Yes it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. No I haven’t been
taken down by Gerry Harvey like someone suggested. I’ve been busy on a new
venture. I’ve bought a pub called The Tramway Hotel with friends Warwick Lobb and
Jessica Tregonning.
So if you live in Melbourne feel free to pop in at the pub it's
at 165 Rae Street in North Fitzroy. We're now open for beerness and would love to see you. We’ve been open
for a couple of weeks after renovating for the last month and a half. It’s a
cosy little pub and so far we’ve had lots of positive feedback for those
venturing in for beers, wines and ciders. The apple and pear cider on tap have
been very popular.
You can also follow the pub on Twitter:
What this new venture means is The Crouch Potato blog will
continue but I doubt I will be as prolific. Thanks for all the emails and comments in the past months
encouraging to get back on the blogging horse.
And yes I do plan to do more
Monday Mailbags so please email me questions for me to answer. They can be about
anything, personal dilemmas, politics, popular culture etc. Can be about big
issues or trivial issues, I would like to hear from you. Anyway here’s my first
blog for 2011.
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Charlie Sheen sure knows how to ruin a party. Post-Oscars
Sheen is getting all the attention. Although his movie career is long behind
him, he has lost none of timing. It would be too generous of me to say it was comedic
timing. Sheen’s attention-seeking interviews ensure the media frenzy caravan have
quickly moved on from movie’s night of nights to the next celebrity car wreck.
Like millions around the world I watched this year’s Academy
Awards. Soon after the event, the blog and entertainment reporting sphere bemoaned
how boring the event was this year. In some cases, like Deadline Hollywood’s live
blog, they passed judgement quickly and swiftly. Most of the press blamed the boredom
factor on hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco. Let’s face it, when was speech
night ever entertaining? Forget boredom more pertinent is do we really need to
celebrate the already over celebrated Hollywood?*
The best bit of the night for the comperes was the
pre-recorded opening Inception themed montage. In this opening both hosts were
safe and secure in their normal acting world.
But when they entered the real life live job of hosting, they quickly
became daunted. Hathaway at least put on a happy pageant face, smiling, looking
like she was enjoying herself. Franco was a dud and seemed to offer Hathaway no
real support when both needed it as debutantes. Franco as the night wore on
looked redundant. The idea of having two comperes, especially newcomers, gave the
critics plenty of ammunition to render the event boring.
I think to label a televised awards night as boring is
simplistic. These awards aren’t really for the viewing public. Yes they’re televised
to the masses but their real role is to increase profiles of actors, sell more
tickets/DVDs and reward sections of the industry with acknowledgement. When I
say “sections”, of course you don’t see awards handed out to Best Gaffer or
Best Publicist. The fact that the film studios can produce an awards ceremony
that people watch hoping to be entertained is added bonus.
Millions and millions of people have watched the Academy’s,
Golden Globes, Grammys and the like for years but can you remember who won best
supporting actress at the Globes last month. Or best newcomer at The Grammy’s. Too
many awards in a life too short to care. The Golden Globes were quick to distance
themselves from host Ricky Gervais’ performance but his performance was the
most memorable thing from that night. Not the winners, not the performances,
not the individual award hosts.
It’s a host job to make the night entertaining. The fact
that Gervais wrote and performed his lines as presenter made the night a
success. He was playing to the millions watching at home, not the pampered
actors in the room. Whereas Hathaway and Franco read out auto-cued lines that meant
nothing to them and sadly the same to us watching.
The host’s role is to welcome the viewers and start the
night on a high. Their narrative of last night made no sense. In her opening
Hathaway weirdly mentioned this year’s lesbian films and within a minute later
started walking off stage with a strange intro referencing Gone With The Wind. Both
comments had no context and seemed like the opening monologue was thrown
together by ten different writers working completely independent of each other.
The pre-recorded Inception montage felt longer then their live introduction.
For this I blame the producers not the inexperienced hosts.
The fact is if the Academy’s disappeared from our screens our
lives wouldn’t suffer. But it won’t as we are nations of traditions. And the
Academy’s is now one of our popular culture traditions. The highlight of these
nights for me is seeing the non-stars win. The documentary makers, the
animators, the short film winners. They look different from the Hollywood
celebrity. They speak differently. And when they win it’s with real emotion. They
don’t expect to win but the recognition of their hard work takes them by
surprise. It’s a joy to see and their happiness is palpable.
It’s ironic that the most extroverted industries like film,
music and advertising worlds, have so many awards ceremonies. It’s not enough
that millions pay to see their films, buy their albums and watch their ads. They
need more recognition. They need the pats on the back.
We really should be having televised awards night for
nurses, doctors, firemen and women, people that don’t need a show and an award
to do a great job. Of course that’s a silly idea; show business is about celebrating
the rich, overpaid celluloid stars that crave more attention. Forget about recognising
real people let’s focus on the likes of Charlie Sheen and all his
problems. Let’s report on Lindsay Lohen again and again. Even if she’s only
made one decent film.
After watching the awards ceremony I decided to go see a
film. Not because the promotion led me there but after three hours watching an
awards ceremony I was craving some real entertainment. So I watched True Grit,
not the Coen Brothers best film, but I walked away admiring teenager Hailee Steinfeld,
who was outstanding.
Watching awards ceremonies reminds me of the famous quote “Writing
about music is like dancing about architecture.”
*I love all the back-slapping in Hollywood when in reality
Gnomeo & Juliet is currently #1 at the box office
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@thecrouchpotato
