Bronx Doesn't Want the Indians

Okay, a free subscription to this blog for anyone who can get the title reference.

So, eight Oscars later, "Slumdog Millionaire" has entered into the pantheon of stratospheric Academy winners. I won't begrudge the film as a crowd-pleaser and a reasonable choice among a number of quality but not superlative competitors. But aside from its novel setting there is little to distinguish it from better cinema champions (and didn't "Gandhi" travel this turf a while back, knocking off "E.T."?)

My problem with the movie stems from entering the theater with extremely high expectations, thanks to word of mouth. Yeah, it transported me to a different world, at least when away from the "Millionaire" studio set. As a Dickensian tale of triumph over terrible adversity it did have its powerful moments. But story-wise it seemed to sag among a series of unlikely plot machinations involving the game show. To wit: 1) how did he get on the show in the first-place? I know there was some plot device that eluded me but an 18-year-old is unlikely to find his way onto that stage;. 2) I 've been on several game shows and the idea that the host would be allowed to go to the john at the same time as a contestant is ludicrous (okay, Standards and Practices may not be as stringent on the Subcontinent as in the U.S., but still--); 3) why would the 20-million rupee question be so easy, and yet the contestant not know the answer? I accept a certain cosmic irony about that circumstance as registered in Jamal's face, but if he was stumped, why didn't he just accept the 10 million rupees and head home? Didn't he have enough problems to deal with, that half the grand prize money would have nicely addressed?

I also have a problem conceptually with a prize-winning ending a story. That kind of nouveau richeness should have begun a story. Can you imagine the thieves and p.r. wolves that would hound him all through India? More realistic is what happens to Hurley on"Lost" when he wins the super lottery--it's all downhill from there.

Whether "Lost" is more of a fairy tale than "Slumdog" is worth some debate, and I adore the "Lost" mythology as much as most moviegoers loved "Slumdog." I guess we pick our fictional poison. And I certainly enjoyed "Slumdog" more than I did last year's harsh and cynical "No Country for Old Men." But it wasn't the best movie of 2008. In my opinion, that would have been the visionary "Wall-E," which was another fairy tale that at least did not pretend to be pseudo-documentary.

Aside from the predictable "Slumdog" sweep, the other choices for major awards were all defensible, and some were very touching. The best speech was Dustan Lance Black's for winning the screenplay for "Milk." Usually that award goes to an original story of the type Charlie Kaufmann would write--but this was definitely a labor of love. I also liked Sean Penn's victory, probably narrow, over Mickey Rourke. The difference probably was that Penn inhabited the skin of someone so unlike himself, whereas Rourke played a character close to his own persona. And thank goodness "Wall-E" at least won the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

The show itself started out well, and it was refreshing to see the losers in the acting categories at least receive some final accolades before they had to beam the good-losers' smiles and tear up their victory speeches. But after a while I began to miss the illustrative snippets of their performances, as well as scenes from the nominated films. The clips fell victim to the time constraints and the demands that all major awards be televised.

My favorite moment was the Judd Apatow "Pineapple Express" comedy movie salute. Seth Rogan (and who is his trainer?--he is almost unrecognizable), and James Franco were hilarious when they started roaring hysterically at "The Reader." In fact, that was the funniest bit of anything I've seen from Apatow, whose films I think are overrated.

The musical numbers were hokey. Hugh Jackman is a charismatic showman I guess, but he got a little ingested by the chorus and scenery and his serviceable voice probably wouldn't get him into the top 12 of "American Idol." And how long did they have to rehearse Queen Latifah's endless dirge to the Death Medley so they ended up precisely on Paul Newman? Well at least he outranked penultimate finisher Charlton Heston, a win by Fast Eddie over Ben Hur, and by cultural extension, of salad dressing over guns. The Age of Obama.

Well the streets are slowly clearing and soon I will be able to drive East of La Brea again. February is coming to a close, and March Madness approacheth. Go, Connecticut.

Say That It's So

When President Obama (still a nice ring to that) commented yesterday in his first press conference that the Alex Rodriguez steroid admission left him depressed, he vocalized my own emotions regarding the poor little Rich Boy and his public humiliation. For the last week my mind has been working overtime in contortions to rationalize anything salvageable about Arod's damning confession.

It has come up empty.

I still recall the moment vividly in the fall of 2003 when I gleefully called a friend who was both a Yankee fan and an Arod adolater that the two entities had been married. "Arod is a Yankee!" I announced as he picked up the phone. Little did I suspect that that same pronouncement would signal the end of the Yankee dynasty for years to come, perhaps forever. That was two months after the Yanks had lost the World Series but had blessed me with one of the great baseball moments, the pennant-winning home run from Aaron Boone which I had famously called days earlier. That, it turned out, was the last glory day of the Bronx Bombers to this moment. After having watched Arod slump in post-season play and in many late-inning rallies my most proiound prediction has become that the Yanks would win no championships so long as Arod was on the team.

The Yankee braintrust was willing, perhaps, to accept that fate so long as Arod stayed with the team long enough to bring the career home run record--the gold standard of all sports achievements--back to Yankee Stadium after it had been borrowed by Hank Aaron and then swiped less elegantly by Barry Bonds. Arod, with his strength and consistency, was considered to be likely for at least 800 homers, maybe even surpassing Sadaharu Oh for the true World Record. That would have brought excitement back to the stadium (even if the team floundered), if not promising to fill the seats, which already have been presold for the rest of this century.

Now that moment of 763 or whatever, will be as tainted as Bonds' was in PacBell Park a few years ago. It seems that Arod has nothing to work for except perhaps to prove me wrong and actually win a World Series ring. But--is that condemnation the final word? Or is it even fair?

If Arod's comments are to be taken for the gospel (questionable), he only was pumped up for the years he played with Texas, when he averaged 52 homers a year. His "non-steroid" stats were almost exactly the same for most offensive categories, except he averaged 41 homers in those years. So subtracting the difference of 33 homers for his cheating years, and assuming cleanliness for the rest, he can still be admired if he beats the previous record (Aarons', not Bonds') by that total. It also makes his 2007 season, with 55 homers and 156 RBIs, seem like the best untainted offensive season of the decade.

Arod will perhaps regain some of his lustre by his wise decision to admit to usage, a PR strategy that kept other players like Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte out of the public's opprobrium. Others, though, like Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Sosa and McGwire listened to their lawyers (almost always a bad idea), denied involvement, and are now Scum of the Earth.

There is one issue that is undeniably unjust about all the brouhaha, which is that there are 104 other players who tested positive for usage, and who have yet to be cited. One hundred and four! Although their exposure would not make the headlines than that of the aforementioned All Stars, why should they not have to answer publically to the same offenses? Just because they performed less audaciously? Would the likes of, say, Tony Womack or Kevin Millar or Andruw Jones (the last the most likely), piddly offensive performers, render them less guilty? 104 players conprises more than four rosters worth of cheaters.

In that enormous company of transgressors, the indiscretions of Arod and his brethren would appear less odious and more typical of an unfortunate era. Arod should not be singled out because of his homers. Reveal the Steroid Century! Then we can talk.