In case of A LOVE AFFAIR

I remember the first time I watched the Academy Awards on television.

We were living in Herndon, VA, and Billy Crystal was hosting that year.  I remember his opening monologue, which included a hilarious version of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme.  I remember Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who were young faces then, accepting a screenwriting award for a little movie they’d written and directed and acted in themselves.  That was the year Celine Dion sang “My Heart Will Go On.”  That was the year Titanic won everything.  It was 1998.

And that – those precious hours, right then – that was when I fell madly in love with Oscar.

And I hadn’t even seen Titanic.

First off, though, let’s get this much on the record:  I don’t necessarily place an absolute faith in the value of the Academy Awards.  I know that sometimes the winners don’t deserve it – not as much as some of the other nominees and not as much, even, as some people who didn’t get nominated.  I know that Oscars are political symbols, politically given.  So I’m not naïve about that. 

And I don’t always like the “celebrity” aspect of the awards either.  I almost never watch all that red carpet stuff beforehand, when everybody analyzes each other’s clothes and jewelry and hairstyles.

But what I love, LOVE, is the heart of the matter. 

What I love is that whenever I watch the Oscars, I feel like I’m hanging out with a bunch of my old friends.  Because these people love movies.  And I LOVE MOVIES, TOO!  It’s like I finally get see the faces of people – just like me – who want to devote their lives to the silver screen.  I know why they do what they do.  I know that, deep down, we all know how beautiful and poignant movies have made our lives.  And every year that there are more, that there is new beauty and poignancy brought into the world, that year is a year worth celebrating.  CELEBRATE CREATION!

So I have now spent over a decade watching the Academy Awards on TV.  I have seen Roberto Benigni climb exultantly across the tops of the chairs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and I have seen Adrien Brody passionately kiss Halle Berry right on the lips.  I’ve seen the creation of an award for animation, watched the Awards move permanently into the Kodak Theater, and nervously hung onto my precious Oscars as they barely survived the WGA strike.  I’ve even spotted a member of the Secret Society of Seat Sitters!

And last year I got to stand on the stage and look out across that sea of empty chairs and imagine what the theater would look like if they were full. 

And tonight I get to watch the whole production for the twelfth amazing year.  So Happy Anniversary, Oscar!  I hope we stay together for twelve more years. 

Heck.  I hope we stay together forever. 

In case of MINNIE DRIVER

I’m back.  Okay.

I’ve wondered often what causes crassness.  Why do some people insist upon being crass, upon being vulgar?  What inspires profanity?  Damn.  I’m not sure.

Perhaps the world is a crass place.  You have to understand, I’m not talking merely about people saying four letter words.  I’m talking about a general disregard for the sacred or the serious.  I’m talking about people who make a mockery of intimate things, people who scream out things that should be secret or quiet, people who throw beautiful things in the mud.  That’s what crassness is.  And I do it, too, sometimes.  Perhaps we all do. 

Probably there are many different reasons.

But I guess I sorta think that it must be a defense mechanism.  Just like everything else.  We’re all fucking scared, right?  We don’t want to let people in.  We’d rather be hard and inaccessible.  Nobody wants to be weak.  I don’t want people to think I don’t know how to use four letter words so I’m gonna say them, goddamn it.  Right?  And the world is a scary place – a flawed, imperfect place, a crass place – and if you go around bashing things open, tearing down stained glass windows, and laughing at prayer, then you don’t have to see!  You don’t have to know!  You don’t have to feel!  Stick your fingers in your ears and la la la la I’M NOT LISTENING!

And you can make things funny.  It’s funny to swear sometimes.  It’s funny to be a little dirty, a little obscene.  Nothing wrong with that.  I really think so.  Sometimes it’s nice to be surprised.  But that’s not crassness, I don’t think.  Not always.

I watched Good Will Hunting again the other day and again appreciated the writing.  That movie is hilarious, really hilarious.  And it is incredibly crude in places!  Minnie Driver’s joke in the restaurant?  Pure genius.

But the worst part about that movie is the scene in the bedroom.  Minnie Driver asks Will (Matt Damon) to move to California with her.  And he flips out.  “That’s a really serious thing you’re saying.  That’s really serious.”

She knows, of course, that it’s serious.  But she loves him. 

And then when he turns her down, when he gets up and gets dressed and tries to run, when they’re screaming at each other and she’s crying, she starts to beg him for the truth.  “I need you to tell me you don’t love me,” she demands.  “I need to hear you say you don’t love me.  And then I won’t call you and I won’t be in your life.”

And for a second you think he won’t say it, he can’t, and then you suddenly know that he can and he will and you begin to hate him for it.  And he does.  He says it.  “I don’t love you.”  And he leaves her there.

He looks her right in the face and tells her he doesn't love her.

Crassest thing in the movie.  Maybe one of the crudest things I’ve ever seen.

Because it’s not true.  Because it’s Will Hunting with his fingers in his ears pretending, pretending that there isn’t something true and beautiful in existence anywhere.  Being a coward.  A fucking coward.

And that’s most of us, most of the time.

So I don’t care if you swear or talk about sex in public and I don’t even much care much if you have sex in public (just not around kids, okay).  But I do care about crassness, real crassness.  Don’t be a coward.  Don’t say something that’s not true just because you’re scared. 

Don’t be that guy.  Okay.