19 February 2010

Best in Show




Charlie Chaplin committed the ultimate Hollywood sin. Not his interest in teenage girls. That is fairly common. Not his communist sympathies. They are all commies. Except Chaplin who really was not. He forever ruined his Oscar chances by saying the awards were stupid. Chaplin and The Circus were nominated for best picture, director, actor, writing. After he publicly complained about the awards all the nominations were cancelled. City Lights was nominated for nothing. Cimarron won best picture that year. Remember Cimarron? Directed by Wesley Ruggles? Modern Times was nominated for nothing. The best picture was The Great Ziegfeld directed by Robert Z Leonard. Anybody remember him?

9 comments:

Theresa Milstein said...

I'd take any award I could get. Having an award with the word "wine" in it is just a bonus.

Bill said...

I think there's a lot of tokenism in the Oscars. Many of the best actor/actress awards seem to be a vote of sympathy for the character played as much as the performance. Paul Newman got his award for The Colour of Money. Hardly his most remarkable role, but they thought it might be their last chance to give him one. Saving Private Ryan was clearly a more important film than Shakespeare in Love, but Spielberg had already had his moment with Schindler's List. It was the the third of the Lord of the Rings films that won all the awards, yet they were all made at the same time.

The lifetime achievement award is the one they give people who they left for too long. Paul Newman would probably have gotten one if they hadn't found a reason to give him one sooner.

Lady Love said...

I didn't know these blogs awards were about self-promotion until people talked about it. I really don't care about what people do with their blogs.

I read many blogs and I reply few.

I always comment on blogs made by Eurocentrists who are full of stereotypes about other nations and don't know what they are talking about and I comment on blogs made by genuine people.

I played the "Beautiful blogger" and nominated you because I´m interested on what you and the others had to say. I´m not trying to explain myself here because I don't see anything wrong with that. If you didn't like it, if you are that sensitive, there is nothing I can do about it, it's done and apologies are one of the most stupid things on Earth. What is done is done, there's no way to go back in time and change.
All I can do is not do it again.

My blog is not in English anymore for a reason. I added that crap google translate because not all my friends are Portuguese speakers. The ones who speak Spanish prefer to read in English than in Portuguese because of the false cognates.

Not everyone makes this award thing for the same reason, don't need to generalize.

Oscar, Grammy, Miss Universe, etc are business. They need money and they promote the ones who pay more. It's not about quality.

I watched Avatar and I enjoyed it but I was surprised with all the hype.It was a little repetitive.

Sorry for my bad English. I´m not good today.

Jo said...

::: applause, applause, applause :::

I don't care for blog awards or memes either. They are like black holes that devour everyone in the blogging world. There is one blog (The Smitten Image) who has start a meme called "Post of the Week", and every Wednesday she announces five "winners" of that particular week (according to her). The sole purpose of her Post of the Week is to drive more traffic to her blog. People log on like sheep every Wednesday -- "Choose me! Choose me!" And then they are disappointed when she does not choose them. Her blog is otherwise boring, banal and repetitive, but she gets upwards of 80 comments every post she does. And her posts are just boring pictures of ducks, leaves, her dog... *Y-A-W-N*

I like your blog because you are true to yourself. I loved your expression -- "don't pander to other people". It has become my mantra.

And by the way, the best movie I have ever seen (in my opinion...) is a Dutch movie called "The Black Book" directed by Paul Verhoeven. I did a blog post about it once, and everyone ran out and rented it and loved it.

Hollywood is all about politics. Mickey Rourke should have won Best Actor last year, but Sean Penn won because it made a political statement.

I agree with Chaplin.

Mia said...

Theresa, I'll make you the first Mia's Wine Award recipient.

Bill, you're preaching to the choir. Henry Fonda was widely regarded one of the best actors ever yet he only got an Oscar when he was knocking on death's door.

Michelle, I'm not asking anybody to apologise for anything. I haven't accused you of any wrongdoing. If you could go back in time I'm sure you'd have better things to worry about.

Jo, Paul Verhoeven is an interesting guy. He's disciplined enough to get a doctorate in physics yet he directed Showgirls. He made some good movies then went to Hollywood and made crap. He's supposedly working on a movie that characterises Jesus as a Jewish terrorist fighting against Romans occupation.

Jo said...

Jesus was a Jewish terrorist fighting against Roman occupation. I have said that all along. That will be an amazing movie to see.

Mia said...

The movie supposedly compares the Jewish/Roman situation with the Israel/Palestine situation today and at the same time shows Jesus as more PR than prophet.

I'm sure plenty of groups will complain about it, which will only increase sales.

Sasha said...

If you have the 101st comment who will read it? It is better to be first then the other 100 will see.

Mia said...

That's a good point. I don't think the rulemakers thought of that.