Samuel L. Jackson REALLY Wants an Oscar

"I really don’t know many people who can not only remember Ed Wood, but remember what Martin Landau did in it,"

Samuel L. Jackson said that.

Classy, Sam. Classy.

I'll tell you what Martin Landau did in Ed Wood, he became Bela Lugosi. Every time I watch that movie, I am not watching Martin Landau playing Bela Lugosi, I am watching Bela Lugosi. In a career that had many high points (including a tremendous and heartbreaking performance in Francis Coppola's utterly brilliant Tucker: A Man and His Dream), it was likely the highest. In a film that also represented Tim Burton's best work, and, for my money, Johnny Depp's, as well.

I remember Ed Wood.

Ed Wood is a wonderful, sentimental, sincere film about a moment in time where a grab-bag of truly bizarre people came together and created something that is God-awful, but still lives on to this day. It was a film that put aside "being cool" to just embrace the bizarre reality of the people who are drawn to, and ultimately cannot escape, Hollywood. I'll take it any day over the slick strip-mining of 70's B-grade schlock that your buddy Quentin does. I'll also take Landau's embrace of  Lugosi as a deeply flawed, and deeply wonderful man, full of pain and joy, over your Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, who was interesting in his own right, don't get me wrong, but also, in retrospect, was another variation of the "badass" shtick you've been beating into the ground for over 20 years.

Somebody online said, "Sam Jackson is the black Jack Nicholson. Same character, every movie," now I will not dismiss either of you like that, because you're both capable of really tremendous work, but there are similarities. Both you and Nicholson obviously have two modes of operation, projects that will make you a lot of cash for trotting out "Jack Nicholson" or "Sam Jackson," and the projects that inspire you to bring your A-games. 

The difference is, as Nicholson has gotten older, he's made fewer films, but he's also made less garbage. Since 2000, he's made seven films, and only two of those (Anger Management and The Bucket List) are absolute dreck, and The Departed and, especially, About Schmidt rank with some of his best performances.

Schmidt is kind of a miracle, really, it's not even close to a "Jack Nicholson" performance. Great stuff. 

That could be you, but I think I have to go back to Changing Lanes in 2002 for the last time I really felt something uncalculated, honest and vulnerable from you. That's thirty-seven movies ago! You got close with Black Snake Moan, and I loved you in The Incredibles, but that was voice work. I'll admit I haven't seen everything you've made in that time, but my history with your performances leads me to believe that at least 75% of the time, it's not worth watching.

You thought Snakes on a Plane was a good idea, for Christ's sake!

Vulnerability, Sam. We all know you can be a "badass," but your greatest performances allowed vulnerability. Unbreakable, The Caveman's Valentine, Changing Lanes, The Negotiator, The Long Kiss Goodnight, A Time to Kill, Jungle Fever, the roles that made you a star, allowed us to see the human underneath the "badass" posturing.

I'm gonna give you a pass on Shaft, too, because it was fun as hell. The "what's my name" scene is an absolute classic. However, it also pretty much started this whole problem for you.

If you want to win an Oscar, find those roles again. Let us see something other than "I'm muthafuckin' Samuel L. Jackson!"

And , look...I find a lot of Quentin's stuff fun, I guess. I understand that you guys get along, and you enjoy working together. That's terrific, but I will tell you this, Quentin, and the way he repeatedly uses you as a performer, is part of the problem. I know it's made you an icon, and that's something to be proud of. 

However, if you really want an Oscar, it might be wise to think beyond the icon, and especially to stop trying to belittle an old man who deservedly won for a performance that is truly marvelous.

So, We're Post-Oscar.

Generally speaking, very, very few surprises last night.

And, no matter how many people get pissed at me (and they have), I still think Bullock winning is ridiculous. Not when Carey Mulligan was just absolutely exquisite in An Education. Yes, I know I haven't seen The Blind Side, and I really don't think I care to. Sorry, folks.

Jeff Bridges taking it home makes up for Matt Damon not getting a deserved nomination for The Informant!

Of course, the big story is the amazing Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to win Best Director. I'm a fan of her work for many years, and what I find most inspiring about this is that she made the best movie of the year (No, The Hurt Locker was not on my 2009 Top Ten. It would've been, had I seen it before I wrote that list. I finally saw it on home video, and I am DYING to see it on the big screen.), and it's, frankly, just a very thoughtful action movie.

It's not a speechifying morass of "good for you" proselytizing about the horrors of war, or the virtue of military service and the American agenda. It's a story of three men in what has to be the most intense and stressful environment imaginable. It's a film of technical achievement that never loses sight of the idea that people are what make stories interesting.

Which is exactly what's she always made.

Her filmography is full of tough but intelligent action pictures. She made Point Break, for God's sake! I first caught wind of her with her absolutely classic vampire western Near Dark, and my personal favorites would be Blue Steel, Strange Days and K-19: The Widowmaker. She's skilled with the camera and with storytelling, and she's paid her dues.

Exactly the sort of director who's earned the right to be recognized.

Notice I said "director," not "female director." See, while I think it is fantastic that a woman has achieved this honor, I think it's much more powerful that a woman flat-out earned it. No one can say Kathryn didn't grasp that little gold man on her own merits, not because the tides of political correctness swept her way.

And how much sweeter the victory is for it.

Bigelow's win doesn't have anything to do with her sex. It has to do with the fact she shot a brilliant fucking film. That she won it for exactly the kind of work she's always done. She didn't have to curry favor with anyone to do it. She never, ever played the sex card. You never heard her talk about it. She talked about her film, her collaborators, her team. She kept her focus on THE WORK, not on the politics of the situation.

You see, I believe, very fiercely, in equality. No one should be held back from anything because of their skin tone, sex, or sexual orientation. I strive to live my life by that ideal. No artist should be dismissed for these factors, but neither should the be elevated, either.

If we all are equal, then are we not to be judged solely on the merits of our work? I see a movie, read a book, watch a TV show, and I like or dislike it, the sex of the creator never crosses my mind. Maybe it does for some people, but this blog is about me. I can't answer for them. I can't, and I won't.

Much like when the uproar happened over Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of 2009 List, I find myself wondering when artistic merit had to pass through some crucible of political correctness. If I, Publisher's Weekly, or the Members of the Academy pick our "best," that's just that, their opinion. All awards, best-of lists, or other rankings function best as a way to encourage discussion.

Taking the Publisher’s Weekly situation, for example…Why should it be expected that women writers MUST be represented? In my mind, only the ten best books (in their opinion) MUST be included. Publisher's Weekly found their top ten books of 2009 included no female writers.

The people who put together the list (including women) liked 10 other books more. Go figure. They say it themselves, "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz. We gave fair chance to the “big” books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet. It disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male." So, they're basically saying they picked the books they liked most, and were surprised as anyone else that all the authors were male.

Yet, this is considered some kind of wrong on women.

This led various feminist organizations to list off the female writers who had published works in 2009, Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker….

Well, so what?

This is one of those situations where I'm sitting here, a straight, white male, and wondering if I should even say anything. If I should even mention that this smacks of saying that, well, we know you thought this work was better, but you should really honor this work, simply because it was created by a woman. Women In Letters And Literary Arts (WILLA) even created their own top ten list, with no men allowed.

Isn't that exactly what they were accusing Publisher's Weekly of?

We all want a world of equality, but equality, by it's very nature, is not a one-way street. Yes, there are plenty of examples of crimes of omission in the past, but, if you really want a better world, the time has come to look forward. To strive to acknowledge that artistic achievement is a matter of opinion in almost every sense, and that no one deserves special treatment.