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I know I sound mental but I'm crazy about the Oscars. Listen… go back to the 1999 Oscars telecast when Whoopi Goldberg was the host—the one where she came out dressed as Queen Elizabeth the 1st—and tell me that wasn't the most fabulous situation to ever happen in the known universe. I don't care if the movies up for nominations are abysmal. I don't care if you don't like awards-bait dramas shot in black-and-white. I don't care if you're so bored that you drop dead in the middle of your living room! Turn the dial to ABC and suck it up, the future of cinema depends on it because the Oscars are the engine that drives promotion and gets movies greenlit. I think I'd be a great producer on the team for the broadcast itself… I care deeply about preserving the glamour and spectacle of the event. I know exactly who should host (I'm not telling), I know precisely which rules should change to make it more entertaining, and I have great ideas for stunts to pull before and during the broadcast. I also think the Academy should start owning how wrong they are when they vote by creating a new honorary Oscar called a Legacy Award, which can go to any person, film, or talent associated with a movie that has grown to become a classic in the eyes of the world since its eligible year. They could present an Oscar to Drew Barrymore for her performance in Scream—she'd have a breakdown! It would be incredible—or give Oscars to the entire cast and crew of movies like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Election, The Shining, or Showgirls. People would argue about it nonstop and it would be great for ratings. I'm running away with myself now… this is how I get. Point being: watch the stupid fucking Oscars. It's the least you could do. Someone will figure out how to make it fun eventually.
Mar 3, 2022
Related Recs
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Who would've thought that some of them are pretty good?
Award shows are my favorite form of celebrity performance, and it's way more fun when you've seen a bunch of the nominees. The applause, the random camera shots on A-Listers, the snubs... you can read it all on their faces.
Jan 25, 2024
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This could be helpful for anyone interested in catching this year's slate ahead of the ceremony in March.
https://afpljournal.com/2024/01/23/oscar-nominees-2024-where-to-watch/
Jan 29, 2024
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i work in music but i think the grammys will never feel like the oscars—now that i finally learned to appreciate films and all the craft that comes with it.
music can touch people, but for our generation it is largely private. films feel different. you go to the cinema and sit among the presence of strangers and you’ll witness the same story. you can interpret it differently—just like how you can experience a concert differently, but chances are you and the people you love will love the same moments the most; music, not so much.
i’m not doing the best job at explaining it. i just know that the very act of sitting down to watch the grammys feel like overtime working and i somehow cried quite a few times watching the oscars alone. maybe it’s the very fact that i still don’t understand the pictures very much.
Mar 11, 2024
Top Recs from @patrik-sandberg
Whenever I mention Night Flight Plus, no one knows what I’m talking about. It’s a streaming service named after (and featuring) the USA Network late-night cult series from the 1980s. It also includes a ton of films of the cult, horror, obscure music documentary, and exploitation variety. If you’re looking for Paul Morrissey, Troma Films, Vinegar Syndrome, or outdated TV specials about Minor Threat and Kate Bush, its curation is like a return to Kim’s Video… or my favorite VHS store from San Francisco, Le Video. The other night I watched an English-language Italian fashion giallo from 1988 called Too Beautiful To Die. It’s a totally outrageous masterpiece. It’s my favorite subscription. Feast your eyes.
Feb 21, 2025
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I was born in San Francisco and raised in Marin and Sonoma (specifically a town called Petaluma) and now that enough decades have past, I have a new appreciation for the beauty of the region—particularly as depicted by Hollywood's great genre filmmakers of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Of course, this includes great San Francisco movies like Vertigo (Hitchcock), Bullitt (Yates) and The Game (Fincher), but there are so many others that venture out to Monterey, Bodega Bay, and all the way up to Humboldt County. Some of my friends keep a running tally of "NorCal Noir" movies. Some favorites:
Salem's Lot (Miniseries, 1979), The Fog (1980), Play Misty For Me (1971), The Birds (1963), The Final Terror (1983), Firefox (1982), Dead and Buried (1981), Murder She Wrote (TV episodes, various), Cujo (1983), Point Blank (1967).
There are probably many others but between the midcentury architecture, west coast hippie/yuppie dialectic, atmospheric coastal fog, and rolling hills, it's a distinct vibe that always feels incredibly indulgent and tasteful even when it's lent in service of schlock.
Nov 24, 2024
My friend Aaron put me onto Badvril, the best band presently crawling out of San Francisco—the cesspool from whence we all came. And they sound like it, in all the most perfect, sludgy, narcotic, dreamy, total-eclipsing sort of ways. If you like shoegaze, Catherine Wheel, early Pumpkins, '90s alt revival, or melodic punk that pre-dates the Hot Topic era, you will die and go to heaven listening to their I AM GOD EP. that came out in February.
The desirous thing about becoming a fan before there is too much noise is that it's easy to catch up on their back catalogue. And then Becket becomes your Instagram friend and sends you the new unreleased album and it's the best music you've ever heard in your life. One wrong move and they could be too huge to handle. I wish them all the money in the world.
Dec 9, 2024