Gold, nuts

Above, Debbie Reynolds cracks a walnut with an Academy Award statuette in Susan Slept Here, Frank Tashlin, 1954, about which more later.

'Tis the season indeed, and as usual, I'm not having it. In fact, I daresay, up until the event itself, which I may or may not "live-blog," as they say (leaning to not), this is likely the first and last thing you'll read on this blog relating to Oscars. The only Oscar "blogger" or film writer or what have you I read with any regularity is my sui generis pal Jeffrey Wells, and in the "the whole world is queer execpt for thee and me and even thou art a little queer" department he's definitely rising to the occasion, for instance titling a post about the David-Poland-convened Movie City News Oscar panel the Gurus of Gold, "Guru Bitches Scatter." I know that Poland's an arch-enemy of Wells, and why not, but, geez, what did Breznican, Elwood, Hammond, Hernandez, Howell, Karger, Levy, et.al., ever do to Jeff? I also like Wells' summing-up of "pro" sentiments for The Fighter: "The passion of the big guns who are with it[...]is deep and true." What was that Vince Vaughn line in that upcoming comedy that got everybody into trouble? Oh, never mind.

In any event, as a part-time student of aberrant psychology I do confess I find the workings of the Oscar-prognosticating mind somewhat fascinating; on the other hand, I haven't got the time time (as Lou Reed once might have put it) to plumb said workings all that thoroughly. So I, um, commissioned film writer Vadim Rizov, he of unique perspective and gimlet eye, to plumb them in my place. The resulting piece, "The Gold Standard, or Lack Thereof," is one of my favorites in the first issue of Nomad Edition's Wide Screen, an online publication of which your humble servant is the editor. Another favorite is by my friend Farran Smith Nehme, also known as The Self Styled Siren, about Kent Jones' and Martin Scorsese's A Letter to Elia.

Nomad is a venture designed to provide what they call "content" to mobile and other such digital devices, using a software that makes said content pretty and readable on practically every conceivable such screen. Said content is not free, but will be available at what are, in my consideration, what they used to call "popular prices." I believe Wide Screen starts off with some very good stuff, and I know there's some even better stuff in its future, so I hope you check it out. Many thanks. 

Comments

[Asher]

As long as we're talking about your business ventures, I guess I'm not too interested in reviews of new things, but something that I would be more inclined to pay for, for as much time as I spend at Chicago Reader/Time Out, is capsule reviews. When I'm buying DVDs of older films or DVRing TCM or a retrospective of someone or another comes to town and I want to know which things I should see, there's very little easily accessible criticism that one can trust - really just the Reader and Time Out, and they have their biases and idiosyncrasies and blind spots that a third database of capsules could help make up for.

[The Siren]

Thanks for the back-pat, boss!

[I.V.]

Belated conrats re: Wide Screen, Glenn.

Asher,

A real shame the Reader removed the "keyword" search from their capsule database; once I figured out how Kehr or Rosenbaum or Camper or Pat Graham used a certain word, I'd just go through and read every capsule where it popped up. Still do-able via Google, but a bit of a hassle...

[I.V.]

Rats -- that should say "congrats."

[Partisan]

Yes the oscars are irritating, but the reason they are so irritating is that they are so obviously compromised by money, hype, middlebrow ideology and general parochialism. For many Americans, the Oscars define movie quality, and movie history, especially since many of the best movies of the last two decades have had their theatrical runs confined to a few cities. The media does not do a good job of pointing out the meretriciousness of the exercise, and all of the pressure is on the oscars to choose more popular films.

It would be nice if you, and the Siren and all the other bloggers linked here and the National Society of Film Critics and so on up to 300 critics actually voted on the best movie, actor and actress going back to 1927. If they realized they could chose any movie, how different would their choices be. Going back to, say, 1973, would they go for "The Exoricst" or "American Grafitti"? Would they prefer "Mean Streets" or "Badlands"? Would anyone actually vote for "The Sting"? Or would they go for a foreign film, like actual nominee "Cries and Whispers"? Or would they prefer "The Mother and the Whore" or "The Spirit of the Beehive"? (I would choose "Cries and Whispers" for what's it's worth.)

[Pat McFarland]

I am looking for the title of a movie I saw as a child. Probably a 1940-1950 film. Took place back East. The movie is about a family man who gets a gold watch for Christmas and is robbed while on a train going to work shortly thereafter. The robber falls off the train and killed and the only thing to identify him is the watch and the family thinks he is dead. In the meantime, the family guy developes amnesia and wonders around for years, I think as a homeless guy. When he finally remembers who he is, he goes up to the house and it is Christmas with lots of snow. He sees thru the window that kids are grown and celebrating Christmas again. He does not knock and tell them he is alive, he simply turns and walks away.
Can you help identify this movie.