83rd annual Oscars to revisit 1970 template?
(Which of these filmmakers actually won the Oscar they’re posing with?)
As already reported tonight, the Academy is discarding the lovely heartfelt tributes to each of the lead acting nominees in an effort to eliminate any genuine flavor from the broadcast, boiling it down to the slick chemical consistency of low-fat sugar-free pudding. Producer Bruce Cohen says, “we found a version of that, without using the five people on stage, from the 1970 Oscars, and we stole it.”
AD reader Buzz is curious: “Gee well now I want to know what different thing they did back in 1970‚Ķ too bad I wasn‚Äôt even born then.”
Partly because it’s supercute that we have a reader named Buzz, I did some research to see what we could find out. So they stole the new plan from the 1970 Oscars? Does Mr Cohen mean the ceremony for the movies released in 1970? That’s an odd year to choose for stealing presentation ideas, judging from reports of that broadcast in Damien Bona’s Inside Oscar:
- Orson Welles wasn’t there for his Lifetime Achievement Award. His acceptance was pre-recorded.
- Freddie Young had already won 3 Oscars for Best Cinematography. Didn’t attend to win his 4th.
- Coppola skipped picking up his Patton Screenplay Oscar (too busy with The Godfather)
- Helen Hayes watched herself win Best Supporting Actress on TV, from home.
- Ingmar Bergman didn’t show up to collect his Thalberg Award.
- Franklin J. Schaffner won Best Director, but no, wasn’t there.
- George C. Scott outright rejected his Best Actor award.
- Glenda Jackson was a no-show for Best Actress.
- Director Luis Bu√±uel‘s Tristana was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970, so there’s a legendary guest. Except Bu√±uel said, “Nothing would disgust me more morally than receiving an Oscar. Nothing in the world would make me go accept it. I wouldn’t have it in my home.”
Interesting night, if they replicate that.¬† Saves a lot of 45-second nonsense when the winners aren’t in attendance.
Read MoreOscar Flashback: Seems Like Old Times
The British have taken over the Oscars.  Before we get to how everything old is new again, here is a first look at Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher:
Oscars 2010 feels like a step backwards in time for so many reasons.
1. The British rule once again. After Obama’s State of the Union speech where he talked about our “Sputnik moment” and how America needs to support American industries and American talent, it is ironic that Oscar’s Best Picture is going to go to a British film made by a British production company about a British monarch. ¬†Surely Oscar historians will take note. ¬†All nine of the Best Picture nominees except the one that’s going to win are American stories, essentially – some about our past, some about our present – gay parents, meth in the backwoods, social networks, our collective childhoods, the western – our confusing identity in the modern world. ¬†The one that isn’t is not only the frontrunner to win, but was funded by the UK Film Council. ¬†In a year when the studio system here in America backed risky, uncompromising projects like Inception, The Social Network, Shutter Island — the Academy will go a different way.
2. The kids are all white. There are no people of color. ¬†The luncheon photo looks like a snapshot of the first class passengers on the Titanic only without the waitstaff. ¬†It isn’t necessarily the Academy’s fault. ¬†Last year after Geoffrey Fletcher became the first African American screenwriter to win, and Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win I joked that the Academy would figure they paid their affirmative action dues and “now can we get back to awarding white men?” And that’s exactly what’s happened. ¬†Well, then again, there are two films directed by women in both the Picture and the Writing category. ¬†Surely that’s something. ¬†But the rest? ¬†The five best directors, after such diversity last year, are once again white males.
Oscar Flashback: Another Look at the Split Years
For some reason, it is always fun to take a dip into the psyche of the Academy of old to look at their history.
From our perspective, though, there has been a recent shift in how they vote for Best Picture, one that was matched only in the 1970s in terms of the kinds of films they rewarded. I don’t know how much of that has to do with the critics and their influence. Surely there was much of it back in the 1970s because, for one thing, people like Peter Bogdanovich were making films after and while writing about them. Or how much of it has to do with the kinds of the films the public responded to. If a film like The French Connection is doing well at the box office, it will get rewarded by the Academy, no matter if it has a happy ending, a redemptive character (it doesn’t), or not. It was probably a combination of those factors — a new guard coming in, a generation of visionary directors like Coppola, Scorsese, Friedkin, Bogdanovich, etc. It was the influence of big stars like Dustin Hoffman,Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Jack Nicholson’s desire and willingness to do unusual, art-driven cinema. All of those same voters grew older voting for Best Picture. Somewhere along the line, their tastes changed. They changed to reflect the thing the Academy’s Best Picture has almost always been about (with a few notable exceptions, like All About Eve), redemptive characters, likable characters, something that either makes you cry or makes you happy.
Read MoreOscar Flashback – 1976
Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com
Since many of you readers have commented here and on Twitter that 2010 could be a repeat of 1976. I thought it might be fun to take a look back at that pivotal year. I must admit to having written about it on more than a few occasions over the years. It is one of those memorable Oscar years that we here at Awards Daily keep going back to. The other years that are often brought up is the year Driving Miss Daisy won without a Director nomination, the year that Chariots of Fire beat Reds (others have compared that to this year as well), and of course, the biggest one of all, How Green Was My Valley beating Citizen Kane.
Read MoreMoviegasm Podcast Requests, and Dr. Strangelove
For this week’s Moviegasm, Craig Kennedy, Ryan Adams and I were thinking of selecting the Oscar year 1964/1965 when My Fair Lady beat Dr. Strangelove. Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Becket, Mary Poppins and Zorba the Greek. I was but a mere embryo during this year and I would be born March of 1965, so this is my Oscar year. Do you ever look at the Oscar year you were born?
First off, the Academy gets major props for nominating Kubrick’s masterpiece for four crucial Oscars: Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actor (the superb Peter Sellers). Depending on your point of view, the Strangelove script was the most deserving in retrospect — but Becket was a fine choice for more traditional Academy temperaments of the day.
Dr. Strangelove is one of the most memorable scripts ever written. And one of the best films ever made. It’s always a big letdown to discover that the Academy missed the boat (but you may disagree). It’s easy to see their making this crucial error because Dr. Strangelove wasn’t “lofty” enough, even if it did echo the sentiments of its time. It has become timeless, however. It has more resonance today as it ever did. In fact, you might find a lot in common with some of the talking heads this year, some of whom won in elections last week, sounding not unlike Jack D. Ripper.
Please use this space to toss out questions or requests for Craig, Ryan and I and we will do our best to fulfill them.
“You ever see a communist drink a glass of water?”
Read MoreOscar Flashback: Broadcast News
Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com
It was a particularly disastrous Academy year in 1987 when Broadcast News lost to The Last Emperor.¬† It’s probably so much easier to look back now and see how little impact The Last Emperor has had on cinema in the past twenty years than to acknowledge the other truth, that it’s more about how much more meaningful Broadcast News has become.
The Last Emperor is the kind of film that was, and maybe still is, too big to ignore. The costumes, the cinematography, its epic sweep – how could it lose? It was, in truth, a beautifully looking film, and at the time I remember it having quite an impact. It was one of the few Oscar best picture winners to have won without the force of its actors. It always follows with best picture frontrunners that it must have equal amounts of great writing, directing and acting and most of the time, each of these is represented in the various categories. In the Oscar world we call this “broad support.” One clue that Sandra Bullock was winning for The Blind Side last year was that the film was also nominated for Best Picture. Since this a vote across the various branches, representation in the major categories is always essential. Usually, actors rule.
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