With the Academy Awards show this Sunday, February 24, everyone is wondering which movie will win Best Picture this year. Most prognosticators believe Argo will walk away with the big prize because it has been cleaning up with other awards. A few wonder whether Argo will win because Director Ben Affleck was not nominated in the directing category. Yet, while some pull for a dark horse like Silver Linings Playbook, it seems clear that Argo is the front-runner going into Sunday.
I will not make a guess, but I do think this year was one of the best years for movies in recent years. In addition to Argo, I enjoyed many of the other nominated films like Life of Pi and Django Unchained. But if I had a vote for the Best Picture Oscar, I would vote for Lincoln.
Of course, nobody knows who will win this year, but we can look back on past Best Picture winners. Nelson Carvajal has created this cool video of all of the Academy Award Best Picture winners. How many can you identify?
The music for this Oscar montage is “November” by Max Richter.
Which film do you think should win Best Picture? Leave your two cents in the comments.
While we wait for the Oscars announcements this weekend, Malcolm McDowell and Uggie (The Artist) recently announced the winners of the Pawscars Awards. The American Humane Association gives these annual awards for best animal and animal-related performances in movies as part of the organization’s work to ensure humane treatment of animals in films.
Winners this year include Django Unchained (2012) for “Best Horsemanship.” The American Humane Association specifically noted the work by Jamie Foxx, a horse rider since childhood who used his own horse Cheetah in the film. Check out the other winners from McDowell and Uggie in this video.
On a regular basis, the American Human Association awards movies with the famous words “No Animals Were Harmed®” at the end of the film. But this is the fifth year the Association also has given out the Pawscars Awards.
What was your favorite animal performance this year? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Tony Sheridan, a British singer-songwriter forever linked to The Beatles, passed away on February 16, 2013 at the age of 72 in Germany. While Sheridan recorded through his later years, he is best-known for his brief work as lead singer on what was essentially the first album by the Beatles.
Sheridan knew the Beatles when they consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Pete Best. And he worked with them through Sutcliffe’s and Best’s departure and Ringo Starr’s arrival in 1962.
In 1961, a German producer signed Sheridan and the Beatles as the back up band. Under the name Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, the group recorded nine songs in 1961-1962 with Sheridan singing on seven of them. According to Sheridan’s website, the reason they used “Beat Brothers” instead of “Beatles” is because the latter name did not translate into German “except as a slang term for the male sex organ.” Sheridan also claimed that he brought Ringo to the Beatles too.
When the first single “My Bonnie” was released in Liverpool, fans mobbed record shops. The reaction to the single with Sheridan led one record store owner to seek out the Beatles. That record store owner, Brian Epstein, would then go on to manage the Beatles as they rose to super-stardom. Here is “My Bonnie”:
In this 30-minute video, Sheridan looked back on his experience with the Beatles and on music in the early 1960s:
After the Beatles went on to massive fame, Sheridan continued to perform, and in the 1960s spent a lot of time entertaining troops in Viet Nam. For his devotion to the soldiers, the U.S. Army made him an honorary captain. Sheridan also met Elvis Presley when Elvis was stationed in Germany.
The Beatles themselves maintained a friendship and fondness for their one-time front-man, whose last album was 2002’s Vagabond. Paul McCartney had nicknamed Sheridan “The Teacher” because of how he influenced the band by introducing them to R&B artists like Little Richard. Similarly, Ringo Starr once said he learned from Sheridan “all I know about rock and roll.” So, while Sheridan may not be a household name, he is certainly an important part of the history of rock music.
What is your favorite Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On February 18, 1959, Ray Charles laid down the song “What’d I Say” at the Atlantic Records studio on New York City. Besides being a great song, it is also unique for the way the song went from creation to recording to becoming a major hit.
The Creation of “What’d I Say”
One night while touring, Ray Charles was trying to fill the four hours he was contracted to perform at a dance near Pittsburgh (reportedly in Brownsville, Pennsylvania). Charles began on his Wurlitzer electric piano, finding a riff. As the riff began to build, Charles began making up words on the spot in front of the live audience. And then he found himself asking his female backup singers to repeat after him.
As illustrated in the movie Ray (2004) with Jamie Foxx, below is the film version of the evening (note that this video has the talking dialogue in Spanish but the singing is in English).
The audience went wild. Charles continued playing the new song on the road, eventually calling Atlantic to say, “I’m playing a song out here on the road, and I don’t know what it is—it’s just a song I made up, but the people are just going wild every time we play it, and I think we ought to record it.”
Newport Jazz Festival
The following year, Charles performed “What’d I Say” at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island as his closing number. But it left the audience wanting more. He was called back on stage for an encore as his tenth song of the night, “I Believe to My Soul.”
During this performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, unknown to those on stage, outside the festival police were clashing with a crowd of up to 12,000 young people. The angry youths were upset they could not get into see the performances.
“What’d I Say” Becomes a Hit
After “What’d I Say” was recorded in the studio in two parts, Atlantic released it as a single in July 1959. Then, it became the lead-off two-part title track for the What’d I Say album released in October 1959.
Although some criticized the song for blending gospel with sounds of sexual bliss, the recording became Charles’s first big crossover hit. It climbed to number one on the R&B charts and to number six on the pop charts.
“What’d I Say” was Charles’s first gold record, and Charles continued to use it as his closing number, as he did in Newport, throughout his career. While he would have other big hits, it was this little impromptu number that helped launch his career into the stratosphere and give the country a little soul. What is your favorite Ray Charles song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Last night, Saturday Night Live pondered what subject director Quentin Tarantino may tackle next after turning the Holocaust and American slavery into revenge fantasies in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). In a mock ad, this week’s host Christoph Waltz, who starred in both those movies, appeared in the starring role in a new Tarantino film, DJesus Uncrossed.
While the short DJesus Uncrossed video seems mainly aimed at making fun of the Tarantino style and our fascination with revenge films, some have complained that it mocks Christians. Check it out and judge for yourself.
How would you rate the video for “Djesus Uncrossed”: funny, so-so, or offensive? Leave your two cents in the comments.
. Paul McCartney had nicknamed Sheridan “
