This Week's Radio Show: Curtis Armstrong and The Oscars!

On this week's episode of Geek World we talk with geek icon Curtis Armstrong (Revenge of the Nerds, King of the Nerds, Supernatural)

But first we are joined by Darkubus Rybar to discuss this year's Academy Awards.

All this and much more so tune in Geek World this Thursday and Friday at Noon (PST) on Indie 100, with replays throughout the week on The Point. Plus we're on El Ave Radio.

Don't forget to go to YouTube.com/GeekWorldRadio to see all of the latest videos we've posted and shared, and be sure to SUBSCRIBE!

I'd like to thank the Academy...for nothing!

I can still remember the first time I ever watched the Academy Awards. I was waiting with bated breath for Police Academy to win Best Picture. I mean, not only did it have everything you could want out of a film, but it was the Academy Awards and this fine film had ‘Academy’ right there in the title! Surely, that meant it was written in the stars.

To my dismay, it was not Police Academy but a movie inspired by the song Rock Me Amadeus, featuring people with funny wigs.

But then I actually watched Amadeus and you know what? It was a pretty damn good. Made me think that perhaps these Academy people know what they’re doing.

So for many years I watched Academy Awards thinking they were actually what they appeared to be - The gods of film descending upon us mortals to decide which of current crop of movies and artists are worthy enough to join them. A film called Shakespeare in Love would change all that.

The movie that sent Steven Spielberg home early beat out Saving Private Ryan not because it was ‘better’, but because the studio that made the film, Miramax, spent over $30 million on a 3-month campaign. $30 million. Just about as much, if not more, then it cost to make the damn thing.

This made me realize that the Oscars aren’t a ceremony, but a competition. And not one between the performers nominated, but the publicists and studio heads behind them. How else can you explain Paramount holding a press junket for Dreamgirls…on the first day of principal photography?

Year after year, the Hollywood community puts on a show that pretends to be important, but is really just meant for our entertainment and their financial gain. You’d think they’d be above such a thing.

What’s more is that Zeus, Hades and Poseidon aren’t even voting members! No, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is made up of the very folks that are taking part in the ceremony. Granted, this is nothing compared to the Golden Globes which is beholden to the votes of about 90 foreigners with forged press credentials. But the concept is still the same. Whoever has the best publicists, the coolest swag and the most money to spend gets the gold.

It shows how impersonal the voting process is, which in turn, makes us often wonder why the hell the Best Picture never really feels like it was the best picture.

Other reasons influence the voting as well. Like it may be someone’s ‘time’. For Martin Scorsese to win an Oscar for The Departed is akin to Clint Eastwood winning for Space Cowboys. Marty deserves gold no doubt, but not for a remake which is arguably inferior to the original. Oh well. Its name is etched along the columns of the Kodak Theatre staircase some tourist in 2074 can rent it and wonder what the hell we were thinking back then.

The recent addition to change from 5 Best Picture nominees to 10 only further nullifies the process. Even with 5 contenders rarely are any more then 3 seriously considered. We must remember that this is not a unanimous decision so the more excess there is to split the difference, the more likely movies like Crash will end up in the lexicon. And for our children’s sake, I don’t ever want that to happen again.

But all this matters little in the broad scheme of things. Oscars aren’t really about recognizing the finest in film. Those are just a few fleeting moments in between the gowns, the interviews, the tributes and the months and months of warm-up with endless mini-award shows to pass the time. Not to mention the media banter and the recap of previous years in Oscar history. This was a show that was considered bloated back in the 60’s. You have to wonder exactly what it is everyone is really tuning in for.

So how then can we truly appreciate the films that go beyond simple entertainment to become moving and unforgettable works of art?

Simple. We take our time.

In 1994 the nominees for best picture included The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. They didn’t win the battle, but they won the war. They won the test of time. The notion of an ‘instant classic’ is nothing but an ox moron. Time is not only the test of a great work of art, it is also the reward. Truth be told, the Academy doesn’t always pick the wrong horse. In hindsight Amadeus did stand the test of time over Police Academy, which doesn't hold a candle to the masterpiece that is Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach.

So in the end it doesn’t matter. The Social Network. The King’s Speech. Black Swan. Who cares. The real winners will live on beyond Oscar night. While the rest will forever make us shrug as why it was even nominated in the first place. Truth be told, each and every one of us has our own opinion on what the best is, and we shouldn’t let a bunch of retired geezers hold any influence over it.

So with that, I give you Darkubus Rybar’s Top Ten of Twenty-Ten:

1.  Marmaduke

2.  Yogi Bear

3.  Ramona and Beezus

4.  The Nutcracker 3D

5.  Tooth Fairy

6.  Nanny McPhee Returns

7.  Furry Vengance

8.  Gulliver’s Travels

9.  Diary of A Wimpy Kid

10. Cats and Dogs: The Return of Kitty Galore

Monsters. Now more then ever.

This Halloween as you all get dressed up as whatever personality you deem worthy, take note on what makes them worth dressing up as in the first place. Because that’s something a lot of today’s generation of horror flicks are failing to do.

Horror movies are the single reason this country still thrives amidst a recession. That something can be so cheap and reap such a profit boggles the mind. It is obvious when such a cost-effective piece of work brings such heavy returns to follow it up with another. Back in the day, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and all their friends kept coming back for more. Even teaming up on occasion ‘cause there’s just so much killing to do. In more recent years, horror franchises such as Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Police Academy would go seven, eight films strong. But sometime between when Jason was sent to hell and when he was sent to space, the sequels died out. A few monster movies found their way to the Oscars while the rest were becoming parodies of themselves. That was, until a real self-parody called Scream came along.

Scream was an odd experience. Smart enough to be tongue-in-cheek, innocent enough to be taken seriously. It was directed not by an observer of the genre, but by one of its masters. So in a way, it felt like watching Don Rickles roast himself, rather then someone else. True parody, like Blazing Saddles, should kill a genre dead so it can rise again later on. In the end, Scream was too gentle. So films just like it were popping up as usual not months later, while the impact it did create was a negative one. Because it shifted focus from the butchers to the meat, spending more time with pretty faces spouting witty banter, to make the film appear more intelligent then it really is. Meanwhile, the monsters they are supposed to be running from fell firmly into the background.

The characters are now so snarky that they could audition for The Daily Show if they weren’t portrayed by such empty-eyed actors on break from whatever CW show they troll. They are also so predictably sex crazed that Samuel L. Jackson should show up and lock them in chains while he sings the blues. But thankfully, their only real purpose in life is to die. Except more attention is paid to their manner of death rather then whose doing the killing. So the monster, the one ingredient no scary movie should be without, is now made up of a rotation of characters donning the same ghost mask, a fisherman with no recognizable personality, a cancer patient who lets his contraptions do the work, an invisible demon, a camera-shy witch….and let’s not forget, Death himself.

I wonder how all their costumes are selling.

Without a monster to spark our interest, the genre just goes through the motions, relying on loud booming noises to keep the audience on edge. Even Hollywood knew it was time for a change. For something fresh and original to take flight. A bold step in a new direction. In other words, it was time for a remake.

Like sequels, remakes are nothing new. But they’re supposed to be re-imaginings. New spins on old stories. The need for such alternate interpretations is even more vital today, since we can access the originals at the push of a button. The best remakes transcend the need to compare to the original by succeeding on their own.

But as the remakes of Friday the 13^th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have shown, we’re not getting much in the way of newness. We’re just seeing the bland killing machines of the past decade wearing the costume of monsters far more unique then they could ever be. Because of their name, we no longer run from them. We root for them. And we lose what made then scary in the first place.

That connection is what makes horror films scary. Sure, the thought of dying prematurely in a violent, even creative fashion is scary. But nowhere near as scary as living across the fine, possibly non-existent line between man and monster.

When audiences first laid eyes on Frankenstein’s monster, they screamed in terror. Not because of how hideous Boris Karloff appeared, but by how human he appeared. Alfred Hitchcock would go on to show that make-up isn’t even needed for us to feel much closer to man’s darker side then we thought we were capable of. Jason appealed to us because we felt pity for him. Freddy because he was charming. Dracula because he was longing. Hannibal Lecter because he was brilliant. And so on.

We connect with these savage creatures and that connection is where the real horror exists. Because the only thing scarier then the monsters we lock our doors from, are the ones that manage to get inside.