Tag Academy Awards

The best times, etc etc

Michael 10 Comments

It’s that time again, one of the best times of the year. It’s Oscar time! Specifically, the month before the actual awards are awarded. I don’t care much who wins this year’s Academy Awards. If anything, I may pay attention to the the cinematography or writing awards, but in general, this year’s winners have a long time to ferment before I’ll open them for a taste.

If you are a regular reader, or even a slightly irregular one, you know my golden age for movie watching coincides nicely with the golden age of movie making. I have made that same assertion at this same time of year several times. If you pop over to the “Search My Blog” page and type “Academy” in the search window, you will be rewarded with several posts to read about my preference for the older movies, particularly at this time of year.  Naturally, that won’t stop me from asserting that same assertion here.

In addition to what you”ll read in any of those past posts, I also think part of what makes the older movies the better choices, is the same reason why so many other older things, are just generally better. I’ll use some of my own experiences.

For well over 40 years I worked in hospital pharmacies, both non-profit and for-profit. When I started, healthcare was a terrific career choice, specifically for me, but for many others. And a well-respected field of endeavor. Today, not so much. The people working it are questionable in their dedication for excellence in providing care, and the people running it are not at all questionable in their disdain for providing care.

Here is what I believe happened.  When I began practicing hospitals were run by doctors, pharmacies by pharmacists, and drug companies by chemists and biologists. We made people well and made a respectable living. Sometime in the 1990s, hospital and pharmacies and drug companies decided to swap out the professionals from their corporate offices and replace them with “business people.” Dedication went down because they had no stake in the history of the professions. Quality went down because quality is expensive and that didn’t fit with the “increase the bottom line at all costs” narrative. Care went down because nobody needed to care anymore.

Without getting further into that diatribe, that’s what happened to movies. In the 20s to the early 60s, actors acted, writers wrote, directors directed, and producers produced. They were good at what they did. They had stables of people to draw upon, and they enjoyed what they did. And they did what they knew how to do. There are some exceptions, but it became prevalent in the 60s that people  wanted all the control so they started writing and directing and producing their own parts that they acted. Movies became pet projects rather than works of art.

If you want something good, have the professionals who want to do it, who have experience doing it, who know the good and bad of doing it just do it. It works with healthcare. It works with cars, it works with running a country. (I had to addd that – come on now. DEI caused a plane crash? Sheesh)

Back to the movies. From now until awards night, my favorite TV network, TCM will play nothing but Oscar nominated and winning movies. All day. Every day. Some even written, directed, produced, and performed by other than old white men.

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You know when else is the best of times? February! It’s not only Groundhog Day month, it is also when love is in the air. Do the right thing and spread your love to everyone, even strangers. We talk about that very thing in this week’s Uplift post, All We Need is Love, Part 2. It’s all natural, requires little effort, and makes big differences. Check it out.

While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

The most wonderful time of the year

Michael 8 Comments

It’s almost here. The day we’ve been waiting for. (Don’t you just love ads, articles, blogs even that start that way. Like all of the world is “we.” It’s like the YouTube videos that begin, “You’re doing [something incredibly common and impossible to do wrong] wrong.”) (But I digress.) The day we’ve (cough cough) been waiting for is almost here.  Yes…[dramatic overture type music]…it’s Oscar time. (You know I’m really not allowed to say that. It’s copyrighted and a couple years ago they were going after those using it without permission hard. Yeah, well, tough on them! I said it!) Now where was I. Oh yes, it’s Oscar time!

For movie buffs, it really is a big time. Those awards still hold a mystique among awards, and people who live and die for movies have no real life. 

I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to say that.

Take 2! People who live and die for movies look forward to this time of year like normal people look forward to Groundhog Day. And I can say that because I too look forward to Oscar season. Oh not for the awards. I mean I guess they’re okay even though they really have gotten away from awarding the best performances and replaced that with awarded the performances that have the most to say but then sometimes that happens to be the same picture like last year. That was a good movie and I can’t wait to se it again when it’s like 40 years old. Umm…

Oh darn,I lost my place again. Don’t go anywhere. Hmm, people live and die. Look forward to too. I’m one of them. Oh yeah, I found it.

And I can say that because I too am one of them. One of the them who look forward to Oscar season but not for the awards. I look forward to this time of year because my favorite television station, TCM, plays an entire month of Oscar nominated and winning films from when they really were really good. I’ve said many times, my passion is old movies, preferably pre-1950s, certainly pre-1960s, and a rare one after that.

There was a difference in the movies from 70 and 80 years ago. There will never be a movie couple so well matched as William Powell and Myrna Loy. There will never be an actress so perfect in every role she played as Audrey Hepburn. Nor a musical as free spirited as Singing in the Rain, or a drama as soul searching as The Red Shoes. And there will never be another Casablanca. What made so many of the great movies of the golden age of movies such great movies is something we will never see again in movie land. The studio system. So completely controlling of all that went in the it should be The Studio System.

Take Casablanca as an example. Every part was perfectly cast. Not just the leading roles which none of the leads were who the producer Hal Wallis wanted but who the studio gave him. Even the director Michael Curtiz was not the first choice. All off the minor characters filled their roles like they had been doing those jobs for ever. And they had. Actors then were on contract to the studios and they all filled a niche. You want a bartender? They got an actor who played a bar tender so often he’d be a better bartender than a bartender. Do you need a street vendor? Central casting has a dozen to pick from, what do you want to sell? The system worked. Casablanca was nominated for 8 academy Awards and came away with 3, best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay.

So next Sunday while most movie maniacs will be glued to their sets to see who gets slapped this year, I’ll be halfway through a smorgasbord of the best movies, some that even won for being the best movie when being the best mean being the best and the only message was “let us entertain you.”

Every moment of every day has the potential to be one that will be never forgotten. Those memorable moments can be anything and happen anytime. Last week in Uplift! we asked, will some moment today be your most memorable?

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The envelope please…

Michael Leave a comment

And the envelope please…

Ah, Major Movie Award time. The Academy is cracking down in unauthorized used of the gold statuettes’ nickname but you know what Major Movie Award I mean. The Major Movie Award ceremony was last night and I missed it – again. Intentionally. I love movies and this year I actually saw most of the nominees for the Major Movie Award best picture award. But I love old movies a whole lot better and I dislike awards shows even more. Awards shows, awards banquets, recognition ceremonies, even graduations, but especially awards show when anybody who ever got lucky enough to be cast in a good movie demonstrates how valuable screenwriters are. Anyway, I didn’t watch the ceremonies but instead, as is my custom, I watched a couple Major Movie Award winners from 60 years ago.

In general, forty years is my cut off.  If a movie is still entertaining (and relevant, if possible), 40 years after it first hit the theaters, then that’s a good movie. I would say I’ll be re-watching this year’s winner in 40 years but in 40 years I’ll be well ensconced in the centenarian camp, so…that’s a maybe.

So with all this experience of watching long-lasting, significant award winning movies from 40, 50, 60, 100 years ago, you’d  think I could pick out this years winner effortlessly. Yeah, no. A hundred, 90, 60, 50 years ago, significant was defined differently. Right around 40 years ago, it started to be more important to have the right message than to have the right stuff. But that’s okay. That only holds true for the “big” awards.  The true magic in movies, the costumes, sets, music, and cinematography are still awarded on merit so there will always be good old movies to watch. Even forty years from now.

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It so happens that I am writing this before the Major Movie Awards ceremony and the announcement of best picture. So, given that I’ve seen them, what movie would I vote for if I were a member of the Major Movie Award voting bloc?  I will say I don’t think the one I would vote for will win, but it should.  I think several of the best picture nominees are definite possibilities for cinematography and costume and would be worthy of those honors. But those same movies have no story, no coherence, or are just not good enough to be “best.” And there are so many this year (10 nominees for best picture), the field is clearly watered down.  But I digress.

What movie would I vote for if I were a member of the Major Movie Award voting bloc? West Side Story. It will have a hard time getting to the podium.  Although remakes dominate moviedom, rarely do remakes get nominated for the best picture award. To win the award, the odds are greater than finder teeth in a hen, but just barely. Only twice has a best picture been a remake. (Ben-Hur in 1959 and The Departed in 2006). To make it an even higher mountain to climb, West Side Story is the first time a remake of a previous best picture winner (1961) has even been nominated for best picture.

So … if I don’t think the. Ivies I would vote for will win for best picture, where would I put my money? Although almost all of the rest of the world thinks, The Power of the Dog will be so honored, I think last night’s winner was CODA. But wouldn’t it be a hoot if Licorice Pizza walk away with it?

We could do this for the other 23 categories too but I have to get dinner on the table.

How did I do?

Tell Me a Tale

Michael 2 Comments

Finally! Yesterday they finally awarded this year’s Oscars. Sorry, Oscars®. You’ve read me long enough to know I like movies. Old movies. Not so much old as good movies, so yeah, old movies. I don’t particularly care who won yesterday. See me in 24 or 25 years about the 2021 awards. We’ll see then which ones stood the test of time. I’ll tell you right now, it won’t be the ones that told a story. It will be the ones with a story worth telling.

Quite coincidentally this year, tomorrow is National Tell a Story Day. When one thinks of “a story” the first thought is usually a tall tale, perhaps inspirational, perhaps traditional, maybe something fictional with just enough truth in it to keep it interesting. Few stories hit all the notes although through the years you will find one or two each generation that live on through many generations. They are the ones with a story worth telling and telling again.

Today, everyone can tell a story. All you need is a connection to the Internet. Thirty years ago I would have said all you need is a typewriter, a fresh ribbon, a ream of paper, and a willing audience. Twenty years ago I would have said, all you need is a word processor, access to email, and a willing audience. Ten years ago I would have said, all you need is a keyboard and a connection to the Internet. Today you don’t even need a keyboard. A phone, a camera, a screen and access to your favorite social site, and the modern day storyteller has all the tools needed to tell the tale. You will note that the willing audience has dropped from the list of needs. With the internet comes an audience. Willing or not, there are people there. When we accepted losing the typewriter or keyboard as tools of the storyteller, we may also have lost the criterion that a story, a good story, be one worth telling. Another loss in many stories we hear today is the presence of truth.

Of course truth is not necessary for a good story. Any successful novelist knows the truth is incidental to a good story. Any successful novelist also knows nobody expects fiction to be truthful or accurate. That’s pretty much the point of fiction. But just to be on the safe side the successful novelist also…well, go pull your favorite novel off the bookshelf. I’ll wait. {Dah di dum di dah di dum dum dum} Oh good, you’re back. Okay, now turn to the copyright page. There, do you see it? It says something like:

[Name of Book] is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are the product of the imagination of the author or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any event, company, country, or location is entirely coincidental.”  

Disclaimers have long been used on fictional works, written and filmed. They aren’t on computer, tablet, or phone screens even though it is more likely that fiction will be taken for fact there than on the pages of that book you pulled off the shelf or in the movie theater. The social media storyteller specializes in sharing and forwarding unconfirmed material in the guise of news or pertinent information is as guilty as spreading lies and fabrications as the one who intentionally misleads or deceives, and the one who intentionally misleads or deceives is no more than a common liar who isn’t worth the electricity needed to post a rebuttal. But rebut we must. The charlatans foisting untruths, fact-sounding fallacies, misinterpretations of scholarly works, and ugly harassment must not be allowed to spread misinformation without challenge. If the social network platforms will not police their lines of distribution themselves then the professionals must remain vigilant to the lies circulating, whether about health, policy, government, or safety and security. Those who use the internet for news and information must recall the social networks are entertainment and any “information” gleaned from a social post should be taken with the consideration afforded to the “news” heard over the backyard fence or while standing in line at the supermarket deli counter. Consider any story heard on line as just that, a story, no more factual than Snow White and the Three Big Bad Wolves.

Hopefully your only encounter with storytellers will be with those with a story to tell that is perhaps inspirational, perhaps traditional, or maybe something fictional with just enough truth in it to keep it interesting – and with a story worth telling and worth telling again. No disclaimers necessary but there – just in case.

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after

I’ll Have What He’s Having

Michael 3 Comments
The Academy Awards are behind us and the Oscar hoopla has pretty much faded away. I have a few more old Oscar nominees to watch. I’m still used to the awards being presented in March and February being the time to relish in the performances. Is it just me or do actors tend to speak better when reading somebody else’s lines as scripted than when they try to go their own way on the award stage? Anyway, I prefer the movie actor to the award show actor and often the movie world to real realty. Ironic, no?
 
Something that hit me this year watching my usual overdose level of film history is how much out there in movie land we can really use in real people land. Television land also has some pretty nifty gadgetry that we mere mortals could benefit from. Take for instance in 1966 just asking “Yo computer, how much longer till we get to the Romulan border?” and sure enough some snarky female voice speaks back “the. border. is. one. hundred. forty. light. years. away. and. will. be. reached. in. twenty. eight. and. one. half. minutes. if. you. don’t. stop. for. take. out. on. the. way.” Did Gene Roddenberry know Siri and Alexa were coming? If we’ve been able to harness computer power to become our personal assistants, why not some other seemingly outlandish inventions.
 
For example:
Movie people must have dishes that dry and put themselves away. I’ve seen dozens of movies this month with people eating and drinking and even in some instances washing dishes. But nobody ever dries them or puts them away. The only Oscar nominated movie I recall seeing somebody with towel in hand, drying dishes was Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey. She didn’t do a really great job of drying and didn’t put them away but she was a millionaire socialite so I guess just the attempt at drying part was something special. They all have self-cleaning carpets also.
 
TelephoneThis one we sort of had but then technology took it away and we need it back – a phone you can pick up the reciever and just say who you want and somebody gets them for you. You need to go back to the 1930s for this invention. Everybody from cops to robbers to femme fatales to innocent bystanders could go to any phone and say “Get me John Smith” and sure enough, an operator would find John Smith, and the right John Smith. Progress took this away quickly (The Front Page). By the 1940s people were dailing their own numbers (Going My Way), by the 50s were getting wrong numbers (Anatomy of a Murder), by the 60s they were tearing pages out of phone books (In the Heat of the Night), and eventually we’ve worked our way to a time when there are no phone books and if you ask your computer assistant for John Snith’s number, unless John Smith is among you personal contacts, the answer will be, “I’m sorry I don’t have enough information.”
 
Cars run on no gas. Imagine not just driving for days, week, even months without filling up, but driving hard, fast, and often in multiple countries and never visiting a fuel station. Racing movies aside, nobody ever stops to fill up. The French Connection wouldn’t have stood a chance for Best movie if Popeye Doyle ran out of gas on 86th Street. The only movies I recall seeing somebody at a gas pump are High Sierra and National Lampoon’s Vacation and neither were Oscar nominees in any category. (I should note that in Vacation, Chevy Chase is seen wiping and putting away dishes but I believe they hadn’t been washed yet, so…)
 
Since I brought up non-nominees there are some things in almost every movie I’d like to see happen. 
 
Airplanes with aisles wide enough to walk down two abreast (with a refreshment cart even) and seats with more legroom than in my living room. Sticking with the travel theme, cruise ships with cabins bigger than my living room. Entire blocks unoccupied in front of the building I want to enter so I can just pull up and park – and never having to parallel park (nobody parallel parks in the movies), and airport parking lots that never charge for parking. Formal wear for casinos. Subways never overcrowded and always on time unless being hijacked. And those telephones that when they are set to vibrate you still know a call is incoming even if you are 3 rooms away. 
 
And – a hot tub time machine. Hey Alexa, let’s kick some past!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lights, Camera, Action!

Michael Leave a comment
Yes, it’s February and that’s my favorite month of the year, or at least one of my 12 favorites and not just because of Groundhog Day. It’s Oscar Month!
 
Okay, okay, I’m not all that choked up about this year’s Academy Awards any more than any other year. Once again I have not seen any of the nominees for Best Picture although for a change I have at least heard of most of them. Some time over the next 3 or 4 years I might even get around to seeing most of them.
 
To me, the better awards go to the performers anyway. Of course they need talented writers working with good material and it has to be well produced and adequately funded, but you could say the same thing about a municipal mass transit system. The actors bring the movie to life and in the four performance categories I can honestly say I have heard of everybody.
 
Once again the movies displaying those nominated performances are important, shall we say dramatic stories that certainly will be told well by this group of talented actors but will they really entertain? Where is the laughter? Why is comedy always getting left behind? (Oh if you read the description of Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit you will see that are classified as “drama, comedy/drama” but isn’t that like “politically correct?” It’s pretty hard to be both. And I’m sorry Jojo, The Producers might have made Hitler funny but that lightning isn’t going to strike again.)
 
So where was I? Oh yes, comedy. Where are the great comedic performances?  There was once a time comedies dominated the Oscar nominations. The first movies to ever feature nominated performances in all four performance categories (actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress) was the comedy My Man Godfrey in 1936, the year awards for performances in supporting roles were introduced.  
 
In the 91 times the Academy has recognized excellence in the performing arts, less than 100 performers have been recognized for excellence in comedic performances. That’s using their definition of comedy which is everything not dramatic. For examples, James Garner was nominated for Murphy’s Romance, a cute movie but not laugh until you fall out of your chair funny, and Tatum O’Neal’s win was well deserved but Paper Moon will never be confused with Blazing Saddles. So to say 100 comedy performance have been represented by the four acting award nominees is already a stretch and many of those movies sported multiple nominations. It would be difficult to find more than fifty true comedies among the performance nominations. Narrow the field down to the winners and you are looking at barely two dozen films. But of the winners featuring comedic performances that excelled, excellence might be an understatement. 
 
It just so happened one recent evening I found myself bored more than usual and took a tentative step into the wonderland we call the Internet. And there I found a list of all the comedy performances that had ever been nominated for any of the four performing awards. I was surprised to see how many of them I had seen – nearly 80 of the 90 some movies listed. So I decided to compile my own awards and then and there selected the top ten comedy roles of all moviedom or at least those once upon a time nominated. Here, for the first time ever, are The Realies!
 
unnamed10. Peter O’Toole, My Favorite Year (1983). Mention Peter O’Toole and your first thought has to be Lawrence of Arabia. From there you may recall Beckett and Lion in Winter, big, broad, epic roles where he fills the screen. Even his earlier side trip to comedy, How to Steal a Million will be on more people’s minds than My Favorite Year. It was pretty much a nothing movie. But his performance was big, brash, over the top, fill the screen in his best Errol Flynnesque style. A drunken hasbeen agrees to appear on a prototypical 1950s variety show to work off his debt to the IRS and takes Manhattan by storm, until he realizes he must performed in front of a live audience. “I’m not an actor! I’m a movie star!” His performance is worth the price of a ticket (or movie rental). Unfortunately for O’toole he was up against another great comedic performance by Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and the winner Ben Kingsley in Gandhi for Best Actor. 
 
9. Jack Lemmon, Some Like It Hot (1960). What’s funnier than a couple of musicians joining a band to escape the mob looking to rub them out? Did I mention it’s a all women band? Um, did I mention the musicians are men? Lemmon’s character and his fellow musician played by Tony Curtis accidentally witness a mob murder and have to get out of town fast. Their “only” choice is to dress as women and join up with Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators leaving town that day. At their destination Lemmon is pursued by a much married millionaire while Curtis pursues a member of the band (played by Marilyn Monroe) while both are pursued by guys with guns. If you haven’t seen it, you have to see it and stay all the way to the end to see Joe E. Brown’s deadpan reaction to Lemmon’s line about why he can’t marry Brown, “I’m a man!” Brown’s answer? You’ll have to watch the movie.  Lemmon’s performance almost wasn’t as he was the third choice to play the character. He lost the award for Best Actor to Charlton Heston in Ben Hur.
 
8. Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinnie (1993). Marisa Tomei’s Best Supporting Actress winning role as Mona Lisa Vito the brash fiancee to Joe Pesci’s brasher Vinnie Gambini shocked the movie going public and most critics of the time. It was the height of “The Important Movies Era.” There was no place for an old fashioned farce. But it was a triumphant return to the old fashioned farce and Tomei’s performance was reminiscent of Myrna Loy as Nora Charles or Katharine Hepburn’s Susan Vance, as the ditzy dame who is neither ditzy nor a dame and the movie wouldn’t be worth remembering without her. Tomei may have had unexpected encouragement to give an award winning performance. During filming Pesci brought the Oscar he won in 1990 for his role in Goodfellas.
 
7. Walter Matthau, The Fortune Cookie (1967). Walter Matthau’s first pairing with Jack Lemmon earned him a Best Supporting Actor award for his role as William “Whiplash Willie” Gingrich, Lemmon’s brother-in-law and lawyer. Matthau convinces Lemmon to feign paralysis after being run over by a pro football player while he was working as a television cameraman. Matthau suffered a heart attack during filming which was suspended while he recovered. He lost 30 pounds during his convalesence. He got 8-1/2 pounds back when he carried away his Oscar.
 
6. William Powell, The Thin Man (1935). The first of six “Thin Man” movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, The Thin Man is a fun adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel. Roger Ebert said of Powell, “William Powell is to dialog as Fred Astaire is to dance.” The film was shot in just two weeks owing partly to director W. S. VanDyke’s propensity for speedy single takes but also to Powell and Loy not acting but being “two people in perfect harmony” according to Powell. The plot is impossible to follow and clues seem to elude everybody except Powell’s Nick Charles who has a drink in hand whenever Loy’s Nora isn’t. And sometimes when. The acting is so smooth, the dialogue so sharp, and the chemistry so obvious you often lose track of the fact that a murder is being solved before your eyes. Sort of. Powell lost this his first nomination for Best Actor to Clark Gable in the comedy It Happened One Night.
 
5. Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie (1983). Dustin Hoffman solidifies his position as one of the greatest actors of his generation by playing the screwball comedienne and her/his own foil in the same role. Um, sort of. Hoffman’s character Michael Dorsey is a difficult to work with, unemployed actor who successfully passes himself off as Dorothy Michaels to secure a role in a daytime television soap opera. As the story unfolds Dorothy takes on a role within the role, a liberated, self-assured, ground zero “bad ass woman” before women thought they could be bad ass. The movie is a little bit farce, a lot of satire, some social commentary, and tons of fun. Hoffman lost out as Best Actor to Ben Kingsley’s Gandhi. The movie also contributed two nominees for Best Supporting Actress, Teri Garr and winner Jessica Lange.
 
4. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment (1961). I place Jack Lemmon’s role as C. C. Baxter, the overworked office underling who lends his apartment to his bosses for their affairs as one of his best. Lemmon’s trading eventually earned him a promotion as assistant to Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) but has second thoughts when he discovers they both have designs on the same woman (played by Shirley MacLaine). Admittedly this falls into that comedy/drama description but Lemmon’s performance has some pure comedy gold such as when he drains the spaghetti through his tennis his racket (yeah, you really have to see that to experience the full impact) and juggles his desk-size Rolodex to solve a “scheduling” problem. The movie won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and received nominations in three of the four performers categories, Best Actor (Lemmon), Best Actress (MacLaine), and Best Supporting Actor (Jack Kruschen). Lemmon lost his bid to Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry. (Although MacLaine’s acting was Oscar worthy,  she won’t appear in The Realies Top Ten for The Apartment as I consider her performance more dramatic than comedic but it was a great role in one of my favorite movies. And don’t worry about her, she’ll be back.)
 
3. Shirley MacLaine, Irma La Douce (1964). (She’s back!) Shirley MacLaine is reunited with Jack Lemmon in this adaptation of Marguerite Monnot’s and Alexandre Breffort’s musical for the French stage. Lemmon is a policeman fired from the force who falls in love with a prostitute, MacLaine’s Irma. In order to keep her from working he attempts to monopolize her time as the mysterious Lord X. All through the convoluted plot, amid bribery, lies, and a murder that didn’t happen, MacLaine provides the anchor for an otherwise exceptionally outrageous, and long (nearly 2-1/2 hours long!) farce. MacLaine agreed to the part without reading the script because of Lemmon’s and Director Billy Wilder’s involvement in the movie. Afterward, she did not like the final product and contrary to reviews at the time felt the movie was not among her best work. She was surprised to have been nominated for Best Actress but based on her own assessment probably wasn’t surprised that she lost to Patricia Neal in Hud.
 
1 (tie). William Powell and Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey (1937). No I wasn’t getting tired when I got to this point. I really believe without the other,  neither would be this good and together they are the best. William Powell plays Godfrey, one of the depression’s “forgotten men,” a target of a society scavenger hunt. Carole Lombard as Irene Bullock convinces Godfrey to allow her to bring him in to mark her scavenger list complete. In gratitude, but without the knowledge of her family, Irene offers Godfrey a job as their butler. Godfrey accepts and smoothly makes the position his own. But he has a secret background and a secret mission. Carole Lombard perfected the role of screwball comedienne and is particularly screwy here. Powell brings an enjoyable sense of a diamond from the rough among the family more resembling the discarded shards from the diamond cuttting. The movie is a shining example of “they don’t make them like that anymore” in large part to there not being actors like that any more. Powell and Lombard were nominated for Best Actor and Actress and Mischa Auer and Alice Brady were nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. It was a shame that none of the four won nor did it win in the other categories it was nominated, Best Director (Gregory La Cava) and Best Screenplay (Eric Hatch and Morris Ryskind). It remains a mystery that it was not even nominated for Best Picture. Powell lost to Paul Muni in The Story of Louis Pasteur and Lombard to Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld.
 
There are my pick for the top nominated comedic performances. Obviously I have a preference for the older entries and I admit I have some favorites. The years represent the year the Oscar was awarded, not the movie’s release date.
 
If you are still reading, I congratulate you. This is a long post, but I bet it takes less time to read than some acceptance speeches will this year! Thank you for reading! Now go have a laugh or two.
 
 
 

Script Girl

Michael 2 Comments

February might be my favorite month. It’s certainly in the top ten. (I can do without March and its schizophrenic weather patterns and August’s unending humidity. The rest are okay.) February is among my favorites because of the Academy Awards. Quite honestly I don’t think I could possibly care less who goes home with an Oscar this year. I love February because of the old winners.

I love old movies and there is no better time to get a fill of them than in the month leading up to the Oscars. Whether your film love is for musicals, thrillers, book adaptations, war, epics, comedies, or tragedies you will find it on a small screen near you in February. February is when movie services and networks go all out to rake in the viewers with past nominees and winners. The good movies. The ones produced before Hollywood decided America needed a conscience and it was the perfect choice. These are the ones you watch and say to yourself, “they wouldn’t do that today.”

Something else about those old movies they don’t do today is the credits. (Hmm. Some things else are the credits?) I’ve bemoaned the state of movie credits before but it never rears its ugly head as much as now when the screens are filled with the elegance of crediting those who deserve credit and not every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who come close to the set or is close to the financiers.

Buried in those early credits is another thing “they wouldn’t do today.” Among the actors, director, producer, editor, cameraman, set designer, and costumer, almost always is “Script Girl.” Sexism notwithstanding, the title was gradually changed to Script Supervisor in the 60s and 70s, long before males entered the role. But for years, and as long as February remains Oscar Movie Month, for years to come, “Script Girl” was how the continuity expert was defined around the world. Literally.

AdmitOneJust over the weekend I was watching the 1974 Best Foreign Language Film winner, François Truffaut “Day for Night.” (Reading maybe as much as watching as my French comprehension was never as good as my high school grades suggested. Hooray for subtitles.) As the credits rolled (before the movie as they should be) after the acteurs, among the équipage, and before the producteur and the réalisateur was “Script Girl,” just like that, en anglais, capitalized, and in quotes.

And what does this “girl” do. At one time she or he, although then it was almost exclusively she would be the director’s secretary and would record information about how of each scene was shot, prompt actors, and often write notes to be used in publicizing the movie before it’s release. Today the Script Supervisor also keeps notes of wardrobe, props, set dressing, hair, makeup and the actions of the actors during shooting to assist the editor in maintain continuity during and between scenes. Thus when the hero enters a scene with a half full cup of coffee it doesn’t turn into a can of ginger ale 24 seconds later in the final cut.

I’d love to stick around longer and talk about old movies but there’s only 17 days left to February and my DVR is filling up. I have to catch up on some classics today.