whoever Show. Whoever the host is, the Oscars should become their program. When Johnny Carson or Crystal hosted, our affection for them was one of the main reasons we tuned in and kept watching. We couldn’t wait for them to return to the podium between awards and quip on what just happened or extend a running joke. Now it seems as though we have a host for the first half hour before the program dissolves into a structure-less hodgepodge of famous faces and various awards. It actually feels more and more out of place when the hosts appear closer to the end of the show.  

Or…

Find an Ed Sullivan to take us through the evening. Instead of a bad variety show with truly awful comedy writing and musical numbers, have a steady, warm, familiar, charismatic figure glide us through the evening. Ed Sullivan wasn’t an entertainer and yet Americans young and old tuned in because Americans young and old liked Ed. Rather than demand our host perform (and risk the ever-increasing likelihood of a flop), have him or her serve as our guide for the night, walking us through the various awards. Morgan Freeman would be perfect for this. America loves him, he’s classy,  has a wry sense of humor, a warm presence, and who wouldn’t want to spend a few hours with Morgan Freeman?

How about TCM’s Robert Osbourne? Or Ellen Degeneres?

2. Structure

A well-structured show that actually feels like it’s building towards something will solve a ton of problems. There might well be some sort of structure in place now, but we in the audience can’t sense or feel it. As it stands now, the show feels episodic, messy and plodding. There’s no rhyme or reason as to how the three-plus hours unfold: a big award! an obscure award! a song! Celine Dion sings for the dead! What the hell is that about? Structure is KEY to making a successful film or television show, to telling any kind of story, and someone needs to grab all the disparate elements involved in the yearly Oscar giveaway and turn them into a cohesive whole that gives the audience a sense of momentum.

3. Pacing

For years, and for good reason, people complained about the length of the telecast and the pacing. But from where I sit, the remedy applied to this problem has been exactly the wrong one. Speeches are truncated, songs are shortened, and the show feels hurried in too many places. Cutting and trimming is not an instant cure for pacing. “Gone With the Wind” is nearly four hours long but if you cut an hour out of it, you’ll hurt the pacing because the story is so well-told and perfectly — here comes that word again — structured.

The Academy Awards don’t lag because the show is too long, the Academy Awards lag because the show sucks. Stop worrying about time and worry more about compartmentalizing each segment of the telecast and making them better. Last night no one spoke longer than Kirk Douglas and yet no one was bored. We couldn’t get enough of him. He was charming and funny and we adore the guy. I would’ve also liked to have seen a longer and more dignified tribute to Lena Horne. With an eye towards allowing the audience to make an emotional connection to Ms. Horne, to miss her and appreciate her and feel the loss of this great talent — as opposed to rushing Halle Berry off the stage — the moment could’ve been a truly memorable one.

Shorter isn’t better. Better produced segments is better. Making each segment an individual gem is better. Lena Horne deserved a gem.  

4. Suspense

I’m not sure what the Academy can do about this but the biggest bummer, the biggest drag on the show every year, is a numbing lack of suspense. Who wins should not be a foregone conclusion, and this is a problem that only feels like it’s getting worse.  What we have now are favorites always emerging from the abundance of awards shows that come before the Oscars and an avalanche of media prognosticators in the entertainment press who know a lot of people in Hollywood and can get the lay of the land as far as who’s voting for whom.

Sitting through a poorly paced, poorly structured show awaiting the inevitable is never fun.

Maybe people just need to shut up about who they’re voting for?

5. Watch the Super Bowl

Year after year, ratings for the Super Bowl embarrass the Academy Awards. Over 100 million people tune in to watch a game involving teams other than their own. There’s a reason for this. Watch and figure out what that reason is. Structure and suspense certainly helps, but there’s more to it than that. People love football. People love the movies. The Academy Awards shouldn’t get less than half the viewership the Super Bowl does. Crack that code.

6. Create Traditions

What the Oscars need most are a few traditions, four or five can’t-miss annual events that we can count on during each and every telecast. The Super Bowl is brilliant at this, from their opening reading of the Declaration of Independence to the big deal made out of the half-time show to the awarding of the Lombardi Trophy. Create some beloved traditions and your audience will come.

Perhaps…

7. More Magic Through the Use of Nostalgia

Hollywood needs to honor its past more. Right now that happens during the program in spots, but again the structure is such a mess and the pace so hurried that these moments always feel shoehorned and  perfunctory — like the Academy can’t wait to get them out of the way. Slow down! Take us back, move us, make us cry, remind us why we fell in love with the movies in the first place. Last night, one of the most memorable moments was simply hearing the “Star Wars” theme. But again, by the time I turned my head to watch it was over.

Furthermore, and no one wants to admit this, it’s just a fact that today’s movie stars are lacking in all the qualities that made The Greats great. There’s a reason a 95 year-old Kirk Douglas can steal the show and the sight of a digital Bob Hope puts a smile on our face James Franco never could. The Academy can make up for the lack of star-power today and our lack of affection for most of today’s stars by mining the rich legacy of their past.

8. A Smart Producer

The Oscars need a producer familiar with taking nothing and creating a story or at least a crafting some sort of narrative with some kind of momentum. Reality show producer Mark Burnett would be an excellent choice. His entire career has been built around crafting narratives and a sense of momentum from practically nothing. I appreciate that you want “A SHOW!” so let Burnett be the Executive Producer who crafts the structure and let him hire the Bob Fosse needed to bring the pizazz.

9. Bring Back Billy Crystal

Just do it already.

10. Start with Class and Stop Thinking Outside the Box

Go back and watch the best reviewed and most beloved telecasts.

Rinse, wash, repeat…

The world hasn’t changed all that much. You have.

1. Best Picture: “The King’s Speech.”

2. Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech.”

3. Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan.”

4. Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter.”

5. Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter.”

6. Directing: Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech.”

7. Foreign Language Film: “In a Better World,” Denmark.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network.”

9. Original Screenplay: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech.”

10. Animated Feature Film: “Toy Story 3.”

11. Art Direction: “Alice in Wonderland.”

12. Cinematography: “Inception.”

13. Sound Mixing: “Inception.”

14. Sound Editing: “Inception.”

15. Original Score: “The Social Network,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

16. Original Song: “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3,” Randy Newman.

17. Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland.”

18. Documentary Feature: “Inside Job.”

19. Documentary (short subject): “Strangers No More.”

20. Film Editing: “The Social Network.”

21. Makeup: “The Wolfman.”

22. Animated Short Film: “The Lost Thing.”

23. Live Action Short Film: “God of Love.”

24. Visual Effects: “Inception.”

CNN.com points out that even Javier Bardem, up for best actor, doesn’t count, because he’s “European.”

Making him white – and of course, a monster.

Anyway, CNN frets that the diversity among movie audiences isn’t reflected in the awards, something I’d like to agree with, since I hate Hollywood.

I mean, Tinseltown is a place where if you’re in the military, you’re a psycho; if you’re from a square state, you bully gays; and if you wear a suit, you’re racist. The only person who retains any nobility in a Hollywood film these days are animated and transgendered.

So it’s fun to see the film industry get a dose of their own medicine.

Except, it’s wrong.

To me, it’s racist to assume a diverse audience expects “diverse” movies. Meaning, blacks can’t enjoy The Social Network because everyone is white; and Greeks will hate Black Swan, because the ballerinas aren’t hairy.

Fact is, all people want the same thing – good movies that tell great stories – color be damned.

Here’s my solution: get a diversity expert to assign the roles. Why couldn’t Mark Zuckerberg be played by a Korean lesbian? Frankly, The Kings Speech would have been far more entertaining if said King was played by that big gal from Precious.

Even better, I would have enjoyed Black Swan more if Kevin James was the swan, not Ms. Portman. As a pudgy white guy, It would make me feel better about myself.

And that’s the point. As a nation now perceived as a collection of diverse groups who share no common ideals – making sure everyone feels good about themselves ensures no one will be happy.

Which is why Sex and the City 2 got robbed.

Tonight:

Governor Huckabee!

Brooke Goldstein!

Joe Devito!

Hilary Swank, winner of two Academy Awards, is no stranger to good scripts and “Conviction” has a great one. Betty Anne is a young mother with a reckless brother named Kenny (Sam Rockwell) who is constantly in trouble and getting arrested by the local police. After a while, he starts joking about all of his arrests, jokes that will come back to haunt him in the years to come.

The police eventually arrest Kenny on a murder charge for a crime that took place a few years earlier. This charge is no laughing matter and Kenny is soon sentenced to life in prison. Betty Anne, who knows that her brother is a fool but no murderer, believes that Kenny is innocent and decides to fight for his vindication as his attorney.

However, when she makes this decision, she isn’t a lawyer. Actually, she’s not even a high school graduate yet.

“Conviction” follows her journey as she goes to college and earns a law degree while working as a waitress. She also befriends a classmate named Abra (Minnie Driver) and as they about the law, they try to apply it to Kenny’s case. Inspired by a true story, the title “Conviction” could refer to the ruling that put Kenny in jail but also to Betty Anne’s strongly-held belief that her brother was wrongly imprisoned.

“Conviction” is more than a typical courtroom drama. It tells the story of a family. Betty Anne and Kenny are two close siblings who have always tried to protect each other. When they were younger, they often broke into other people’s houses to escape their own disappointing home life. In flashbacks, the movie shows them getting caught by the police and this sets a pattern where Kenny helps Betty Anne escape punishment and Betty Anne protects Kenny. It’s no surprise that such dedication didn’t dissipate when the two entered adulthood.

When Kenny goes to prison for murder, Betty Anne has her own family but she risks alienating them as she focuses on saving her brother. The dedicated sister may be a hero to him but she isn’t immune from making her own mistakes. As she fights for her brother’s freedom, her relationship with her own family suffers.  

Unlike other law films where idealistic lawyers fight against large corporations, this movie features more interesting villains. One is a politician who doesn’t want to admit that she’s wrong. It’s ultimately not enough for Betty Anne to uncover  evidence that vindicates her brother. She also has to fight a young District Attorney named Martha Coakley, who doesn’t want to let Kenny get out of prison despite the evidence. (If Coakley’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she unsuccessfully ran against Scott Brown earlier this year to replace Ted Kennedy in the United States Senate.) For the record, Coakley has said that she liked the movie but that it was “inaccurate.”

With its focus on the importance of family and a story unafraid to criticize law enforcement officials and politician, this is a movie that shouldn’t be missed and likely won’t be forgotten during awards season.

The vast majority of people making movies soon find themselves happy to get any semblance of a decent shot in the can for editing later — never mind genius imagery, they’re just happy to have escaped with their lives. That genuine entertainment, never mind genuine art, is created in this environment is nothing short of a miracle. It takes a person of singular mind and indefatigable intensity, someone who refuses to accept defeat or take “no” or “impossible” for an answer, sometimes dozens of times every day for months on end.

In the documentary Superior Firepower: The Making of ‘Aliens’ (found on some DVD versions of the movie), one can see various members of the crew gingerly handling the subject of James Cameron’s reputation as a hard, unforgiving taskmaster on his sets.“He didn’t know any other way to work,” said Jenette Goldstein, who played Vasquez in Aliens. “He wasn’t going to waste anyone’s time or money. And he expected no one to waste his.” Prompted to explain the crew’s animosity towards Cameron, Sigourney Weaver deadpanned that, “They were big Ridley fans.” The late Stan Winston, special effects and creature creator extraordinaire, called Cameron’s Aliens set a “tough, demanding atmosphere,” before musing that the director was “cursed with a vision.” In the thick of war, little heed is paid to how genteelly orders are given — why would filmmaking be any different?

On Aliens, the war started with the budget — not enough money, lots of scenes and effects Cameron was banking on needed to be cut, the production would have to film in England to save money, and on and on. Then the war went to Britain: the English demanded that half of the actors in the picture be hired locally, the crew assigned to Cameron was surly and slow and insulting (nicknaming Cameron “Grizzly Adams”), the English director of photography lit the film too bright and refused to adhere to Cameron’s wish for a spooky visual palette bathed in shadows. Unionized and set in their ways, they “simply couldn’t care less about the film they were working on,” said Cameron later. “The Pinewood crew were lazy, insolent, and arrogant. There were a few bright lights amongst the younger art department people, but for the most part, we despised them and they despised us.”

Topping this all off was the cast. Lead actress Sigourney Weaver showed up weeks late due to delays with the shooting on her previous movie role, and when she arrived she had her own catastrophically wrong-headed view of her character (“She wanted to die in the film,” Cameron recalls, one expects with a shudder, “she wanted to not use guns, and she wanted to make love to the alien.”) The man hired for the pivotal role of Hicks, James Remar, fought with Cameron over the nuances of his performance almost to the point of coming to blows (some accounts report that Remar’s manager shoved Cameron at one point).

All of these problems, right out of the gate, with the majority of the cast and crew allayed against the director in various ways. Millions of dollars bleeding away as the shooting schedule commenced, the studio calling in daily to crack the whip, effects not working as advertised, getting banned from key locations at the last minute, and everyone working slow as molasses and seemingly not caring one way or the other if your career goes down in flames because of the failure of this ill-advised sequel to a classic.

That was the pressure cooker James Cameron lived in throughout the shooting of Aliens. “It was really Jim and I against the world on Aliens,” remembers producer (and, at the time, Cameron’s wife) Gale Anne Hurd. I’ll never forget it. It’s like we were alone in the world, knowing it would be a brilliant movie and not being able to convince anybody else.” When I think of this part of Cameron’s career, I ask myself how well I would have held up in the same circumstance. One man’s jerk is another man’s victorious general, as past directors like John Ford well knew.

Cameron’s view is that it’s a director’s duty to do whatever necessary to keep a cast and crew moving toward the completion of the vision of the director as outlined in the script. You don’t win every battle for sure, but you better darn well win the war. “The difference between people who make good movies and people who make mediocre movies,” says Cameron, “is that the people who make good movies are perfectionists. What separates the men from the boys is an attention to detail and a passion for the work. Personally I don’t see that as a negative thing.”

A large part of this mentality was forged in the early years of his career, when he was burning the midnight oil making demo films like Xenogenesis and getting three hours of sleep a night while slaving away on Roger Corman pictures with enormous responsibilities and little help or budget. “There wasn’t time for doubt,” Cameron recalls about his brutal salad days working in the trenches. “We didn’t know the twenty-seven reasons why we shouldn’t be able to do exactly what we were in the process of doing. There was this blissful ignorance about the process of how films are really made that allowed us to do some pretty darn extraordinary stuff given the time and budget restraints. You come out of it with this feeling like you can do anything.”

This was the iron will and focus that James Cameron brought to bear on the production of Aliens. It was a case of an unstoppable force being applied to an immovable object. In the case of Aliens, the immovable object budged.

Thus it was that, when the director of photography refused to adhere to the lighting requests of “Grizzly Adams,” he was fired, despite the near-mutiny of the crew. When actor James Remar dug in his heels against Cameron’s directing, he too was fired, and Michael Biehn flown in to take over the role on a weekend’s notice. Problems abounded, and as each appeared Cameron did his best to use each lemon to make a bit of lemonade.

When told he only had enough money for half of the hypersleep pods needed to hold the marines, he ingeniously used a large, strategically placed mirror to double their number and get the shot. When ordered by the studio to drastically cut the film’s running time, he made the heartbreaking decision (given how much time and effort had been involved) to slice off an entire reel of footage showing Newt’s family on the colony. Every day saw new disasters and tragedies, things that didn’t turn out right or hopes for perfect shots that didn’t pan out, and Cameron weathered each one with true grit. “I came home from the set of Aliens every day with hands so filthy that my housekeeper wouldn’t let me sit down at the dinner table,” he said.

Sigourney Weaver’s batty alien-lovemaking script changes were all fought tooth-and-nail by Cameron, but he placated her by letting her change other elements of the script. “She had ideas about certain lines of dialogue and certain things that she thought she could say,” he explains. “We went through the entire script with her and did a sort of dialogue polish.” In this way he was able to slowly but surely begin hammering her into the gun-toting, no nonsense heroine that would ultimately get her nominated for her first Oscar.

Weaver’s righteous stand against guns was more problematic. “It’s actually hard for me morally to justify being in a film with so many guns,” she agonized in a contemporary interview during the shoot. “I just find it very upsetting. And that’s the biggest problem for me. Reading the script, I had no idea how martial the atmosphere would be and how much emphasis that it would have. I give money to anti-gun legislation!” (When later asked the same question, actor Bill Paxton’s answer was refreshing: “I love shooting the guns. That’s like the best part of my job.”)

“I think Jim Cameron is actually anti-gun too, in his own way.” Sigourney Weaver mused. The truth is revealed in Rebecca Keegan’s book on Cameron, The Futurist:

When Cameron wants to blow off some steam, he drives into the desert and shoots, usually aiming at soda cans and watermelons, targets he considers “especially visual, ballistically speaking.” Cameron doesn’t collect guns, but he does know how to use them. He trained with a champion shooter for two years and at his peak could shoot a “double tap” — two rounds hitting the target in under fifteen hundredths of a second. “I believe in gun control for everyone but me,” he says. So for Cameron, all the futuristic weaponry in Aliens was good fun. But for Weaver, who had donated money to antigun causes, the notion of spending two-thirds of a movie with her hand on some kind of trigger was upsetting.

So how to convince a recalcitrant blueblood actress that guns are “good fun”? Cameron solved the problem by appealing to a part of her she didn’t know she had. “To accustom Weaver to weapons,” Keegan continued in her book, “Cameron took her out behind the stage and gave her a .45 Thompson submachine gun. Weaver fired off a fifty-round magazine from the hip. ‘I knew from her grin that she was at least temporarily converted,’ Cameron says, ‘Another liberal bites the dust.’” Weaver’s Academy Award nomination would be the first acting nod to a full-on sci-fi film. “It’s funny how this town forgets that these genres built this town,” actor Bill Paxton says, but it’s safe to say that the recognition given the field on this occasion was due to Cameron’s insistence that his leading lady play her role the way he wanted.

And to the insistence that his crew shoot the film the way he knew it needed to be shot. At the conclusion of the Aliens shoot, with the entire gang of Englishmen glowering at him, Cameron gave his goodbye speech: “This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught by many problems. But the one thing that kept me going, through it all, was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood and never come back, and that you sorry bastards would still be here.” Now that’s not up to, say, George Patton’s standards, but in the dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood movie production, it attains a kind of poetry. Filmmaking is war, and despite the weight of the world set against him all throughout the process, the young bearded director that no one had trusted or respected was going home a victor, his reputation as an unforgiving jerk the price he paid for willing into existence his artistic vision. Whether the price was worth the victory is for each of you to decide on your own.

Previous posts in the series “James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, and Aliens”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Read James Cameron: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker by Marc Shapiro. A more irreverent and gossipy volume than the Keegan book spotlighted last week, but still interesting as an adjunct because a lot of the quotes and stories don’t overlap. Shapiro also focuses far more on the reputation of Cameron as a harsh and cruel taskmaster on his sets.