February 24, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor
Stuck Inside of Memphis With the Oscar Blues Again
By JOHN BEIFUSS
Memphis

WHO will win?

As tonight’s 80th annual Academy Awards drew nearer, that’s all anyone in Memphis
wanted to talk about: Who will win?

Of course, the competition that gripped the city had nothing to do with
adaptations of Ian McEwan, interpretations of Edith Piaf, female impersonations of
Bob Dylan or an enigma in a “? and the Mysterians” haircut shooting bolts into
travelers’ foreheads with a pneumatic cattle gun.

No, Memphians were focused on Saturday night’s basketball clash between the
beloved top-ranked University of Memphis Tigers and the hated No. 2, the
University of Tennessee Volunteers.

Even Elvis’s widow, Priscilla Presley, was supposedly going to be at the game.
Match that for entertainment royalty, Kodak Theater.

Does “Oscar fever” really exist, except among the nominees in their free designer
gowns and tuxedos?

On the coasts, maybe. In the resentful fantasies of my flyover state obscurity, I

imagine my film-reviewing colleagues in New York and Los Angeles spending much of
this past week pontificating and prognosticating, churning out think pieces and
offering up sound-bite analyses.

Me, I spoke Thursday to the women of the Junior League of Memphis, for what was
billed as Popcorn Night. Proving you can’t judge a book by its cover, a matronly
charmer named Elsie, who brought chocolate chip cookies, told me her favorite
movie was “Motel Hell.” She said she hadn’t seen any of the best picture nominees.

When I was invited to discuss the Oscars on a local morning sports-talk radio
program, I admitted on air that I cared much more about the basketball game. We
ended up rehashing childhood memories of the great Memphis hoops teams of the ’70s
before I remembered to squeeze in a few references to Julie Christie and “Michael
Clayton.”

Although I’m the lone daily newspaper movie reviewer in Memphis, such “expert”
appearances are infrequent. More typical was how I spent Thursday night, post-
Junior League. Surrounded by the precarious towers of stacked DVDs that make my
“TV room” a minefield of film history, I watched — for reasons unknown even to
myself — a 1978 TV movie called “Devil Dog: The Hound From Hell,” in which a
possessed puppy threatens Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux. Thoughts of Oscar
were far away.

As they are for most people. The city where “Saw III” and “Phat Girlz” played for
months without interruption welcomed best animated film contender “Persepolis”
just one week ago, and after a month in the art house, “There Will Be Blood,”
nominated for eight Oscars, has “widened” to four screens. Meanwhile, “Witless
Protection” starring Larry the Cable Guy opened this weekend on 10. You will find
comparable figures in most cities.

Memphis, perhaps, should be more Oscar-conscious than it is. The city calls itself
the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll, but its less storied
movie history is notable for a pretty high production-to-Oscar ratio.

King Vidor shot much of his 1929 black-cast astonishment “Hallelujah” here, and
earned a best director nomination. Made-in-Memphis movies “The Firm,” “The
Client,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “21 Grams” all earned major nominations.
“Walk the Line” made Reese Witherspoon a best actress, and “Hustle & Flow”
provided the Oscar telecast with a memorable moment and America with a malleable
catchphrase when Three 6 Mafia claimed best song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a
Pimp.”

That victory captured the city’s — and the country’s — imagination. This year,
producers of the Oscar telecast are worried they won’t even capture all that many
viewers.

Well, I may grouse about the Oscars, but I’ll be watching. I’ve watched the show
ever since I was a movie-loving kid, when clips from such nominees as “Midnight
Cowboy” and “Five Easy Pieces” offered a glimpse into a world of adult films that
I otherwise knew only from their Mad magazine satires (“Midnight Wowboy”).

Nowadays, I know that the satires are sometimes more worthwhile than the movies,
and the term “best picture” is all but meaningless. But I’ll stay up late tonight,
watching, feeling somehow grateful, and then go back to work tomorrow. And
Tuesday, I’ll head to my next scheduled critic’s screening: Will Ferrell in “Semi-
Pro.”

John Beifuss is the film critic of The Commercial Appeal.

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