The world hasn’t changed after all: „spotlight“ on the Oscars

So, now the Oscars are “over” again for this year, and the world is again as it was before. And of course I knew that and am ashamed of having been so excited about them! And I really have been, as I seriously considered to stay up and at least hear the updates on the radio. What a waste of time and sleep that would have been! Not just because I always forget that the Oscars here are so “late” that I would be up again about an hour anyway before they come to “best actor” and “best film”, but because I had a premonition of what would happen – at least if they did what they usually do, which, in both cases, they have done.

Well, for Leonardo DiCaprio it was to be expected anyway, and didn’t come too soon.
And I just hope that he is as happy about it as he certainly pretended to be. But I doubt it, though I don’t know how many nominations there have been. And it doesn’t happen often that an actor gets it whom I have admired in four films: “Gilbert Grape”, “The Man in the Iron Mask” (from 1998! where I actually discovered that he probably already was a significant actor), “The Departed” and “Revolutionary Road”. There an Oscar certainly would have been in order because he nailed this character as certainly nobody else could have done, though he did a bit much “for safety” as he usually does. But best actor and best actress are usually never given for the same film, and, in this case, notwithstanding how many she already had?, Kate Winslet should have got it. I don’t think there was a nomination because of this film anyway. Instead she got it for a stupid film like “Der Vorleser” – one of these films where I know it MUST HAVE BEEN stupid without having seen it. I haven’t seen “The Revenant” either, and I didn’t plan to. I planned to see “Spotlight” though, but now I certainly won’t.  I had a premonition these last few days that it would be “Spotlight” when I thought about it. No great surprise there either. And why see a film where I know in advance that I will come out “crushed” and already know why? Bloody waste of time. Or, although slightly better, see a film like “The Revenant” where I’d probably feel the same way and won’t even know why. When a film can make me laugh, which doesn’t happen too often but has happened two times very “thoroughly” just in the last month, I certainly know why! - Well, the less said on that subject the better. Why can’t I just give up hope that - in just one tiny and insignificant spot - the world might be changed for less stupid?

Strange, but I don’t. I just wrote in my diary yesterday that maybe intelligent series like “House of Cards” and “Sherlock” which a lot of people see might actually make “a difference”. Maybe they have already been the “reason” for amazingly intelligent box office productions like “The Big Short” or “Hail Ceasar!” to have come into being. Because there must be tons of intellect “out there” just waiting to be used to make “big” money - if there was a real opportunity of making this kind of money through telling stories in a different and intelligent way. On the other hand, this would spark a chain reaction by waking tons of unused intellectual potential “slumbering” “in” the audience. I even thought their success might already be an indication that people are actually getting “more intelligent” – which appears to be a scientifically proven fact. Yes, I was surprised to hear that as well (!) – especially when I consider that children hardly learn to read at school anymore, let alone write properly, in the first place. But from what I see concerning my nephews and nieces lately I am still not too pessimistic. Take my seventeen year old niece Lisa – who certainly loved “50 Shades of Grey” which just got a “razzie” and probably deserved it. (Which I again can tell without having seen the film! Though I am obviously not quite as old yet as these snobbish critics, who have forgotten, if they ever knew, what a young female audience wants. Just because most of the more “grown up” or “male” products of stupidity don’t just go unchecked but quite often get you a nomination or an Oscar!) But, apart from “50 Shades of Grey” she also loved “The Hobbit “ AND is a great fan of “Sherlock”, both of which you can certainly do or be for the “wrong” reason. One of them in this case being Benedict Cumberbatch, and I don’t mean AS AN ACTOR, of course! But it wasn’t JUST Benedict Cumberbatch because she liked Martin Freeman very much as well. And to appreciate “Sherlock” there has to be a substantial store of intelligence somewhere, even if it is usually well hidden. (By the way, I should be one to talk! Though I am still pretending that it has been “the other way round”! Well, IT WAS!!!)

So, enough of snobbishness for one day now! Because something much more important than the Oscars happened just this weekend. I took up Dover Wilson again, and the first thing I noticed was that I had “cracked” “Hamlet”. Which means I was able to answer MY question about “Hamlet” – a question which I hadn’t known how to ASK in the first place. And of course I was enormously pleased about that. Less pleased though, just now, that there will have to be YET ANOTHER chapter on “Hamlet” – THE LAST ONE, THIS TIME! And I was so much looking forward to finally see my first chapter about “The Hobbit” appear on my blog – which in the meantime I have polished to a degree that it shines like the great jewel in the film ... Well, as I am the only person who is excited about it, it doesn’t matter anyway. Although maybe still a tiny bit more than the Oscars …