Oscars
It’s Oscar time again! On March 2, Ellen DeGeneres will host the 86th Oscars. Of the past 85 Best Pictures, I have seen 61 of them. I saw some of them, of course, many years after their release, on TV. Here’s a list of all Best Pictures since the first ceremony was held in Hollywood in May 1929.
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/best-pictures.html
My all time favorite from this list — Shakespeare in Love, 1998. How many of them have you seen? The winner the first year, 1929, was Wings, the only silent film to win Best Picture until The Artist came along in 2011 (although, technically, there was that one scene at the very end with a few sentences).
The first movie I ever saw was April Love with Pat Boone and Shirley Jones, in 1957. I had just turned eight and saw it with an older girlfriend, my neighbor Peggy, who was ten. I don’t remember a thing about that movie except that Peggy and I sang Pat’s hit song, April Love, all the way home. I’ve been a movie geek ever since. For years, my son was a movie projectionist, and I was able to get a fabulous Mom Discount, Free Admission. I saw everything! I no longer have a free ride, but one benefit of time passing by (so fast! so fast!) is the Senior Discount.
My worst movie experience ever was attending the Twilight marathon at Scappoose Cinemas last year. My friend Bobbi wanted to go, and I wanted to see her. It sounded like a great adventure, FOUR TWILIGHT MOVIES IN A ROW! Well, I had never seen them, and it’s a testament to my love of film (and my desire to spend time with a friend) that I was able to spend twelve hours watching these movies. I rate this as my worst experience for two reasons, neither of which is about the movies themselves. The movies were very entertaining! In the Worst Ever category of Comfort, I was nearly unable to walk the next couple of days, due to spending twelve hours sitting in a movie theater seat. This may have something to do with the aforementioned Senior Citizen status, but I’ll never do another marathon movie event again, because I believe it will kill me. The second Worst Ever category is Audience . At one point towards the end of the second movie, two women in their forties stood up and began screaming obscenities at each other because one woman accused the other of ‘talking’. So they were shrieking SHUT UP, NO YOU SHUT UP, BITCH, and I missed some crucial lovey-poo dialogue at that moment.
Of this year’s nine nominees, I’ve seen them all. I have my favorite movie and actors all picked out. Did you love or hate any of these films? Don’t you think that Christian Bale was so great in his role in American Hustle, that it took the first fifteen minutes of the movie to figure out that the character you were watching was him? Here are the nine nominees for best picture this year: American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Philomena, Her, Nebraska, Dallas Buyers Club, Captain Phillips, The Wolf of Wall Street.
I’ll be hosting an Oscar Party in my small living room with the big TV, Sunday March 2. You’re all invited, spaghetti dinner provided.
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