This year, I made no such vow, so I don't have to bite my tongue in light of the failure to recognize the Lifetime Achievement Awards during the televised Oscar ceremony. Lauren Bacall was among those receiving token mentions last night. Bacall has previously been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the top 25 actresses of the last 100 years. She is one of only 4 actresses the AFI recognizes as living legends. (The others are Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, and Sophia Loren.) But apparently the Academy doesn't consider that enough to make her prime-time-worthy.
Those receiving Oscars during the prime time show included some rather dreary topics. Sound? Really? That's worthy of prime time? Don't get me started on documentaries and short subjects. Do they think we care???
Meanwhile, Lauren Bacall sat on the front row until her moment arrived...at which point she was allowed to stand and wave to the crowd.
Turns out that Bacall received her award at an event in November, along with the other recipients of Governor's Awards: John Calley, who received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, who like Bacall, received Honorary awards. The only advantage to the November award ceremony was that recipients were not limited to 45-second acceptance speeches.
Click here to see Bacall accept her award. She has some great lines in it. Too bad more people didn't get to see it. :-(
Shame on the Academy.
Oh Margaret I so agree! You would think that a woman of that stature would be allowed the opportunity of addressing the crowd LIVE and in person! What a shame that I wasted 4 hours last night on such nonsense! Yes, and who really cares about sound...Not me!
ReplyDeleteIt seemed sooooo disrespectful.
ReplyDeleteNow, the couple of times I saw the Lifetime Achievement awards when Julie Andrews and Meryl Streep won the award, they made this super huge deal out of it. And did you notice that they left Farrah Fawcett out of the montage they put together for celebrities that had died in the past year? Shame on the Academy twice. That's just pathetic...
ReplyDeletethere has never been a people group more out
ReplyDeleteof touch with reality than the academy.
HOWEVER...i did watch the last 30 minutes and
loved that the sweet girl who played precious
cried throughout oprah's introduction...so sweet.
i also appreciated sandra bullock's tearful tribute
to her mom!
what/who in the world was sean penn talking
about before he announced the winner? he is
so full of...milk!
Oh, yeah, Lauren, they used to make a big deal out of the Lifetime Achievement awards - showed clips and let the honorees talk and everything. Yet they made us sit through that endless dance number that didn't seem to serve any real purpose - at least from what I could tell as I was channel surfing to alleviate my boredom.
ReplyDeleteLea, it did get better for the big awards at the end. I do like the way they do the Best Actor and Actress awards now with people who know each person speaking directly to them. I didn't see Precious, but between the Best Actress nominee and the Supporting Actress winner, I want to see it now.
And the hosts were decent. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin really play well off of each other.
I hate that they limit the time for acceptance speeches, too. There may never be another Dustin Hoffman moment accepting his award for "Kramer vs. Kramer" - a speech where he didn't just thank the "little people" - he gave them major credit for everything they actually do to make the finished product possible.
Sorry, Lauren, I didn't mean to overlook your comment about Farrah. It's bad enough that her death was totally overshadowed (about 5 minutes after she died) but to be entirely left out of the memorial montage was awful. You're right, "shame on the Academy twice."
ReplyDelete