Oscar Examination: Comedians Doing Drama

With Precious garnering serious Oscar buzz for Mo'Nique, I've decided to take an examination of comedians going straight. Well, doing drama. And believe me there are a lot:

• Saturday Night Live alum Dan Aykroyd received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in Driving Miss Daisy; lost to Denzel Washington in Glory.
• Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch, two actors well known for their comedic work on television, showed their dramatic sides in Ordinary People. Both were nominated but lost; Moore to Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter, Hirsch to his co-star Timothy Hutton.
• Another veteran of sitcom, Jackie Gleason, earned praises for his role of Minnesota Fats in The Hustler; the Oscar went to George Chakiris for West Side Story.
• Red Buttons won an Academy Award for his supporting role in the Korean War drama Sayonara.
• Robin Williams won over critics with his role of John Keating in Dead Poets Society. Although he lost to Daniel Day-Lewis, Williams would later win for his supporting role in Good Will Hunting.

Those are the ones I can remember. What do you think?

Two questions about Academy Awards

With the big news in Hollywood being Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are to host the 82nd Academy Awards, I ask two questions:

1) Who is your favorite past host?

2) Which celebrity would you like to see host the Oscars?

The Glass Menagerie

I've started to take a greater appreciation for plays recently. I originally found plays boring (take note that this was when I was a kid), but now I like them. Case in point, next thing I'm reviewing is Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

The lead of the play is Tom Wingfield, an aspiring writer who lives with his mother Amanda and sister Laura. Amanda is obsessed with finding a man for her daughter; Laura herself doesn't want to rush at the idea.

Having finished reading about a week ago, it's still fresh in my head. I liked this, but I didn't like it as much as A Streetcar Named Desire. But I thought it was good.

My Rating: ****

Movies watched over and over

I saw this article on Entertainment Weekly which makes me ask the question: What movies do you watch over and over again?

Born Standing Up

Need to take a break from movies for a while. I mean, if you read the title of this blog, you would expect a book review here and there.

Born Standing Up chronicles the stand up career of Steve Martin. Not only that but also his childhood, his first jobs in the entertainment business and his break in the movies.

I read this not too long after it was published. It's an interesting read on the actor.

My Rating: ****

Freaky Film Fact #3

This one was just too weird.

Although they are trademarks in his movies, director Quentin Tarantino strongly detests drugs and violence.

Oh yeah, and he also has an IQ of 160 despite the fact that he's a high scool dropout.

What do you prefer?

A) a movie shot in black and white?

or

B) a movie shot in color?

BOOK VS MOVIE: Rosemary's Baby

Like what I mentioned in the previous post, it takes a lot for a horror movie to scare the crap out of me. Like Psycho, Rosemary's Baby (mostly the movie) did just that.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse are a young couple who just moved into the Bramford apartment building. Guy is a struggling actor who gets his big break after the original actor goes blind. Soon after this, Rosemary becomes pregnant. But Guy's behavior, along with the behavior of their neighbors the Castevets, makes Rosemary suspicious.

Rosemary's Baby marks one of the few times where the book and the movie are great. Kudos to Roman Polanski for being true to the book. Compared to what Stanley Kubrick did with The Shining, Polanski actually followed what happened in the book. Mia Farrow was good as the title character.

There's also a weird connection Rosemary's Baby has with two infamous murders. A year after its release in theaters, Polanski's pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's gang. And in 1980, John Lennon was shot outside of the Dakota, where most of the movie was filmed.

What's worth checking out?: Both are worth checking out.

Psycho

It's interesting. It takes a lot for a horror movie to scare the crap out of me. Alfred Hitchcock managed to do just that with his magnum opus Psycho.

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals $40,000 from her boss and flees to California. Paranoid that the police are following her she checks into the Bates Motel, run by the conspicuous Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Crane soon decides to return the money, but is murdered before she can do anything.

Congratulations, Mr. Hitchcock. Thanks to you, I don't believe I'll be able to take a shower again. As you can tell, Psycho affected me hard. I'll probably watch it again, but not anytime soon. Or at night.

Oh, wait. Forgot to mention this is my 50th post! Whoot!

My Rating: *****

Carrie

Happy Halloween! Expect a number of horror-related posts today. Perhaps something to watch this evening. But I'll start with a Stephen King novel.

Carrie White has a rough life. She teased at school by her peers and her over-religious mother abuses her at home. Fortunately for her, she has telekinetic powers that nobody knows about.

Stephen King was originally working on it as a short story back in the 1970's, but he didn't like where the story was going so he threw what he had in the trash. It was his wife that convinced him to keep working on the story. Interesting, huh?

My Rating: ****