Robber And Robbed

We here at Two Thumbs Sideways very much dislike credit going where it is not deserved. Sure, every once in a while we are probably a bit too reserved in our condemnations of “authors” like Ayn Rand or “directors” like Michael Bay. Maybe here and there we also undersell Battlestar Galactica’s true greatness or Barry Lyndon’s pulchritude.

But mostly, we keep things on the level. A spirit level. Clearly, aided by beings from beyond the mere material world, we are very good at giving credit where it is due.

So I introduce a new segment on our blog: Robber and Robbed. As much as I would like to include the unfortunate problem of high school basketball statistics in this category, I will restrain myself and talk about, well, movies and books and rollercoasters.

Robber: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Robbed: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Master and Commander was probably the best movie of 2003. I don’t know if it actually was, since I haven’t seen every single movie of 2003. But one thing I know for sure. Master and Commander’s worst moment was better then ROTK’s best. And it isn’t even close. One was a lazily made fantasy “epic” from a horrible director where the mantra on set seemed to be “how many badass bad guys can our badass good guys kill in a single scene?!!?!!” The other was a meticulously crafted motion picture that managed to entertain the viewer while still realistically depicting life on a warship back when warships still had sails.

So which one got all the Oscars? Yeah. I don’t think I need to answer that. You see, life on a warship in the early 19th century didn’t involve forced love triangles, dragons (fell beasts, my left foot), ghosts, swords that have names, eighteen different endings or such award-worthy lines as “…a diversion”.

Turns out, life on a warship involved shooting a few cannons here and there, and a whole lot of normal stuff in between. Like being screwed when the wind just stops blowing, or people actually dying from the wounds they received when the cannons were going off. And no, they didn’t rise from the dead somehow. They stayed dead.

The audacity.

They used phrases that people didn’t easily understand, like “main’mst” and “weather-gauge” and they didn’t say things like “The Dark Lord Sauron has yet to unveil his deadliest servant: The Witch-King of Angmar.”

The temerity.

Instead of endlessly explaining how important this and that was, they let you figure out for yourself what was going on. In other words, they treated their audience with respect.

The gall.

So of course, such a preposterously pretentious film (how dare they assume I am intelligent! How dare they!) got the snot beaten out of it by the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King when Oscar time came around. If I were Sheriff-in-Chief, I would arrest Peter Jackson for armed robbery. I suppose it is a good thing that I have no such title to make reparations for this and similar atrocities.

It gets worse of course. After all, L.A. Confidential debuted the same year as Titanic. But I can’t go delivering all of the big guns on a new segment’s first day, can I?

~Right Thumb~