THB #2: The Academy Museum

My honest first reaction when I walked into The Academy Museum was, “I bet it will be really cool when they finish it.”

The Money Pit, War of the Worlds,The Unfinished Look

It’s challenging to be objective about The Academy Museum. Not because the whole project has been a boondoggle. (I can put that aside.) It’s because I have had the privilege of being up close and personal with much of what the museum offers throughout my strange and winding career. So it isn’t reasonable for me to have the same reaction as someone who has never seen a big, gorgeous movie backdrop or been up close with amazing memorabilia or held actual Oscars in their hands (that will be $15… and it’s not really anyone’s Oscar.) Stipulated.

That said… where the hell did all that money go?

It’s a 5-story building, much of which looks unfinished. All there is there is on the top floor (5!) is a large empty space called the Tea Room, blocked off public bathrooms, and the Strei…sand bridge to the deck. The observation deck in the eyeball or testicle or Death Star or whatever you want to call it offers an amazing view, yes!

But as you might notice, they put some patio furniture out there and you would barely know you weren’t in the Seattle Airport except for the lack of places to sit. Does anything about this beautiful view say “Movies!”? (If you squint, you can see the Hollywood sign.)

And that is really at the core of my issue with this… gulp!… $500 million museum. From top to bottom, from bottom to top, it feels like it was put together by someone with almost no prior sense at all of cinema or its history before getting the job who then put together a book report of important landmarks while The Academy got talent far and wide to lend or donate a bunch of amazing stuff… which is placed in a way almost too random to be believed.

The first floor, is 1/4 restaurant, 1/2 wide open unfinished space, and 1/4 a gallery of TV screens and a museum gift shop. It is an oddly chilled and underwhelming start. But focusing on the gallery… the Spielberg gallery… 10 - 15 big screen TVs playing movie clips for 13 minutes… of SEVEN HUNDRED movies. The Museum offers a list, but make no mistake, 700 into 13 equals a product reel… and just barely. Who is editing this experience?

The top exhibition floor is the 4th floor! This is the most clearly defined floor of the museum.

4th Floor, offering 2 selfie opportunities

The fourth floor exhibition is the Miyazaki, built in conjunction with Studio Ghibli. And it does offer a journey. It has all the subtlety and detail of the work of his lifetime. Apparently, the exhibit, scheduled to run for a year, won’t travel because the materials are too delicate. Still, it feels like a touring show. A really lovely one. Unlike anything else, it takes up almost an entire floor of the museum. This offers the opportunity for depth. One room, as others will show, doesn’t do it.

But in the weirdness of a newly opened museum, the small space for the only other thing on the floor, the almost-worth-visiting-for-this-alone Pixar 3D Zoetrope, there is, on one random wall, a set of heads from Studio Ghibli. No clear connection. No explanation. Just another random box of something cool.

It can’t be a mistake. But it’s hard to see it as anything else.

Next, 3rd floor.

Escalators dominate the north side of ye olde department store building. So essentially, each floor has an open cement corridor of about 15 feet wide. On the corridor is a series of doors. Which way is in? Which way is out? What is the story as you tour through the museum?

The middle door on 3 is, it seems, the end of the section as they wish to offer it. So they send you down to the east end of the hallway, where you find the start of the Almodóvar exhibit, which comes with a warning about graphic material. I’m game. Not so sure about the families. (I didn’t see anything that I would keep my 11-year-old from seeing.)

So the exhibit has a lot of posters and a bunch of oversized video screens playing segments from his movies. The walls are colorful. The images are wonderful. But is there any rhyme or reason? Not that I can make out. I know the movies, so I can instantly see how old Antonio or Penelope or Rossy de Palma or Cecilia Roth is on any screen, recognize the film, and create a map in my head. But what an opportunity to really take museum goers through the evolution of this amazing career… not taken.

This is the dichotomy of this museum. It’s so great to have an Almodóvar exhibit and so much of his work on display. But it feels like it was collected by a teenager who loves Almodóvar, but doesn’t yet have the perspective to bring the history of the work to a higher level for the attendee (even though Almodóvar participated in the creation).

So I turn the corner into the next section of the Almodóvar exhibit because it is obviously just starting and… it’s no longer Almodóvar. I’m in another exhibit. WTF?

I actually walked back and forth, trying to figure out why something so distinct just… walk through a doorway and it’s over. Bye.

So… interesting stuff. A range of specialists. Solid, if uninspired, animation section. A nod to effects with some decent use of video to illustrate.

And then the money section for most visitors. R2D2, the Alien head, Arnold’s T2 head, ET, the Fishman… etc, etc, etc. Cool.

The Museum combines darkness and a lot of glass to keep the whole thing from turning into selfie central, not that people weren’t taking selfies.

The only other things on this floor are the upper half of the North by Northwest Mount Rushmore backdrop and The Oscar Experience, which allows folks to pay $15 to “receive an Oscar” and have it videotaped. But don’t think museum-goers will get to watch people and how they behave for kicks. No viewing space. And no payee, no lookie.

Down to 2. Check out the bottom of the Mount Rushmore backdrop. And it’s time for Oscar Mania. But first…

I realize I have lost a couple sections from their locations. The museum map doesn’t help. One is the costume section, which offers up some beautiful compelling costumes. Also, there is a history of film cameras from a the Richard Balzer Collection that is compelling for those of us who are into that kind of thing. I was one of those kids who took cameras and projectors apart and sometimes even managed to put them back together. Good… solid museum stuff.

Back to OscarMania… on the way in, it’s Spike Time!

I love Spike. I was around when he and his cast were out selling tickets to She’s Gotta Have It on the streets of New York. I have been a fan of much of his work. But again… why are we wasting our time on a room full of trophies instead of being offered insight into the remarkable rise of this boundary-bending filmmaker?

Spike has really cool stuff. Spike has an amazing story. Spike’s journey and hustle and unrestrained passions are worth the space. But the difference between it being a walk through his closet (or in Guillermo del Toro terms, his mancave) and something museum worthy is context and presentation.

I remember Spike’s retail store on Melrose back in the early 90s. I went often. I spent money. I wanted things that seemed too expensive. And I felt more context about the man and his movies in that storefront. The Academy Museum display mostly seems like a trophy case.

The history of School Daze, in and of itself, has connections to the entire history of the 80s in Hollywood, including the history of the producing rebel David Puttnam, who picked up the film while he was briefly running Columbia Studios. But while it is acknowledged in the Spike space, the focus is on The Artist Formerly Known As Prince’s guitar.

Into the Oscar Room, where there is a weird focus on just a half-dozen award winners. I know… PC Mania. But honestly, I don’t even care at this point. Fine. Pick who you want to highlight. Not a frustration for me.

But what does bug me (a lot) is one wall with images of Oscar shows gone by. I start to watch the TV footage from the black & white era. No sound or anything. Just images, mostly of the stage. And I am thinking, why is this edited like your grandpa splicing together Super 8 home movies? No rhythm. No pace. No idea about the evolution of time that was obviously the inspiring thought behind this choice.

The large table at the center of the room tells the history of Oscar as you work your way around the table. I’ve never been a big fan of this method of laying out a story, but it is hardly the first time its been used. Rarely to tell as much of a story as this huge table. Museum habits die hard.

The round room of Oscars did nothing for me. I know that we are supposed to all be rocked by the missing Oscar of Hattie MacDaniel. But the loss of her Oscar isn’t an event of oppression. It’s a lost object, no matter how significant the awarding of the object is in history (and it is). As a cynic, I noticed that directors and Best Picture winners tended to lend their 2nd or 3rd Oscars, not their biggest prize. But I’m just being a jerk.

Six “significant” movies or moviemakers are next. Citizen Kane, Chivo, Michaeux, Schoonmaker, yes. Real Women Have Curves and Bruce Lee, not so much. It’s not that I’m not a fan of either, but when it comes to Latino and Asian representation in film, there are more interesting choices.

The museum has a thing for creating tableaux you kind of walk around to experience, combining still images, video, and some kind of prop(s). Fair enough. My reaction to Rosebud was straight from Hedley Lamarr at the Chinese when confronted by Alan Ladd’s footprints. How could it be so little. My reaction to a Steenbeck? Less amazed, given that anyone my age who went to film school has operated one.

At the exit of this section, there was a wall with three moving images across. I don’t know how the presentation was offered (3 big TVs, 1 giant TV, or some variation). But what struck me as dozens and dozens of familiar images played across the wall was… who cut this and how did they get the job?

I am passionate about editing and the idea of this wall and really, this wall, triptych or not, was the closest thing in the building to a proper “projected” movie image and I wanted to be moved. I was there for this moment. I was kicking my cynicism and critic’s hat to the curb.

While the idea was right there… run of close-ups… run of shots with people leaving or entering, etc… black and white, color, wide screen, video… cinema… there was no clear, consistent idea within the work or really, in any one trio of images.

You should, in what is really the climax of visiting this museum - although the space is tiny and couldn’t comfortably hold more than 50 people for 10 minutes - stand in front of this faux movie screen and have the history of cinema merge with your soul the way the ocean does as you walk your way in slowly and become comfortable with the temperature and finally, dive in, feeling fully immersed and connected.

And this is what is missing from start to finish here. It all feels like a bunch of temporary exhibits that have merit and many elements of interest. I don’t mean to piss all over the hard work of coming as far as the museum has come. There are some very interesting ideas here. But they are, after all that time and all that money, simplistic and weirdly uninformed.

And still, that is an achievement.

But it is also grading on a curve.

If your emphasis on The Academy Museum is that it better be diverse… it is. The emphasis really didn’t bother me. I would prefer a museum that wasn’t so busy worrying about being diverse that it actively devalues boring, old white filmmakers who defined much of the film culture for its first 90 years. But I guess white old men have it coming.

There are big chunks of what the history of American cinema is that are utterly missing, in favor of filling a gap that exists and can never be filled, only improved upon… a lot. But truly… truly… I know some people will not want to believe me… truly… that was not a big problem in this experience for me. I just wanted the whole thing to be a step more insightful.

The truth is, aside from a 2-story tall backdrop from North by Northwest, there is not a single thing is The Academy Museum that feels permanent. And the space - since the museum is only in the department store with unfinished ceilings and a lot of cement floors - could be anywhere. LACMA occasionally used the old May Co building it acquired in 1994 for touring exhibits. And indeed, this still feels like a touring exhibit, not unlike the ones that currently fill the old Amoeba space on Sunset or that filled old K-Mart of 3rd St (Britney!) or what was called The Temporary Contemporary (now the Geffen Contemporary @ MOCA), which was previously a storage space for old police cars downtown.

The most successful movie exhibition in Los Angeles in memory was the 2016 Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters show that was sold out for most of its run at LACMA (in a building now torn down, being replaced, thanks to the money AMPAS paid LACMA for the May Co space). One of the reasons it was so popular - as it has also been in the cities it has toured since - is that it had a clear voice, depth, and told a story. It was a ton of stuff… but it was never just cool stuff that either compelled you or didn’t. It was like exploring a creepy old house (the coolest ever) when you were a kid, finding treasures and surprises along the way. And as a viewer, you could choose the depth of your experience. That choose-your-depth thing is in The Academy Museum, but it’s a lot more work than a great museum should have.

The Academy Museum needs to find that voice. It needs to be better. It doesn’t suck. It’s not terrible. It in no way suggest that it is worthy of the $500 million or near-decade of creation. It is not on the upper half of the newer focused museums in America in recent decades.

But it can be.

It may take a while, as money is tight. But put a great editor in charge of some of the video presentations. Pick one filmmaker to honor and give them more than one room. Highlight 2 significant filmmakers or films instead of 4 and dig deeper. Record all the superstars at your disposal to tell their story on a stream that visitors can listen to on their phones and really tell the stories… not in the ways where curators tell media what to look at and what it means, but in a way that normal humans can comprehend and share in.

The Academy Museum celebrates some of the most skilled artists in the world, better at telling a story than anyone. Their museum should do the same.

Until tomorrow…

(Note: This trip to The Academy Museum was on a paid ticket, like any civilian. And at $25, it is certainly a better deal than other L.A. offerings, like the Hollywood Wax Museum. Since then, The Academy Museum has been kind enough to give me a media membership for the next year. So I will visit again on their dime, in hope of an improving experience.)