Tag Archive for: Academy Awards

Two Things, Two Places, All at Once

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Glitz and glamour. Politics and power. Winners and losers. Millions of people tune in to watch the spectacle that appears on our television screens once a year: The Academy Awards.

As with almost everything else these days, the entertainments we each choose to watch have become more and more disparate. Also, movie stars rarely awe us in the same way they used to do. What was once a common annual viewing ritual seems to have lost its place as a shared social and cultural experience.

Back in my Hollywood days, I walked the red carpet. After leaving my acting career behind, I began work at AFI (The American Film Institute), where I learned what good movies are made of. So last Sunday, as always, I watched the Oscars, even though I hadn’t seen any of the nominated films.

A popular game begins immediately afterward, when the critics—amateurs and professionals alike—have their say about the bests and worsts of the broadcast. Most vocal among them are the grumblers who debate the worthiness of the winners. Coming in a close second are those who critique the female attendees’ fashion choices, which put me in mind of the dress I once wore to the Oscars.

The morning after the broadcast, I dug deep into storage to search for it, and also for the printed program from that night, both of which I thought I had stored together. Found the dress, and a couple of old Polaroids of me wearing it, but I didn’t find the program. I don’t remember the exact year it was, or who the nominees and winners were. (I’m sure selective memory is at fault here. Those years were not among my favorites.)

But here’s the dress: a flowered silk jacquard overlaid with gold thread in a Paisely pattern. Still looks new, though I no longer weigh the ninety-eight pounds required to fit into it.

I am late to the party in seeing this year’s nominated films, but I do want to see them, hopefully in a movie theater, the way the are meant to be seen. Though the trailer for the big winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once, looks somewhat headache-inducing, I’m willing to brave it anyway, because I’ve heard that it portrays life in multiple universes, a subject that intrigues me.

Which brings me back to the dress I wore on the red carpet, long ago. When I peer into the photos of me in it, I feel lightyears and multiple universes removed from the person who wore it. Still, I want to find that missing Oscars program, if only to confirm how far I’ve time-traveled beyond those show biz days.

When did you last watch the Oscars? Did you see any of the winning films and performances this year?

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and the upcoming Body in the News!

 

 

 

My Love/Hate Relationship with Oscar by Marilyn Meredith

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I’ve been watching the TV broadcast of the Academy Awards since the first time they came on TV in glorious black and white.
My father worked for Paramount Studios while I was growing up and he had little respect for most of the movie actors. Despite that, our family went to the movies every Friday night to see a double feature.
As a kid I collected movie star photos and autographs. The best place to get them was at radio shows and catching the stars in the parking lot behind the theater where the broadcasts were made.
Things I remember about some of the earlier Academy Award shows (in no particular oder):
Edith Head almost always won for best costume design.
When the guy streaked across the stage at the Oscars–and charming David Niven handled it in elegant stride.
The  many times Bob Hope was the announcer.
(In my opinion, no one does it as well these days as those old timers.)
When Jack Palance did one-handed push-ups.
When Marlon Brando didn’t show up for his Oscar, sending an Indian woman in his place.
I saw these all, but only remember Sally Fields, “You love me, you really love me.”
And here’s the nominees for best picture for this year.

Nominees

Best Picture: American Sniper · Birdman · Boyhood · Grand Budapest Hotel · The Imitation Game · Selma
I’ve only seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, and didn’t much like it. Hope to see the others.
Best Supporting Actor: Robert Duvall · Ethan Hawke · Edward Norton · Mark Ruffalo · J.K. Simmons

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette · Laura Dern · Keira Knightley · Emma Stone · Meryl Streep

I didn’t see most of these performances–except for Keira Knightleys and Meryl Streep’s in Into the Woods. Of course Meryl was wonderful–but I think the movie itself lacked something.
I usually catch-up on all the nominated movies eventually. Netflix makes it easy to do.
Through the years I’ve often been disappointed in who and what movie actually wins the Oscar–but who cares what I think? 
So, folks, what are your feelings about the Academy Awards and he nominees for this year?
Marilyn

The Oscar “Curse”

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Sometimes I think that we haven’t come very far in the fight for equal rights women. Then, I see something like a high school production of Annie Get Your Gun, and I am reminded of just how much has been accomplished since 1946, when the play was first produced. Annie, however, was pretty prescient in its treatment of the celebrity marriage with all of its ups and downs.

For those of you who don’t know the story—and I didn’t before seeing the show—Annie is a girl from the country who is illiterate but can shoot a gnat off a pig’s nose without hurting the pig. She meets up with “show biz people” in the form of sharpshooter Frank Butler; his snotty sister and assistant, Dolly; and Buffalo Bill who produces and bankrolls the show. Naturally, she falls in love with Frank, but in order to get her man, must hide from him the fact that she is a way more talented sharpshooter than he’ll ever be. But what’s more important? Fame or love? Accolades for one’s accomplishments or the warm embrace of a guy in a white satin Western suit? You can only imagine which Annie chooses.

Throw in a bunch of politically-incorrect “Indians,” who sing monosyllabic songs of love and act as something of a Greek chorus and you have the makings of the most racist and sexist show I’ve ever seen. Annie makes last year’s production of South Pacific seem like “Do the Right Thing.”

Child #1 played in the orchestra pit, as she did last year. I asked her about the content of the show and she responded that all of the kids—from the actors to the orchestra members—were commenting on just how ridiculous the show’s plot was. How it was racist and sexist. At least the kids have the good sense to know what’s what.

Child #1 said that it was hard to believe that people actually believed that a woman should hide her talent to spare the feelings and ego of her partner. Although I’d like to think that this kind of behavior is no longer common place, consider the “Best Actress Oscar” curse, as it is called.

Seems that almost every Best Actress winner from the past decade has seen her marriage or relationship break up shortly after receiving the highest award an actress can be given for her film work. There was Halle Berry who kicked sex addict Eric Benet to the curb after winning for “Monster’s Ball”; Julia Roberts, who broke up with hunk Benjamin Bratt shortly after winning her Oscar for “Erin Brockovich”; Charlize Theron who ended it with Stuart Townshend shortly after being recognized for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos. And who could forget Hilary Swanks’ tearful acceptance speech where she thanked everyone from her cleaning lady to her dental hygienist and forgot poor Chad Lowe, her husband a talented actor in his own right? Had he not been such a talented actor, he never would have been able to stand by her side for one red carpet interview after another remarking about his wife’s talent and how it was really ok that she had forgotten to thank him at the Academy Awards. But a frozen smile and a clenched jaw are dead giveaways, and that was a man who cared.

The list goes on. Talented women with husbands who can stay in the shadows for just so long. Our most recent example, Jesse James, betrayed America’s sweetheart Sandra Bullock, revelations about his extracurricular activities (available in paperback at bookstores near you!) coming to light from a woman who can probably hear the clock ticking on her fifteen minutes of fame as I write this. According to the tabs, Sandra has moved out and if she has any sense, she won’t move back in. (Side note—saw a celebrity psychologist on television talking about the James-Bullock marriage and she said that the only way they could come back together is if he reestablishes trust with Sandra. To which I say a big, fat, “DUH.”)

Maybe we haven’t changed all that much since Annie Get Your Gun came out. Is it just show biz marriages? Because I know plenty of married couples who share in the excitement of one another’s accomplishments. Isn’t that part of the deal?

What do you think, Stiletto faithful?

Maggie Barbieri

The Academy Awards

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I’m a big movie fan and have been since I was a kid. Big influence was my dad who worked at Paramount as the head plumber. He had some interesting anecdotes about movie stars and how movies were made. In fact, he was the one who figured out how to part the Red Sea in Exodus. Much harder back in the days before computers, he did it with glass, piping and hydraulics. He also spoiled a lot of movies by telling us secrets about how they were made: toy trains instead of real ones, painted scenery in the basement instead of really outdoors, a big tank on the back lot for ocean scenes.

We went to the movies every Friday night and always listened to the Oscars on radio and after they were on TV, of course TV. While I was a kid, dad always told us which of the stars were nice and which weren’t complete with anecdotes.

The best thing about this year’s awards was Hugh Jackman. Who knew the man could sing and dance? The production itself was grand. But, I must admit, I haven’t seen hardly any of the movies. Nowadays the movies that seem to win are about horrible people with angst and unhappy endings. I did enjoy Benjamin Buttons because it was a fairy tale. I saw Changeling too, and it was okay. I loved the L.A. scenes. I was once a phone operator, but the scenes in the movie were before my time, though we had to dress up and wear nylons, no one roller skated. I did ride on the streetcar to get to work though.

The movies I liked best didn’t win anything. Australia was great–like an old time epic film, like Gone With the Wind but with a happy ending. Mama Mia was great fun, saw it with my two grown daughters who danced and sang in the aisles.

It’s time Hollywood made more happy movies to raise our spirits during this difficult economic time.

Marilyn
I have a new interview here: http://tinyurl.com/chudrp

Back from Epicon

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Yep, I went to another convention–this time Epicon–the convention for electronically published authors. All cons are fun–unless you’re someone who doesn’t like to have a good time, and thank goodness, I’m not one of those.

This time we flew to Portland OR. Straight foreword to get there: Bakersfield to San Francisco to Portland. We had such a wild taxi ride to get to the hotel, I feared for my life (well, not really, but I did grip my hubby’s hand pretty tightly.)

This was the kind of conference where there were panels to teach writers something. A whole track was on different kinds of promo–in fact I taught one on promoting trade paperbacks. Also taught another on Bringing Characters to Life. One of the others I went to that was fun was Mayhem and Murder (always good to learn more ways to do it), and a fun one on the serial killers that Oregon has produced. (Well, I am a mystery writer, after all.)

Best part of any of these shindigs is seeing old friends and meeting new ones–something we did a lot of. Though I came down with a cold or allergies or something annoying like that, I didn’t let it stop me.

On Saturday night there was a great awards ceremony–far more entertaining than the Academy Awards even if I didn’t win an Eppie for mystery. I’ll just have to be happy being a finalist.

Sold a few books and bought some others.

The trip home was a bit stranger–Portland to Phoenix, Phoenix to Bakersfield. Of course there was a pile of mail, jobs to finish, laundry, and emails to answer. It was worth it.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com