The Academy Awards are still entertaining but they've lost a bit of their mystery and luster because the modern world has no room for outdated privileges anymore.

I (like many others in this country) watched the Academy Awards this past Sunday (for films released during the 2019 calendar year). I've heard that viewership was at a historic low, and it definitely "feels" like the Academy Awards have lost a bit of their mystery and luster...that things aren't as "reverential" as I used to see them. How does it feel exactly? It's difficult to put into words. Maybe just a little more like Dancing With the Stars than the high-brow Academy Awards of yesteryear.

In 2020 the crowd at the Oscars just seems like a bunch of people who have interesting jobs and get paid a lot as opposed to possessing some kind of "other" quality in which I used to view actors and actresses. People like Jeff Bezos are in the audience. Sure, he's the richest man in the world and owns Amazon, but I had a knee-jerk reaction (at first) that he seemed out of place. And Jeff Bezos (in my opinion) looks like a schlub (like me)...just a balding guy in a suit that started a business out of his garage in Seattle and ended up at the Oscars. That was a wake-up call. I realized how much times have changed.

There aren't any "hosts" anymore for the Oscars. People setting up businesses to deliver packages now have more money than anyone. Jane Fonda has gray hair and basically says, "F*ck it," and she gets arrested a lot. Scarlett Johannson is just the SNL Weekend Update's guy's significant other (I love her many appearances on SNL by the way). Sharon Stone is on Bumble looking for a date because she's lonely and why not? Renee Zelweger is married to an average looking guy and no one cares. Natalie Portman, Chris Evans, Regina King, and Johnny Depp are now just people who do commercials on broadcast t.v., probably to make an extra buck just like Tina Fey for that mayhem commercial. Eminem looked like he walked in from the street and doesn't even know why he's there to sing, but they welcomed him anyway and had a good time because some of his music is fun to listen to. I think this Academy Awards had to set some kind of record for the amount of "F-bombs" that got dropped and censored, because no one cares. I loved Janelle Monae celebrating her queerness. I felt represented...but yeah...things have changed. I love that people in drag now give interviews. Why not? Life is life, and Hollywood stars have knocked pedestals over and are in the mud with the rest of us. No one is above anyone else. Some of these people probably ate at McDonalds before arriving at the Red Carpet.

Then there's the rise of things like Instagram and Facebook where these celebrities post videos of themselves on vacation (or in their yoga pants) has made me see them more as the flawed human beings that we all are. I follow Chris Pratt and he's always posting rambling dialogues on his Instagram without makeup, sweaty from working out, and he just looks like a dude you could run into at the 7-Eleven that would have b.o. Timothee Chalamet posts pictures all the time from his messy bedroom or just hanging out, and he looks like any young person biking to work in the morning. I've seen Ethan Hawke in person at Sundance...honestly he kind of looked homeless as he's very weathered. Tom Holland takes pics of walking his dog Tessa all the time, complains about his workouts, and frequently looks "very real" in his videos when he isn't deliberately trying to be a "thirst trap." It's strange to see these people (who are very famous) just being people. It's strange to see so many fat people in the audience. I feel like I don't even know what fame is anymore, other than some people have it and others don't. I couldn't tell you why.

Overall, I think this is a good thing for everyone, because there are opportunities in the business for tons of people. Now, more than ever, I feel like any successful person can come from anyplace, and a lot of "success" just depends on a person being lucky while also having a solid work ethic. I also don't know if I could point out the qualities that make a star anymore. It used to be physical beauty and the ability to memorize lines. Now I think that there's demands for everything. Have you got big muscles? You can be a star. Are you funny? You can be a star. Are you brown, black, white, yellow? You can be a star. Are you mentally ill (here's looking at you Joaquin Phoenix--and yes, I do think he's mentally ill)? Then yes...you too can be a star. It feels very much like barriers that kept a certain "look" or "style" in the movies have very much crumbled, especially with the Best Picture win of Parasite.

I also didn't expect Parasite to win until it won Best Director. When it captured that, I pronounced to my Oscar party that it just won Best Picture. My heart was with 1917, but I knew that film had lost. "How do you know?" They asked. I responded, "It's simple math really. 1917 hasn't won any of the big awards, and this movie has. Parasite has to be Best Picture. Also, Best Director is very central to a film. It's a rare thing that a movie doesn't get Best Director and goes on to get Best Picture."

Parasite deserved its win. I watched it two hours before the Academy Awards. It's a dark and depressing movie that sits with you after you've watched it. This is a tone that many Asian movies tend to take. Income inequality is awful, people. The lives portrayed in Parasite are horrifying, and I'm glad I don't have a life that's like that.

I watch the Academy Awards every year, but its definitely evolving, and it's becoming more inclusive. I think barriers are coming down everywhere, especially with the rise of social media and the rise of independent streaming studios like Amazon and Netflix. Television is becoming more relevant, and movie theaters less so. I wonder if we'll ever see a YouTube influencer like PewDiePie on the stage in a tracksuit giving out an Academy Award to someone. Oh how times have changed.

Assorted Musings:

1) I wish I'd seen Dwayne Johnson. Was he even there? He's like the biggest star in the world. He's probably too busy marketing Termana Tequila, which is his vehicle to becoming a billionaire. George Clooney stumbled into this thing too, which is probably Dwayne Johnson's inspiration for an intentional business choice to use his star power to sell high quality tequila for a price everyone can afford.

2) I miss the Oscars having a host. Now we get ramblings like the one Maya Rudolph and Kristin Wiig delivered. Those were painful to watch and decidedly not funny.

3) I disagree with Martin Scorsese who said publicly that Marvel movies are not real movies. He's a dinosaur marching off to his tar pit, and it really shows in that The Irishman won nothing of its ten nominations.

4) Luke Perry and Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses) should have been in the Memoriam tribute.

5) Best Animated Feature Film was kind of a joke this year. I thought all the nominees paled in comparison to the ones from previous years. You know it's a "blah" year when the fourth entry in a franchise is the freshest thing you can find to win this category.

6) Laura Dern winning an Academy Award for a Netflix show is a testament to the rising power of streaming services and the growing marginalization of movie theaters.

7) Anything political the stars have to say feels even more tone deaf and out of touch than it ever has before in the past. The world is on fire. Everyone knows it, and every opinion about it is in a bubble now (viewed only by people who already know and support all the things being said). Being lectured to about going vegan from a man that can afford chefs to prepare and cook meals for him feels very odd. All other topics felt very much like an Echo chamber? No one that is conservative watches these award shows. Only liberals do. In many ways, it's just like Facebook in that anyone that was liberal and had conservative people following them got blocked a long time ago. Audiences are completely bifurcated. I've a friend like that who is oblivious to the fact that he's in an Echo chamber, posting anti-Trump stuff. He probably has twenty people (all liberal) who actually see those posts anymore. He doesn't realize that Facebook allows you to unfollow (but remain friends) with people.

8) I'm happy that Asians are winning things now. It's about damned time.

Thus far 1917 is the best movie I've seen out of the 2020 Oscar nominations for Best Picture.

Since American Beauty came out many years ago, I've been a fan of film director Sam Mendes. I also share the opinion of many that Skyfall (a Sam Mendes film) is probably the best one out of the James Bond films. Even if you don't agree with me, I know it's a trophy for Sony Pictures, and it was only recently eclipsed by the Tom Holland Spiderman movies (at the box office). I think Mr. Mendes' secret weapon in filming is he likes to tell intimate stories, and he does so with a delightful and indulgent style that reveals aspects of a thing (the subject matter of the film) that we weren't able to see before, and it just sucks you into the story.

His latest outing on the film stage is 1917, which is a gory and beautiful piece of cinema. 1917 is uncomplicated, in that it's a relatively straight-forward story that shows an exhaustive linear timeline of two soldiers who have a very important task to do. It takes place on and between battlefields that few remember from World War I. I don't even think the names of the soldiers are that important. By watching the film, you become them, running alongside while ever wary from shots directed at you from the dark. By not knowing the main character's name until the very end, it might as well be you, just trying to survive and accomplish a heroic deed before it's too late, and before many lives are lost. The brutality and horror of war is unspared and uncut, which is probably why it got its "R" rating.

Those of you out there who are film buffs might also recognize that 1917 is filmed in one cut. It feels like "one cut" in this instance might be a technical achievement in that the scene unfolds without breaking from beginning to end in one long stream. You are there with the main character through every moment, even his walking, and you can see him respond to situations as needed and be completely overwhelmed by the events that are taking place. This very tight viewpoint takes us down into the trenches and we are now made the pawn in this horrifying game of chess, and see life exactly as it unfolds from the pawn's perspective.

The overall feel of the piece becomes surreal in moments, as horror can shift suddenly to the character becoming aware that he has entered a place of great beauty. There's a hallowness to these scenes, and the absolute chaos of the actual war makes little sense. In one scene, our hero pulls himself from a river, sopping wet and surrounded by falling cherry blossoms from a gorgeous orchard, only to pull himself onto the river bank atop dead bodies of soldiers caught within fallen tree trunks. Exhausted, and beneath these gorgeous trees, he starts crying. And that's when ghostly singing filters through the tree trunks. Someone...in all of this horror...is singing a beautiful song without musical accompaniment. The effect is haunting. You ask yourself, "How can all of this exist within the same place?"

I've seen a few of the Best Picture nominees. The ones I have left are: The Irishman, Ford Vs. Ferrari, Parasite, and Marriage Story. Quentin Tarrantino's film was good, however, among his films I think it ranks as the one I enjoyed the least. I can't see why Once Upon A Time could possibly earn him Best Picture this time around when others he created in prior years were far more deserving and failed at this task. JoJo Rabbit was excellent, however, it didn't cause "shock and awe," which is exactly what 1917 did for me. I do intend to polish up the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars air in February. However, I suspect that I've already seen the Best Picture winner. I guess we'll see.