The 2019 Honorary Oscars

For the films of 2019
Reza
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:Honoring James Hong would be honoring Asian-Americans, not Asians per se. They probably think that honoring Kurosawa and Bergman covered their actors (Mifune, Ullmann, von Sydow, etc.)

Cicely Tyson is a great actress by any standard even though her greatest performance was in TV's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman two years after Sounder although she did win a second Emmy twenty years later for her supporting role in The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All in support of Diane Lane and Anne Bancroft who shared the title role. Twenty years after that she won a Tony for the revival of The Trip to Bountiful. Her honorary Oscar was a way for Hollywood to say "we love her too even though we've never given her the kinds of roles she deserved in movies."
I know all of this. But it does not fit into what the Academy's honorary Oscar WAS all about. See who all won it in the past. Actors or directors who made a major mark on the big screen for their long and distinguished careers - Fonda, Olivier, Guinness, Kurosawa, Antonioni, Stanwyck, Garbo, Astaire, Stewart, Grant, Vidor, Ray etc.

It's nice that Tyson has it but it was clearly a win for ethnicity. Ditto the James Earl Jones win. And that's the route the Academy is now taking.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by Big Magilla »

Honoring James Hong would be honoring Asian-Americans, not Asians per se. They probably think that honoring Kurosawa and Bergman covered their actors (Mifune, Ullmann, von Sydow, etc.)

Cicely Tyson is a great actress by any standard even though her greatest performance was in TV's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman two years after Sounder although she did win a second Emmy twenty years later for her supporting role in The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All in support of Diane Lane and Anne Bancroft who shared the title role. Twenty years after that she won a Tony for the revival of The Trip to Bountiful. Her honorary Oscar was a way for Hollywood to say "we love her too even though we've never given her the kinds of roles she deserved in movies."
Reza
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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Mister Tee wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:Dick Smith for makeup. Kevin Brownlow and D.A. Pennebaker for documentaries. Hal Needham for stunts. Lynn Stalmaster for casting. Anne V. Coates for editing. Charles Burnett "who has chronicled the lives of black Americans with eloquence and insight".

New York character actors were represented by Eli Wallach. Martial arts actors were represented by Jackie Chan. Working actresses in their 90s were represented by Cicely Tyson. This year they decided to award a Native American actor and people are freaking out. It's shameful.
This is a silly apologia for the Studi choice. Dick Smith was a master of make-up, worthy for Little Big Man and The Exorcist alone. Pennebaker has had as distinguished a documentarian's career as anyone alive (and he's still at it, half a century on). Lynn Stalmaster is one of the few casting directors whose name I knew decades ago, and she's worked on classics. Charles Burnett was hobbled by the difficulty African-America directors had getting work, but created some films viewed as classics. I didn't agree with the choice of Jackie Chan, but he's a world-famous star.

Who's Wes Studi? The best even a film-savvy person can come up with is "was in Last of the Mohicans" -- one decent credit, a quarter-century ago. He's not being chosen for his achievements; he's there purely for his ethnicity. It's not "shameful" to point that out.
Isn't this the same reason Cicely Tyson was honored? She had nothing "distinguished" on her big screen resume except for Sounder. She is a great actress but did her best work on tv and on stage. Getting a similar award at the Emmys or Tonys would make more sense. I was attacked here when I mentioned this.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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Big Magilla wrote:Maybe they'll get around to James Hong next year when he'll probably still be acting at 91.
And that too would be a stupid error on part of the Academy when von Sydow, Ullmann and many other more deserving candidates with long and very distinguished careers are still around.

Enough with trying to look good by playing up to the "ethnicity" card. If they wanted to honour an Asian they should have given it to Toshiro Mifune decades ago which would have made much more sense.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by Big Magilla »

Maybe they'll get around to James Hong next year when he'll probably still be acting at 91.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by nightwingnova »

Not that we should be piling on poor Wes Studi...(I fondly remember him in Mystery Men)... but, Jackie Chan is not only a world famous movie star, but he is the icon that embodies that loved movie genre of comedic action/martial arts. As I've mentioned, James Hong is much more notable if we are to honor someone for representing minorities in the movies.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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Big Magilla wrote:Dick Smith for makeup. Kevin Brownlow and D.A. Pennebaker for documentaries. Hal Needham for stunts. Lynn Stalmaster for casting. Anne V. Coates for editing. Charles Burnett "who has chronicled the lives of black Americans with eloquence and insight".

New York character actors were represented by Eli Wallach. Martial arts actors were represented by Jackie Chan. Working actresses in their 90s were represented by Cicely Tyson. This year they decided to award a Native American actor and people are freaking out. It's shameful.
This is a silly apologia for the Studi choice. Dick Smith was a master of make-up, worthy for Little Big Man and The Exorcist alone. Pennebaker has had as distinguished a documentarian's career as anyone alive (and he's still at it, half a century on). Lynn Stalmaster is one of the few casting directors whose name I knew decades ago, and she's worked on classics. Charles Burnett was hobbled by the difficulty African-America directors had getting work, but created some films viewed as classics. I didn't agree with the choice of Jackie Chan, but he's a world-famous star.

Who's Wes Studi? The best even a film-savvy person can come up with is "was in Last of the Mohicans" -- one decent credit, a quarter-century ago. He's not being chosen for his achievements; he's there purely for his ethnicity. It's not "shameful" to point that out.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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dws1982 wrote:Wallach made a lot of movies, but most were instantly forgotten (looking at his filmography I was shocked at how few I'd seen) and of the ones I've seen, his work tends to range from undistinguished (The Magnificent Seven, The Misfits) to outright bad (Baby Doll, The Godfather Part III, his cameo in Mystic River). I like him well enough in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I guess. Not anywhere close to the Honorary Oscar level, in my opinion.
Because you mentioned it, I went through his IMDB list and counted -- I've seen only 21 of the movies he's been in, and a number of them were latter-day things where he had little more than cameos. I've never once seen him onstage, though he's been performing regularly on Broadway throughout my lifetime. Yet...I feel like I've been familiar with the guy since I was a kid. Maybe his honorary bears comparison to Ralph Bellamy's? -- another guy who was never a big deal, but who put in enough years and accumulated enough credits to make people think he merited a career prize. (Though it struck a lot of us that the Bellamy choice was a bank shot from the Ameche win for Cocoon -- since they'd nostalgically appeared together in Trading Places, some thought one winning was a good enough reason to honor the other.)

But I'm in full agreement that Wallach has most often been a pretty bad actor -- a ham's ham. I remember, when he appeared on-screen in Mystic River, he so interrupted the general level of modulated acting that I actively recoiled from the screen. On stage, I wonder if he was worse. I see he took over the role of Sakini in Teahouse, and I shudder to think what that must have been like.

Wes Studi is a far better actor than Wallach, but also far less well-known, not even remotely deserving of a career prize. If you could somehow combine the best elements of each career, that would add up to a worthy honorary choice.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by dws1982 »

Wallach made a lot of movies, but most were instantly forgotten (looking at his filmography I was shocked at how few I'd seen) and of the ones I've seen, his work tends to range from undistinguished (The Magnificent Seven, The Misfits) to outright bad (Baby Doll, The Godfather Part III, his cameo in Mystic River). I like him well enough in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I guess. Not anywhere close to the Honorary Oscar level, in my opinion.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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dws1982 wrote:Studi is, by all accounts, a good guy, and I think he's a good actor, but to me it just seems odd that he gets an Honorary Oscar when so many great filmmakers he's collaborated with--Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Walter Hill--haven't gotten anything, not to mention actors like Liv Ullmann and others. I get that the Academy is trying to recognize actors and filmmakers who haven't, historically gotten recognition, and I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but it does seem less like "this is a long-overdue actor, and he is from a group that has been under-recognized" and more like "this is an actor from a group that has been under-recognized". But if Eli Wallach can get one, then I won't argue about Studi getting one.
No comparison between Studi and Wallach. The latter had a much more overall distinguished career compared to Studi.

Studi's Oscar is strictly because of the ethnic group he belongs to which is not a bad idea but certainly not what the honorary Oscar was meant to represent.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by dws1982 »

Studi is, by all accounts, a good guy, and I think he's a good actor, but to me it just seems odd that he gets an Honorary Oscar when so many great filmmakers he's collaborated with--Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Walter Hill--haven't gotten anything, not to mention actors like Liv Ullmann and others. I get that the Academy is trying to recognize actors and filmmakers who haven't, historically gotten recognition, and I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but it does seem less like "this is a long-overdue actor, and he is from a group that has been under-recognized" and more like "this is an actor from a group that has been under-recognized". But if Eli Wallach can get one, then I won't argue about Studi getting one.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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The problem with honoring past greats is that there are so many of them that one or two a year would take decades, if not centuries. Unless they are willing to name 25 or so per year, it would be meaningless.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

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Big Magilla wrote:You do all realize that since the separation of honorary Oscars from the annual awards ceremony that awards have been geared as much toward honoring people who represent under-awarded "types" for want of a better word, as much as actual legends, right?

Dick Smith for makeup. Kevin Brownlow and D.A. Pennebaker for documentaries. Hal Needham for stunts. Lynn Stalmaster for casting. Anne V. Coates for editing. Charles Burnett "who has chronicled the lives of black Americans with eloquence and insight".

New York character actors were represented by Eli Wallach. Martial arts actors were represented by Jackie Chan. Working actresses in their 90s were represented by Cicely Tyson. This year they decided to award a Native American actor and people are freaking out. It's shameful.
Yes that's what the Academy is doing and now that I understand the Academy's stance it's totally cool.

And since the Governor's awards are now a separate show it would be even cooler if they could add a couple of posthumous awards to actors and technicians who were criminally ignored during past years. After all they have the time (on the show) and it would rectify the wrong done to deserving deceased candidates.

Of course it will not happen but no harm done in wishful thinking. If they do decide who do you think deserves posthumous honorary awards?

The actors:
John Barrymore, Peter Lorre, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Richard Burton, Monty Clift, Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard, Gloria Swanson, Margaret Sullavan, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, Rock Hudson, James Mason, Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Robert Ryan, William Powell, Robert Mitchum, Albert Finney.

The directors:
Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Fritz Lang, Sam Peckinpah.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by Big Magilla »

You do all realize that since the separation of honorary Oscars from the annual awards ceremony that awards have been geared as much toward honoring people who represent under-awarded "types" for want of a better word, as much as actual legends, right?

Dick Smith for makeup. Kevin Brownlow and D.A. Pennebaker for documentaries. Hal Needham for stunts. Lynn Stalmaster for casting. Anne V. Coates for editing. Charles Burnett "who has chronicled the lives of black Americans with eloquence and insight".

New York character actors were represented by Eli Wallach. Martial arts actors were represented by Jackie Chan. Working actresses in their 90s were represented by Cicely Tyson. This year they decided to award a Native American actor and people are freaking out. It's shameful.
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Re: The 2019 Honorary Oscars

Post by nightwingnova »

In fact, James Hong would've been more recognizable than Studi.
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