An Interpretation of the Oscars (or Academy Awards)

It's easy to write-off the “Oscars” like any other awards show: a large group of people with salaries most of us can only hope to see in our lifetime give a presentation whereby they hand out awards based on talent and popularity. And like the socio-politics of any workplace awards ceremony it sometimes feels more the latter than the former. But enough of that.

I've been watching the awards, on-and-off, since the Nineties. I've seen my fair share of questionable segments such as the year when one of the post-apocalyptic suits from “12 Monkeys” was paraded around the presentation for Best Costume. I remember when, one night, the ceremony literally went until 1:30am EST – I think most of the audience had to have a blood transfusion for it going that long.

I'm digressing. The older I get the more I realize what the awards are about – recognition for a very difficult medium. Anyone with a cameraphone or webcam can make a movie on YouTube and post it within moments and garner the attention of their friends, family, and 3^rd grade teacher; some may even make it big and be noticed by media. The truth of the matter is that today's webcam/cameraphones aren't any different than yesterday's Handycams, or the Eighties camcorder phenom (which led to “America's Funniest Home Videos”) or the super 8 films kids made in the Seventies. What the Oscars are about is dedication.

At one point during the ceremony actors were asked what they thought of the movies, their first movie memories, etc. Aside from the fact that “Overboard” is Reese Witherspoon's favorite film (who knew?) I was struck by the honesty of someone asking why anyone would pay money to go into a room, sit around people that they don't know, stare at a giant white screen and engage in an experience with others while making it wholly their own. That is the true magic of cinema.

Sifting through the backlog of memories in my head I feel like Billy Pilgrim sans the whole “when am I at again?” feeling. I remember being at my uncle's house over by Moore HS and watching “Ghostbusters” on videotape for the first time and being absorbed into the story unfolding on the TV screen (and excited because I had never seen a VCR before). I remember watching “Song of the South” and some other movie with Gerald McRaney in it at the J-Town 4 Theater with my grandmother. I miss the afternoons when I would sit and watch 3 movies on the local Fox station on both Saturday and Sunday from 12-6 (I can't tell you how many times I watched “Flash Gordon”). This was my childhood.

I became interested in film, in storytelling in general, during the points in-between. A long time ago a woman named Cynthia intrigued me because she was a professional storyteller (or so I remember). Each year she would sit and weave stories at the Corn Island Storytelling Festival. Out of all the activities in Cub Scouts I remember listening to her stories the most. The craft of storytelling itself is amazing – to paint another's mind with images and sounds and dialogue, to take someone on a journey and entertain them in the process, to make them think or feel. I could only hope to aspire to become a glorified teller of tales.

Directors such as Scorcese, Eastwood, Spielberg, and the like have been asked and have pointed to the first movie they loved or the movie that led them into filmmaking. What led me into it was a year in the early Nineties when the local Boy Scout council held a camporee and offered merit badge classes. That year a local TV cameraman was asked to come to out and be a counselor for Cinematography merit badge (aka the Steven Spielberg merit badge). It was the first time I had ever touched a video camera before and yes, the first time you mess with a video camera you ZOOM a lot. It's just cool.

Within a year I would contact him again and he stated that I was the only person to contact him about the merit badge and that yes, he was a counselor for it. I immediately went to writing a script based off of two things I knew: “Star Trek” and the humor of ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker). In my script the “Star Trek” cast and crew were sent through a time portal that reduced everyone's ages to their teen years. I played Capt. Kirk while Spock, Scotty, McCoy and the rest were often double or triple-played by all my friends. I wrote commercials such as “Vulcan's Eve” (for those “not so logical” moments) and my own “Terminator 3” in which my younger brother was a less-intelligent, more-annoying cyborg from the future. Those were the days.

About a decade ago I met Bruce Campbell at then- Hawley-Cooke booksellers. He was promoting his first book, “If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-movie Actor.” Standing centerstage he stood raised above everyone and gave sharp witticisms about Hollywood: “It's the kind of place where dreams are made, then broken, then built up again to be crushed again.” (I could be wrong but essentially the paraphrasing is correct) When signing my copy of his book he says, “My dad's name is Charles, too,” to which I can't remember my reply except to say that I was starstruck – an actual guy I had seen in movies and TV (“Army of Darkness,” “The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr.”) was sitting in front of me signing my book. For good measure I got him to do a “station announcement” for SPC-TV, the student-run TV station that I was a part of.

A weekend or so ago I met, and took a pictures of, Lance Henriksen. Bishop from “Alien.” Frank Black from the TV series “Millennium.” Lest we not also mention “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Terminator,” “Pumpkinhead,” and a score of other films. I've long-since lost most of my starstruck-dom and have became calmer meeting “celebrities.” What I found fascinating was not necessarily the projects that he's done so much as his attitude about them. Listening to his stories and anecdotes I heard what I sometimes forget in my certain amount of cynicism: that cinema is the crafting of dreams. Nevermind the fact that only 40% of people who graduate in film get a job in it or that getting a film released is sometimes nothing short of a miracle, it's still a process about dreams. And storytelling.

So when I'm sitting on my futon staring at my TV watching Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie walk across the stage I put away that cynicism that this is about a group of people patting each other on the back saying “Good job,” and “maybe next year.” I forget about the “sympathy” Oscars and other trite notions. I find myself giving recognition along with them to those who have one and imagine that maybe, should my life take that course, I'll stand on stage and say, “I dedicate this to all those times I sat in class quoting 'Army of Darkness,' 'Spaceballs,' and 'Grosse Pointe Blank.'” Oh yeah, and to momma, daddy, Jesus, and Elvis, too. And the producers, the cast, the crew... (insert exit music here)