The Academy Awards’ ceremony was definitely a sight this year, (a very LONG sight, longest in history–but that’s another story) and three black actors very worthy of their salt, came to be history makers. You already know that Sidney Portier was awarded for lifetime achievement by the Academy for years of work in such films as Lillies In The Field, To Sir With Love, and A Raisin In The Sun, among many others. Mr. Portier is, to me, one of the most courageous, talented, and handsome, of all black actors in history. He had begun his career after WWII, when there was no such thing as a leading black man in films, behind or in front of the camera.
Denzel Washington won for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his character acting in Training Day, which I had not seen but heard it was definitely Denzel Washington’s best job at portraying someone besides himself (LOL). I say this because almost everything I’ve seen him do previously is pretty much Denzel acting as Denzel. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the man. I think he’s a very handsome, intelligent, and warm gentleman, but he did his best (IMO) in the movie Glory, The Bone Collector, and in most of Malcom X.
Then Halle Berry was awarded the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Monster’s Ball, which I plan to see when it comes out in rentals. I first fell in love with her back in 1993, shortly after her big breakout in Boomerang. It was where she played the role of ‘Queen’ in the TV mini-series Queen. This was based on Alex Haley’s sequel novel to Roots, also of the same name (the story of his mother’s side of the family). Anyway, as much as I adore Halle Berry, I give more of a nod of approval to the way Misters Washington and Portier acknowledged receipt of their awards. Both men not only expressed their thanks toward those who helped them succeed in their work, but also pointed out that they were most grateful because of the fact that the award was given to them based on their talent and acting merit, and didn’t really play on the minority winner aspect. I do applaud Halle very much on her win, and still adore her, but I did find a part of her speech somewhat humorous. It was that, among those black actresses she listed, who have come before her but never won the highest honors, she did not include Whoopi Goldberg. Did Miss Goldberg NOT work hard in her role in the Oscar-nominated movie The Color Purple? She did indeed. I’m not sure whether Miss Berry’s aim was intended to include ONLY those black actresses nominated in the past for Best Actress (Cicely Tyson for Sounder, and Diana Ross for Lady Sings the Blues, both in 1972), or just all black actresses. In my opinion, The Color Purple still stands as Whoopi’s only real credit to her true acting ability and I also think she is a good host and comic, altough she wasn’t ever nominated by the Academy. Even so, I myself would have DEFINITELY gave a nod to Whoopi, simply because it would have shown good taste, being that she was standing in the same room.
Posted by dayleeblog at 03:56 AM | Comments (0)
Last week’s TIME Magazine’s TIME for Kids has put forth an entire article about the one thing that they deem to be ‘too much’ for children to have to see in the entertainment industry (Movies, tv, etc). It’s not gratuitous sexual scenes, not blatently violent acts, no, not even racism. It’s SMOKING. It’s obviously a high occurrence, given the statistics that smoking by one of any main characters in films is currently about 77% where back in 1970 it was about 29%. However, I didn’t see many main characters lighting up on any family movies or movies geared to children/teen audiences, did you? Most of the movies that have characters who are smoking cigarettes feature content which is USUALLY entirely meant for a mature audience, containing mature subject material. Am I right, or am I right? So what, there’s alot of smoking in Snatch, Save The Last Dance, and Charlie’s Angels and perhaps other newer releases to the theater. But what the heck are kids doing watching movies like that anyway They were all not meant for younger viewers, certainly teenagers, but haven’t teens been smoking a whole damned lot REGARDLESS of Hollywood actors smoking or not? Yes. And in addition to that, I’d like to point out that of ALL THE THINGS they could be waving their fingers at like violence, etc., that I mentioned above, they picked actors smoking in movies to tbe the most harmful to kids.
Rob Reiner, activist extraordinaire, and maker of flimsy, pussified movies such as ‘The Story of Us’ and ‘Parenthood’, is also the co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment. According to the TIME For Kids article, he blames smoking in films on “cigarette-addicted actors who can’t leave their butts behind and directors who don’t care about the social implications.” Reiner is hoping to put yet another notch in his activism belt by saying that smoking in films is more harmful to kids than language. He’s putting forth a new policy at Castle Rock: Directors wanting to have smoking characters onscreen need his approval first. Other views on this by his peers agree that it would be more appropriate to just apply R-ratings to movies that depict actors smoking. Reiner also says “If your movie has curse words, you get rated R,” says Reiner. “But that’s a lot less harmful to a kid.”
Says WHO? What’s wrong with the contributors of this magazine and Rob Reiner, to be saying such a thing? I would rather have my kids see a film which contains cigarette smokers than swearwords, sex, and violence, if given the choice. This brings me to ask, is it the media’s place to tell our kids what to see and what not to see in theaters? Aren’t our parents in society nowadays smart enough to tell their kids that yes, Brad Pitt is a man who smokes, but it is unhealthy and in our family we urge each other not to? Yes, I bring up the media, I do not just mean Hollywood (which mostly strikes a liberal pose). I’m talking about folks like TIME Magazine and cable news networks like CNN. It seems–from my point of view–that they are constantly trying to ‘babysit’–as it were–our country’s children and parents, trying to be the authority on the difference between right and wrong. Read this article very carefully. It’s summarizing point makes me laugh…”On bedrock issues of economic power, what passes for liberal-conservative debate in news media is usually a series of disputes over how to fine-tune the status quo. In the process, the myth of [the liberal media] serves as a smokescreen for realities of corporate media.”
What do you think about it?
Posted by dayleeblog at 02:22 AM | Comments (0)
I switched my hours at work to part-time so my honey and I have more time to devote to our business. So far, so good. Only I was late today (oops). Bu I managed to make a few good sales leads, YAY!
I’m out for now, on my way to play catch up with some of my fave sites, Later, taters…
Posted by dayleeblog at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
Hoo boy, I know I know…Haven’t been by in awhile. I’m trying my best to fix my blog archive problem I’ve been having since the damned blog was started. So much for my silly bravado way back when.
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You are Spaceman Spiff! |
Um…okay…James took the “Which Calvin Are You?” quiz above and JUST KNEW he was gonna be rated as Spaceman Spiff. Link from Ellis. I dunno, Methinks this guy takes too many damned quizzes. Maybe it’s because they’re everywhere and unavoidable! They’re all over the place and there’s nothing I can do about it. Damn.
Posted by dayleeblog at 02:03 AM | Comments (0)