MY MORNING WOODY

This morning I was reading a little piece by James Mottram in The Times Of London

What’s up with Woody Allen?

All about how even at seventy-something years old, the pedophile director won’t stop working (and turning out junk).

There’s a funny quote in there:

When Mike Leigh was asked whether he liked the work of his fellow director Woody Allen, he responded in a way that many of us have been secretly thinking too: “Radio Days would be on my desert island with me, but if you wanted to subject me to excruciating torture, you’d send me there with a copy of Match Point. I wouldn’t survive 24 hours.”

Then the writer mentioned:

Match Point (2005) may have earned Allen his 21st Oscar nomination – for Best Original Screenplay – but this did not hide the fact that his once-great works have given way to a series of below-par films.

And I got to thinking,  “21 oscar nomination? Is that right? Does he mean his films have earned a total of 21 nominations or Woody himself has 21 nominations”.

I knew he won a couple for writing and directing the still brilliant Annie Hall and for writing the also wonderful Hannah And Her Sisters. And I know that they always seem to nominate him even for crap like Deconstructing Harry.

But man, 21 seems like a lot.

So I looked into it (what a way to blow a morning)...

Sure enough, Woody has 21 oscar nominations. 

Wow, looking the list over, he even got a nomination for the Alice screenplay? What didn’t get nominated in 1990 then?

Nomination wise,  all the films he’s directed, have earned a whooping- well you can count em.

Annie Hall (1977)
Best Actress: Diane Keaton WINNER
Best Director: Woody Allen WINNER 1
Best Picture: Charles H. Joffe WINNER 
Best Screenplay : Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman WINNER 2
Best Actor: Woody Allen 3

Interiors (1978)
Best Actress: Geraldine Page
Best Supporting Actress: Maureen Stapleton
Best Art Direction: Mel Bourne, Daniel Robert
Best Director: Woody Allen 4 
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 5

Manhattan (1979)
Best Supporting Actress: Mariel Hemingway
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman  6

Zelig (1983)
Best Cinematography: Gordon Willis
Best Costume Design: Santo Loquasto

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Best Director: Woody Allen 7
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 8

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 9

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine WINNER
Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest WINNER
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen WINNER 10
Best Art Direction: Stuart Wurtzel, Carol Joffe
Best Director: Woody Allen 11
Best Film Editing: Susan E. Morse
Best Picture Robert Greenhut

Radio Days (1987)
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration: Santo Loquasto
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  12 

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau
Best Director: Woody Allen 13
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 14

Alice (1990)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 15

Husbands and Wives (1992)
Best Supporting Actress: Judy Davis
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 16

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest WINNER
Best Supporting Actror: Chazz Palminteri
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Tilly
Best Art Direction: Santo Loquasto, Susan Bode
Best Costume Design: Jeffrey Kurland
Best Director: Woody Allen 17
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, Douglas McGrath 18

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Best Supporting Actress: Mira Sorvino WINNER
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 19

Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  20

Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Best Actor: Sean Penn
Best Supporting Actress: Samantha Morton

Match Point (2005)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  21

-sweeneyrules

THAT'S SO RETARDED

With Sylvester Stallone once again donning the Stevie Nicks look to reprise his second most serialized alter ego John Rambo, it became apparent to me that this character held some enduring popularity (I dug the first flick First Blood in 1982 but generally found the other two unwatchable). Since the masses seemed to miss Rambo, but I didn’t, It got me thinking... well, who are some of my favorite retarded characters of film.

I was saddened to realized... I don’t like most retards in movies. 

Bear in mind, I may be using the word incorrectly (I’m not a doctor, well just a doctor of love, but these uppity collages don’t offer a degree in that). I tend to lump crazies, mutes, autismees and slow-folks all together, let’s just call ‘em SPECIAL.

As a kid I was into special people, I recall crying my eyes out reading Of Mice And Men and while I was watching the TV Movie version with Randy Quad as the dimwitted Lenny (also starring Italian food connoisseur Robert Blake as George). I was also devastated by a pair of sweet mutes, Alan Arkin in The Heart Is  A Lonely Hunter (recently released on DVD for the first time) and Jackie Gleason in the 1962 flick Gigot directed by Gene Kelly (and never released on DVD or VHS).

But most heart-tuggers annoy me. 

Have you ever seen the horrid feel-good lightweight goo I Am Sam (2001) with Sean Penn and the that freaky moppet Dakota Fanning? Not since Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) has a movie made the wonderful tunes of The Beatles more excruciating.

Hey Penn got an Oscar nomination for it! As did Arkin and so did Leonardo Da Caprio for What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993). Many actors have even won those Oscar things for doing the ‘dah-role’, Dustin Hoffman for Rainman (1988), Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump (1994), Geoffrey Rush for Shine (1996) and Cliff Robertson for Charley (1968). 

DEEP BACKGROUND: Before Charley got the operation that sent him from being a lovable idiot 

to a snotty MENSA member, I played one of his mean co-workers who picked on him in the 

Theatrical play (of the same book) Flowers For Algernon, back at Cass Tech High School in Detroit.

Also nominated  for an Oscar one of my favorite ‘special people’ was Billy Bob Thornton as the country-fried killer Carl in Slingblade (1996). I like it when the ‘special person’ is also scary or unlikeable or complicated. 

Or when a ‘special person’ just pops in for a supporting turn and isn’t explained to made enduring for the audience like the banjo kid in Deliverance (1972) or the goony Beeno lumbering around the third-act of Mad Max (or the bottom half of the Master Blaster in the third Mad Max).

Speaking of religious a-holes, (though Apocalypto is a masterpiece) the same year he first played Mad Max, Mad Mel Gibson played a hunky ‘special person’ in the boring Australian weepy Tim. I bet ol’ Tim would hit it off with jock-babe Elisabeth Shue’s lovable Molly  in the aptly titled Molly (1999). 

Molly is one of those ‘special people’ movies that reeks of ‘Lifetime Channel’ like the so-so A Dangerous Woman (1993) with Debra Winger. And of course the retardo-riffic camp-classic, The Other Sister, with real-life retard Juliette Lewis and ‘retard looking’ Giovanni Ribisi (similar to Adam Sandler all Ribisi’s characters seem to have at least a touch of possible retardation in them). 

Oh but aren't they adorable? Like the ch-ch-ch-charming Cuba Gooding in Radio (2003) or that kid Bruce Willis has to protect in Mercury Rising (1989) or Tom Hulce in Dominick And Eugene (1988), they make the freaks in Gummo (1997) or poor slow, horny David Warner in Straw Dogs (1971) look like the creepy fiends.

On TV, I’ll take South Parks’s Timmy over the more celebrated Gomer Pyle or Corky Corky (of Life Goes On) any day.

The tube also brought us Mickey Rooney old n’ special in Bill (1981) and a retarded dude who comes back seeking revenge disguised as Ray Bolger in the 1981 TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow.

Some times people pretend to be ‘special’ like Nicholson does briefly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) before the doctors really make him 'special’. But when it’s revealed in Something About Mary that the crippled guy is faking it, the comedy of that flick was ruined for me. If you like ‘fakers’ you may dig Lars von Trier’s bizarre The Idiots (1993) where a group of ‘actors’ run around pretending to be ‘dense’ then return home for all out orgies. 

Sex is the last thing on my man Chance Gardner's mind in Being There (1979), maybe that’s what draws us to ‘special’ people, life would be easier if all we wanted was to watch TV. 

WAIT that sounds like most of us! Are we all special?

-sweeneyrules

OSCAR ON DVD

The dopey Oscar Nominations were announced. 

Here are the flicks nominated that are available now on DVD or will be before the pageant is scheduled, February 24

Across the Universe (1 nomination)  FEB 5

Costume design 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2 nominations) FEB 5

Casey Affleck - Best Supporting Actor

Cinematography 

American Gangster (2 nominations)  FEB 19

Ruby Dee - Best Supporting Actress, Art direction 

Away from Her (2 nominations) 

Julie Christie - Best Actress, Adapted screenplay 

The Bourne Ultimatum (3 nominations) 

Film editing, Sound editing, Sound mixing 

Eastern Promises (1 nomination) 

Viggo Mortensen - Best Actor

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2 nominations)  FEB 5

Cate Blanchett - Best Actress, Costume design 

Gone Baby Gone (1 nomination)  FEB 12

Amy Ryan - Best Supporting Actress

In the Valley of Elah (1 nomination)  FEB 19

Tommy Lee Jones - Best Actor

La Vie en Rose (3 nominations) 

Marion Cotillard - Best Actress, Costume design, Makeup

Michael Clayton (7 nominations) FEB 19

George Clooney - Best Actor in a leading role, Tom Wilkinson - Best Supporting Actor, Tilda Swinton - Best Supporting Actor, Directing, Original score, Best Picture, Original screenplay 

No End in Sight (1 nomination) 

Documentary feature 

Norbit (1 nomination) 

Makeup 

Once (1 nomination) 

Original song 

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (1 nomination) 

Documentary feature 

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2 nominations) 

Makeup, Visual effects 

Potheads: The Movie (1 nomination)

Sound editing

Ratatouille (5 nominations) 

Best animated feature, Original score, Sound editing, Sound mixing, Original screenplay 

Sicko (1 nomination) 

Documentary feature 

Surf's Up (1 nomination) 

Best animated feature

3:10 to Yuma (2 nominations) 

Original score, Sound mixing 

Transformers (3 nominations) 

Sound editing,Sound mixing, Visual effects 

-sweeneyrules