When Academy Awards planners announced the best picture nominee list would increase to 10 finalists, the response included doubts about an already long telecast getting longer.
Saturday night in L.A., Oscar planners made an unprecedented move to ensure that won't happen.
Rather than doing it onstage, the academy presented its four honorary Oscars -- always a time drag, no matter who gets them -- at a swanky banquet nearly four months before the actual show. This is the first time that has happened in 82 years. That's a lot of film clips and speechifying that won't clutter the telecast.
Winners included screen legend Lauren Bacall, the original filmmaking maverick Roger Corman, cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather Trilogy, Annie Hall) and producer John Calley (The Da Vinci Code, Catch-22, The Remains of the Day).
You can find out a bit more about the winners in the links I've provided and the video clip posted above. If you watch until the end, you'll notice that its creator Richard Thomas isn't keen on the idea of shoving legends away from the TV exposure their careers deserve.
Steve Persall is the movie critic for the St. Petersburg Times. He was conceived behind a drive-in movie theater his father operated and raised in projection booths and concession stands. He doesn't care how you did it up north.
Groovy, now I only have to wait 111 days to see who takes home the rest of the Statues.
Posted by: Oscar Watch | November 16, 2009 at 07:15 PM