Oscar Eve

 

                                          Gene Hackman in “Unforgiven.” Warner Bros. photo via IMDb.com.

It goes without saying that the most touching – and most real – part of most movie award shows is the In Memoriam segment.

The recent death of Gene Hackmen along with his wife Betsy Arakawa marked another star going dark in the night sky. Hackman will be remembered, among the year's other great and tender losses, when the Academy Awards return Sunday, live on ABC and Hulu, beginning at 4 p.m. Hollywood time.

I used to watch the beautiful people at the Oscars, trying to keep count of how many of them I had met, shared a few minutes with, maybe a handshake, on rare occasions a hug.

Quite a few, actually. But over years, then decades, the migration began. Gradually, more and more of those gorgeous striders on the red carpet were young strangers. And more and more of the ones I had once known were showing up in brief clips, as Billie Eilish sang a sad song.

It all reminded me of the advice a jaded Philip Seymor Hoffman gave to Cameron Crowe's aspiring teenage Rolling Stone reporter in “Almost Famous”:

“They are not your friends.” 

With a few cherished exceptions (yes, I'm talking to you, Kris), my close encounters of the celebrity kind were one-way streets. I knew them, oh so well, in all their larger-than-life glory. To them I was just one more faceless face, above fingers scrawling in a reporter's notebook.

I met Gene Hackman once … no, twice. There was the junket for “Mississippi Burning,” along with his young co-stars Willem Dafoe and Frances McDormand. And before that there was “No Way Out,” where Kevin Costner was the new kid on the block.

Despite the scary volatility Hackman could bring to the screen, in person he was amiable, with the kind of casual charisma only a true superstar can pull off so nonchalantly. 

He was an actor after all. A great one.

The only thing I remember from my interview was him saying that holding a pistol was becoming such a familiar feeling, it was beginning to worry him.

Over a career lasting more than a half-century, he won two Oscars out of his five nominations. One for “The French Connection,” the other for “Unforgiven.” They were almost 20 years apart. He had pistols in his hand both times.

The In Memoriam segment touches us as deeply as family funerals. We think we know these people. In many cases, we love them deeply … even though we've never actually met.

They're actors.

In movies.

I used to be able to find great significance in actors in movies. Cinemythology, I dubbed it, or, cheesier still, the intersection of real and reel life. 

But movies aren't on reels anymore. And after enduring so many world-ending dystopias and apocalypses over my movie reviewing career, I'm at a loss for words as we all wake up to a real one.

In 1998, “The Truman Show” imagined the entire world Jim Carrey lived in was in fact, the enormous set for a reality TV show. 

You only have to change a couple of letters in the title to come up with the world we're living in now.

The world used to be stable enough for us to feel safe escaping it for a few hours to go to the movies.

No longer.

While there are flashes of brilliance all over this year's Oscar field, on the eve of the ceremony many of the nominated films feel like damaged goods. They leave you feeling icky.

As “Conclave” surges in the best-picture race, the Vatican is on the verge of a real one.

As Jesse Eisenberg's brilliant “A Real Pain” finds tender comedy against the backdrop of Holocaust tourism, echoes of real antisemitism grow into a roar.

“Anora,” about a Brooklyn sex worker who gets on the wrong side of Russian oligarchs and mobsters, won Cannes and numerous other festival prizes as a lovable screwball romcom. But a win on Sunday could signal more jubilation in Moscow at the sight of the U.S. succumbing so totally to all things Putin.

“The Brutalist” – a monumental work of screen art – probes the immigrant dream of America following World War II, showing that the dream was actually a nightmare … and still is.

“Emilia Perez” – a pop opera about a Mexican cartel drug lord who has a sex change and becomes a saint – was an early frontrunner in the awards chase, but lost its politically correct edge when racist tweets were discovered from its transgender star …

Still, I'll be watching the ceremony Sunday night.

I'll be happy to see any prizes that may come in the direction of “A Real Pain,” “Anora,” or Adrien Brody in “The Brutalist.” But for purely subjective reasons my vote for the year's best movie goes to the aptly titled Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

Not only is it a treasure chest of many of the best songs ever written, incredibly performed by Timothée, Edward and Monica who make you feel like you're hearing them for the first time, but the movie also celebrates the exhilaration of creativity and thrill of idealism.

Hope is a hard commodity to find right now. But it's a wonderful sensation to remember what it felt like.