Quick Hits, Volume 4

Sonny asks Dalton about… The Academy Awards

Dalton, you seem to care more about the Academy Awards than anybody I know, but before I ask my Oscar’s related question, allow me to vent for just a quick minute. It feels to me like the point of the Academy Awards should be to accurately capture what mattered most over the previous year in the wonderful world of Film. Unfortunately, I feel like the Academy Awards do not do this. There are countless examples from over the past decade (and even before that) where it felt like the right performances didn’t get properly recognized, or even worse, when the wrong movies took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Far too often there are transcendent films that go unnoticed because they don’t fit the mold of what an “Oscar Movie” is. I want you to fix this … all of it. I don’t care how you do it. You can make alterations to the group of people who make up the Academy, or you can change the categories to ensure that we’re properly recognizing the films that should be recognized. Just get the job done please.

I absolutely love the Academy Awards. It is always a giant mishmash of many of my favorite things: movies, live television, and incredible outfits. I’m not the best person to do a complete overhaul of the Academy Awards to make it more palatable to the average movie goer because I’m usually fairly satisfied with the broadcast. So, I’ll do my best at broad appeal, but actually I’ll probably just give you the changes I would make to make the Oscars perfect for myself, rest of America be damned.

First off, it needs to be longer. Last year’s 91st Annual Academy Awards lasted 3 hours and 23 minutes. They were shooting for, and will continue to shoot for, around 3 hours. That is to make it more accessible to the average viewer, but that’s ridiculous because Forrest Gump on cable lasts longer than that. I need at least 5 hours if I’m going to feel completely satisfied with the night.

The thing is, you either love the Academy Awards or you don’t. There aren’t a lot of drastic changes they can make to get new people watching every year. What they should do instead is really lean into the stuff that makes the show exciting for the people like me who are nerds about it regardless. Give me more “we love movies” montages, more speeches, and definitely more categories of awards.

They need more categories and more chances to win because, like you Sonny, I feel like not every movie or performance gets properly recognized. So here are some new categories to add that would allow the show to more universally recognize all of the wonderful talent Hollywood has to offer:

Best Stunt

This award is important because it gives credit to people behind the camera who don’t usually get their proper due, but mostly because it gets Tom Cruise his damn Oscar!

Best Breakout Performance

This category would reward newer or first time actors for their great performances, sure, but its main purpose would be to reduce the number of ‘it’s about time” Oscars that are given out to actors later in their careers. If we applied this retroactively, Leo gets an Oscar for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and never has to sleep in a bear carcass or eat a bison liver just to get up on that damn stage. Timothée Chalamet gets an Oscar for Call Me by Your Name and won’t have to, I don’t know, play the Joker in 20 years just to get recognized by the Academy.

Best Shot

We already have “Best Cinematography” to reward the best looking movies overall, but I think studios should be able to submit an image of one single frame of film and be judged solely on that. It would give more directors an opportunity to be rewarded for their work. I’m a sucker for a perfect single shot in a movie so this category is very specifically for myself.

Best Performance of Jackson Maine in 2019’s ‘A Star is Born’

This award is given to Bradley Cooper every year for the rest of time (Which still wouldn’t be enough Oscars for that performance).

Dalton asks Sonny about … The Penn State abuse scandal

Well, I thought these Quick Hits were going to be light-hearted and humorous, but this subject is certainly not either of those things. But since you wanted to take us there, let’s go!

You’d think we would learn lessons from scandals like that of Penn State, but as the Larry Nassar case, and the brave women who spoke out against him have shown us, the institutions we have in place are incapable of protecting the most vulnerable among us. Here’s my question, do you think it’s time we put a moratorium on men in positions of power and authority in sports? Let’s say 10 years? Long enough for us to burn everything to the ground and start over. I can’t think of any problem or scenario in the sports world that this doesn’t instantly fix.

You know I respect your opinions Dalton, but I don’t think this is about generalizing and limiting any singular group of people from working toward any job opportunity. A utopian society where everybody has equal opportunity is what we should strive for, right? Making a hasty decision to put a moratorium on men in positions of power and authority in sports prevents plenty of deserving men from filling those roles. Imagine this had been the case in 2014. Who knows if anybody — man, woman, black, white, American, internationally born, etc. — could’ve handled the Donald Sterling controversy as swiftly and convincingly as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Los Angeles Clippers Head Coach Doc Rivers. There’s no reason to get rid of anybody who is doing their job well, nor is there reason to punish the individuals who have truly good intentions and proper credentials to ascend to these positions.

The problem here is that individuals who have a hand in institutional wrong-doings and the cover-ups of those crimes aren’t properly punished. And that doesn’t just exist in the sports world. It’s not specific to any gender or racial group either. It exists in business, government, sports, you name it. The consequences just aren’t serious enough.

Everyone employed at Penn State who had any sort of knowledge of Jerry Sandusky’s actions should have been charged with the same crimes that Sandusky was charged with. If you’re enabling a serial abuser, you should be put in prison just as long as that person. “Alerting your superior” or “taking the proper steps” isn’t good enough. Former Penn State Assistant Mike McQueary told Head Coach Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno told Athletic Director Tim Curley and University Vice-President Gary Schultz about McQueary’s claim. They all should’ve been arrested for not making sure that the proper authorities heard about these crimes. If the local police weren’t going to do anything about, then they needed to find a way to get a bigger law enforcement agency involved. The police officers who fielded complaints about Sandusky from families over the years and never followed up simply because he was a Penn State football coach should have been arrested. Penn State janitors who apparently caught Sandusky in the act and didn’t do anything about it should have been arrested. Every single person at the University who allowed Sandusky to continue to work around young children after being formally investigated for child sexual abuse in 1998 should have been arrested. The same goes for everyone who had knowledge of what Larry Nassar was doing at Michigan State and with the United States Gymnastics Team.

I know that this would involve making major changes to our legal system, but if you’re proposing putting a moratorium on men in positions of power and authority in sports, I feel like I’m well within my rights to suggest wholesale modifications to a criminal justice system that needs some work.

And listen, I apologize for forcing you to ask a question that isn’t light-hearted and humorous. But I think it’s important that we don’t forget about events like this, especially when the mission of Bingeable’s launch was to cover the most important events in sports and pop culture over the last decade. We can’t pretend that this didn’t happen. If we do then we’re in danger of allowing it to become even more normalized than it already is. We can’t allow people who can’t defend themselves to go undefended. And we certainly can’t let people in power get away with egregious crimes just because they are “powerful.”

Sonny Asks Dalton about … The future sustainability of NASCAR

Of all the types of races that have carved out a niche in the sports world, Auto Racing seems the silliest and least like a sport to me. Can you please explain to me the appeal? And also, if you were the President (Commissioner? Governor? Leader? CEO? Magistrate? King?) of NASCAR, and you had the OK to make any changes necessary to bounce back from a sustained decline in mainstream popularity over the last decade or so, what would those changes be?

It’s Magistrate actually.

I’m not exactly sure why I enjoy NASCAR so much, but I do. I got into it because my dad is a huge fan, so it’s always fun to go to races and watch it with him. But more and more I’ve found myself watching it on my own and really getting into it. One of the main reasons I love it is because it is one of the pettiest sports that we have. All it takes is one perceived slight and one driver will wreck another driver at 200mph just to be an asshole, it’s delightful. But I do understand that there are a lot of roadblocks that keep it from being more popular among younger audiences. Especially those outside the Bible Belt.

So, as the Magistrate of NASCAR, here are a couple changes I would make to ensure its sustained popularity into the future:

Go Green

NASCAR as a sport is incredibly bad for the environment. The Godzilla size carbon footprint they are surely leaving on the planet needs to be addressed. Luckily, that’s an easy one to solve. The sport just needs to go electric. Get rid of the gas-guzzling rocket ships currently used, and replace them with fully electric cars. There are plenty of options for electric cars that can reach speeds just as fast as any stock car currently used. If anyone complains that the bone-rattling roars of the gas-powered engines will be missed, I have a solution for that too! Just pump in engine noise from speakers in the stands. We could make it even louder than it currently is at the tracks.

Better Utilize Social Media

One of the coolest things about NASCAR are the different paint schemes on the cars (Even though they’re just fast moving billboards, that’s a problem to fix when we finally rid ourselves of the current version of capitalism that is currently failing the country). NASCAR should better utilize social media by getting fans more involved with the design and implementation of paint schemes on the cars. There should be Twitter polls choosing designs each week, and more contests that allow fans to submit designs to be used by the different teams, so we get more cars like this:

NASCAR needs some of its own Boaty McBoatface type situations.

There are a few other changes that need to be made, like getting rid of all the racists flying confederate flags, but that’s a problem the country as a whole needs to figure out too.

Dalton asks Sonny about … The Office

The Office is a perfect television show. We quote and gif each other stuff from The Office more than any other piece of pop culture, and that’s probably true for the rest of the internet as well. With its staggering popularity, and the fact that NBC is getting its own streaming service, regrettably named Peacock, The Office is almost definitely poised to get some sort of spinoff. Whether it be prequel, or sequel, or reboot, by its nature it won’t be as perfect as the original. But if it has to be done, what do you think are the best characters, stories, or timelines from The Office universe that would lead to the best possible version of a spinoff? My pick would be a true crime drama about Toby as the Scranton Strangler.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit because like you, I have heard the rumblings that there will be some sort of revival of The Office on Peacock, which is the perfect name by the way — it’s funny because you and I agree on sooooo much, but this is 100% one of the things that we would vehemently disagree on. I’m like 8% more likely to purchase this streaming service just because of the name.

“No, actually I can’t hang out tonight. I’m watching an old episode of ER on Peacock.”

Please, take my money. As much of it as you need.

Back to your question … I’m all for fresh Office-related content, but there’s no reason to go back in time. Functionally that would be difficult anyway considering the actors have aged nearly a decade since we last saw them in Scranton. So unless we’re leaning on a cast newbies, that rules out a prequel. I’m also opposed to any of these characters having their own permanent spin-off series. Sure, everyone in this ensemble was hilarious and unique and they all thrived in every opportunity they had to shine, but this was a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

At the conclusion of The Office finale most characters had moved on from Dunder Mifflin. Michael was living happily in Colorado with Holly. Jim and Pam were on their way to Austin. Stanley was retired in Florida. Toby was in New York City attempting to become a novelist (or perhaps he was busy strangling New Yorkers). Oscar was running for local office. Kevin had bought a bar. The finale was nothing more than a reunion, for both a PBS function and Dwight and Angela’s wedding — and ya know what, it was one of the best episodes of the entire series. It was smart, it was hilarious, and full of emotion. It was arguably the most satisfying series finale of the decade.

Moving forward, this is the formula they should follow. We should see The Office sporadically, without warning, in moments when it would be logical that the bulk of the characters would be together again. Holidays, birthday parties, weddings, vacations, funerals, etc. There are so many scenarios that where we can bring these characters together again without it following the format they did for non-finale episodes. Just give me 90 new minutes of Office related content every two months or so. And since all of these “episodes” will take place outside of the office, we’ll call the reboot Outside of The Office. Exclusively on Peacock.