Oscar Swag
This year’s Academy Award presentations will not include Oscar swag, those gift-laden thank-you bags given to Oscar attendees in years past that the IRS threatened to tax. The Academy decided it was better to lose the bags that get involved in an IRS nightmare.
Well, I received some Oscar swag last week. An impressive box arrived from Turner Classic Movies to announce their annual 31 Days of Oscar event from Feb. 4 to March 3. So it wasn’t an expensive watch or a spa coupon, but I’ve been enjoying my bag of red twists (for plot twists) and candy kisses (favorite kisses). Anyway, for this type of payola they get a nice blog about my favorite TCM event.
I was sweet on it long before they sent this candy-loving diabetic the sweet treats. This is the 13th year TCM has been honoring the month the Oscars are presented by opening up their vaults and presenting a bunch of movies that have earned Academy Awards and/or nominations. The movies on tap include On the Waterfront, From Here To Eternity, Cinema Paradiso, Comes A Horsemen (an underrated western), The Maltese Falcon, The Dirty Dozen, and too many more to mention. Check out the TCM Web site http://www.tcm.com/index.jsp for all the choices. The best actor line-up on Wed., Feb. 7 is particularly strong starting with The Hustler at 6am, This Sporting Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Anatomy of A Murder, Starman and The Last Detail. Thursday, Feb. 22 at 8pm, the big guns come out with a 72-hour best picture winners’ marathon that begins with Ben-Hur and ends with Casablanca at 6pm on Oscar night, Sunday, Feb. 25.
However, my biggest TiVo alert takes place on TCM on January 25 at 2:30am when Billy Wilder’s The Big Carnival (a.k.a. Ace in the Hole) is being presented. This cynical look at a reporter (Kirk Douglas) who exploits a mine cave-in for his own glory is a lot better than plenty of Oscar-winning films and has never been released on tape, let alone on DVD.
P.S. Check out my Oscar nomination predictions