The Academy Awards, 2012

Two notes here, okay? #1 – in the last snowmobile incident, “He Flies Through The Air…”

Dillon got a dislocated hip from the incident, something we didn’t learn until

two weeks later. Also – some of thes paragraphs have only one word on a line.

I apologize for that, but this particular software is anything but intuitive.

i could fix it, and it would take over an hour to fix 3 or 4 of them. I know…

I’ve done it before. Have not figured out the formula yet. Trust you will

be patient with that. Thanks.

Did you not love the Academy Awards last night? I sure did. We’ve all seen a bunch of
them, at this point in our lives. And some of them have been horrid. Not last night. It was
so entertaining, moved along beautifully, it was creative and fun. But I love Billy Crystal,
anyway. He is so good as  the host. I love how he comes out like we’re in his living room
and he’s in a good mood, feelin’ good and is playful and irreverent …with Hollywood’s finest right there in front of him.

I feel that movies, when done right, really right, are an incredible art form in themselves.
Sure, one song, one painting, one photograph, can touch us, move us
outside and beyond ourselves… can show us how we can be better, can
inspire us to do just that… and so can a great movie.
I didn’t always used to think that.

The Cirque Du Soleil was dramatic. i had the sense that it was better in person,
but looked pretty damned impressive on TV, too. Art takes many forms, and I thought
the Cirque was amazing… and totally appropriate.

And how about Christopher Plummer’s acceptance speech? Incredible. And no notes.
I loved the live music up in the balcony… it was stellar, just right, and such a good idea
to segue between segments. It felt world-class to me, not just American.

You know, I’ve not seen any of the nominated films. Not my fault, however. I have a lady
friend who threatens to take me to good movies but doesn’t, and I have a son who takes
me to movies that were changed the day before, and are no longer showing. Do they
not want me to see this great American art form???  Evidently.

We are so lucky to live in this age. The technology is off the charts, and no artistic mediums
use it better than the movies.

Oh, and does anyone see the Academy Awards as being, possibly, the next big show to
feature multi-million dollar commercials??  I do. Wait… am I the last one to know??

I feel a great film is not hard to define, or describe. They move us outside ourselves, show
us how great life is for some people and how horrible… maybe for us. What a powerful
medium… to move us beyond ourselves, to be bigger, better than we thought we could be
before we saw that film.

Long and short wieners??? Fantastic. The documentary contestants were all terrific…
I felt like filmmakers are doing everything they can to help re-define ourselves, to save
ourselves, to find the higher road, and somehow, for each of us, and for us as a country,
to get back on it.

I’m over-emotional, I know that. It’s one of the things that makes me a musician. I responded
emotionally to the Academy Awards tonight, for several reasons… because it got back
to people, humanitarian efforts, to taking this fairly huge media event to another, better,
more artistic level. And it did more… it honored people in the movie business in many
ways. It honored Michael Douglas, quietly, as a presenter.

Oh, and i love the tribute to those artists who have passed to the other dimension. How
sensitive, how beautifully done. Not over-dramatized, as Hollywood is want to do, but so
warm, so very tasteful. When i saw Jackie Cooper’s name on that list, I almost lost it. I’m of
the age to have seen most of everything Jackie Cooper did on the big screen… from six
years old on. That was hard. I felt I knew him. And that’s one of the many magics of the
movies…. we end up feeling like we know them. Because they touch us. One of the
video bites said, “After the movie, you know something about yourself that you didn’t
know before you saw the movie.”

Martin Scorsese didn’t win best anything, but boy, did he get professional respect from
those on stage. Hope that was enough for him… it should have been.
Hope you had your volume up… the music was incredible.

And a silent movie, in 2012, won best movie. Go figure.

Steve Hulse