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Film Tirade: Milk, Proposition 8, and the ride to another lame Oscar night...
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Please Penn don't hurt em'
Film Tirade: Need further proof that politics, wherever it raises its square, wart-covered head, screws up the entertainment industry? I just spent last weekend catching up on a bunch of documentaries I missed on the new Xbox 360/Netflix instant movie partnership, (thank you Xbox, my Documentary fetish can now continue in full swing) and I caught Chris Bell's outstanding steroid flick Bigger, Faster, Stronger. (see. this. movie.)
Part of the Doc is about Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger the body builder/action movie hero, and Mr. Schwarzenegger the politician. Schwarzenegger the weight lifter had a 57 inch chest and made 100 million dollar movies whenever he stepped in front of the camera. Arnie the politician just had all of his championship body-building photographs taken down at the Santa Monica Gold's Gym, where he got his early career boost, much to the chagrin of the guys that still lift weights there. They all considered Schwarzenegger a personal hero. Now they think of the guy as a traitor. You can thank politics for that.
Politics and the entertainment industry have now entered into the crazy-love phase of their relationship. The entertainment industry (film critics, miserable suffering bastards they are, are also included) courts politics, stalks politics, pounds politics like shots of cheap tequila, and thinks that we, the uneducated masses, need their inspired teaching filtered down to us via movie-form so that we can understand that there is suffering, and unfairness, and every shade of bullsh!t in this world, and We The People don't have to take it.
Dude. I learned those lessons the first three hours my cheap Reebok hightops hit the halls of High School. Life's a bitch. People get screwed out of almost everything everyday. My father told me life's unfair, deal with it. I'm dealing with it.
What does this have to do with Gus Van Sant's Milk? Well Milk came along at exactly the right moment in the American political scene. The people of California passed Proposition 8, essentially banning gay marriage in that State. Milk is the flick that is going to, right or wrong, capitalize on that fact. In my humble all-knowing, all-seeing movie estimation, Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant are going to ride the mighty Milk wave straight into Oscar night, where we'll get all manner of people in multi-thousand-dollar dress uniforms reminding us of the great injustices of Prop 8. Mark my words, the 2009 Academy Awards will be Propped, and Propped, and Propped again.
Do I believe Gus Van Sant planned all this when he went and made Milk? No way. Gus is a gay filmmaker, and he can make any movie he wants to make. Milk is obviously a labor of love for Gus. I think Gus accidentally stumbled into a rallying point for the rest of the issue hounds to get behind and howl behind. I think that perfect storm of politics and entertainment collided, some might say it was fate, I don't believe in that, but the collision certainly will generate some energy. Or to put it in the lingo of the movie media, some "Buzz".
Milk has generated "Buzz". It's only made 2 million dollars Nation Wide, but it's running at 93% Fresh at Rottentomatoes, and that's certifiably "fresh" by their standards. Critics are in love with Sean Penn again. I think he looks a little I Am Sam in this thing, but that's just me. I've enjoyed Sean as an actor. (AWESOME in Mystic River and The Assassination of Richard Nixon) As he is as a human being I think he's a wise-ass with no sense of humor. But still I try to leave my preconceptions about an actor at the theater door when I go see a movie. I'm sure Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson might be jerks but I still see everything that they're in. Especially Mel Gibson.
Does that mean I'll be seeing Milk this winter? Especially with all the smart buzz it's generating? No. No offense, and I'm being extremely honest here so give me a little bit of latitude, but I wasn't interested in Brokeback Mountain, I'm not interested in Milk and I feel that it's unfair that to be taken seriously as a movie columnist I have to see and enjoy everything, (another thing that's unfair... I'm dealing with it) especially the radical, important "issue" films that I'm always raging on about here. I'm a straight guy, I'm not perfect. I rarely if ever go see Kate Hudson movies, what are the odds that a movie about the first openly gay politician is going to interest someone like myself? Extremely little. I'm sure it's a great movie, and if you dig it more power to you, and if it deserves Academy Awards then so be it - I'm fine with that.
But the Awards, as a television event, are suffering in ratings. (last year lowest ratings ever) And the reason why they're suffering in ratings is not because of the war, or the recession, or whoever is running the country. They are suffering because Hollywood has gotten hell-fire PREACHY these last few years and honest, middle-class, movie lovers like myself don't like having millionaires preach the gospel to us for four straight hours on a Sunday night. I don't watch Paul and Jan Crouch on the Trinity Broadcast Network during my afternoons, what are the odds I want to be preached to during an awards ceremony celebrating movies? Zip. Zero. Negatory.
I don't care, entertain me.
I know that sounds remedial and base and selfish, but it's true. Want better ratings? Promote movies we've all seen and enjoyed. Throw a shout out to the artistes if you need to, but prop up the Oscar podium with big movies not more Propositions. The last time we, (gay, straight, dudes. broads, talls, shorts, webbed and unwebbed) all watched the Oscars together it was because of Pete Jackson's Return of the King. Everybody loves The Dark Knight. It's the second highest grossing movie OF ALL TIME. Make sure it gets in the show, someway, somehow. Make sure the night is about movies, not politics, and we'll all watch your show again. Even the political junkies, I promise.
I'm sure Milk is a great film, or at least I hope it is so that what little faith I have that the critical associations are unbiased concerning politics can remain hanging by its single frayed thread. If it deserves to be there it deserves to be there. But there are a lot of regular people like me, who love movies, who believe that Hollywood's politics are taking a big steaming dump into our entertainment punchbowl. We don't want Oscar Night 2009 to be turned into Prop Night 2009. Hope that doesn't p!ss anyone off, (oh it will...) but like my father told me. Life's unfair. Deal with it.
Tirade Concluded.
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