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MOVIE TRIVIA – PT41

August 6, 2018 // 0 Comments

Ann as Becky Thatcher Ann with Alan Gifford in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Ann Gillis played Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938). Director Norman Taurog gave the 10 year-old no direction, whatsoever, not even when she was required to be hysterical in one scene. The [...]

THE 10 WORST ‘BEST PICTURE’ OSCAR-WINNERS.

March 23, 2018 // 0 Comments

Selecting the ten worst winners of the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar is a whole lot tougher than choosing the ten best. Why? Because I have not always bothered to see a lot of the rubbishy ones. Only recently I sat through several of those I had avoided like the plague for decades and, having done so, I can now fully appreciate why I avoided them. A few of the very early winners, such as Wings [...]

THE WORST ‘BEST PICTURE’ IN HISTORY.

March 3, 2018 // 8 Comments

There has been no shortage of lousy movies that have somehow picked up the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar in their year. Often, that happened simply because there was nothing of much value churned out in that particular year. But not always. In 1952 the nomination list contained a couple of quite good movies, The Quiet Man and Ivanhoe, two over-rated ones, High Noon and Moulin Rouge, and one [...]

Past Oscar-winners – some observations – Pt 3.

October 9, 2016 // 0 Comments

1949 All the King’s Men – Best Picture Broderick Crawford – Best Actor for All the King’s Men Broderick Crawford Greg Peck as General Savage in Twelve O’Clock High Having seen all five nominated films for 1949, I am surprised that All the King’s Men came out on top. Darryl Zanuck’s [...]

‘Stolen Oscars?’ Pt. 1

September 20, 2015 // 4 Comments

Down the decades there have been a number of, shall we say, dubious Oscar-winners who have collected the statuette at the expense of more worthy contenders. Sometimes this is due to studio manipulation of nominations. A classic example of this happened in 1972 when Paramount chose to nominate only Marlon Brando for Best Actor in The Godfather, ludicrously nominating the star of the film, Al [...]