Now to a topic having nothing to do with carpeting (at least not this year), the Oscars (TM).
Couture was none too well served at the '03 Oscars. Personally I would fire any designer that would find a way to make Nicole Kidman look bad. Her tightly pulled hair and makeup job made her look "hard" - Mrs. Lewis commented that she "looked like a crackwhore". (Now, before you get your legal team together, this is only meant as a remark on her outfit, not the actress or person.) Also, what was up with the "black burlap sack with the straps that won't stay up" look? Who decided that was "in"? That hasn't been "in" since the days of Delores del Rio. Kidman was not the only person at the Oscars wearing one, either.
While the 75th annual Oscars may have been lacking in the dresses and dos department, I liked this stripped-down Oscars a great deal more than I have many in recent years. Partly because they decided to take their time, as the Academy didn't know if they'd have the pressure of a massive TV audience to please - up until the last minute ABC wasn't even sure they were going to bother with airing it. And overall the results of the balloting was generally satisfying and seemed fair. I very much enjoyed the segment where they showed off surviving Oscar winners of the past. I was really surprised and delighted to see Luise Rainer up there. The only more "senior" Oscar winner I know of that's still living is Kate Hepburn, but I understand that at a shade short of age 95 she's not doing so hot (Rainer is 93). The Oscar producers tried to do something like this back in 1978, but it was poorly blocked, rushed and went by in a blur.
As to the controversy surrounding Micheal Moore's anti-war speech, it was a tempest in a teapot. If the Academy didn't want him to speak his mind on Iraq they shouldn't have awarded him an Oscar. A lot of the booing from the audience may have been from talent who had decided to play along and quash their own sympathies were they awarded and compelled to say "thank you" - they didn't want to see anyone else break the rules. Since it's Moore, I would have been more surprised if he
hadn't made a comment of some kind about the war. His brief "shaming" of President Bush was nothing compared to Vanessa Redgrave's explosive "anti-Zionist" speech of 1978 or, God forbid!, Jane Fonda's 45-minute long rant against nuclear power in 1979.
I was glad to see Polanski win for "Best Director" - like many people I discussed it with before the Oscars, I wanted him to win for "The Pianist" but didn't expect to see it happen. There may be, and I stipulate,
may be a hidden agenda on the part of the Academy voters, most of whom live in the Los Angeles area. Polanski, of course, is still wanted in Los Angeles County to answer for a statuatory rape charge, under which he was convicted in 1977. He is smart to stay in Europe; there he can still practice his craft, and with a lot less intervention than he ever could in Tinseltown. Some LA residents are not so keen about the situation being that the LAPD is still hoping that Polanski will someday step off a plane at LAX, so they can take him into custody on this quarter-century old charge. Yet they weren't able to put the most hated criminal celebrity in Hollywood, one Orenthal James Simpson, behind bars. Let's just say that many folks in LA County are figuring that a vote for Polanski is a vote of no-confidence in the LAPD.
Did anyone catch the mistake in the "Best Actress" montage? Right at the beginning there was a shot from "Sunrise" (1927) for which Janet Gaynor won, along with all the other films in which she appeared in 1927-1928, as was the custom in those early Oscar days. But the "Sunrise" clip used did not show Gaynor - rather it showed her co-star in that movie, Margaret Livingston.
These montages were the work of Chuck Braverman, he who first won notoreity with the collage film "Braverman's Condensed Cream of Beatles" back in 1968. His unit usually does the montage work for the Oscars, and to hear it from his boosters, he "invented" the stock footage collage film, despite that fact that Russian film-maker Esfir Shub beat him to that punch by 40 years, and was followed by Joseph Cornell, Bruce Conner, Emile de Antonio and countless others. I'm not knocking his work - it's generally quite good, but this is a mistake his unit shouldn't have made - it isn't as though we've altogether forgotten what Janet Gaynor looked like. As a matter of fact, she gave out an award at the 1978 Osacrs, and that wasn't so long ago as to be ancient history.
The other day I posted some lyrics about oil that were set to the tune of "Three Blind Mice". Here is another setting of that same melody, only this time with lyrics that Greg Fernandez and I dreamed up over a case of Top Hat beer probably 20 years ago. They are adapted from George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord", and go like this:
My Sweet Lord
My Sweet Lord
My Sweet Lord
My Sweet Lord
I really want to see you, Lord
And really want to feel you, Lord
So Hare, Hare, Hare, Lord
My Sweet Lord
Try it with your friends. It's a lot of fun!
Below my signature is the playlist for Sunday's "Duke is On the Air", which aired on WCBN from 5-6 in the afternoon. It is not a very imaginatively conceived program, as practically all of it came from the same compact disc. I was there not only to do the Duke, but to conduct a small WCBN library meeting, and I confess I concentrated rather more on the latter. The recordings on RCA's "Sophisticated Lady" are taken from studio recordings made with the "Famous" Orchestra in 1940-1945. Needless to say, I did not record this program. But posting this will bring us up to speed on the most recent crop of playlists.
Uncle Dave Lewis
The Duke Is On the Air
Uncle Dave Lewis, host
Broadcast WCBN-FM Ann Arbor 3/23/2003 5-6 PM
05:00:00 Duke Ellington Satin Doll (used as theme) Love Songs Columbia
05:08:00 Duke Ellington Concerto for Cootie Sophiticated Lady RCA Victor
05:12:00 Duke Ellington Never No Lament Sophiticated Lady RCA Victor
05:15:00 Duke Ellington Take the A Train Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:18:00 Duke ellington Just a-sittin' and a-rockin' Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:21:00 Duke Ellington I Got It Bad and That Aint Good Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:28:00 Duke Ellington Chelsea Bridge Sophiticated Lady RCA Victor
05:31:00 Duke Ellington Perdido Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:34:00 Duke Ellington The C Jam Blues Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:36:00 Duke Ellington Prelude to a Kiss Sophisticated Lady RCa Victor
05:39:00 Duke Elligton Caravan Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:42:00 Duke Ellington Mood Indigo Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:45:00 Duke Ellington In a Sentimental Mood Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:48:00 Duke Ellington It Don't Mean a Thing if it Aint Got That Swing Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:51:00 Duke Ellington Sophisticated Lady Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor
05:56:00 Duke Ellington Solitude Sophisticated Lady RCA Victor