The Empty Theater

Before I run through tired Academy Awards takes, can we take a minute to appreciate how much I nailed my predictions for Best Picture nominees back in October? Please do, because I don’t have much to pat myself on the back for. Going 8/10, only missing on Elvis and All Quiet on the Western Front is something worth riding home about in my world. Unfortunately, my prognostication is never going get me invited to St. Patrick’s Day parties or any celebratory occasions for that matter, so I’m still trying to improve.

I had the benefit of watching Everything Everywhere All at Once in April 2022 when the hype was minimal, only existing for super-online cinephiles on Letterboxd. I enjoyed it fine enough, thinking it was a clear execution of a unique vision, and it juggled multiple genres in fun ways. I’m preaching to the choir with this take, but I found the ending and resolution to many of its lofty ideas to be quite toothless. Oftentimes, the Daniels want to be taken seriously by dipping their toes into philosophy and cultural heritage but frequently resort to juvenile humor. When the film was rolling, at some point in the middle, Everything Everywhere kept me engaged and entertained.

Then, as awards season arrived and lasted far too long per usual, the film from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert got hit with a bad wave of discourse. This is typical for Best Picture favorites, but this case was more extreme than usual. This indie with multiverses and Epic Bacon sensibilities from filmmakers who are more inspired by YouTube than cinema vaulting to the highest of prestigious recognition was jarring, and it’s something I’m still grappling with. I imagine there were plenty of cinephiles who at least mildly enjoyed EEAAO and immediately turned on it when it received 11 Oscar nominations. I’d be lying if I didn’t have remnants of that instinct. With each passing day heading up to the Oscars ceremony, I gradually tempered my approval and enthusiasm for the film. I wonder if, deep down, I wanted to be a true hater of the film and the rabid fanbase it conceived. I purposefully have not revisited it yet, hoping to watch it with a fresh mind and removed any influence created from discourse. This is not a flattering take to reveal, but I can’t help but be underwhelmed by the Oscars awarding a film like EEAAO that is so commonly sophomoric. This is not to say that the Academy is the ultimate arbiter of great cinema, or that they consistently honor the best work, but I like to hold them to a standard of classiness. Academy voters responding favorably to something riddled with meme language doesn’t sit right with me. This runs counterintuitive to the philosophy of “let people enjoy things!” that permeates artistic criticism today. I sound like an old crank even though I’m the age of the target audience of Everything Everywhere, but this is the kind of thinking that I live with every day.

Other than the dominance of Everything Everywhere, I’m not sure what else there is to say. While it was dry and quite dull at times, I appreciate that the ceremony carried itself with pride and credibility, unlike the mockery that was put on display (Will Smith-innocent. If anything, it’s a shame he didn’t slap the decision-maker behind cutting categories from the broadcast). I say this by pretending like the infomercials for Disney and Warner Bros didn’t happen on the telecast. While watching, I was contemplating why I’m routinely invested in this annual ceremony that is regularly predictable, but I chose not to torture myself over it. Enjoy montages and clips of movies, I told myself. The shutout of The Fabelmans, my favorite of 2022, is a foresight into the Oscar success of Killers of the Flower Moon next year. The collective reverence for our master filmmakers like Spielberg and Scorsese has waned. There is obviously enough respect for these pictures to receive nominations, but late-period reflections seen in The Irishman and The Fabelmans are no longer a slam dunk for unanimous Oscar sweeps. Unfathomably, that’s reserved for Everything Everywhere All At Once.

There has always been a block in the road for my passion and interest in baseball. I should love it, and I routinely get excited about it around February. Since the NBA and NHL are not really my thing, the big show should take the mantle for my sports consumption once football ends. But I never get there with the MLB. Without question, the most passion for baseball that ever sparks with me is in February and March at the dawn of the new season. Credit where credit is due, Olivia Craighead on the For Love of the Game episode of Blank Check could not have hit it out of the park harder than with this point. Suddenly, on May 8th, 2022, the day when the podcast dropped, I was forever enlightened by this passage from Craighead.

“I like the idea of baseball… What I love is going to a baseball game and drinking a beer with my pals. Watching a baseball game on TV…no, not for me.”

This notion on its surface is not that groundbreaking. Just the simple framing of liking the idea of baseball rings is so true to me. The sport evokes a sense of nature and the American frontier, similar to that of watching a classic western. Perfect match for me! It has value as both background noise and a source for deep concentration. What is wrong with this equation? Well, as much as I am a sucker for statistics, analytics have undoubtedly ruined the game. Sheer fun has been stripped away over the last 10 years (some would say even longer). This is the genius of Moneyball: in a cruel twist of irony, Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta struck gold, but it would ultimately lead to the demise of the sport’s romanticism. As an aside, baseball truthers: the film is telling its own isolated story. It’s not the film’s job to be a textbook. As I was saying, the moment when computers could process sabermetrics, the sport’s beauty was forever compromised.

In fairness, if I force myself to take personal inventory and avert from excuses, baseball solely becomes just a great concept due to my lack of appreciation of the moment. I’m always thinking about how great something is going to be days, weeks, months, and years down the line. When the time comes, though, the moment never fulfills me, and then I’m off hyping myself up about what’s coming up. For instance, during the fall, I look forward to the summer. During the summer, I look forward to the fall. Do you know why so many of the things I look forward to never live up to my self-promoted hype? Loneliness. Because when push comes to shove, I find that much of my free leisure time consists of me being worked up over the fact that I’m not doing anything fun, exciting, or worthwhile. This is why I resort to watching new films all the time. Logging things on Letterboxd is the closest thing I have as “important,” and not watching a baseball game. Ultimately, baseball is hollow without the aspect of personal bonding.

This took an unforeseen melancholy turn, but these feelings have become inseparable from baseball. I hate that my personal bullshit gets in the way of enjoying simple things. In reality, I am low-key. I’m content with spending my free time entertaining myself alone. However, there has to be an inexplicable voice inside me that says that I am wasting precious time. I start caring about what other people are doing. So-and-so hangs out often, and so-and-so habitually travels. I’m sitting here like a lump watching a movie that I will most likely never converse about with anyone in my life.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by my obnoxious angst and insecurities, baseball never follow through with its great idea. The glossy depiction of baseball through its idea sucks me in every year, even right now, as I actively deconstruct the unsatisfactory feelings of the sport. I will watch highlights of an old game on YouTube in February and March, but by the 5th inning of opening day, I wish I was doing just about anything else besides watching baseball. From there on out, I continue my relentless spree of watching movies. It feels like it’s all I do, and yet it still always seems as if I’m never watching enough. All in all, why can’t you deliver on your promise, baseball?

It is stimulating to say the least when I read these passages that were written in a fragile mental state. Currently writing this section from the perspective of three days removed and in a clearer state of mind, I can’t imagine anything above is substantive or coherent at any level. But, in any instance, I think I have found a rational solution to end this session of proverbially banging my head against the wall. Maybe I just…don’t really like baseball that much. Stick to watching Don Siegel movies over the summer instead.

As I latched on to the promising venture of freelance film writing, I find that conversing on the topic of cinema to be a mighty challenge. Bear with me, we’re delving into some real first-world problems. But I swear, if you talk to me, you’d think I had never seen a movie before.

“Have you seen (insert random-ass D-level high school movie played by 40 year old teenagers from the 1980s or genre flick buried in the Netflix library)?” asks friend/family member

“No…. I’ve heard about it thought.” I respond, totally pretending that I’ve heard of said film.

“It’s good. I think you’d like it.” graciously says the other person.

My gripes have nothing to do with the people that I interact with in these situations. It is so internal of a problem that it’s claustrophobic. My dread of these exchanges stem from insecurity. Anytime I am with a party that is discussing a movie I haven’t seen, there is this pit in my stomach that cultivates inside me. I’ll change the conversation to the fly that just passed us if I have to. I know no one actually thinks I’m supposed to have seen every single feature film ever produced, but that’s always the feeling that sits with me. Not to turn it against these people, but again, the movies that are recommended to me the most are disposable 80s movies. The decade is often cited as a shallow time for mainstream/blockbuster entertainment, sharing various similarities to the problems of cinema of the 2020s, but in the indie-sphere/arthouse collection of films that were buried under the studio dominance, there are some amazing movies. However, no one ever asks me about After Hours, Blow Out, Lost in America, or The Purple Rose of Cairo. Or, if anything, I would like to be able to have some crossover with movies that others have seen as well. Watching over 1,000 movies ought to prepare to me not feel like an idiot when discussing movies with others. Not to deflect from my own deep-seated insecurities, but the exact exchange written above that I commonly partake is kind of like the “Remember when” game. The “have you seen…” model of interaction wears thin, at least for me.

I am a junky for the Academy Awards. I love the history, the ceremony, the tradition, but this current awards season has made me hate myself for caring about the Oscars. I’m aware the Internet would cease to exist if not for it, but this year is completely demonstrative of people desperately clinging for complaints about the slate of nominations. I’m glad that I don’t have a sports-like relationship with movies. The idea of expressing real outrage over Nope (which I love) getting shut out at the Oscars is baffling to me. It seems like it comes from a place of needy assurance that what they like is deemed of prime quality.

In a surprising twist of fate, maybe I am possessed with this neediness as well? Mirroring the previous passage, there are people in my life that use me as consultants of sorts as to what awards contenders they should watch. “Will I like Everything Everywhere All at Once? Tar?” I know with all my intellectual prowess that there is no ill-will to these benign inquiries, but I just want to grab them by the shoulders and yell “how the hell should I know?” When this person unsurprisingly does not vibe with EEAAO, I for some unforsaken reason feel guilty about it, as if I made them feel obligated to see it. By the way, I’m not even the biggest fan of the film. I like it fine, but nothing to match the level of overwhelming praise it receives from its cult-like online fanbase. Also, more importantly, I did not star in, write, or direct Everything Everywhere All at Once! Why would I have a personal attachment to it and feel uneasy about someone not liking it? The almighty “why?” is the bane of my existence. Perhaps this is because these people will look at me in shame as I have yet to see Three O’Clock High or Biloxi Blues, but will sit through the entirety of a Everything Everywhere. Then, to make myself feel smart, I will share with them that Mike Nichols was the director of Biloxi Blues!

What’s the lesson from this depraved soliloquy? An inferiority complex sucks, and it even cause you to have a sour relationship with cinema.

November 15th, 2022 began as another futile day of human progress. This season of grappling with the hopeless reality that I would never amount to any real career. While I have never been allured by the lofty aspirations of fame and great wealth, I’ve been worrying since high school that I would never be able to make it on my own. My own insecurities and general anxieties would prevent me from obtaining a steady form of employment. Writing about Spike Lee and Alexander Payne movies are what I dream of, but writing gigs for lowly recent college grads like me aren’t offered, and who in the world would care about my two cents on The Fabelmans?

Anyways, on that seemingly dreary November morning, I changed up my routine by heading to the bathroom first thing post-wakeup instead of browsing on my phone while still in bed. It’s not ideal that most of humanity has adopted themselves to looking at their phone as their first human activity of the day. I think I subconsciously had a George Costanza complex going on with me at this point, now months removed from graduation and still without a career break. If I’m not doing the complete opposite of my usual habits, then I’m at least taking a piss first thing in the morning instead. I arrive back into my room to check my phone afterwards. The screen lights up, and it just happened to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Collider gave me my first big break.

I spat out the coffee that I wasn’t drinking when I saw the follow-up email from my application, which I had sent a week prior. I had just about forgotten about my application there, as I was resigned to expect disappointment. But after further application steps and training, I would become a published, freelance features writer for Collider. It took a while for this euphoric break to seem real, especially for someone who is not blessed with the highest of self-esteems like me. I love writing for the site, and I’ll be forever grateful to them for giving me this opportunity. While there is still more down the road in the future, and I’m obviously aware that I am not immediately set for life, I would say that it’s quite fortunate that I can get paid to write about Election and 25th Hour. Please check out my feature stories (see the tab at the top of this site) and support Collider as a whole.

Sometimes I wonder if that email would have ever reached my inbox if I decided to pick up my phone first thing in the morning…

For the longest time, I was passionate about writing about myself. I vowed to make a living out of blogging about my own psyche, expressing myself through humor and frankness. It was going to be a sure thing that my four years of higher education would be the summation of the ability: a long running, twice a week series of blogs about what’s inside my head. Unfortunately, I learned that I just haven’t been through many eventful things in my life to be worthy of such a self-indulgent premise, and I learned that the hard way, via self-enlightenment. The only impact I would make with these blogs, where I would routinely offer scathing critiques towards commonalities of society and the people around my life, is a pissed off reading audience. This is not some Fight Club scenario of the empty ordinary schmuck shouting “we live in a society” to the crowds. I am content with everything nowadays, which is probably concerning considering that I haven’t found a career yet.

For as naval-gazing and angsty as these blogs were, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t reminisce over this time when I was courageous enough to be so bold online. Sometimes, I’m envious of that version of myself, because I had something worthwhile. What I used to publish online was unique, at least in my mind. There are already thousands of loudmouths on the Internet who draft up thinkpieces and ten Tweet threads about why film is Important. I could talk about the state of the medium and film “philosophy” if you call it all day, but I’ll admit that the individual movie analysis can be slightly grating at times. There are just more equipped people to properly break down the artistic value of A Perfect World, and those people have probably done so already.

There is a good chance that none of this makes any sense. I oughta just show you what I used to write, now featured with annotations from 2022. This one I selected is titled “When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit,” where I discuss how I fit in at college after three days in. (Passages written in bold)

In high school, there was this charm with me, I suppose, that many people appreciated. I had the knack for saying something cynically polarizing or throwing some crazed rant about anything trivial in class. I don’t know, maybe my imaginations are completely far from reality. Wouldn’t be the first or last time.

Being incapable of distinguishing between ego and reality. I guess I really haven’t changed that much? I have never been the most socially outgoing individual of the bunch. I built up this artificial reputation based on a few moments in my senior year, all of which happened when I had friends in class. This is a mild spoiler for the rest of the blog, but when you refuse to make friends at your four year university, you start to think you’re some hermetic tortured genius.

I don’t think the folks in my residence hall take pleasure in that kid. Granted, I haven’t fully unleashed my high school persona, but vibes are vibes.

Or… I could’ve been just a person and not a persona. When it comes to holding boat loads of regrets, I am a shipping port. My freshman year of college just might make it over capacitated. The regret that is perhaps the most prioritized is reserved for my roommate. That kid deserves a Purple Heart for putting up with my irritable neurotic angst.

Perhaps they like the genuinely nice kid. Perhaps they like the kid who picks up girls like a forklift. I don’t know what kids like these days. (I know what Fortnite is, shut up.) It probably explains how I got started doing this shit. When you check my box in the filter section of what they like, nothing shows up.

In the character alignment chart, this writing represents chaotic evil. However, I’m still giving myself the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the quality of the writing. I remember that my prose and language back then even came out naturally. These days, it can take me ten minutes to pick the proper word to use. Based on how I used to characterize myself in print, it’s a miracle that I didn’t turn out to be a member of QAnon.

I know it’s nothing personal at all. New blood arises in your system once you reach upperclassmen stage, which makes you smug upon the peasant freshmen. I always love it when they harass us to attend school events, but immediately take out their frustrations on the fact that too many freshmen are there. But I can store those ideas for another day.

This passage is really out there. Most of the residents in my hall were most certainly freshmen. So apparently freshmen were lambasted for attending school events? (Narrator voice: they weren’t).

As you might expect, I don’t mind it at all. In fact, I embrace it. I do believe with all of my heart that one of the big keys in life is embracing any negative qualities or circumstances in your life. You’ll feel so much better about yourself. We fight and repel too often. I’m on the side of believing that people never really change on their fundamental level. So for me, there’s no point in shoehorning in a connection between the other UNH students in my residence hall, because I speak a different language than these kids, and it’s all fine. We can keep doing our business diplomatically.

This sums up my theory that I probably should have never gone to a four year university after all. I would routinely say “I should’ve gone to plumbing school” to myself during this time, but I think I would’ve been happy to roll with community college. It would’ve eased up on the loans. Without question, I carried myself with too much negativity, but I still believe I was never going to connect with my peers, as the college lifestyle was never in my bag.

Fear of Missing Out, or as they call it, FOMO?

FOMO? Fuck no.

I had a way with words. 

I would like to imagine that this kind of writing, a style and an attitude that can be packaged into a series, can give me a career. The job search is going as well as you think, and I wonder if starting my own thing is the last remaining path to success if things keep getting dire. The reason why I am hesitant to revive this writing subject stems from the response that I could receive on social media, and worse, if it ever comes back to me in reality. When I was writing these personal blogs in the fall of 2018, I was on a roll, and I had enthusiasm about its future. All it took was a single, benign comment, which mainly consisted of me trying to think more positively about my environment, and I turtled. I carry myself like I don’t have a care in the world, but deep down, I know that I’m sensitive to the reaction of others, which is not a great asset in this circumstance.

Well, considering this whole blog was an unnecessary deep dive into a life severely lacking in real adventure, I guess I have already jumped back into the game.

I have a challenge for the Academy Awards that I, despite my antagonistic relationship, will always love deep down. I hope this isn’t too much to ask, but for the sake of your purpose of existence, please, stop hating movies.

It sounds unusual for the highest body of awarding film achievement to hate movies. To put a more specific point on it, the Oscars have fed into the deep rooted cynicism of the film industry that has transpired over the last few years. Nothing was more dire than the display put on by the Academy last March. As I stated in a previous blog, they are so lucky that Will Smith was insecure about his marriage, because they would’ve had their reckoning if not for G.I. Jane 2.

There is a ratings crisis for the Oscars. Surprising, I know, for a network TV broadcast in 2022. Viewership dropped from 43.7 million in 2014 to 15.36 this year, with the only increase coming from 2018 to 2019 (not counting this year’s jump from the fake telecast in 2021 that doesn’t exist). At the most recent 94th Academy Awards, they decided to be more proactive in dealing with this issue than ever before: by going populist.

What these morons didn’t realize was that the fight for ratings was and will forever be a lost cause. The days of 48 million people watching anything non-NFL on basic television are over. No matter what you do, whether it’s a fan vote or cutting out below the line categories on the telecast, you will never regain anything close to the viewership of 48 million that they received in 1998. So naturally, the best course of action would be to placate to the more niche audience that cares deeply about movies. You know, the freaks like me that can name the Best Supporting Actor winner in 1991 quicker than their middle name. (The answer is of course Jack Palance in City Slickers. If we’re being dumb and looking at the calendar year, then it would be Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.)

What the grand and prestigious Academy Awards gave us cinephiles instead was the Twitter fan favorite vote, where the public at large can pick their favorite movie and the finest “cheer” moment on screen. If I had a kid that thought of this idea, I’d put him up for adoption. I know this joke ran into the ground when first announced, but when did the Oscars begin idolizing the MTV Movie Awards? A longtime Academy member stated to the Los Angeles Times “Does the academy not get how much this pisses off their members and filmmakers?” With this asinine fan vote, their line of thinking consists of the rabid DCEU fan base all turning on their TVs to witness a mediocre movie they already like win a meaningless award. Yep, that’s how it turned out. Congratulations folks, you fixed it.

Their second measure to fix the ratings crisis was, once again at the alienation of their core audience, cutting the acceptance of numerous technical categories such as Best Original Score and Best Editing from the broadcast. I’m sorry I don’t have hard proof or scientific data to back this up, but there is no human being that was going to watch the full Oscars telecast because they cut out a few categories. This audience that the Academy is desperate to obtain is not the girl you try to pick up at a bar. You know who that girl is though? Me! So start putting some goddamn respect into films and the craft that goes behind it. I personally think it’s pretty neat that there used to be a major awards body that gave an equal stage to a costume designer and Julia Roberts. The 48 million viewers had to have been tolerating them in 1998, which makes sense because we all simply had better taste back then. It’s a shame I missed it. I get handed clips of the fucking Flash from Justice League for my Oscars.

It doesn’t help that movies are made a mockery of during the telecast. If it were up to me, there would be no bits or heavily rehearsed material at the show. If the host or presenter isn’t charming and charismatic enough to take the stage without it, then keep looking for another host or presenter. But anyways, I get that they need jokes, and I’m not here looking for anyone to be policed, but the Oscars ought to have a little respect for what they represent. Take for example this abhorrent joke about The Last Duel that, as I mentioned in a previous blog, still pisses me off.

Johnny Carson used to host this show.

Ridley Scott’s film is excellent. Not only that, it’s an adult picture with adult themes and ideas. They look like complete jackasses by turning a movie that should be honored by them into a bit. Really? You guys are so low that you poke fun at a movie that bombed at the box office? A movie that bombed because it wasn’t a blue lasers/portals in the sky piece of garbage? Do you possess any self-awareness? This truly was the nadir of their weird vitriol towards cinema. If anything, the joke is on the public for ignoring The Last Duel.

You might be saying, “how do you suppose that the Academy Awards doesn’t respect cinema? Did you not see those montages and reunions this year?” I sure did, and I’ve seen enough of the barrage of clips over the past few years. Someone across the street from me could do the same thing on their computer. Peak laziness from this past broadcast came from the Godfather and Pulp Fiction “reunions”, which were as much of a reunion as running into the person you sat next to in chemistry class in sophomore year on the street. Drag out Coppola, Pacino, and De Niro (who, in case you weren’t sure, IS NOT IN THE FIRST GODFATHER THAT IS BEING CELEBRATED FOR ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY. BE MORE GODDAMN LAZY!), and have them say absolute drivel. The Pulp Fiction was somehow even more contrived. At least The Godfather was its 50th anniversary. Come back in two years when Pulp is at year 30. This is really the best the premiere awards body of the country can muster up to honor the art of cinema? The same creators who created the thing you like are standing together again! It’s like every shitty Super Bowl commercial now. 

Academy voters did the right thing by not buying into any disillusions about Marvel being the westerns of our time or some bullshit like that and giving Spider-Man: No Way Home a Best Picture nomination. That movie and all its counterparts in the Disney empire is a disgrace to cinema. The Academy is under no obligation to nominate No Way Home because it was the most seen movie. It’s a grave discredit to popular movies that are good. You know what happens when you make a good movie that makes tons of money? Dune, Black Panther, Get Out, and Mad Max: Fury Road got to find out. You get a Best Picture nominee. This goes out to every reader who has this myth jammed into their brain: popular movies have always been acknowledged at the Oscars! It happens slightly less often nowadays because most popular movies are pitiful franchise content. It’s not them, it’s you, Marvel. You’re the ones that suck.

This is a long way of saying that the Academy needs to stop dumbing themselves down for a culture with deteriorating creative output. Needless to say, this year’s telecast had jokes mocking themselves for not nominating No Way Home, including Amy Schumer hanging from the ceiling in a Spider-Man outfit, frankly looking like an idiot. The whole awards body seemed embarrassed at themselves for not properly acknowledging the movie. I know I said that popular movies are routinely honored, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Oscars should not be a popularity contest. The discourse surrounding the entitlement of No Way Home as a BP nominee from fans online is part of a worsening case of juvenile anti-intellectualism in our popular culture. Even Kevin Feige, the head honcho of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, called out the Academy for a “superhero bias”. This would be like the President of McDonald’s and its team of lackeys getting upset that McDonald’s has never won the restaurant equivalent of an Oscar.

If the Academy Awards are going to continue to lower their standards like this, then shut it down, because we’ve lost all perspective.