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Thread: 2011 Academy Awards etc

  1. #1
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    2011 Academy Awards etc

    There is a reason the "Oscars" represent so much and so little to so many people. To film critics, they represent "Main Street" America and common public opinion. To film fans, they represent frustration when their film does not win. To ordinary people, they represent those "show business people" flaunting their riches in front of everyone else. Love them or hate them, they are the ultimate salute to an industry we love to write and blog about on this site. In recent years, TMC (Turner Movie Classics) has presented the finest uncut and commercial free presentational salute to the Academy Awards of any channel on broadcast television. Host Robert Osborn is not only intelligent and knowledgable, but witty, insightful, and a joy to watch. As a film historian, he is extremely well versed. Here is a link to their website. Starting today, every single film for the entire month has been nominated or won an Academy Award. Some are great. Some are brilliant. Some are controversial. But all are above average. Just as history is required to understand the present, so is this homework if you wish to understand the current state of cinema. DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Watch TCM this month!

    TCM:http://www.tcm.com/index.jsp
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    I am hooked on TCM, especially in the summer when school is out. You're right about Osborne too. I wish they would show more films from the 20s and 30s than they do, for instance, Hollywood films from the 60s which don't interest me as much. But I think that's a personal preference, and TCM meets the needs of America's film buffs very well.

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    Yesterday watched, "Five Easy Pieces." I hadn't seen it in over thirty years. I had forgotten why Jack Nicholson was considered such a great actor. The scene where he had the one sided conversation with his father must have been very difficult for him, considering it was one take (or one cut). I also remembered why I loathed Karen Black (a great human being but not my cup of tea on the silver screen). I felt relieved when Jack leaves her.

    Watched, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" this afternoon. I had never seen it all the way through. DP by Ray Rennahan (also Duel in the sun and many many other) is so sumptuous. I felt as if I were eating a hot fudge sundae and filled up on too much technicolor.

    "Streetcar names Desire" just started. Seeing Vivian Leigh, a washed up has-been with that disheveled white hair, just 12 years after she played a ravishing beauty in "Gone with the Wind" trying to pick up a young sailor at a bus stop, must have felt like a huge fall in grace to the wife of Lawrence Olivier.

    So many great films... so little time.
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    Sounds like good fun to me, man. I love FIVE EASY PIECES, by the way. Last movie I watched on TCM is Terms of Endearment, something I would not have picked for re-watch on my own but TCM was showing it and I just "got into it". In the past couple of days: Pygmalion (1938) which features Wendy Hiller's debut performance as Eliza Doolittle, and the original True Grit (the first western I ever saw and not one of the best of the genre despite surface pleasures).

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    I thought the Wayne version ok, not "The searchers." I still haven't seen this year's version of "True Grit," nor did I read our site's reviews I confess. It's on my list. I love the new nitty-gritty version of life back then. It was a hard life and they had to get by with less... a great deal less. Jeff Bridges is a terrific actor. However, if I did see the film, I would have to compare performances... and I want Colin Firth to win. Like Bridges, he's been in manyfilms through the years. But this role as king was outstanding. Reminds me of Derek Jacobi's work in "I, Claudius," where he played the emperor with a studder. Ironically, Derek Jacobi played Archbishop Lang in "King's Speech." I wonder if they compared notes.
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    Nice thread guys.

    I finally have TCM included with my cable. I saw True Grit the other day (the John Wayne) and I managed to get a poster for the Coen brothers version from a theatre manager here in Ottawa (as well as ones for Tron: Legacy and THOR to be released in may- awesome poster- Thor looks like Superman!)
    I couldn't get a free poster in Toronto to save my life. I got one for Clash of the Titans and that's it.
    I move back to Ottawa and I get 4 right away. And more will follow. I'm a movie poster nut. Love 'em.

    The big story today in Ottawa is how the National Library Archives was pressured by Iranian officials to NOT screen
    IRANIUM,a controversial film that is critical of Iran's nuclear weapons program. I didn't get out to see it last night, but apparently there were lots of police at the Library before the screening. The Library pulled the film earlier last week, and after a big brou-ha-ha they decided to show it. Wish I'd seen it. I hate censorship. Even if I don't agree with something, let it be what it is.


    As for the Oscars, I think they have chosen two interesting hosts. I'd rather see Hathaway and Franco than others who come to mind.
    They are smart and talented. I'll be tuning in that night.

    Predictions? How about 1 for now and I'll sleep on the others tonite:
    Natalie Portman
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    And who watched the SuperBowl last night?

    Did you see that awesome trailer for Captain America???
    The First Avenger??? With Tommy Lee Jones???
    Hell Yeah son!!!
    :o


    It made me sick to see George W. Bush and Laura and Condosleeza Rice enjoying box seats in Arlington.
    They should be enjoying 4 blank walls and a toilet with no fuckin' seat or toilet paper.
    Bread and water for those war criminals. No fucking NFL games for traitors and sacks of shit.
    You get your bowl of GRUEL and go stand in the fucking corner!
    ASSHOLES.
    And BRAVO to Christina Agulerieaaa. You proved once again how much you SUCK.


    Can't wait for that Captain America flick. And Cars 2 looks good for the kids... enjoyed that trailer..
    Last edited by Johann; 02-07-2011 at 12:54 PM.
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    During the superbowl I went out to a nice Italian restaurant. It took me away from my main preoccupation over the past two weeks, the revolution/uprising/intifada in Egypt, the most exciting series of political events I have witnessed in many, many years, if indeed there has been anything like the wave of uprisings against repression across the Arab world that is happening since the Sixties. Check out my new thread in the Lounge section. I started a new blog a month or so ago and I found a subject in this.

    Look here: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/

    and find out what this means:



    Really, guys, there is something more involving that movie posters or whether The King's Speech will beat The Social Network.

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    In addition to the superbowl, I also watched "Pride of the Yankees" on TCM which happens to be one of my favorite Gary Cooper movies.

    Johann, you might interested to know that several years ago (we're talking decades), I filled in for a friend of mine as manager of a theater in Los Angeles while he toured Europe for a month. It was a great month - I met Bette Midler, Carrie Fisher, William Katt, and many others. When he returned, he offered to give me some movie posters as a gift (I accepted them, of course!). Last month, I opened my storage and found all of the movie posters he gave me. One of them is the original "Tron" poster (This is an actual lobby poster, not a reproduction). I offered it up on Ebay, but no one bought it. Oh, well...

    As to Egypt, we could go round and round here, Chris. I spent three days glued to the television; where I followed the story both on MSNBC (which had the best coverage in my mind) and on the internet, where some of the personal blogs had links to footage not seen on the networks (such as the video of the local hospital that held the bodies of one hundred protestors killed by the police during the first two days of the protest, a fact no network broadcast. My Arab friends moved out of my building, so I cannot translate the sign. No doubt it says, "Down with or/death to Murbarak"

    The word on the street in Cairo, from what I gather, is that as long as the protesters have "middle class" support, they may succeed in having the government implement their demands. While concessions are easy, implementation is another matter.
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    The situation in Egypt is indeed exciting.
    I didn't really want to comment on it as it's still unfolding.
    That's how you do it, kids.
    That's how you get rid of a dictator.
    YOU DO IT YOURSELF.
    You don't wait for a hail mary from a magic leprechaun.
    You get out in the streets FOR WEEKS if you have to.
    You make your point so fucking clear that the rich fuck has to flee his own house.
    I applaud the REAL Egyptians who're getting it on and banging the gong.
    I only hope they're smart enough to get a new government in power who realize the historical and worldwide example it would set.
    VERY exciting. They haven't backed down. I learned a few days ago that this "uprising" was brewing for several years and that when it would hit, it would hit BIG. And it sure did.
    It rearranged people's heads! Fuckin' Love It!

    Cinemabon- frame that Tron poster! cinema history right there..
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    I should think somebody would want the original TRON poster. I'd like it myself. Give it time.

    I would love to discuss Egypt, but could we movei ti to the Lounge thread I started for the subject? Please see my personal blog entries. They are what I found to say about this huge subjject so far. The discussion goes on and on. I have hardly scratched the surface. But the public intifada itself is a very moving experience, one that I and many of us even who observed it from afar, will never forget.

    I am in NYC now, and will be attending the screenings of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, some of Film Comment Selects, and New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center (and IFC--ND/NF seems to be there and at the Walter Reade and not shared with MoMA this year). So I will be more focused on that with just one eye on Egypt, but it won't be out of my sight. I read about it and check Al Jazeera every day. But it won't be 24/7 now, and that's best for my mental and physical health. However when I told an Arab friend last week i was coming to NYC today, his first question was, "Will you be able to get Al Jazeera?"

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    Quote Originally Posted by cinemabon View Post
    In addition to the superbowl, I also watched "Pride of the Yankees" on TCM which happens to be one of my favorite Gary Cooper movies.
    I like PRIDE OF THE YANKEES too. But I would have to say that my favorite Cooper movies are : Peter Ibbetson, Ball of Fire, Mr Deeds Comes to Town, Man of the West, Meet John Doe, and The Fountainhead.

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    What about "High Noon?" Fred Zinneman!
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    Enjoyable movie, no doubt. The problem is indeed Zinnemann. I still subscribe to what Andrew Sarris wrote about him in 1968, in the most widely read book on American Cinema:

    "His neatness and decorum constitute his gravest artistic defects.It is the payoff films, High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Nun's Story, and A Man for All Seasons, that most vividly reveal the superficiality of Zinnemann's personal commitment. At its best, his direction is inoffensive; at its worst, it is downright dull. In cinema, as in most art, only those who risk the ridiculous have a real shot at the sublime."

    Hawks was really angry that High Noon got so much recognition by the Academy. His exceptionally rich Rio Bravo is a kind of retort to it.

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    God comment. Maybe a bit unfair to HIGH NOON, though, I don't know...

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