... nonplussed for the Oscars

Normally this is one of the times of the year I get annoying.

Well, more so than usual.

See, the Oscars appeal to both the trivia nut (Quick: Which two movies were nominated for the most Oscars without winning any?) and the pundit in me ("The Best Animated Feature category has become a joke and really should be discontinued post-haste"). But this yeah, here's what I'm feeling.

"Ellipses"

Nuthin'. And it's not because of a bad year of movies: most movies I've seen this year have quite impressed me (and I could write many many words on how this was both a renaissance for science-fiction with Watchmen, Star Trek, and District 9, while also confirming all the things I hate about sci-fi in Avatar). Instead, what's ruining it for me is a change is the Academy voting policy that sets to cheapen all previous winners, and will also dilute this year's field.

I'm speaking of the return of 10 nominees for best picture. In the early days of the award this amount was the default. And you know what? There were a lot of movies nominated that people do not remember like Blossoms in the Dust, One Foot in Heaven, Kitty Foyle - The Natural History of a Woman.

The ostensible reason for this is that bigger budget, popular, crowd pleasing movies were not making it into the best picture field, so the ratings for the telecast were down. The point raised last year was that since The Dark Knight didn't get nominated for best picture, there was something wrong with the system.

Now I've seen most of last year's nominees for best picture, and the only one I didn't see (The Reader) Dawn saw and said she didn't hate as much as she expected. Of those the only one I would take off the list is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I liked much better the first time it was done when it was called This Movie Doesn't Exist. So, let's take that off the list. Does The Dark Knight make it based on that?

No, because here are other movies I saw that I both liked more and thought were better pictures than The Dark Knight, which I'll go on the record now as saying I loved (and yes, there are a few blockbusters in there):

• Doubt
• Gran Torino
• Waltz With Bashir
• The Visitor
• Wall-E

And those are just of the ones I saw. Now, Wall-E didn't get nominated because of the aforementioned segregation of the Aninmated Feature category. I mean, I still haven't seen Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, or a lot of other well received pictures for that year (The Wrestler suffers from the "Proximity to Evan Rachel Wood" demerit).

So, let's add my list there to get the ten. Does this still bring in a big rating? No! Because there's not much in the line whiz bang blockbuster there. And I'm fine with that. Because I like holding the Oscars to a higher level than, say, The Golden Globes.

Let's take a look at the Golden Globes: They give out awards for comedy and drama, so there are at least ten nominees there. And a couple of years ago they nominated 7 (!) pictures in the drama category. So let's take a look, using their logic of "More=quality", at some of movies that they would have considered the best of their years:

• Still Crazy
• The Hangover
  
• The Great Debaters
• Bobby
• Sunshine
• The Producers (musical)
• Phantom of the Opera
• Legally Blonde
• Analyze This
• Patch Adams
• Pret a Porter
• Ragtime

Now, the Oscars have a track record of embarrassing picks (Forrest Gump, Titanic, Crash) but they stand out more because the field, being more selective, is a better representation of what is actually good in that year.

We're all grown ups here. Our team is not going to win the World Series every year. Someone's favorite movie is probably not going to get nominated either even if there are 100 slots open. But that's part of what's great about the Oscars: You should be able to look at a list and say "Wow, I never heard of that movie/never thought of seeing it. I wonder if it's that good" and actually GO AND SEE IT! Then form an opinion. Don't sit there and say "Well, they just nominate arty farty crap and don't care about box office".

Because when you take pride in what you do, that's what you do: You don't cast a wider net in hopes that you can pull some chum in, you cast a better net in hopes of finding something worth celebrating.

(Answer: The Color Purple and The Turning Point)

... choosing action over awareness

So here's the thing.

There are a lot of posts on Facebook and twitter about cancer, autism, the tragedy in Haiti, the civil unrest in Iran. And these are all important things that we should be aware of. Same goes for the AIDS ribbon, Violence Against Women ribbon, and all other campaigns. I have no gripe with these campaigns or the intentions behind them. I come not to busy Caesar.

The problem is that awareness, while admirable, should never be the goal. Awareness is the starting point. It may create a great sense of community to all put something in your status that condition X is really bad, and that people should copy and paste this, and then say that X% of people won't do it. But what does that change? It's an action that cost you nothing and gains nothing other than the appearance of a chain letter.

Let me give you a practical example: During a part of the morning the Sun shines between two office buildings and right into the line of sight of my desk. If I look up, I'm looking directly at the sun. My eye sends a message to my brain that it is in pain and if something is not done soon then it may incur permanent damage.

Now, what should I do?

You say, "Well G, since you're not an idiot in the clinical sense, you would either move your head or your would get up and draw the blinds so to eliminate, or at least control, the situation you find yourself in."

Exactly correct. I would take ACTION. AWARENESS only changes things when it leads to an ACTION.

Now, let's take an actual use case and run it through this algorithm. There was a recent campaign on Facebook where women would change their status to the colour of their bra. There was no announcement to the outside world of this - it was purely viral. This was all in the name of raising breast cancer awareness. So what happened was a lot of statuses like this:

Blankity McBlank black.

and the comments thread of each status had one of the following:

1. Other women saying their colours also - they were "in the know" so to speak.
2. People not getting it and trying to play along with a game they didn't know the rules to - The Mornington Crescent effect.
3. RARELY: Someone explaining what it was about.

So what you had, in effect, were a lot of people saying colours, a lot of curiosity and eventually some enlightenment.

And then....what?

Any time you do something, always ask "And then...what?" Even if it's simple, just ask, think it through. Always ask what you're going to do with the net result of whatever action you've taken. I got an orange juice. And then...what? I drank it. if I didn't drink it, there'd no point in getting the juice. In the case of the Sun and my eye, I can keep doing the same thing every day or try to move my desk or do something so it's not an issue.

Ideally what should have happened the next day would have been this.

Blankity McBlank Yesterday I posted my bra colour for breast cancer awareness. 192,370 women in the US were diagnosed last year. Today I donated the price of that bra to the Cancer Society. You can do the same here.

The awareness raised would have been turned into something tangible: money for research and treatment. Something that would change a life.

Some might (and will, and have) say that I'm very negative, that it was just something people did and it hurt no one. And this is true. But cancer is not something nice. Cancer sucks. Cancer wrecks you, and the treatment can wreck you more. We can wear ribbons and try to put happy faces on it, but we'd be fooling ourselves.

Because it was really hard for me to put on a happy face when my father was getting treatment for his prostate cancer. And it was pretty hard on me when I found out that my uncle had the same. And I've lost two of my most beloved aunts to cancer. And I grew up in a house full of smokers.

So yeah, I got that goin' for me.

Now you're aware of my situation. What ya gonna do about it?

For a start: go here

...Tusk tusking Kings of Leon

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

We music snobs love to do this.

We find a band, a pretty good band that's doing good but sometimes not spectacular music, but they gots alotta heart and passion. We nurture that band, talk about it to friends, pass around copies of albums and complain that the local radio station doesn't play them. Eventually, as

Arlo Gurthrie put it:

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

So eventually said band, which ideally should be Big In England, starts get a push from the label, which then gives the radio station "an incentive" to play the track, and then before you know it they've "crossed over" and are Big Not In England.

And then those fans go to the show, complain about all the people who listen to them now, and turn their backs and give the band the finger when they play The Hit.

I'm here to talk about Kings of Leon.

I was one of the early adopters after reading a review of their first album while in France. The first two albums were almost unapologetic southern rock which earned them a U.S. cult and British superstardom (Europe's obsession with "American" rock is a whole other thang I'll talk about later). Their third album was a little more polished, felt like it had actual overdubs and production values. They opened for Pearl Jam and were "ready".

"Sex on Fire" came out and was a hit. "Use Somebody" was a bigger hit. They got mad airplay. They got new fans, and those old fans went into the spiral described above. I'll admit, the two Kings of Leon shows I've seen since the crossover did annoy me a little with all the Tourists.

But I wasn't there to see the Tourists. I was there to see the band. A band that put out three previous albums and an awesome live EP (Day Old Belgian Blues). A catalogue that most people, however, seem unaware off. I've lost count of the number of people I've talked to who think that the Followill boys started with Only by the Night.

Now I wanna talk about Tusk.

Fleetwood Mac bared all their neuroses on Rumours, an album that was a mix of California pop and Buckingham's guitar rave ups. It sold, at last count, 5 copies for each person who has ever lived in the history of this planet.

How did they follow that up? Tusk.

Tusk is one of the most uncompromising (and expensive) double albums of all time, with little of the pop that made Rumours ubiquitous. Lindsey Buckingham described the process of recording it as finding out what sounded good, taking a note of where all the dials were and then tuning them 180 degrees. The resulting album was called everything under the sun and lost a lot of the fans they won with their previous outing. It's also a remarkably under-rated album that still sounds ahead of its time today.

What came next: Mirage and Tango in the Night, albums that took the sound experiments of Tusk and married to them Rumours. People called it a "return" when both were still miles ahead of what Fleetwood Mac had been doing before. But because of Tusk they sounded safer.

Members of Kings of Leon have mentioned that they want to go "grungier" on their next album, back to their roots. This is a great idea, and I like any band that resists resting on their laurels and coasting (Hi, Weezer. You tried the same with Pinkerton, but seemed to forget that trick as soon as the lucre got filthier). I think that they should go even further: become self indulgent for the simple sake of doing so.

Want to do a 15 minute tom-tom solo? Do it! Do the words "Jazz odyssey" strike a fancy? Explore that avenue. King of Leon Sing the Catalog of Wesley Willis? I'll take seven copies, one for each day of the week.

The point is, cleanse the palate, remind yourself of the rebellion that got you away from your fundamentalist family and into the life of international rock stars. Don't worry about the bad reviews: Just think how much ink was spilled over Metal Machine Music and how Lester Bangs was able to build his career around it. It's a symbiotic relationship, the critic and the experimental album. And then when you come back to your roots, you'll have your acclaim back.

Neil Young famously described the time after "Heart of Gold" as time he spent "headed for the ditch". The result were albums that shed his casual fans and a lot of critics, but which over time created an entire genre of music. I don't think Kings of Leon are going to be the next Neil Young, but the are fans of his work. And you have to think, you have to hope, that they are planning a little side trip right now.

UPDATE

Or, you know, don't give me any reason to hope that this might happen.

... tired of excuses being made for "Good Boys"

When I read my beloved Globe and Mail, I normally skip over Roy MacGregor's This Country column. It's a type of forced patriotism and social class fetishisation that I abhor (add to that the sponsored parody that the Olympic torch relay has become).

Today as I sat down to my Weetabix I saw that his column was on the first page, and it was about how the Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockeying Club was stuck in Calgary and proceeded to rack up an impressive tab at an upscale eatery, and then decided that they didn't need to pay the whole thing. You can go and read it here; I'll wait.

So, there are a few things I really hate about Canada (Feist, Feist, FEIST!). Flat out hate. (FFFFFEEEEEIIIISSSSTTTTTT!!!!!!) One of them is the apotheosis of the hockey player.

I want you to take a look at the tone in the article. MacGregor does everything he can to make the owner of the restaurant appear villainous. Allegations of a sold story, using a tone and quotes to imply that he's telling a "the dog ate my homework, honest. Look, I have soggy ripped paper here" tale. However the restaurateur is behaving in the telling of his tale, it doesn't give MacGregor license to paint him as guilty when he is clearly the victim in this situation.

Secondly, let's talk about the behavior of the players. I've never heard of anyone claiming that shots are bought by the bottle. I've bought bottles and had them at my table for my consumption, but I've never ordered a whole bunch of shots and said "That's about a bottle's worth". It's just not done. No matter how MacGregor tries to paint it, that's not in doubt.

As well, I was not raised in a barn (I clearly remember that part - no barn) and knew that if I sipped from a bottle it was then my bottle because it was full of my backwash. As I grew up I also gained a level of sophistication and also knew that brandy is not cheap - that's one of the reasons for the fancy glasses and the whole ceremony about it. So to take a swig and say "What do you mean I owe you for the bottle," especially when you're crying about buying shots from the bottle, is pretty hypocritical and, well, Jason Stackhouse Stupid.

The article also talks about the culture of silence around this behavior. Another restaurant owner is quoted talking about how this might happen, but they would accept whatever the hockeyists wanted and then shut up, lest they lose the business. I'm married to someone who works in the restaurant industry, and I watch the Food Network. It doesn't take much to know that restaurants work pretty close to the bone, even in the best of times. Alcohol is where they money is made. If I went into your workplace, took a truckload of things and said "Since I'm a World-Famous Blogger, here are some magic beans", my picture would be rightfully circulated as an idiot. If I were a hockeyist, however, this means that you should shut up and take it.

This is where the HULK MAD part of me gets all up in the grill. MacGregor's defense of them is that in small towns they often get preferential treatment, and that they don't earn a lot in those days and now they earn more, but are given more, and haven't adjusted to that yet.

Oh really?

Although I did not grow up in a barn (see above), I did grow up in a small, arguably economically depressed town in a small, arguably economically depressed region, and I didn't even know about Dom Perignon until I moved to Toronto and I found out about this in terms of "Yo, this is ex-peeeeennnn-sive". And despite the fact that I live in a prosperous world-class city I've drank exactly zero units. The amount I also believe I am entitled to as a World-Famous Blogger: less than zero units. Yet somehow these boys, who according to MacGregor are innocents thrown out into a cruel cruel world run by restaurant owners who lick their lips and stroke their Van Dyck beards when their bus breaks down at the crossroads, didn't know what they were doing and confused by this change in their lifestyles.

Of course. Because they're just good boys.

Like Patrick Kane, who tried to stiff a cab driver out of his fair fare, and when the driver tried to get his story out, the first priority of the Canadian sports press was to try to make the driver the victim.

Like Shane Doan, who arguably said some racist things about French Canadians in the middle of a game. There was a great upheaval about this, especially concerning similar things said on a national platform by Don Cherry week after week, things bordering on the things that cost Al Campanis his job. But Doan scored a goal the next day, and the headlines said "Doan silences his critics!" No he didn't. He scored a goal. Completely different things.

Like Chris Simon, who stomped on Jarkko Ruutu's leg with his skate blade, nettef a 30 day suspension for this action. The reaction: Ruutu had it coming with his attitude. Marc Spector said that he has too much respect for Simon as a player to think that he needs that big a suspension.

Like Todd Bertuzzi, who attempted murder on Steve Moore. Bertuzzi was just a good boy, who was defending a teammate. Steve Moore was stupid for doing the same for his team and should have expected this and thanked Bertuzzi for the lesson. In fact, how dare he, the man who cannot walk or play the game he loves or earn a living, initiate legal action action against poor innocent Bertuzzi, a legal action which might have prevented him from playing for the Olympic team in Turin (which did good enough for 7th with him). Who does he think he is, a hockey player? Only in Canada, only in hockey, would there even be a debate.

And people wonder why hockey can't "make it" in the states. It's because they see this. They see a league full of boys in states of arrested development, spoilt rotten, making up their own rules as they go along.

We had a name for them: Bullies. We had a name for what they did: Bullying. It's when you take something from someone and then expect special treatment based on your own code that means something to you and you alone, but everyone must respect it.

And like most bullying cases, this one is pretty cut and dried.