And The Winner Is.......................

The start of each year brings with it a plethera (love that word) of award shows where all the 'luvvies' get a chance to stand up in front of their peers and thank every bloody one of them for helping them get where they are today. And their agents, and their foreign adopted kids and their parents and their partners and so on.  Sometimes even fans get a mention too but that's usually only when they receive a 'popular vote' gong.

In reality we know they are a back stabbing bunch of ego maniacs who would just perform in front of a fast food line if given half a chance.

And as for the acceptance speeches......OMG.  These usually involve initial hugging and faux cheek kissing, a fair bit of gushing, the occasional lame in-joke, promises to keep it all short, the total betrayal of such promises and finally, LOTS of crying. The best sign of their acting ability is how they feign surprise when their names are announced and then proceed to get out the dreaded sheets of A4 and say "I wrote a few words just in case........!!! "

Actually reading your speech is often a good thing as it saves us having to listen to ad-lib speeches which usually show us that an actor without a script is like a shop dummy without clothes. Pretty useless.

Thank God there isn't an award for the 'best' acceptance speech !



A lot of people think that The Oscars is the only awards show in town.  It's certainly the biggest but certainly not the only one.  We here in the UK get the worst of both worlds as we get the shows from the old world and the new.  How's this for a statistic :  in 2013, America has 91 televised awards shows !!  And we've got quite a few ourselves so it's a wonder the world isn't awash with a tsunami of acceptance tears.

Anyway the main reason for this post is not to complain about The Oscars as I do like to know what movies have risen about the crop even though I can make my own mind up in most cases. The thing is, with only a trailer, the cast list and a few reviews from the critics to go by, it's not easy to know which ARE the risers worthy of my pension money.  I've seen several of the best picture nominees already and I know my fav so far but what about you, my dear and cherished readers ?

On the right of my blog is a slide out section and I've included a poll today.  If you would be so kind as to scroll over there and tick from the list of officially nominated movies, I'd appreciate it very much. I think it's designed to stop multiple votes so I'm sorry, Ben, I know you want to win but you can't keep ticking Argo. It really wasn't that good anyway !

The poll is open till midnight on Oscar night - that's midnight here in the UK as that's when I believe the ceremony begins in LA. If you see more of the movies during the month, you CAN return to the poll and change your vote.  Clever stuff eh ?

It's Friday so that means Chinese and Movie evening with my dear friends, Daphne and Stephen and this evening we might watch any of the nominated movies but I'm thinking more Ice Age 4 than Les Miserables !

And to end with, why wasn't "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" nominated ?  Even I might have cried then !