Admittedly, I am somewhat out of the loop when it comes to the Academy Awards. I, like everyone who comes to this site, love movies and I realize that, in theory, this is our Super Bowl. But two things kept me from tuning in each year:
1. Award shows never appealed to me. I always thought of them as the industry getting together to celebrate itself. A 3-hour self-high-five seemed, well, self-serving and dull.
2. I just assumed that the Academy Awards was the Masterpiece Theater of award shows celebrating Masterpiece Theater films. Stodgy old people giving awards for stodgy movies because of their excellent use of mise-en-scene or whatever. Boring.
So on Oscar night, I would forgo watching all of the “I can’t believe this…” speeches and just watch movies. Last year, however, I gave it an honest go. Mainly because I was caught up in the hype about Scorsese’s very real chance to finally win the Best Motion Picture award. Also, my roommates were doing Oscar “squares” for the nominations (see, our Super Bowl). I’ll admit, I was sort of wrong about the Academy Awards. But not totally. I didn’t see myself returning to them this year.
All of this is an elaborate way of saying that I am sort of useless when it comes to articles about the Oscars for this site. I mean, this annual event isn’t for me, so how the hell am I going to write about it? But being the consummate professional and in the spirit of upholding the utmost journalistic integrity that we here at Lonely Reviewer strictly adhere to, I decided to do some “research” to determine whether or not I could bang an article or two out.
Well, all that good intention turned to a quick scroll through Wikipedia’s list of this year’s nominees. Just as I was about to close out the page and my hope for an insightful contribution, a word caught my eye. I paused, thinking “Wait, who got nominated?” I carefully scrolled back down the list, scouring the information to be absolutely sure what I thought I read was what I actually read. And there it was, sitting quietly, practically glowing, waiting for me to return to it: Transformers.
That’s right, movie nerds! Our voice was heard! Transformers, the 2007 summer blockbuster that brought an 80s toy commercial to the big screen, has been nominated for an Oscar. An Academy Award. The industry’s top prize. It will be mentioned amongst the cream of the crop. I am beside myself that a movie about good space robots coming to Earth and taking the form of various GM automobiles to battle bad space robots who have come to Earth to find an Energon cube has been discussed in the same room as the conversations about the Best Foreign Language Film. Seriously, stop and think about that for a moment. Here, I’ll pull it out for you to mull over:
The Academy had a serious conversation about awarding a movie starring Megatron.
It feels good, right? Perhaps the tides are turning. So maybe I’ll be watching the Oscars this year, just for the chance to see Michael Bay walk up to that celebrated stage and accept the award for Best Visual Effects. I bet he shows up with his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest in that way that only Michael Bay can. I also bet that when he holds the statuette, he shakes it around all of the time like he does with the camera. Anyone want to bet on that in an Oscar square?
-Justin
Wouldn’t the Visual Effects team accept the award? Why would Michael Bay accept the award for Visual Effects? I’ll take your bet in the Oscar square.
You’re right. Theoretically ILM would accept the award. But I would guess he’d accompany them. Hell, it’s Michael Bay. I would guess he’d accompany them up there even if he wasn’t asked to.
I mean, how great would it be to see Michael Bay standing up on that stage?
perhaps they’re just trying to pump a little bit of life into the american automobile manufacturers before they all die horribly?