2005 Annual Lisa and Melissa Didn’t Want to Get Left out of all the Movie Award Hype Several Years Ago and So Started Doing These Silly Awards, but Have Now Gotten in Over Their Head So Enjoy This Last Installment Award Show
It’s true. Steve has been doing the Steve’s for some time now. But it feels like 3 years ago, a rash of awards shows broke out, only I think it was just Maria Jose and Brian who broke on to the scene with their own movie awards show and we couldn’t resist. So we threw our chips in the hat. This decision was an easy one that year as it seems as though we watched 7 movies total, 4-5 on video, 1 on pay-per-view and 1 at the movie theaters, all of which were mostly bad movies. So we came up with what we thought was a very funny awards show in which we awarded every movie we had seen that year with an award. And I remember that we got some pretty decent reviews. The next year we had seen 12 or so (mostly bad) movies and so again the awards show was an easy Friday night activity which we enjoyed without the attendant raves which we also enjoyed on Monday morning.
And then this year rolled around. It’s not that we have only seen 7 and 12 movies annually in previous years because we dislike movies. We like movies and have grown to like them more this last year. But watching movies is a habit that one has to cultivate, like drinking wine. (I’ve mulled this comparison over for some minutes, written and rewritten examples and found that I don’t know enough about drinking wine yet—another habit I am trying to cultivate—to really drive the point home. However, I am also fully aware of who my audience is and I also understand that for most of you, this will be a difficult thing to understand—you having enjoyed the habit of fine movies much like many a wine-o-phile (yes, yes I know there’s a real word for it, but I’m not one of them and my dictionary is in the car—a story for another day—so here we are with the wine-o word) has enjoyed fine wines for so long that you have forgotten the commitment and grit that it took to get yourself there. Or maybe you are a true movie-aholic who from your first darkened movie room was hooked (I think I am talking to ruth here but can’t be sure). But back to the analogy—you have to be intentional about creating the time and space and doing the research to watch a movie and enjoy it. Maybe when you’re first starting you just run into the liquor store and buy a bottle of Boone’s or Mad Dog and chug it down and maybe when you’re first starting on movies you just show up at the theater and watch the Big Momma’s House II or Christmas with the Kranks and chug them down. But the more you watch movies, I suspect, the less these movies satisfy and the more you look for something more complex.
At any rate, Melissa and I decided to begin to cultivate a habit of watching more movies in 2005 and set for ourselves an auspicious goal of watching 52 movies in one year. Which as you may have already considered is one movie for every card in a playing deck, I mean for every week in a year. And so the task of maintaining the tradition of our awards show has grown by quite a lot this year. Now, we could and have considered changing the format of our shows to match the format of more traditional awards shows, awarding movies by category. But the truth is we still drank a lot of cheap movies that shouldn’t garner awards in any category. And we like our noncompetitive (okay I like it, Melissa could take it or leave it) version of the award show—EVERYONE WINS!!! And we have had fun giving our reviews of movies in 20 words or less. However, as we have tried and tried to come up with awards for every show—we’ve just not been able to muster the time commitment to make it happen. We have adapted a modified version of our previous awards.Enjoy it folks because I don’t think we’ll be able to sustain it next year. I will say this, if we see less than 25 movies this year, maybe we’ll be able to put out again. But this may be our last hurrah.
So let’s get on with it. We’ve posted the actual award announcements on Melissa’s blog. Go here to check them out: http://sotaspace.blogspot.com/2006/06/akid-and-lisas-2005-movie-awards.html
13 comments:
oenophile - no dictionary required
I don’t think watching a lot of movies necessarily engenders a desire to see more complex movies. Wine conoisseurs and winos both drink a lot of wine.
A conoisseur drinks more sophisticated, expensive wines, savors and reflects on their quality and, in the process, develops a more sensitive palate and a more extensive vocabulary for describing a wine's qualities. The question is: where do the wino and conoisseur part paths? Or, as the wino might ask, why can’t someone just enjoy wine without having to develop a more sophisticated palate for appreciating it and a more sophisticated vocabulary for describing it?
We all know that I’m no oenophile, so let me modify the analogy: long ago, I realized that I don’t have a sophisticated palate when it comes to foods and, what's more, don’t have any interest in developing one. I enjoy food, but I don’t care for dark dining rooms with dress codes and heavy tablecloths, stiffly formal wait staff, dainty portions and wallet-busting checks. On the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed movies and have long seen as many as time and money would allow (and sometimes I’ve pushed the envelope there). Over time, I have developed an intolerance for what I consider to be clichés. I have not, however, developed an intolerance for Cheetos.
Maybe the conoisseur/wino distinction is like the whore/snob distinction I use to describe two ways you can be a fan of something. A whore loves something so much that practically any specimen will do. I am a potato chip and french fry whore, for example. And a Cowboy football game whore. A snob loves something so much that only the finest specimens will do. I am a Tex-Mex snob (though my tastes are not, by any means, aristocratic). And I guess I’ve become something of a movie snob—although, let’s face it: I see and like a lot more movies than most people I know (being a movie snob doesn’t mean you seek out opportunities to complain about movies you don’t like).
I don’t think I have chosen to be a movie-snob or actively planned for and cultivated a garden of movie-snobbery. I certainly haven’t worked at it in a way that could be described as making a sacrifice or expending “commitment and grit.” I have just followed my joy. And though in my case this has led to an appreciation of what I consider to be more challenging or original films, I wouldn’t say it would have the same effect on others.
But what do you make of the fact that you and I have such similar taste in movies—even though I taste a lot more movies than you do?
By the way, I recommend that you guys try to come up with an award for every movie when you see it, and write it down in a little movie book you can keep in your purse for the purpose so that a lot of your work will be done for you at the end of the year.
I agree with your reworked analogy regarding whore/snob distinction. I like it alot.
I guess part of what i'm saying is in order to appreciate more complex and original movies you have to look out for them, watch them, sift through them. something about the whore/snob distinction misses the challenge of selecting movies and that i was referring to when i was talking about grit and commitment. maybe though, it's just easier to see "good" movies in chicago than in east fort worth. just like it's easier to get good mexican food in fort worth than it is in stuttgart.
i don't know why our movie tastes are so similar. i think i am not a movie-snob to the extreme that you are (and i don't like calling you a snob by the way . . .) but i am not a movie whore to the extreme that we like to think brian is (and for some reason, it's not as difficult to call brian a whore . . . maybe i don't think whores are as repugnant as snobs?).
Speaking from the brothel, I suspect I am one of those who see as many and like more movies than you Steve. And from my point of view, I think another piece of it is looking at movies with a critical eye. I like the event of going to a movie. I do not need to critique the movie. I wonder how the film class that you took at UALR has affected how you watch movies. I enjoy watching movies, but while I am watching them, I completely disengage my critical eye, unless the movie demands that I break it out. I think I probably don't get as much from movies as I might, but I also enjoy more movies because of it, I suspect.
I wonder if either of you would say that my taste in movies is similar to yours.
Though the UALR class did introduce me to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and Chaplin's City Lights along with some other film history classics (which I liked less than these two), the class had zero intellectual substance and, I think, no effect on my appreciation of those or any other films.
I would not say my taste in movies is similar to yours, Brian. I would say and have said that if I really like a movie, I expect that you probably will, too.
I also enjoy the “event” of going to the movie. I always have. And whenever I have lived close to a good theater, I have indulged. When I have not lived close to a good theater, I have been a video rental maniac.
There have been times in my life when I have tried to “disinvite” my inner critic when I have gone to the movies, but maybe, over time, I have come to think of my inner critic as a valued companion.
For the record, since January 1st of this year I have seen 27 movies in the theater and I have liked 22 of these. Last year, I saw 81 movies and liked 69, so I like somewhere between 80 and 85% of the movies I see in the theater these days.
Since January, I have also liked approximately 22 of the movies I have seen on DVD and 17 of the movies those that I have seen on cable TV.
Well I don't know about whether we share taste in movies. I know we both thought the Hunted was a laugh riot. I know we both liked Do the Right Thing. I know we both agreed that no one should go see Big Momma's House 2. I know you agreed with me that Firewall was a waste of time. I can't remember what you thought of the New World and am too lazy to check your blog right now. I guess you probably like almost all of the movies I like. I don't know if I like all of the movies you like. I know I wouldn't want to see all of the movies you see, but maybe you end up not liking the ones I wouldn't want to see anyway.
like poseidon.
Why do I go to movies anyway?
Once upon a time I loved to go to drive in theatres. We were in our own space, could talk to my girlfriend, hold hands, and just have a cozy time of relaxation away from the world.
Fakey fiction movies are OK, but if I never saw another I'd be perfectly OK. They are just illusions and sometimes they are so bad that I question if they are even that.
Certainly there are images on a screen, noise, talking, music and movement. All together, with an introduction, complication, denouement and resolution may add up to a moment of relief so I can escape the boring pathetic existance I have. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. I consciously tell myself that I have to have a "willing suspension of disbelief," and that I am not "measuring my life in coffee spoons"* or movies.
DA, when I let myself sink into a lack of joy and hope, I too wish-
"I had been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas."*
*Elliott
Ok, I confess I did the above.
I've tried Mad Dog 20-20 and Thunderbird. I don't know how anyone can drink wine. It tastes terrible and really gives you a headache. the loco gringo
from the gringo. No, really, "je vends Appelation d'origine controlee," and like all good "tea sippers" stick my little pinkie out.
The loco Gringo
Well, I can't wait to read the reviews, and I confess to being the movie-aholic whom you referenced (although I suspect there are others in this group of movie fans). I believe Steve is the most discriminating, Brian is one-that-I-thought-I-would-most-agree-with, but have proven myself wrong about that because some of the movies I love, he hates or is lukewarm about, and some of the movies I hate, he loves; As couples, Steve and Mari have I believe, the most compatible tastes, along with Lisa and Melissa, and maybe Gene and me, although my true, true agree-on-every-movie-we-see movie buddy is the Jeffer (I'm a'rearing Haley to be another). I still believe I am not very discriminating about movies, but I think I prefer mainstream dramas to indie dramas, over comedies, over action/adventure, and I always enjoy a good romantic comedy. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel up to visiting the link to yours and the kid's reviews.
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