Hey people!
WE ARE DONE WITH THE TWENTIES!
We have come a long way. So this decade started us off with Way Done East and we finished with Pandora's Box. We have laughed with Buster Keaton and were disgusted with Griffith. We were entirely weirded out with Andalousian Dog (I pretty sure I screwed up the spelling) and delighted with The Passion of Joan of Arc. I feel like I have learned a lot since I started and I also think I am a better person for experiencing this very unique era.
So I decided to do the Oscars for this decade. Okay, so they are not really the Oscars considering I am going to make up most of my own categories and this is going to span a decade rather than a year. But work with me people! Feel free to comment on differing opinions or if you want to come with your own categories you may. Here we go!
Best Picture: Winner: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Nominees: Sunset
Sherlock Jr.
Pandora's Box
Blackmail
Worst Picture: Winner: Napoleon
Nominees: Strike
The Jazz Singer
October
The Battleship Potemkin
Honorary Award: The Jazz Singer for introducing sound (besides exceptions such as Sunset or Phantom of the Opera).
Honorary Award: Napoleon for making one of the most boring movies (and the longest) I have ever seen.
Best Director: Winner: Alfred Hitchcock
Nominees: There are no nominees! It is always Hitchcock (except for Woody Allen)
Best Actress: Winner: Louise Brooks
Nominees: Renee Falconetti
Joan Crawford
Janet Gaynor
Weirdest Movie: Winner: Un Chien Anadalou
Nominees: Man With a Movie Camera
Sunset
Last Laugh
Haxan
Best Actor: Winner: Buster Keaton
Nominees: George O'Brien
Harold Lloyd
James Murray
Charles Chaplin
Best Line: Winner: "You ain't seen nothing yet." The Jazz Singer
Nominees: It was the silent era! What else is there to choose from?
Controversy!
ReplyDelete(Probably. I haven't thought too deeply about it yet. But awards are usually controversial.)
Best film: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Yes, it was 1919, but the very early films are honorary members, surely, without an awards show of their own? If not, take The Kid Brother which actually edged even the Keaton movies)
ReplyDeleteOther nominees: Dr. Mabuse Der Spieler, Our Hospitality, Blackmail
Worst film: Broken Blossoms (God, it was awful. "Why are you so good to me, Chinky?" I roared out loud with laughter at the terrible acting / direction when he stabs himself in the belly.)
Other nominees: Within Our Gates, The Wheel
Director: Buster Keaton (I'm saying that Keaton's genius was in his directing and physical performance rather than character acting)
Other nominees: Sergei Eisenstein (always brilliant, even if some films didn't work well in their entirety), FW Murnau, Fritz Lang
Actor: Max Schreck for Nosferatu (utterly iconic)
Other Nominees: Lon Chaney for The Unknown and Phantom of The Opera plus anyone else who wasn't Richard Bartheless in Broken Blossoms
Actress: Renee Falconetti for The Passion of Joan of Arc
Other nominee (not many good women's roles): Louise Brooks for Pandora's Box
I can't believe I didn't say Fritz Lang. What was wrong with me? Agree about Keaton. Good choices! I hope you do the other Oscars posts when you get to them!
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'll be delighted just to get as far as the future sets of awards! But if I do, I'll be sure to contribute and weigh into the debate.
ReplyDeleteOne other note I meant to add at the time:
I took the view that for the director award they had to have contributed more than one film to the list during the decade. With actors who pop up less often (and as we're still dealing with a small number of films per year) I'm still willing to take it on a single film for the time being at least. Therefore, I had to disqualify Hitchcock from my considerations. He is my all-time favourite director but this is for the 20s and I think his time is yet to come.
Good thinking. Now I want to change my answers.
DeleteI've been thinking about Best Line. Could be the 'knife...knife...knife' bit in Blackmail. But that's not really a line so I'm going for the bit in The Kid Brother where he's being chased in a circle around around the house by one of the bully brothers but pretends to the girl that he is the chaser wielding a big stick (it's a circle, y'see?). When walking back to the girl Harold sighs "The older he grows, the worse he gets". Made me laugh, anyway.
ReplyDeletehaha that's a good one
ReplyDelete