Adios Nonino

Saying that Ástor Piazzolla's Adios Nonino is your favorite tango composition is like saying that the Mona Lisa is your favorite painting, but Adios Nonino is indeed my favorite tango composition despite the fierce competition for that honor (for the record, however, the Mona Lisa is not my favorite painting).

Anyway, I adore Piazzolla, and can often be found listening to various iterations of Adios Nonino on repeat. If I were a competitive figure skater, I would definitely choose to skate to an Adios Nonino long program, perhaps even during an all-important Olympic year when the general public suddenly becomes aware of the existence of figure skating. Many figure skaters (or their choreographers) seem to have similar sentiments regarding Adios Nonino, as it is a relatively common choice for competitive figure skating programs. Without further ado, let's scrutinize a (somewhat random) list of Adios Nonino programs below:

Judge Bait

Earlier this year, Eddie Redmayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. At the time, my roommate passionately decried the Academy's decision to reward Mr. Redmayne the Best Actor award, calling the whole affair yet another example of the Academy's collective shortsightedness in awarding Oscar bait. Oscar bait, otherwise known as the pejorative term denouncing a film that appears to have been carefully calibrated with the sole intention of winning awards, particularly that golden Art Deco statuette awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. To put it simply, critics of Oscar bait denounce films of that bent as products of pure naked pandering as opposed to true originality or creativity.

As a pretentious snob, I am practically contractually obliged to hate Oscar bait and their ilk. Therein lies the evils that gave rise to mediocrities such as Crash (ugh!!) and Shakespeare in Love (double ugh!!), both of which happen to be Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards in their respective years. And yet, and yet--there are some examples of Oscar baiting films/performances that I loved, or at the very least was impressed by. Charlize Theron was astonishing in Monster, for instance, and I found Schindler's List incredibly affecting (its sequels Schindler's Fist and Schindler's Pissed less so, however). Is Oscar bait inherently bad? Can pandering rise up above its desperation?

All this talk about Oscar bait (yeah, this is an old post) reminds me of one figure skating program this season that has been repeatedly been fingered as a program that has been specially conceived and choreographed to win titles this season, especially the World title: Weaver/Poje's Four Seasons. On its face, it really does seem like Weaver/Poje's Four Seasons has been calibrated to strike directly at the hearts of figure skating judges with its classical warhorse of a musical choice, relatively conventional choreography, among other factors.