12 Comments

With all due respect Roger, I have no more interest in who wins the Oscar than I do in who wins the Nobel Peace Prize (Yasir Arafat, Jimmy Carter, et al.).

I can understand that, Mark. Some people have a “gambler’s interest.”

There’s an interview yesterday on Lucianne w/the director of Syriana.

To me, it was as confusing as the movie’s supposed to be.

But I would think he’s speaking “truth to power” and that’s all that matters, doesn’t it?

So, do we estimate viewership?

More or less than the Grammys?

More or less than American Idol??

And it won’t be their fault if viewership is low.

We just don’t appreciate what they’re trying to say.

Eh, hem…I believe I was one of the two. Heck, I may have been two of the two who asked for Roger’s picks.

The Academy Awards show is about two things for me:

1. First and foremost (doesn’t everyone already know this?) the fashions! Every actress should be required to go before a Fashion Approval Board headed by Halle Barre, Uma Thurman and Charlize Theron before being allowed on the Red Carpet.

2. Winning the pool! With Roger’s amazing 2005 picks, I won bigger than ever!

But it’s not only those two reasons we should care. It might be fun to guess what clever bon mots come from George Clooney too.

And then there’s “Paradise Now” and how the audience might react if the Palestinian AUTHORITY film wins Best Foreign Film.

But who cares about the movies, Jon Stewart or the Lifetime Achievement Award for Curmudgeonly Altman? They’re secondary.

I for one (or for two) will be eagerly anticipating the 2006 Roger Prognostication and vow to not hold him responsible for my loss, should that unlikely event transpire.

Susan

Hey there, EYE want to know what Roger thinks about the Academy Awards…. he is after all (among other things) a Movie Guy.

And, now that I am cheering on 2 of the nominees: Philip Hoffman (Capote) and Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), I have a dog in the fight!

Buy the way, Capote was a MAGNIFICENT movie: For one thing there are no victims (OK, the Clutters, but they are off stage), in the sense that we aren’t expected to mewl over the unfortunate Perry, or the weird Capote. The other thing is, it made me understand about Faust. Because, as portrayed by Hoffman and evident in the Book, behind the odd mannerisms, there was an incredible intelligence at work here. And, to get that story right, Truman Capote quite literally, sold his soul and his life to the Devil. Incredible.

Walk the Line is a much more traditional Movie, almost an opera (all the most involving moments are on-stage, in the music.

So, Roger, I will check in this evening, and see what you have to say!!!

For the first time in living memory, I haven’t seen any of the nominated best pictures, and judging by the box office totals, that’s probably true for as many as half the potential viewers of the awards show.

When movies have plots again, and characters have “character,” I might venture out to a theater once more, or at least make use of my NetFlix account.

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

I really, really enjoy watching actors acting. More than almost anything, I love good movies.

But celebrities, as people, are often tiresome in the extreme; the intelligence they display (and it can be considerable) in doing their work rarely spills over into “real life,” from which most are very far removed.

The Oscars are, in my curmudgeonly opinion, a vacuous display of narcissism, replete with self-congratulatory displays of political idiocy on a par with what one might expect from most freshman dorms. These people ought simply to shut up; or better yet, we ought to stop listening.

Jamie Irons

BTW, as a counter-example to my point above, I happened to watch “West Side Story” again last night, and I learned in reading up on it that Richard Beymer (who played Tony), was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and even wrote and directed an award-winning documentary on the subject. So obviously there can be exceptions to my “rule.”

Richard happens to be a friend of mine, Jamie, and would completely agree with your take on “celebrity.” Yes it’s true he was involved in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. He has always promised to make us a copy of that film on an up-to-date medium but as of yet, I’ve never seen it.

He now lives in Iowa but keeps a place in Hollywood. He still makes films, edits, writes, paints and travels from India to Peru documenting all the way. He is a true individual of non-Hollywood proportions if ever there was one!

He has been working on a book for some time now, which I suppose is finished, but he may still alter, called “Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer: an Unauthorized Autobiography.” It is NOT a memoir!

Although he considers his Hollywood past that of someone else whom he scarcely relates to today, I have urged him to embrace his legacy in The Diary of Ann Frank, West Side Story, The Longest Day and, lest we forget, Twin Peaks. He shrugs it off. Don’t expect him to fill you in on details about his relationships with Tuesday Weld or Sharon Tate either.

Susan

Susan,

Thanks for that interesting follow-up.

Tell Richard he still has at least one loyal fan in the Napa Valley!

Tuesday Weld, wow! I hadn’t thought about her for ages! (I recall poor Sharon Tate sadly every time my work takes me up to our clinic in Vacaville.)

Jamie Irons

I simply “passed” on Best Picture, didn’t see a nominee that was “up to snuff.”

Worse than a snuff flick?? Sounds right to me.

Anybody know what the Vegas over/under line is on the number of times Peter Van Gogh gets mentioned?