The following comment came in last night on my post about the National Board of Review’s annual honors. It is anonymous, so don’t, like, bet the farm on it (although I don’t know why you’d be betting your farm on SpoutBlog comments anyway. Take your farm more seriously!), but I thought it was interesting:
I’m a member of the NBR (sort of, well, student, even though I’m not anymore… long story) and I’m consistently left in horror by the comments, questions and tastes of our unimaginative membership, most having been cloistered from the real world in there upper west side four bedroom apartments for millenia, rushing from Q&A’s to meet their 7pm reservations at Isabella’s to discuss just how uplifting The Great Debaters was. Anyone remember how Blood Diamond was the third best film of the year last year!? I promise you, the average membership is so old, feeble and generally unsavvy, that Ben Affleck is the only new director they can remember from the past 12 months.
I should also note that I wrote that post based on a partial list of the honors published by Variety. The Reeler has the full list, which includes the NBR’s Top Five Documentaries and Top Ten Indie Films (”indie”, in this case, seems to translate as “an excuse to lump A Mighty Heart in the same bucket as Once.”)
Note: The straitjacketed lunatic pictured is not actually a member of the National Board of Review. We think.
The National Board of Review has released their annual list of film honors, but you’re only allowed to look at it after you read these stories about how the NBR’s is this mysterious organization that doesn’t disclose details about its membership, and just has a history of general shadyness. Okay?
Okay. First, The good: Casey Affleck was recognized for Best Supporting Actor for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (he’s really the lead in that film, but whatever); their list of the top ten films of year includes several titles that truly deserve to be there, including Jesse James, Atonement, and Sweeney Todd (which I’m not seeing until tonight, but I’ve heard almost nothing but good things, and I’m trying to keep this positive).
The Bad, The Inoffensive, and The WTF? after the jump.
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Last night, for the first time in almost 20 years, I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I’m sure I saw this thing at least once a year from birth until, like 1989 (when we got cable and I basically refused to watch anything but Yo! MTV Raps), but I had totally forgotten about the strange and wonderful little narrative details.
Like, for instance, Rudolph’s friend Hermy, the queer little elf who runs away from Christmas Town because no one understands his desperate desire to become “a … dentist.” And Yukon Cornelius, the shady mountain man who befriends Hermy and Rudolph en route to pick up “cornmeal, ham hocks, gun powder and guitar strings” (the makings of any good night, no?) And, oh, the Island of Misfit Toys. I can’t even begin to top the Wikipedia descriptions of that whole mess. Their take on Misfit Doll: “Misfit Doll (voiced by Corinne Conley) is an unnamed, but seemingly normal girl rag doll. Her presence on the island is never explained, though one accepted reason is that the problem is somewhat psychological.”
The whole experience basically caused me to revert to my 8 year-old self–as soon as it was over, I fell asleep on the couch in a puddle of my own drool. While I’m getting my game together this morning, go here to watch an unembeddable clip of Rudolph and Hermy, finding each other in a snow bank and cementing their bond through song.
