Deservedly, no doubt. I watched The Departed on the day of my last exam, bleary eyed from lack of sleep and roommate internecine, and the movie was remarkable enough to hold my incredibly fatigued mind's attention. (When I left the theater, a haze of images were floating in and out of my vision, mixing themselves liberally with reality; my sphincter had decided to loosen itself a tad; and the bus-stop, a mile and a half from where I stood, seemed an unattainable goal. When I finally got home, an hour and fifty-five minutes later, I simultaneously needed to empty my bowels and drop down dead. How I managed both is a secret I will divulge only upon threat of torture; know, however, that I slept the sleep of the deeply drugged that night, waking only about a day later. )
So definitely a movie to think about, and applaud. So let us pause for a moment to do exactly that.
(Pause pause pause pause)
(Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause)
Okay, now that the applause has stopped, what of his achievement? Should we talk about it? Should we talk about how he has been ignored by the Academy these past five hundred and thirty one years? Should we assert that all his movies deserved to win and five hundred and thirty two years later, only one of them has? Should we posit that now, having won for the first time(which, as grandmothers will no doubt tell you, is the hardest), he will continue to win until his grandchildren are dead?
Nah. And I'll tell you why. Because it would be hackneyed to make those observations. Everyone is talking about Marty and his statuette right now, all across the internet. To add to that would be less than boring.
Instead, I will tell you a little story.
I don't have TV. I can't afford the costs, of course, but more importantly, I can't afford the time. I have taken three serious graduate courses this semester, and none of them have anything even remotely to do with TV. Plus, I don't feel like watching any of the TV shows that are on nowadays; all they do is make me feel drowsy and inattentive.
I did want to watch the Oscars, though. I always do. Not because I care particularly about who's winning or losing, or because I like the innuendo, or even because of the cleavage density per square inch. No, I like to watch the Oscars because of Wikipedia.
Last year, when Paul Haggis won Best Screenplay for Crash, I was the first (only?) person to change his Wikipedia entry from "Academy-Award nominated" to "Academy Award winning". This year, I hoped to pull off a similar coup; eating my day's complement of butter with chips, with my guitar in the background waiting to be picked up, and Metallica playing 'Turn the Page'; this year I wanted to be the first one to compliment Helen Mirren, flatter Forest Whitaker, and most importantly, pay my respects to Martin Scorsese. And all this with the capable but ultimately flawed Mozilla Firefox for the Macintosh, with multiple "tabs" open, each one editing a separate Wikipedia entry.
But I was thwarted at every turn. Every time I went back to the edit history, I found out that my addition to the page was a tad too late, and hence worthless. It began with Alan Arkin (who(m) I've been a fan of ever since The Rocketeer and Glengarry Glen Ross), and as the day (night) progressed I missed Jennifer Hudson, Pan's Labyrinth, Michael Arndt and Happy Feet (though in my defense, the latter I never expected to win; I had the Wikipedia page for Cars open instead). I gave up after these defeats.
The problem, of course, was at least partially because I didn't have TV. With TV the broadcast is instantaneous, or maybe staggered only by a few seconds; when it comes to the internet, however, there is an extra lag that accounts for some poor guy like me hunched over a computer terminal, diet Coke in a coaster by his left hand, anxiously typing out the latest winner at 100 words per minute or less. What chance has he against the speed of light, or the speed of a Wikipedia junkie?
None, as it turned out. And so it was that butter ran out of chips, my guitar stayed where it was throughout the night, unplayed and abandoned,and Metallica had played 'Turn the Page' fifty-one-and-a-half times. A Pyrrhic defeat.
All this only goes to show that if you're serious about paying homage (how many in the audience know that 'homage' is pronounced 'omaaage'? I thought so.) to prospective first time Oscar winners by announcing their victories on Wikipedia, you should definitely have access to a TV with a decent cable connection.
Or maybe you should get on one of those sites that provide (il)legal access to the Oscar broadcast via the internet.
Or maybe you should find a better way to pay homage.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should find a more compelling pastime.
No comments:
Post a Comment