So I'm watching the Pursuit of Happyness right now and did a little research to figure out if Will Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for it...he was. But he didn't win. That was the same year Forrest Whitaker won for the Last King of Scotland, also nominated: Peter O'Toole for Venus, Leo Dicaprio for Blood Diamond, and Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson. That's a talented crowd with some great performances.
I thought about how much I wanted certain people or movies to win when I watch. How I build up my favorite to make it seem like the obvious choice. In hindsight, the competition seems pretty obvious. So I looked back again.
2001: Denzel Washington wins for Training Day. Who'd he beat out? Will Smith in Ali, Sean Penn in I Am Sam, and Russel Crowe in A Beautiful Mind....oh yeah. How bout that year?
1994: Tom Hanks wins for Forrest Gump. Non-winners: Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool, John Travolta in Pulp Fiction AND Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption.
1993: Tom Hanks wins for Philadelphia beating out Liam Neeson in Schindlers List
That's just a few examples.
I guess what it comes to is that while that little gold man statue seems really important, it doesn't diminish the other performances over time. Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Robin Williams in The Fisher King or Dead Poets Society, Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves, Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan, Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, Richard Dreyfuss in Mr. Hollands Opus...all nominated, but didn't win. Their performances are still outstanding, none-the-less.
Oh yeah, I was looking up just Best Actor nomination....how bout some women?
2002: Nicole Kidman wins for The Hours, beating out Selma Hayek in Frida and Hours co-star Juliane Moore in Far From Heaven
2005: Reese Witherspoon wins for Walk The Line over Felicity Huffman in Transamerica and Charlize Theron in North Country
1997: Helen Hunt wins for As Good As it Gets over Kate Winslet in Titanic
1987: Cher in Moonstruck beats out Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction
1968: The Academy couldn't even decide and decided that a tie should be awarded for Kathrine Hepburn in A Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl
Seriously. For as much hype as these awards get. They don't legitimize a performance at all.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Nothing Profound Here
Just a fun little note about my current obsession with watching Criminal Minds reruns on A&E and Ion channels.
Note 1: Shemar Moore=jaw drop g-g-g-g-g-gorgeous
Note 2: I like Joe Mantegna as an actor. I'm always happy to see him on a show because he's solid, he plays logically flawed characters that are easy to identify with and appreciate for their imperfection. And I like the place his character plays on the show as David Rossi, one of the originators of profiling coming back to lend senior expertise to the group. That said, its hard for me to appreciate Rossi completely because of who he replaced on the show. Mandy Patinkin played Jason Gideon, the previous senior expert, and it was a wonderful performance. Where Rossi can bristle and be brilliant, Gideon was an intuitive and intelligent father figure. Where I appreciate and like Rossi, I LOVE Gideon. So its a mixed feeling when I see Rossi stride on screen, but I'm just happy, like theres something right with the world when Gideon is there.
Anyways, I'm halfway through the last rerun of the evening. I'm going to watch.
Note 1: Shemar Moore=jaw drop g-g-g-g-g-gorgeous
Note 2: I like Joe Mantegna as an actor. I'm always happy to see him on a show because he's solid, he plays logically flawed characters that are easy to identify with and appreciate for their imperfection. And I like the place his character plays on the show as David Rossi, one of the originators of profiling coming back to lend senior expertise to the group. That said, its hard for me to appreciate Rossi completely because of who he replaced on the show. Mandy Patinkin played Jason Gideon, the previous senior expert, and it was a wonderful performance. Where Rossi can bristle and be brilliant, Gideon was an intuitive and intelligent father figure. Where I appreciate and like Rossi, I LOVE Gideon. So its a mixed feeling when I see Rossi stride on screen, but I'm just happy, like theres something right with the world when Gideon is there.
Anyways, I'm halfway through the last rerun of the evening. I'm going to watch.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Snow
Snow has come again to Plymouth. Like the last time (which was about a month and a half ago), it hasn't quite managed to stick to the ground yet (it's also only been falling for the last hour and a half) which is okay by me. It is however starting to accumulate on the tops of some cars and on the wooden fire escape outside my window and our front door.
I watch this snow slightly terrified of what it means. My roommate, the meteorologist in training says that we could get one or two inches by the end of the weekend, and Wednesday could mean 10-15 more inches. Still lacking in experience behind the wheel, the prospect of driving around in this weather is quite frightening, not that walking is much of a comfort.
Still, amidst this terror I cannot help but enjoy the view. The leaves have long since abandoned their posts on spry tree limbs and have even been robbed of their supposed final resting place on the ground as maintenance crews have cleared most away for reasons I probably may not understand for a while. The New England world and we poor reactionary inhabitants have prepared for snow for weeks now, surrounded by what appears to nature languishing in death without the protective bandage of frozen white water particles.
So perhaps now it may actually start to look like a world at sleep outside my window, with the stubborn coniferous trees pulling their green coats closer about them, vowing that the cold and snow would not be enough to send them into hibernation. I actually have a photo project that I have in mind, which requires a decent level of snow on the ground, so that might be a slight positive as well.
And I think here is where I will end. I've vowed to make cookies this weekend and the dishes need to be washed. Oddly enough, my friend Ryan just informed me that making cookies was highly appropriate because his mother would bake him cookies whenever he shoveled his front walkway. It made the house warm, smell good, and it was a nice thank you present. Cookies it shall be.
I watch this snow slightly terrified of what it means. My roommate, the meteorologist in training says that we could get one or two inches by the end of the weekend, and Wednesday could mean 10-15 more inches. Still lacking in experience behind the wheel, the prospect of driving around in this weather is quite frightening, not that walking is much of a comfort.
Still, amidst this terror I cannot help but enjoy the view. The leaves have long since abandoned their posts on spry tree limbs and have even been robbed of their supposed final resting place on the ground as maintenance crews have cleared most away for reasons I probably may not understand for a while. The New England world and we poor reactionary inhabitants have prepared for snow for weeks now, surrounded by what appears to nature languishing in death without the protective bandage of frozen white water particles.
So perhaps now it may actually start to look like a world at sleep outside my window, with the stubborn coniferous trees pulling their green coats closer about them, vowing that the cold and snow would not be enough to send them into hibernation. I actually have a photo project that I have in mind, which requires a decent level of snow on the ground, so that might be a slight positive as well.
And I think here is where I will end. I've vowed to make cookies this weekend and the dishes need to be washed. Oddly enough, my friend Ryan just informed me that making cookies was highly appropriate because his mother would bake him cookies whenever he shoveled his front walkway. It made the house warm, smell good, and it was a nice thank you present. Cookies it shall be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
