2009 - the year I began covering the Oscars: loving Where the Wild Things Are, dissing Avatar, and predicting The Hurt Locker
Yesterday, Sasha Stone, the founder of Awards Daily tweeted:
Anyone who wants to write about the evolution of Oscar punditry (like anyone ever would) you might note that nowadays advocacy supersedes predicting. It used to be frowned upon but now it's mainly the norm.
To which I responded:
This is a subject that fascinates me but don’t think I quite have enough knowledge to write about. Things really have changed.
To which received:
Crickets.
I haven't been around as long as Sasha. Well...I have been around, but I was a lurker/commenter on Awards Daily for about 8 years before I began to write about the Oscars myself...but she's right. And I am right. Things are very, very different than they were.
I've watched so many new pundits appear in the age of Twitter, and I honestly don't know how I feel about it sometimes. Whether or not they actually know what they are talking about or are even good writers, their tweets gain many, many likes, retweets and replies. Not crickets.
Interestingly, my summer series on my Best Films Rewatch seems to engage people in a way that my most recent Oscar posts have not. If stats and hits are to be believed. Is it Oscar oversaturation? Am I not edgy enough? Should I start predicting and discussing films I haven't seen? I don't think so....
Today, we are going to continue to merge Oscar with my Best Films Rewatch. Instead of writing about the evolution of Oscar punditry, I am going to write about the year I started covering the Oscars, which happens to be the year of "Where the Wild Things Are," which is the latest film on my Best Films Rewatch list.
I've told this story many times, although I'm not sure how much of it I have shared here on Awards Wiz. In 2009, I was living in New York City and wanting very much to delve deeper into the Academy Awards. I had seen "The Hurt Locker" that summer on the same day as "500 Days of Summer," and at the end of the year I had seen "Avatar" when I went home to Mississippi to visit my parents.
I can remember crying during "Avatar," its stunning 3D visuals moving me with its beauty, particularly when Sigourney Weaver's character died.
My website was less than a year old, and I was in the midst of my first 27 Days of Oscar when I realized I needed to watch Avatar again. With the Oscars coming closer I realized that I had been duped in a way. Many people were still predicting "Avatar" to win, but I knew that "The Hurt Locker" was going to take Best Picture, particularly after the second viewing.
I published my "Avatar Redux" piece on February 26th. To this day only 64 people have read it, but soon after publishing it, drunk, I decided to send it to Sasha. I can't remember if I asked her then if I could write for Awards Daily or not (and I am NOT rereading that drunken email), but she offered that I could cover the NYC film festivals for Awards Daily suggesting it would also be an opportunity to see more films. It was. To this day I am still grateful for Sasha. Although I may not have the readership as some of these newer pundits (if Twitter interaction is to be believed) I certainly have more than 64 readers per post. And the following year is still my favorite Oscars year (more on that soon with "Black Swan!") to date.
If you want to read that piece, here you go:
Avatar: redux
As I mentioned earlier, things were so different in 2009. I was so different then. Even though I didn't like "Avatar," I didn't take an opportunity to use "The Hurt Locker" as a weapon against it - something I would try to avoid the following year with "The King's Speech" but fail the year of "The Artist." Instead, I latched on to a film I felt was better than every other film that year, "Where the Wild Things Are."
I don't remember reading many reviews before seeing the film, and I had never read the book. At least I don't remember reading it. Looking at metacritic, some critics go it the way I did--Lisa Schwarzbaum, Peter Travers and Manohla Dargis, to name a few. Others, to say the least, did not. Same with imdb reviewers. Where I found the film magical, many others found it boring, inappropriate for children (WHAT?!) and bordering on childhood wrecking sacrilege.
The story of Max penetrated my psyche. I think I was feeling very much a fish out of water at the time. In 2009 I had tried very hard to give up using (drugs, y'all) and for the most part had been successful. I had been acting again...films and theater...but something wasn't quite right. When Max yelled, "let the wild rumpus start" I felt my heart open up toward a joy that I merely dreamed of.
everyone, the person (or monster) he loved the most is the one to pull away the hardest.
It is a very painful thing to watch. At the end of the film, as Max is leaving, Carol, furious at Max, sees the heart of sticks with a C in the middle that Max has left for him, reminiscent of the one Carol had earlier made for Max. Then...Carol, fighting against his very nature, rushes down to the beach to say goodbye.
That moment still makes me weep. The first time I saw it, I was crying so violently the couple in front of me turned to ask if I was ok. I wasn't ok.
Last night, watching it again, I wanted so much for Carol to jump in the water or for Max to get out of the boat...for them to embrace, but instead they howl. Carol, the monster and Max the regular old human. It is perhaps my favorite scene in all of cinema.
There are so many things that make "Where the Wild Things Are" one of my top films of all time. The screenplay is absolute poetry. There is a simplicity to the dialogue and the plot that perfectly speaks to the inner child in all of us. The film examines what it means to pretend to be something we are not, and how, sometimes, that allows us to find out who we truly are.
I've left so many people I've loved over the years, just as Max does at the end of the film, sometimes to return to them, but most often not. I feel that there is another leaving in store for me in the near future. It's been 9 years since I saw this film...and I'm only now beginning to understand the effect it has on me...then and today.