TV Party Tonight! Part Eight: Generation Axe - by Wal Ozello

Colin let me take over this week's TV Party. When this was first pitched at Pencilstorm’s Editorial Committee meeting, we all started visiting each others' You Tube feeds to check out what each other was watching.

Much to the surprise of most of the staff, mine wasn’t filled with Journey, Bon Jovi, Queen or dozens of those tenor rock vocalists. When I go deep diving on Youtube, it’s all about the gods of guitar. And not those bluesy, riffy guys like Keith Richards or Slash.  I like the pure distorted rapid neoclassical sounds of what’s known now as Generation Axe. 

So sit back, relax and prepare to have your mind blown. Remember all this stuff is LIVE. Engage rabbit hole… NOW.

We start with the man who broke the ceiling with rock guitar virtuosos and I'm not talking about Eddie Van Halen (snooze), I’m talking about the one and only Steve Vai.

You can’t listen to Vai without his contemporary, Joe Satraini.  While Satriani has dozens of amazing songs, here’s a gem I found.

Eric Johnson is another amazing guitar talent from this generation.  It’s hard to mention Vai and Satriani without Johnson.  Here’s his most famous.

Europe gave birth to this neoclassical heavy metal guitarist, Yngwie Malmsteen. Wow. Just wow.

There are some people out there who can do on four strings what others do on six. Here is bassist Billy Sheehan and guitarist Paul Gilbert doing an amazing duet.

And speaking of duets… make sure to watch this completely. At first, it’s just Joe Satriani playing his signature, “Always You, Always Me,” but half way through Steve Vai joins him on stage and it’s just mind-blowing to hear two masters go at it together.  It's like watching Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo paint together.

Pencilstorm contributor Wal Ozello is the lead singer of the Columbus Hairband, Armada, and the author of several time travel books.

Four Cents: Rob & Ricki and Oscar, Part Four: Our Oscar Picks, Top Eight Categories

Ricki: It's become a tradition at the Cacchione household the last few years for us to host an (incredibly small) Oscar party.  That "party" consists of my lovely wife Debbie preparing a meal that involves bacon in some creative way (which I can't eat, since I can't digest meat protein) and our main movie friend Kyle coming over to watch the bloated nightmare that is the Oscar Awards broadcast from what seems like five in the afternoon 'til sometime past three o'clock the next morning.

The three of us fill out the entire Oscar ballot and point values are assigned to the various categories: i.e. tech categories are one point apiece; documentaries & animated maybe three points; writing cats five points; on up to 10 points apiece for the acting and best director & best picture picks.

Generally, by the time they get around to announcing Best Supporting Actress around midnight and people with jobs on Monday are already sleeping, I'm behind by so wide a margin that I start making up rules: like from then on, all the remaining categories are worth 50 points apiece.  The winner gets a prize, but none of us can remember what any of the prizes have ever been, so they can't be that great. 

So Rob and I are dispensing with all the down-the-line categories and concentrating on what we are terming The Big Eight: writing, acting, best director & best picture. 

Rob: I don’t watch the Oscars. I don’t like bloated pageantry. I have no dog in the fight, so I’m not missing anything. That’s not to say I’m not interested. I’ll check the results in the morning.

I have never entered an Oscars pool or had to predict the winners. Until now. What would we do if blogs didn't need content?

BEST PICTURE

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Rob: Gotta begrudgingly pick La La Land. Hollywood loves Hollywood.  I’d like to be surprised by something else winning, but I don’t think I will be.

Ricki: Most of my picks are gonna be divided into What Should Win and What Will Win: What Should Win, Manchester By The Sea, by far the best movie I saw all year;  What Will Win, La La Land.   

BEST DIRECTING

Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
Kenneth Lonergan (Mancheaster by the Sea)
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)

Rob: Again, La La Land. It can’t win Best Picture and not win Best Directing. However, it is worthy of directing honors over best in show. My off-ballot hopes are with Moonlight.

Ricki: Rob's probably right about Best Picture/Best Director being intertwined, as they are most years.  Who Should Win, Kenneth Lonergan.  Who Will Win, Damien Chazelle. 

BEST LEADING ACTRESS

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Ruth Negga (Loving)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Rob: Can we please agree that Meryl Streep is an excellent actress and not nominate her for anything for a while? The same goes for Pixar movies. Anomalisa should have won last year over Inside Out. Anyway, Isabelle Huppert for the win.

Ricki: I'm going with Emma Stone here, partly because I thought she was the best thing ABOUT La La Land, and partly because I truthfully didn't see any of the other performances.

BEST LEADING ACTOR

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
Denzel Washington (Fences)

Rob: Denzel Washington. duh. If by some freak occurrence Ryan Gosling wins, I’m going to pretend it’s for The Nice Guys.

Ricki: I say Casey Affleck is going to pull this out. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Viola Davis (Fences)
Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Rob: Viola Davis. duh. And yet it can not be understated how much Michelle Williams crushed that one scene in Manchester by the Sea. You never would have guessed she was hardly in the movie before it.

Ricki: I didn't see Fences, so I'm pulling for Naomie Harris in a truly fearsome, ferocious performance in Moonlight.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)
Dev Patel (Lion)
Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

Rob: Mahershala Ali. Largely no contest. When isn’t Michael Shannon great? Maybe when he’s slightly overshadowed by his co-supporting actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Sill, with a Taylor-Johnson nomination instead, Ali would have taken it.

Ricki: I concur, Mahershala Ali.  (Hopefully John Travolta will NOT be called upon to present this award.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester by the Sea
20th Century Women

Rob: It’s between 20th Century Women and The Lobster. I’m giving the edge to The Lobster. Its world-building should be rewarded.

Ricki: Manchester By The Sea.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight

Rob: I’m assuming none of the voters compared the original text with the adaptation: I mean, that would be the best way, right? Sure, but I’m not going to do that either. I’d like to pick Fences. The content is great. I don’t feel like it was adapted for the screen. It still had the rhythm, feel, and - at times - the staging of a play. Is it better to change the content for the medium or to let it stand as it is? In this case, the latter was chosen. I’m picking Arrival.

…well, maybe not. Arrival’s strength might be in the editing. Hidden Figures, while an amazing story, is presented in a very ordinary way. I didn’t see Lion. So, Moonlight for the win.

Ricki: Yeah, this is tough, since I don't know what any of these screenplays were adapted FROM.  (But none of them were comic books, naturally.)  I'd like to pick Moonlight, but I'm going to go with Hidden Figures, just because I enjoyed it so much, which is exactly the kind of from-the-heart-makes-no-logical-sense-pick that loses me our Oscar Ballot Pize every year.

In closing I want to thank the Pencilstorm readers for hanging in with us through all these blogs and I especially want to thank Rob for watching 366 movies in 2016, an accomplishment that should be hailed.

My easiest Oscar Prediction of the Year?  Jimmy Kimmel is gonna suck as the host. 

The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead. NBA Mid-Season Update - by Ben Galli

Right around this time of year, usually a week after the Super Bowl and over a month before MLB Opening Day, the NBA takes center stage.  It's called "All Star Weekend."  Well past the midway point of the regular season but still pretty much the official starting point of the NBA's stretch run to dominate the sports landscape.

2017 started with a bang right after the All Star Game itself.  Reports surfaced and were later confirmed of a blockbuster trade sending one of the league's most dominant young players to team up with perhaps THE most dominant young player in the league.  (As with all things, Kristaps exempted.)

The hapless Sacramento Kings traded mercurial star DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, a 6'11/270 pound offensive force averaging 27 and 10 while shooting a career high 35% from the 3 point line to the New Orleans Pelicans, where he can team with "The Brow," 6'11 Anthony Davis, himself averaging nearly 28 and 12 a game.  This is a big time transfer of talent giving the Pellicans  two superstars in the front court along with point guard Jrue Holiday, it's the Big Easy's, Big Three.

Cousins and Davis are both bigs that can shoot from the outside, and score from anywhere.  It will be interesting to see these former Kentucky Wildcats stars learn to play with each other and exploit match-ups in virtually every game.  And because New Orleans is 2.5 games out of the 8th playoff spot, a first round matchup with the Golden State Warriors looms, a team that has struggled against skilled big men.  

A few more thoughts and questions answered from the season so far.

^^You can fast forward to about the :43 second mark listen to what the fan yells out or you can watch some dunks from Saturday night beforehand.

MVP - This one's hard and perfectly encapsulates the major rift in schools of thought when it comes to MVP debates.  Should it go to the player having the best season or the player helping his team win the most?  Russell Westbrook is AVERAGING a triple double but finds his Thunder team as the 7th seed in the West while James Harden is averaging 29, 11, and 8 for the 4th best team in the entire league this year.  Reminds me of the 2012 AL MVP race when Miggy Cabrera got the Triple Crown.  I don't see how you can't give it to a guy averaging a FREAKIN' triple double and has his team in the playoffs a year after losing their best(?) player.

The Warriors Strikes Back - The Evil Empire franchise of the NBA may reside in the Bay Area now.  Although they'll never reach Lakers levels of being hated (because people are intimidated by sustained greatness) there is plenty of disdain and general jeering in the Warriors direction.

They're doing just fine with the addition of Durant, giving them a Fab Four that simply cannot be matched anywhere in the league, Kyle Korver be damned.  It's fine that they've already lost 9 games, matching last year's record total.  Something tells me the Warriors aren't concerned with breaking regular season records as much as they are on learning how to not blow 3-1 leads in the Finals.  Although I'd never count San Antonio out, barring unforeseen injury, right now, I don't see the Warriors losing in the Western Conference.

The State of the Cavs - The state of the Cavaliers, as always, revolves around LeBron and LeBron's twitter tantrums.  When LeBron takes it to the streets of social media  admirers and detractors alike, shake their heads.  Why does the most powerful player in the world need to post passive-aggressive tweets requesting help when his team already won the championship the year before with the highest payroll in the league?    A couple thoughts on this:

• LeBron doesn't care what you think.  He hasn't for a long time.  He's King James and if kings cared a lot about how everyone felt, they wouldn't have abandoned their homeland to go to Miami to train under a wizard while at the same time setting the stage for a comeback to a team with young talent (and Anthony Bennett).  
• LeBron cares more about his legacy than Dan Gilbert does.  His legacy's rise in stature is directly correlated to the number of banners he raises.  And as he's openly admitted he's chasing Jordan, how important is a championship really to Dan Gilbert's bottom line?  Is it a coincidence that Forbes put out this article soon after Bron's comments?  Both men reaching out in their realms of influence.  Is there a "deep state" working behind the scenes within the Cavs organization?
• Maybe this is how LeBron motivates himself or his teammates.  Maybe he's doing this solely for Kay Felder.  But we've seen this song and dance before.  LeBron seems to think making his concerns known publicly puts pressure on those making the basketball decisions.  And if the past predicts future, LeBron seems to get his way in these situations.

The Cavs have shown some signs of struggle but they've also been a little banged up. I don't see them in any trouble at all and I think they actually have an easier road to the Finals than Golden State.  The East is steadily improving but the West is still the best.  And although it's difficult to advise doing anything to a team that just won a championship, the Empire did just get Sith Durant.  With J.R. and K. Love out for a while, the Cavs are most likely going to make a move.  It will be interesting to see what they give up to get the playmaker LeBron is looking for.  And although Melo would be an amazing addition, it's probably too risky to give up Love for him.  I'd look for a point or combo guard.  Lou Williams would not be a bad pick up.  

The Buggy Eyes and a Big Butt Oscar One-Sheet

The Academy Awards are less than a week away, and, as you might expect, some of the nominated movies were a part of Buggy Eyes and a Big Butt. You will find links to every part of the 366 movie challenge below. The top three movies of each part are noted as well as the Oscar nominated movies. (Hint: Most are near the end.)

Part One
top three: Capricorn One, Monte Walsh, The Station Agent

Part Two
top three: The Big Short, Busting, Laura

2017 Oscar nominee:
Hail, Caesar! (Production Design)

Part Three
top three: The Pawnbroker, Seven Days in May, The Witch

Part Four
top three: Rififi, Room, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Part Five
top three: Dogfight, Harold & Maude, Seven Samurai

Part Six
top three: The Invitation, Juggernaut, Wendy and Lucy

Part Se7en
top three: Green Room, Paper Moon, Too Late

Part Eight
top three: Captain America: Civil War, Cleo from 5 to 7, Remember

Part Nine
top three: Everest, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, The Nice Guys

Part Ten
top three: The Lobster, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Secret in Their Eyes

2017 Oscar nominees:
The Lobster (Writing - original screenplay)
Zootopia (Animated Feature Film)

Part Eleven
top three: Calvary, The Children's Hour, The Fits

Part Twelve
top three: Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Lady Vanishes, Swiss Army Man

2017 Oscar nominee:
Star Trek Beyond (Makeup and Hairstyling)

Part Thirteen
top three: Don't Breathe, Palio, Sing Street

2017 Oscar nominees:
Captain Fantastic (Leading Actor - Viggo Mortensen)
Hell or High Water (Best Picture, Supporting Actor - Jeff Bridges, Writing - original screenplay, Film Editing)
Suicide Squad (Makeup and Hairstyling)

Part Fourteen
top three: De Palma, The Last Picture Show, Metropolis

2017 Oscar nominee:
Kubo and the Two Strings (Animated Feature Film, Visual Effects)

Part Fifteen
top three:Army of One, A Band Called Death, Moonlight

2017 Oscar nominees:
Arrival (Best Picture, Directing, Writing - adapted screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
Doctor Strange (Visual Effects)
Hacksaw Ridge (Best Picture, Directing, Leading Actor - Andrew Garfield, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
Moonlight (Best Picture, Directing, Supporting Actress - Naomie Harris, Supporting Actor - Mahershala Ali, Writing - adapted screenplay, Cinematography, Music - original score, Film Editing)

Part Sixteen
top three: After the Wedding, The Edge of Seventeen, Evolution

2017 Oscar nominees:
Allied (Costume Design)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Production Design, Costume Design)

Part Se7enteen
top three: Always Shine, Christine, The Eyes of My Mother

2017 Oscar nominees:
The Jungle Book (Visual Effects)
Nocturnal Animals (Supporting Actor - Michael Shannon)

Part Eighteen
top three: Black Christmas, Manchester by the Sea, Wild Tales

2017 Oscar nominees:
Fences (Best Picture, Leading Actor - Denzel Washington, Supporting Actress - Viola Davis, Writing - adapted screenplay),
Manchester by the Sea (Best Picture, Directing, Leading Actor - Casey Affleck, Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams, Supporting Actor - Lucas Hedges, Writing - original screenplay)
Rogue One (Visual Effects, Sound Mixing)

Here's hoping Van Hammersly will recount this year's Hollywood Awards.

TV Party Tonight! Part Seven: Presidents' Day edition - by Anne Marie

Protest Music

I’ve noticed that Colin often kicks off these Saturday TV Party Tonight! Rabbit Holes with the exhortation to “forget politics” and listen to some music.  But I’m having a difficult time shaking politics from my mind lately and it got me thinking about some powerful music that may not even exist if the music itself were not a political statement.

My daughter Caitlin and I were at Nelsonville Music Festival a couple of years ago and experienced watching Mavis Staples perform as we waited for the Flaming Lips to take the stage.  Caitlin asked me who Mavis was and I was able to offer only the briefest sketch of the Staple Singers and their involvement with civil rights before consulting Google to fill in the gaps.  Martin Luther King attended a Staple Singers concert in 1963 and, after the group met with him backstage, they were inspired to dedicate all of their songwriting efforts to the civil rights movement for the next several years.

I dive down the rabbit hole and listen to  "Freedom's Highway," about the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches, "Washington We're Watching You," "Long Walk to D.C." and "Why Am I Treated So Bad," in honor of the Little Rock Nine.

(formerly, "NINA SIMONE- Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood") Wrestling for the soul of America. I grew up in the South and Midwest during the civil rights years and their aftermath. It challenged everything about my world and changed my perception of life.

From "City in the sky", the last album released on STAX Records by The Staple Singers. A Bad and funky message to the Capital.

Uploaded by NevilleMatheson71 on 2011-10-27.

Uploaded by selim anac on 2015-01-20.

Mavis Staples and Bob Dylan were an item for seven years until she declined his offer of marriage. Dylan, of course, more than held his own in the protest music arena, with songs against the Cold War, the Vietnam War and racial injustice.  I start with the venerable “Blowin’ in the Wind” (“How many times can a cannonball fly / before they're forever banned?“) and then listen to his songs telling the story of true events, “Oxford Town,” “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and “Hurricane,” but framed in a way that the newspapers of the time were not framing them – exposing the underlying racism and social injustice.  I find an intense 1972 cover of “Oxford Town” by Richie Havens, a Steve Allen Show performance of “Hattie Carroll” in February 1964 following an insanely uncomfortable interview of Dylan by Allen, and a 1975 version of “Hurricane” with Emmylou Harris on background vocals:

Song written by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan performs "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie C." on the Steve Allen Show from February 25, 1964.

Emmylou Harris - background vocals for this take but mid-tour, of The Rolling Thunder Revue, Dylan wanted to rerecord the song and used Ronee Blakley, who was doing background vocals for the tour, as the background vocalist for the final take that was released on Desire.

While lyrically Dylan was an amazing poet (and this has been officially confirmed now that the Swedish Academy awarded him last year’s Nobel Prize for literature), the political protest song that packs the most powerful lyrical punch in my view is Neil Young’s “Ohio,” written in reaction to the May 4, 1970 killing of 4 and shooting of 12 other students at Kent State by the National Guard. The students had gathered to protest President Nixon’s announcement of the invasion of Cambodia and expansion of the Vietnam War. Neil uses sparse prose, “soldiers are cutting us down” over a relentless beat to drive home that it is time to stop the madness and asks, “what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?”  In that one chilling question I think he cuts to the heart of it all – what if you knew her?  What if you were not behind those gas masks and riot gear so that you were removed from, and thus dehumanized, those students?  I am deep down this depressing rabbit hole and play different versions of the song, but share a raw, live version from Toronto in 1971.

© 2007 WMG Ohio [Live At Massey Hall 1971] (Video)

But for all the underlying darkness that spurs their creation, the upside of protests songs is they drive positive change. “Ohio” may have been shunned by popular radio but it got airplay from underground FM stations and became an anthem for the anti-war effort, helping to lead to the withdrawal from Vietnam. 

I was too young to protest Vietnam, but I got my chance to see a protest song in action when I was in college. In 1986, I was President of the Boston University chapter of Amnesty International. On the morning of November 17th, Amnesty joined eighteen other campus groups to stage a walk out of classes in protest of BU’s decision to award Chief Buthelezi, a political rival of then jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, an honorary law degree.  Nearly 500 of us crowded onto Marsh Plaza to demand that BU divest of its investments in companies doing business with the apartheid-supporting government of South Africa. We awarded a mock honorary degree to Mandela and marched down Commonwealth Avenue singing the “Free Nelson Mandela” song and chanting “Amandla … Ngawethu.” 

I search for Little Steven’s “I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City” and, as I watch, I take heart in the fact that less than four years later, Mandela was free and Boston was one of the first cities in the US to divest of investments in South Africa, which economic pressure led to the dismantling of apartheid.

Artists United Against Apartheid was a 1985 protest group founded by activist and performer Steven Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker to protest apartheid in South Africa.

I think about the protests that have taken place over the past few weeks and the fact that more citizens seem engaged in our democratic process than in any period during my adulthood.  News reports have described the “tsunami” of calls that have flooded legislators’ offices since Trump took office, jamming phone lines for hours and days at a time. 

I turn next to some new Run the Jewels.  While my music tastes are fairly eclectic, rap and country are usually where I hit my limits.  But Killer Mike cuts to the heart of issues in an unsettling way. If you are up for the challenge, watch “Reagan” (but know that he was already dead, this was not inciting).  This is about using strong imagery to express protest.  It is freedom of expression through music and it definitely pushes buttons.  I find a recent Run the Jewels Tiny Desk Concert, which ends (starting at 8:10) with the song  “A Report to The Shareholders” (“You talk clean and bomb hospitals / So I speak with the foulest mouth possible“). Click here to listen

Finally, I find videos of the protest song “Quiet” by the artist who goes by MILCK and Fiona Apple's "Tiny Hands" that went viral at the recent post-election Women’s Marches.   IMHO, it is a good thing that people are not quiet and complacent in a Democracy and that protest music is not just a relic of the ‘60s.  I look forward to the protest music that is sure to flourish as we enter month two of this administration and artists continue to offer resistance through song. #DissentisPatriotic 

Video courtesy of Alma Har'el. The #ICANTKEEPQUIET Choir features members of both the GW Sirens & Capital Blend. Huge thanks to both organizations! #ICantKeepQuiet #OneWomanRiot Song: "Quiet" by MILCK. www.milckmusic.com

AML
2/4/17

Four Cents - Rob & Ricki and Oscar, Part Three: Oscar Commentary

Ricki - Concerning The Oscars: I like an art-house film as much as the next guy, but I've gotta admit, if some hip local tastemaker type tells me they just saw "A lovely Iranian documentary about a Pashti single mother who supports her family by raising pygmy Dalmatians in war-torn Syria, rendered in Farsi with French subtitles," I am likely to call "bullshit" on that picture simply because I know said tastemaker did not enjoy "Caddyshack."  (They never like Get Your Wings-era Aerosmith either.)  To me, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science's slavish devotion to La La Land is exactly the kind of misguided elitism that got Donald Trump elected President of the United States.  (Let's face facts, folks, Meryl Streep can badmouth Trump on T.V. award shows all she wants, but Gary & Kelly in Middletown, Ohio and Terry & Melissa out in the suburbs of Iowa - all of whom LOVED the new Star Wars movie and Bad Moms - still get one vote apiece in the national elections, the same as Meryl Streep and Michael Moore.) 

La La Land is essentially a movie ABOUT making a movie.  As such, it's exactly the kind of picture that the Oscars would rhapsodize over: "OH!, the storytelling, OH!, the cinematography, OH! the lush dancing-in-the-stars numbers with Emma & Ryan."  If Colin Gawel recorded a double-CD set ABOUT making a CD, I would probably like it, but I wouldn't expect Colin to try to foist it on the public-at-large, and I don't think HE would even want to.

As I said in my section of our Top Ten Movies blog, I enjoyed La La Land, but if there had been even one or two more quality movies out this year (and I kinda expect Arrival and/or Hell Or High Water to be those movies, once I have time to catch them) "LLL" would not have even made my Top Ten.

I can think of NOT ONE REASON that Captain America: Civil War did not get at least a Best Picture nomination from the Oscars.  Oh wait, yes I can: because it's a "comic book movie" and regular people might have liked it.  And ENJOYED it.  As much as I appreciated Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight and as much as I found them oddly simultaneously depressing AND uplifting,  I can't really say I enjoyed them.  And what I wouldn't have given for at least one COMEDY to get an Oscar nod, but God forbid we have a laugh while raising our crystal brandy snifters to Damien Chazelle's directorial prowess in La La Land.

Oooops, over to you, Rob, my cardiac pacemaker is signaling me that I'm becoming over-stimulated....... 

Rob - At the risk of short-circuiting your system, Ricki, La La Land isn’t about making movies. He’s a jazz musician. Sure, she goes on auditions, but you don’t see her on set. However, it is about people trying live their dream in Los Angeles, Hollywood’s hometown. And like The Artist before it, it’s a style that is rarely made anymore, reminding the voters of what it was like before, before the magic was gone. You want a populist voting system? You want to make movies great again? I give you La. La. Land.

The members of the Academy are busy folks. They can’t make it to the theater to see everything. The studios mail screeners of their movies for the members to watch in the comfort of their homes, as well as run “for you consideration” campaigns for individual categories. To me, this creates a rigged system. How likely are these voters going to look outside of what they are given and directed to look for? Good luck getting your movie recognized if it is released before September. I’m guessing Hail, Caesar! (released 2/5/2016) was nominated for production design because it was 1) a period picture and 2) about Hollywood.

The Academy made changes last year to ensure the voting body will become more diverse. I think this year’s nominations reflect those changes a little. Oscar nominees gets more attention from the studios. Their options for making more movies widen. If the new kids play their cards right, careers are made. The Oscars is how many people learn about some of these movies. Some folks will watch a movie just because it was nominated for an Oscar. Getting movies from a more diverse pool of storytellers is good for us all. Movies from women, gay and non-white filmmakers not only provide a different perspective but will inspire others like them, by showing there is a place for them on the movie theater screen.

In the end, it’s the Academy’s party. They will nominate whatever they want. They tend to lean toward more serious subjects, more “important” issues, flashier performances and Meryl Streep. Maybe one day movies with explosions will be recognized for more than how those explosions sound.

Four Cents will continue next week on Pencilstorm with an Oscars installment of Buggy Eyes and a Big Butt on Tuesday and Rob & Ricki's Oscars picks on Thursday.  Stay tuned.