Billy Elliot - the film that led me back to the Oscars

If you didn't read my last piece, you should. This is a sequel of sorts. I last left you with a story of how despite discovering a new favorite film of all time back in 1996, Mike Leigh's "Secrets & Lies," a film that was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Screenplay, Director, Actress and Supporting Actress, I didn't even watch the Oscars. Since 1998 I've only missed the big show twice. In 1992 because of rehearsal for a play and in 1997 for reasons of...well...inner happiness, perhaps? Other obsessions? Why don't you go ahead and read the last piece now if you haven't.

The year I didn't watch the Oscars

Now...looking again at the Academy's new changes...I will say this. I am mostly bummed about them relegating certain awards to commercial breaks only to be summarized later in the show. On a personal level I have always loved the "below the line" categories. I often have more fun looking at those categories than Best Picture.

My favorite part of the show is the announcement of the awards. It's not even the speeches, to be honest. It's that moment when I am holding my breath right before the winner is announced--when the weight of all those months of analysis and prognosticating comes to fruition in mere seconds.

And now, to some extent, we won't have that. Or at least I won't. We will now discover the winners in real time on Twitter, and it will be a big letdown. More than likely. Will that keep me from watching in the future? Look...if it is no longer fulfilling for me, it ends. That simple.

I think I will leave my thoughts on the Popular Film category to another time. At least until we know a bit more.

So...back to late 2000. I was living in Omaha, NE.

I went from a post college dream job playing Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" and Jinx in "Forever Plaid" in rep, to making the rounds at both the local community theatres and the gay bars while working at Bishop Business Equipment as a dispatcher.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks" was replaced with "Did you turn the copier off and back on first?"

I was getting absolutely nowhere in my quest to get to New York City and winter was coming. Literally. I remember quite vividly the night the local news warned me that if I remained outside for more than 10 minutes, I would be subjected to frost bite. Considering I had a Camaro at the time, and was afraid of driving in snow, I decided to walk to the nearby luxurious Long John Silver's for dinner. Along the way I fell in a snow drift and was convinced the end was near. That snow drift was a metaphor for my life.

I don't recall when I first heard about "Billy Elliot," but I do remember it coming to the Dundee Theater, an incredible movie house that plays independent cinema, that more than likely got "Billy Elliot" the day it was available.

I can't recall that first viewing to be honest. I think I was that numb. I do however remember the second time I went to see it, and the third, and so on. I don't think I had ever seen a movie more than twice in theatres since "Bugsy" back in 1991/92. I managed to see "Billy Elliot" at least 5 times before it eventually left the Dundee.

After seeing it a second time, and every viewing afterward I started to feel hope again. Watching this miner's kid become a ballet dancer night after night. Seeing his family eventually support him. Watching him dance these INSANE dances full of emotion. Seeing him bond with his friend Michael in a way that I had never come close to experiencing as a kid. These things recharged me.



I bought the Press Kit, posters, the soundtrack, all sorts of memorabilia of the film. I knew it would leave the theater eventually, and I wanted a piece of it to stay with me.

I also needed to find people who had seen it, people I could talk to about it. Which led me to an Oscar website called Oscarwatch. Oscarwatch was the most fun. It was a place where people could talk about the Oscars, the movies that might be nominated, the ones we thought should be nominated and sometimes trash the ones we deemed unworthy. It was the only place I had ever been (albeit in cyberspace) where I had found like-minded obsessives!

I was definitely the Oscarwatch champion for "Billy Elliot." Most people were talking about "Traffic" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or debating whether or not Julia Roberts could act much less be good enough to beat Ellen Burstyn for "Requiem for a Dream," but I was all about "Billy Elliot."

OK...I occasionally jumped into the Ellen v/s Julia battle as well as I actually thought Julia was great.

If you didn't know...Oscarwatch eventually became Awards Daily. In 2010 I went from being a commenter to being a contributor, which I still am. It was a dream come true.

Back to Billy....

I do remember some critics and other Oscarwatchers having issues with the film. Kenneth Turan criticized it for being "stage managed," and having watched it again last night, I can see where he is coming from. To me, however, it isn't stage managed, but it is very choreographed. Director Stephen Daldry knows what he wants us to feel and he gets us there.

In the end, however, we are actually denied sentimentality. When Billy (Jamie Bell) and his teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson (the superb Julie Walters) reunite after Billy gets his audition results for the Royal Ballet School, before they both go on their separate ways, we don't even get a pat on the back, much less an embrace between the two. After watching a fantasy of sorts for almost 2 hours, Daldry gives us a real dose of reality. And it still leaves me wanting.

Of course, the film belongs to Jamie Bell. I so wanted him to be nominated for an Oscar, and even though he wasn't, I was glad he won the BAFTA and that Russell Crowe mentioned him in his Oscar speech for Best Actor.

I definitely remember watching the 2001 Oscars, because I did so in New York City, where I lived.

Yes...I believe that when my heart opened up thanks to Daldry's film, the universe was able to snap me up and out of my depression right into the Big Apple. By January 2nd, 2001 I had moved to New York City to play Silvius in "As You Like It."

That very first day in NYC, guess what I did? I went to the movies. I saw "Traffic" that first night, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" the next...and so on. And so began a trend of seeing as many (now all) Oscar nominated films as possible.

I've been hooked on Oscar ever since.

How do you get people to watch the Oscars? It's not a Popular Film award. It's investment in the Oscar story. That's why people watched the "Titanic" year. That's why they watched the year Ellen hosted because everything leading up the show was part of her show.

Will people be invested enough to watch this upcoming February? More will be revealed....