Short Takes

Jet Li is the patron saint of elegant, physics-defying wire-fu. Jackie Chan is the patron saint of a knock-down, drag-out, near-comedic form of the martial art. The prospect that they would finally, near the end of their respective careers (Li is 45, Chan is 54), do a film together was incredibly inviting. I was excited to see such a film. I'd have gone opening night. The fact that the vehicle chosen featured a gawky white kid transported back in time dampened my enthusiasm only a little: it's still Jackie Chan facing off against Jet Li, a battle between philosophies of filmmaking and of stunt work. I imagined an epic battle in which Chan fends off a graceful, flying Li with pieces of a broken stepladder and a dustpan. Then I saw the trailer. Jackie Chan's on wires, doing triple back-flips. I'm crushed; I'm staying home.

Self-Styled Siren offers an impassioned defense of melodrama. I was a tad confused at first; many of the films mentioned in her essay and in the articles she links to wouldn't fit my definition of melodrama. Then I realized that if I love a film, I wouldn't call it a melodrama; thus, it must be that "melodrama" is a label I reserve for films I don't like.

But my real issue is with the Tom O'Neil article that prompted her essay: he says that "Oscar Nazis" (his ill-chosen and hysterically repeated phrase) insist that Sunrise is the first "real" Best Picture Winner, instead of Wings. Of course we know that the Oscars had two apparent "Best" categories back then, and neither of them was called "Best Picture." But the Acadmey has long since cleared up the confusion: Wings won the first Best Picture Oscar, and Sunrise won an award that was discontinued the next year. It's their award ceremony, so they get to decide. My question is, what "Oscar Nazis" are attempting to change this? I know quite a few Oscar obsessives, and none of them has ever made this argument in my presence. Any discussion of the relative importance of the two categories seeks to elevate Sunrise to an equal plane, not a superior one. (Of course I mean in terms of Oscar importance, not in terms of quality.) So who is Tom O'Neil talking to, except himself?

In an attempt to help parents decide whether their children should see a particular film, Kids In Mind catalogs each film's potentially offensive content. It's a noble gesture, I suppose, but it results in unintentionally hilarious reading. The Big Lebowski: "Reckless driving, lots of scenes of property damage. A frenzied ferret is thrown into a tub with a man and nearly scratches and hurts the man as a result. Threatening with a gun." Bad Santa: "A woman wears a low-cut top that reveals cleavage, and a woman wears a short top and low-cut pants that reveal bare abdomen and cleavage. A man lies in a bathtub and we see bare shoulders and legs and a boy sits in the room with him (nothing sexual)."