Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

mlrg wrote:

dws1982 wrote:

mlrg wrote:Frankly I've never seen anything from Charles Brackett. After looking him up at IMDb his filmography looks very slim and nothing stand out.

He's a hugely important filmmaker, and Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger alone make him worthy of this recognition. And Nightjohn is one of the best children's films ever made.

Nightjohn is a made for TV movie

Cicely Tyson, Danny Glover or John Singleton would be better choices to cover the "African American quota" the Academy needs to have these days. As everything nowadays, it needs to be political correct.

Don't know why Cicely Tyson's name keeps coming up. Apart from Sounder for which she was nominated there is nothing worthy on her resumé - the ones she did for the big screen.

All her worthy projects were for television.

Dunaway would be a better fit with Roizman who photographed her in her Oscar-winning role.

There's always Oscar presenter extraordinaire Faye Dunaway.

Jane Fonda would be the logical choice, but she's fickle. She didn't show up last year to pay tribute to Lily Tomlin at the SAG Awards, supposedly because she was "ill", but really because she had just broken up with her latest squeeze.

Julie Christie would be another good choice, but the best they're likely to be able to do is get her to say a few words on tape.

Hilary Swank and Brendan Fraser from the currently filming mini-series Trust in which Sutherland plays J. Paul Getty, might also be available if Lawrence and Hutton aren't. M*A*S*H co-hort Elliott Gould might also be persuaded to say a few words about his former co-star.

anonymous1980 wrote: Donald Sutherland - Is he still estranged from Kiefer? But I don't think they get family members to present. I think Timothy Hutton and Jennifer Lawrence are more likely.

Anyone but Jennifer Lawrence. I think Jane Fonda would be a great choice.

Your other predictions are stop on.

Is it too early to speculate who they'll get to pay tribute/present the honorees?

Charles Burnett - I think Danny Glover is probably a shoo-in. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Barry Jenkins spoke too.

Agnes Varda - Charlotte Gainsbourg is a good bet. Sofia Coppola and Ava DuVernay could also work. Wouldn't be surprised if they get Damien Chazelle (who has said on Twitter that he loves her) due to the Jacques Demy connection.

Donald Sutherland - Is he still estranged from Kiefer? But I don't think they get family members to present. I think Timothy Hutton and Jennifer Lawrence are more likely.

Owen Roizman - William Friedkin most likely. But if they want to get an actor Dustin Hoffman or Kevin Costner would also be possible.

OK, so two documentarians are being honored this year. Very classy!

Varda's best-known film, though is still probably Cleo from 5 to 7, but she was also a member of the French New Wave and had a very varied career including occasionally appearing as an actress. She was a nun in The Young Girls of Rochefort!

I couldn't help but think that at 89 she is the same age the frequently mentioned for an honorary Oscar, Jeanne Moreau was, that while the time has passed to honor her, they still have an opportunity to honor Varda while she is still among us.

Such good choices and I'm so pleased to see Donald Sutherland being awarded a well deserved award.

Agnès Varda's award is particularly touching given that her more recent film, the highly acclaimed Faces Places, is likely to be her last. Her eyesight is failing her and it is discussed between herself and co-director JR. The film also included a scene of her being treated by an injection into one of her eyes (I couldn't watch that scene).

It's also worth noting that like Charles Burnett, Agnès Varda has made a large number of documentaries.

D.A. Pennebaker got one a few years back as well.

I don't think it's quite accurate to label Burnett a documentary filmmaker, though. He's made some documentaries (none of which has been widely shown), but Agnes Varda has probably made as many as he has, and the movies he's most known for are narrative features, albeit unconventional ones. If there's anything to this award beyond recognizing Burnett as a filmmaker, it could be the fact that Oscar-winning movies like Moonlight and Selma quite probably wouldn't get made without the path the Burnett (and others) started down in the late 70's.

Hmmm. Two in a row. That's interesting.

Frederick Wiseman, Magilla, just last year.

Agnes Varda is a brilliant choice, the others are decent ones. Burnett is basically a documentary film-maker, a discipline that as far as I recall without looking it up, has never been singled out for an honorary Oscar before, so good for him. Roizman is probably the last of the still living cinematographers of the 1970s without an Oscar, so no argument there. 82-year-old Sutherland is overdue for Oscar recognition. Hopefully the even older Max von Sydow will live to be honored another day.

Looking over his Wikipedia page, Charles Burnett seems very impressive. This line alone suggests there's more to honoring him than just a single film:

Considered by the Chicago Tribune as "one of America's very best filmmakers" and by The New York Times as "the nation's least-known great filmmaker and most gifted black director", Charles Burnett has had a long and diverse filmmaking career.

mlrg wrote:

dws1982 wrote:

mlrg wrote:Frankly I've never seen anything from Charles Brackett. After looking him up at IMDb his filmography looks very slim and nothing stand out.

He's a hugely important filmmaker, and Killer of Sheep and To Sleep With Anger alone make him worthy of this recognition. And Nightjohn is one of the best children's films ever made.

Nightjohn is a made for TV movie

So was Scenes From a Marriage. Nightjohn may have been made for TV, but it alone is better than anything John Singleton has ever done.

Frankly I've never seen anything from Charles Brackett. After looking him up at IMDb his filmography looks very slim and nothing stand out.

Charles Brackett co-wrote Sunset Blvd.

Just saying, when you're going to be dismissive, having the name right helps.