The Oscar Magic is Gone

     I use to truly get excited for the Oscars during the 90's.  I was twelve years old in 1998 when Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won best screenplay for "Good Will Hunting".  It was exciting because I loved that movie and a lot of the nominations were movies I had actually seen that year.  "Titanic", "As Good As It Gets", and so on.  Fast forward eighteen years later and something is definitely missing from the ceremony. It was a little thing called magic.
     Now this has to be the most unbiased opinion about the 2016 Academy Awards because I didn't watch it.  I didn't get a bunch of beer or make snacks this year because the show was ruined when #Oscarsowhite started popping up all over social media.  It's a shame that every single thing is made about race now because you would think in today's society that this wouldn't matter, but for some reason it does.  Watching Chris Rock's opening monologue on the internet pretty much sealed my descision of whether to really care or not.  Rock was hilarious no doubt, but when he was practically begging for actors of color to be casted in "better" roles was uncomfortable to watch.  Now it isn't about the craft of being the best a film, it turned into a participation award ceremony from here on out.
     This is an industry award show, that is all.   Just like how the ESPYS are for players in the sports industry, it is about the best of the best.  Just because someone isn't nominated doesn't mean that it is all about race.  Today's P.C. police refuse to acknowledge how there are purely Latino and African American award shows that don't nominate any white people, but since no one of color was nominated for an Oscar the whole internet starts an uproar about it.  Here is a better example, Von Miller was the Super Bowl MVP of 2016.  Now is it racist since he is black and a white player wasn't awarded the MVP?  If there was a threat of players not returning would everyone get an award to shut them up?  If a white player was MVP so many times does it turn into #NFLsowhite?
     And what would that tell people if a film from Netflix was up for an Oscar?  Just like how ratings of prime time television has gone down after internet shows started being up for Emmys is that the public don't have pay for cable anymore to get quality entertainment.  Why do you think the theater owners were against "Beasts of No Nation" being played on the big screen just long enough to make it for Oscar guidelines before streaming.  Because you are telling people you don't need to spend $10 on a ticket to go to a theater when you can just spend $7.99 a month and see all the movies you want from your couch.  When Netflix movies start getting nominated that will be the beginning of the end for art house films.
     The Academy has noticed that viewership has been going down over the years and that is why they started doing stupid gimmicks.  Two hosts and ten best picture nominees weren't really enough to boost up ratings.  The films and actors that do win may as well have played on Netflix before the show because no one really heard of them in the general movie going public.  Just how next year we will get beaten over the head about how diverse Oscar is now and how much of a win it is now.  For who?
     The world is already an ugly place with all this political correctness going on.  Cops are killers, white women can pretty much be any race they choose, and gay black men can shoot two reporters on live television and it turns into gun control, not mental illness.  The Oscars were my refuge from all this kind of ugliness that I didn't care to see.
     But I'm sure blogs like this one will be looked at as irrelevant when the same thing happens to the Oscars a few years from now.

Financial aid letter

This is a copy of what I typed for financial aid letter when I first when back to school.  I would hope that people can read this understand the struggles of what it's like when someone tries to better them self around people who don't want too. 

I've Never Received Financial Aid

I have never received financial aid. Not once in my life have I ever applied or received financial aid from the start of my academic career up until now. This is my first year doing this because of the layoffs at US Steel Granite City Works. I didn’t choose to get laid off nor did I want to wonder how I will be able to support myself. I thought that going to school part time would help me, but I was only half right.

My records say that I have a whole bunch of credits, but I don’t think that people are looking at the details of them. When I went back to SWIC in 2005 I took the welding certificate program to advance at my old job, American Steel. The foundry didn’t have a tuition reimbursement program so I paid for it out of pocket. Unfortunately after that layoff I couldn’t find a job with only a welding certificate. Most places wanted more advanced types of welding that I didn’t know how to do. Let’s just say it was a bad period in my life.

In the winter of 2007 I started my second “real” job at Olin Brass in East Alton. But just as you can count on having to go pee in the morning I got laid off from that job also. Not once, but twice I was laid off with no formal education. During my Olin years I started going to school part time, but could only take one class a semester because of swing shift and unknown overtime. I made a killing at Olin, or so I thought, because I lived at home and everything was awesome. I was young, had a nice car, and was too arrogant for my own good. I paid for all of these classes too out of pocket.

The recession of 2008 thru 2009 was my first layoff I experienced. The whole country was pretty much out of work and I was working part time where I could. All the mills around the area were laying people off and I did the best I could. I was 24 years old and while I didn’t think I was old, I was seeing that my lack of education was hurting my job prospects. I was laid off again in 2011 and now it was clear that the industry was a sinking ship. Unfortunately I didn’t have a degree or any specialized skill so I had to make ends meet by working various part time jobs. Everyone would tell me to go back to school, which was easier said than done because I didn’t have any money to pay for classes. I didn’t receive any financial aid.

So as you may have guessed if you read this far, is that I worked at US Steel and was recently laid off. During my employment there I took advantage of the tuition reimbursement offered by the union. Overtime and swing shift were against me once again and I could only take one class a semester and online at that. It was a personal goal to get my associates degree to just prove to myself that I wasn’t just another mindless zombie working in a factory setting. That may sound narcissistic, but after working at Olin and US Steel I never understood how people could make $50,000 plus a year, but still have teeth that were literally rotting away. The sad part about that last sentence is that I can prove it.

Now that may sound pretty rude, but it’s true. The overtime at the steel mill was unreal, but also rewarding. Everyone got use to the big paychecks and of course had to spend the money on really nice stuff. Any mention of schooling or bettering one’s self usually resulted in being called a “fag”. Any mention of education usually was shot down with this response and I’m assuming that people thought that the mill was forever. It’s pretty sad when you think that people want to spend their whole lives with their head in the sand and not try to think about tomorrow. I can’t even begin to write stories about mill life and the entitlement that people had. I think that “Allegory of the Cave” is a great read to kind of sum up how factory people are. They are afraid of what they don’t understand and live in the dark, making up what they see in the shadows.

Not everyone was a total waste, there were good people, but it’s the majority that made the job a living hell. As this is being written there are contract negotiations and major changes happening at US Steel. Industry in this country is becoming a dying art and I just don’t feel that I can drink the Kool Aid any longer. All the hours I worked along with the sweat and tears, I’m man enough to admit it, are basically for nothing because I can’t use those skills out in the real world. We were basically glorified laborers who used proprietary equipment that no other place in the job market has. One could argue about my welding certificate, but that was the barebones of welding skill which I haven’t used in over ten years and got constantly turned down jobs because of my lack of skill.

The TAA program has allowed me a final chance to restart my life and pursue something I’m actually interested in. I had to change my major to graphic communication instead of associates in art. I love all the Adobe products I get to use and that I’m able to learn in a comfortable environment. I have a lot of generals done, but the rest of the credits I have are practically useless. I’m learning different aspects of graphic design that I can actually use towards a future career. I have a challenge to prove my theory about steel mill work and graphic communication future employment. Go to indeed.com and type graphic designer, graphic communication, web designer, and count how many results come up. Now type steel work and utility technician (title at US Steel I had) and count the amount of results that come back. If you think that the steel worker search got more job listings please contact me immediately because I have some real estate to sell you.

I’m not a welder, brass worker, or steel worker, I am a student. I’ve paid my way through college and never submitted or received any kind of financial aid. Please lift the appeal and give me a fighting shot at a career path that doesn’t involve having to lie to myself that everything is ok and gives me skills that I can actually use in modern society.

Sincerely,

Ricky Jankowski        

Best Film of 2015: The Final Girls

     I was saying that Furious 7 was the best picture of 2015 and stood by that claim for simple reasons.  I was thoroughly entertained and the film held my attention the whole way through even through the cheesiness, I thought it was great.  Tomorrowland had great potential, but fell flat on it's face and Star Wars 7 while good, was a bit of a let down.  The Final Girls however, was one of the best surprises I've had with film in a long time.
     Anybody that knows me personally knows that I have a soft spot in my heart for slasher movies.  I'm not talking about torture porn that seems to be an excuse for horror like Hostel or the Saw series, I'm talking about the classics like the original Halloween and Friday the 13th.  Films that I use to stay up late watching either during the childhood sleepover or that were hosted on USA Up: All Night and Monstervision.  The 80's slasher genre would never be nominated for any Oscars or (except 1978 Halloween) come on any top ten movies of the year lists, but did provide a few scares and mindless popcorn thrills for the audience.  The Final Girls is a love letter for fans of this while surprisingly having a great amount of heart within the humor and violence.  I don't want to use the term gore because the film is rated PG-13 and while I thought this was going to be a corny let down, I couldn't believe the mastery of director Todd Strauss-Schulson for making me more emotionally invested in the characters than blood on screen.
     The film is about Max (Talssa Farmiga) whose deceased mother (Malin Akerman) was a former screen queen of the 80s in a slasher camp movie.  During an anniversary showing at a theater a freak accident cause Max and her friends to be transported into the actual slasher movie.  There Max meets the character her mother played in the original and to me that is where the strength of the movie is.  The film does have it's tongue in cheek humor like Scream about how to survive a horror movie, but it never feels pretentious.  Tucker and Dave vs Evil is a movie I would compare The Final Girls too, but while Tucker lost steam and ideas halfway through, Girls keeps finding ways to surprise and keep the viewer entertained.
     It was refreshing to not have over the top violence or nudity, which both are almost absent.  Like an early Tim Burton picture the visuals are striking and create a perfect tone for set pieces in the movie.  It kills me how some films can cost millions of dollars and look like garbage visually, but a small budget film like this looks on par with something that cost ten times as much.  With a competent story and rich characters really do help make a complete movie.
     I really don't want to give too much more away in terms of plot because of spoilers and also I want people to be surprised.  This film was great on many levels, but how I judge a film is whether I am entertained or not.  The Final Girls moves at a decent pace, has a clever story, and keep me emotionally invested the whole time.  I loved all the nods to 80's slasher films and pop culture, but mostly I loved how I wasn't expecting much with this film and got so much more in return.
     To me, this is the best film of 2015.