Once again, I was reminded that the Best Song category should have been retired decades ago when Hollywood stopped producing musicals. In the old days, Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers, Porter and Kern, competed for Oscars. This year, two songs from “Slumdog Millionaire” duked it out with a song from “Wall-e.” If you’re curious why three songs without a discernible melody between them would be competing, it’s because the folks in the music division of the Motion Picture Academy insist on retaining the category. You would have thought that embarrassment would have trumped professional ego back in 2006 when the Oscar went to “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” but that’s only because you don’t realize how impossible it is to embarrass Hollywood.
That brings us to Sean Penn, who picked up his second Oscar in six years. His victory was viewed as a major upset. Mickey Rourke was considered a heavy favorite to win even though Penn had portrayed Harvey Milk, a heroic figure in homosexual mythology. The truth is, even I was slightly surprised by his victory. However, I had told several people that I believed Rourke had shot himself in the foot a while back when he won the Golden Globe and took the occasion to say he refused to condemn George W. Bush, urging people to consider the pressure the president was under in the wake of 9/11. Hollywood doesn’t forgive and Hollywood doesn’t forget.
Without a comedian host, the laughs were even fewer than usual. In fact, one of the few chuckles I had all evening was when Sean Penn, in collecting his Oscar, took a moment to pay homage to Barack Obama, calling him, of all things, elegant. Naturally, the audience responded with great applause. Apparently, neither Penn nor the trained seals at the Kodak Theatre considered it worth noting that the president is on record as being opposed to same-sex marriages!
And now, my 10 favorite movies for every decade, except the 1940s, 80s and 90s, when the best I could do was cull my list down to 20 favorites.
The 1930s: “It Happened One Night,” “Alice Adams,” “The Gold Rush,” “Destry Rides Again,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Bachelor Mother,” “Make Way for Tomorrow,” “My Man Godfrey” and any one of these four Astaire-Rogers films, “Top Hat,” “Carefree,” “Gay Divorcee” or “Swing Time”
1940s: “My Favorite Wife,” “The Shop Around the Corner,” “The Thief of Bagdad,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Maltese Falcon,” “Ball of Fire,” “The Lady Eve,” “The Major and the Minor,” “Casablanca,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Hail the Conquering Hero,” “Apartment for Peggy,” “Mildred Pierce,” “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Great Expectations,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Farmer’s Daughter,” “I Remember Mama” and “Force of Evil”
1950s: “All About Eve,” “The African Queen,” “The Ladykillers,” “People Will Talk,” “High Noon,” “7 Brides for 7 Brothers,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “On the Waterfront” and “Sweet Smell of Success”
1960s: “The Apartment,” “School for Scoundrels,” “The Hustler,” “A Cold Wind in August,” “Charade,” “Support Your Local Sheriff,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Pumpkin Eater,” “36 Hours” and “Divorce, American Style”
1970s: “The Godfather,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Paper Moon,” “A New Leaf,” “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” “Rocky,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “House Calls,” “Time After Time” and “Breaking Away”
1980s: “Atlantic City,” “Diner,” “Ordinary People,” “A Christmas Story,” “Terms of Endearment,” “The Natural,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” “Midnight Run,” “Die Hard,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Tall Guy,” “Witness,” “Murphy’s Romance,” “Lost in America,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Hoosiers,” “The Princess Bride,” “Tin Men,” “Roxanne” and “The Untouchables”
1990s: “Green Card,” “Galaxy Quest,” “Cinema Paradiso,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Mumford,” “Dead Again,” “Defending Your Life,” “My Cousin Vinny,” “Peter’s Friends,” “Housesitter,” “Swingers,” “Sliding Doors,” “Enchanted April,” “Groundhog Day,” “Falling Down,” “Remains of the Day,” “The Fugitive,” “Fargo,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Nobody’s Fool”
2000s: “The Dish,” “About a Boy,” “Chicago,” “The Matador,” “Love Actually,” “The Upside of Anger,” “The Lives of Others,” “Thank You for Smoking,” “Gran Torino” and “Taken”
I just noticed that it adds up to a hundred movies, with roughly 40 of them being comedies or musicals. So even if you think I have lousy taste, you should at least give me points for not trying to impress you with a lot of pretentious hooey.