CORRECTING OSCAR’S MORE SUBTLE MISTAKES

“I Never thought this would ever happen to me!”

To be honest neither did we!  Sometimes it is fair to say that the Academy picks the wrong horse, in fact worse than that, sometimes it doesn’t even put the fastest horse in the starting blocks (Er, is that right?)  

Anyway in this post I am gonna look at correcting the academy’s mistakes, giving my own fake Oscars to who I think should have been the winners for a number of different awards including Best Picture, Best Soundtrack, Best Song, Best Actor and even Best Special Effects.  I will include a winners speech and even the supporting clip to show why they were, in my opinion, the best!

So sit back relax and enjoy the Academy awards ...as it should have been.

1960  BEST SOUNDTRACK WINNER - EXODUS

MY WINNER - THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - ELMER BERNSTEIN

Sometimes the academy gets it so wrong it’s frightening.  To say that “The Magnificent Seven” was one of the best movie soundtracks of 1960 is an understatement.  Genuinely regarded as one of the best movie soundtracks of all time, comparing “The Magnificent Seven” soundtrack to the winner “Exodus” is like comparing Mozart to Salieri.  It is the difference between the competent and the inspired.  Some people may feel it is unfair to judge with the benefit of hindsight but I personally think it is nice to know that we can retrospectively say, yes, that was a mistake, THIS is what was the best movie music of that year should have been.  So with that in mind, I am delighted to present the 1960 award for best soundtrack to ELMER BERNSTEIN for his soundtrack to “The Magnificent Seven”.

Elmer:  Wow!  Thanks Mike.  I never thought I’d see this day come, retrospectively.  Well, before we go any further I have a few people to thank.  The director, John Sturges, for having faith and hiring me.  The cast and crew for providing me with such stunning visuals to work with, but mostly ...you.  The listener, for taking my work to your hearts and allowing me to claim my rightful place in this little Oscar correction show.  Thank you.  (applause)

1981  BEST PICTURE WINNER:  CHARIOTS OF FIRE  

MY WINNER:  RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Where the hell do we start with this one?  Best Director award missing, possibly even music, after all this is without question John Williams finest work.  But, then again “The Chariots of Fire” soundtrack is anthemic in its own right, ...well ...maybe a tie is in order.  Raiders won four technical awards and a special award for sound, but did not take the two biggest gongs, Director and Picture, those having gone to “Chariots of Fire”.  Well, speaking as a proud brit, as good a film as Chariots is, it’s not a patch on Raiders.  To take history and strand it with a religious/supernatural slant can be tricky and sometimes lead to a big mess, but here we are never in a doubt that we are witnessing historical fact, leading to one of the greatest action films of all time, crammed with dynamite performances, a sensational script and an unbelievable chase across Northern Africa for an artifact that is so powerful it can change the course of human history.  It is a stunning cinematic achievement and a worthy winner of my revisionist Oscar rewrites.  To collect the award tonight we don’t have Frank Marshall, George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, they were all too busy to attend this award ceremony (“AND I MADE HOT DOGS, YOU SCUMBAGS!”) so instead we have the late Denholm Elliot to pick up the award whose just delighted to be seen anywhere these days, even if it’s just in print...

Denholm:  You know people often ask me if you’re aware of it when you’re staring in a classic film and the answer is no.  You just hope that you’re making a film that people will want to watch it again and again.  I’m glad we did that with this film and I am honoured on behalf of all the cast and crew to accept it on their behalf.  Thank you.

Wise words Denholm!

1982  BEST SONG WINNER:  UP WHERE WE BELONG.

MY WINNER:  EYE OF THE TIGER

There are two types of movie songs.  There are the soppy ballads that don’t relate to the films they are in, such as “Take my breath away”, “Say you, say me” and “Can you feel the love tonight”.  The other kind are those that try and relate to the films they are in, such as “Theme from Shaft”, “Under the sea”, “Streets of Philadelphia” and “Lose yourself”.  The first type is relatively straightforward and usually just involves nicking a line of dialogue from the film and building around that.  The second is harder.  To encapsulate a film in a song is much, much harder, and to do that and succeed should be both commended and rewarded.  In 1982 the most successful and most popular song of the year was without doubt “Eye of the Tiger”.  Since then it has gone on to become one of the most successful songs of all time selling over 5 millions copies worldwide, has become an anthemic sporting tune, has collected various accolades and other awards EXCEPT, for the one that actually matters.  In 1982 “An Officer and a Gentleman” was basically considered a more worthy film than “Rocky III” and as such stole the award right out from under it’s nose, but here and now we can amend such a lack of foresight and give it what it deserves.  To accept this award for best original song for 1982 we have Mr T.

Mr T:  Quit your jibber-jabber, boy!  I pity the fools who did not give “Eye of the tiger” the Oscar for best song.  I’m gonna find out which of y’all voted for that pussy “Up where we belong” song, take this award and ram it up y’all’s...

Mike:  Thank you, Mr T.  Orchestra please start playing and quickly!  (Music kicks in over Mr T’s rant.)

1993  BEST ACTOR WINNER:  TOM HANKS

MY WINNER:  LIAM NEESON

Imagine me, the blogger, at my youngest and angriest young man stage, for the travesty of this award made me so angry I was almost in rigour!  Having heard all the praise for Schindler’s List and Spielberg this and Spielberg that, I expected that I’d be blown away by the direction, and, while it was very good, Spielberg had spared himself some of the job of directing the film by casting it correctly with three male leads that were to give some stunning performances, none of which were to receive the academy’s highest praise.  Liam Neeson as Schindler is perfectly balanced as a cold hearted business-man with surprising inner depths.  There is a certain Bogart-esque-ness to the portrayal and he is a revelation and arguably never better, BUT, this was the year Hollywood finally acknowledged AIDS in a big way.  Before then, even though celebrities had died, it had not dealt with the subject before “Philadelphia” and so that meant that the film just had to get one of the big awards, but not too big as it was Steven’s year.  And so off walked Tom Hanks with the best actor award when he probably didn’t deserve it (same true of the next year for “Forrest Gump”, the irony being the two performances he did deserve it for “Saving Private Ryan” and “Castaway” earned him only a nomination!)  So to collect this award Mr Neeson, please step forward.

Liam Neeson:  I can’t accept this award.  While it’s an honour to be acknowledged as the best performer of the year 1992, I also know it hasn’t come from my peers.  It may have been a mistake me not getting the Oscar, but I know it was an honest mistake.  So, thanks, but no thanks.

Mike:  Liam, you controversial bastard!

Liam Neeson:  I will remind you I was in both “The A-Team”...

Mike:  Pfff!  That’s just pretend.

Liam Neeson:  ...And “TAKEN”!

Mike:  And I respect you’re decision, ladies and gentlemen the very honourable Liam Neeson! (applause)

2007:  BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS:  THE GOLDEN COMPASS

  MY WINNER:  TRANSFORMERS

Sometimes films bomb...well sort of!  They have a ton of money spent on them and they fail spectacularly...well, in a way.  Sometimes it’s sad when they do this as they’re good, like “Stardust”, but sometimes they fail because they’re no good, like “The Golden Compass” ...well, kind of...I’ll explain more in a little while.  “The Golden Compass” and it’s subsequent two sequels were massive worldwide literary successes and when it was announced by Warners that they were making them, eyebrows were raised in many circles over this.  America even now is still a big home for the church and to take on the job of bringing a book to the big screen that was so critical of said Church was never going to be  comfortable mix.  So in order to bring it to the big screen, the Church was changed to the Authority and the whole thing about Daemons being the little voice inside our heads was lost so much it seemed more like they were mere pets.  As a result the film become a convoluted mess and bombed in America BUT not worldwide.  Worldwide the film, in spite of all these problems was reasonably successful, but due to a very lousy distribution deal it meant that Warner Brothers did not make enough money back to justify making the next two films of the series as it would not have been cost effective for them.  And so what happened was that The Golden Compass seemed to pick up on the sympathy vote, the “Oh no, that film really bombed, maybe of we give it the best special effects Oscar then it might get some more bums on seats” type vote.  The effects in Transformers are helped significantly by Director Michael Bay’s decision to, where possible, use the real world as much as possible and therefore avoids the mistakes of many films that just CGI the hell out of every scene.  Special effects should be precisely that and too many film-makers are forgetting this key thing.  By contrast the Golden Compass does have all too much of this computer game looking trickery that lacks any sense of realism and therefore any sense of  danger. So without further ado, I am delighted to Present the 2007 academy award for best special effects to someone who is a living breathing special effect ...Optimus Prime!

Optimus:  Thank you, Humans, for this acknowledgment finally that all the efforts, all the attention to detail and time consumed in bringing us to life was not in vain.  You have shown that like us there’s more to you then meets...

Mike:  Yes, yes.  Thanks for that, Optimus.  (Applause)

And that’s it for now.  Next time we will look at a missing statuette for Soundtrack, Film, Actor, Original Screenplay and also Best Supporting Actor.

Hope you enjoyed my revisionist award ceremony.

Till next time, Adieu!

(all celebrity awards speeches are of course fiction....duh!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0vqQjaXLOU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QivOSmES9-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61cN_nDmOQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGxTTXnVNnI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnwmUZuF5OY

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