The plan initially was to do polls of all the best pictures, followed by polls for the best actors, then the best actresses, etc., and then gather them all up on their own separate blog pages (see, e.g., the alternate Oscars for the 1910s and the 1920s). The idea was to pick the brains of the movie-knowledgeable crowd that drives by this site from time to time and reach some sort of consensus about all things Oscar.
But my pal Mister Muleboy noted at the ball game the other day that there's a powerful urge to vote for a movie not because you think it's the best picture of the year but because you like the actor in it or want to honor the person who directed it or because Jean Harlow gets nekkid in a rain barrel.
In other words, you need all the categories up and running simultaneously so you can split your vote.
The plan is to serve up one of these a week, on Sunday mornings, I think. If you want to lobby for a movie or nominee before I post an upcoming Oscar year, please do.
Anyway, these are alternate Oscars, not the real ones. I nominate, you choose. For the sake of fomenting revolution, my choices will be noted with a ★. (Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔.)
I encourage you to reveal your choices (and alternate nominees) in the comments section. Alternate Oscar guru Erik Beck of the Boston Becks is more than welcome to provide links to his thoughtful essays on Oscar history and his own Nighthawk Awards. In fact, if you have a blog about the Oscars, let us know about it!
Have at it!
To read previously posted essays about some of the movies and performers from 1930, click the highlighted links: All Quiet On The Western Front, the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, Marlene Dietrich, Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler.
The interesting thing about this is that because you are going just with the original release year, I can't just punch in my own award winners because they often don't match up. Forces me to stop and think about some of these, though not Picture / Director in 1930 because that's so easily All Quiet.
ReplyDeleteForces me to stop and think about some of these
ReplyDeleteEspecially during the early years of the Oscars, with the crazy split year business. For example, Fredric March was eligible for Dr. Jekyll in 1931-32 and Paul Muni for Chain Gang in 1932-33. Now they're bumping up against each other in 1932.
Or how two Oscar winners, Norma Shearer (1929-30) and Marie Dressler (1930-31), wound up in the same year together (1930).
It straightens out a bit after that.
By the way, one thing doing it this way underscores is what a weak year 1929 was American movies. I know 1957, 1939, 1946 and some others are among the best years for movies -- is 1929 the worst, for American movies?
1929 might very well be the worst year. I have seen 58 English language films from 1929 and only three of them earned a rank above *** from me. One of them, A Cottage on Dartmoor, is British. Another one, Queen Kelly, wasn't actually released until 1985. That leaves, as the only film I think is better than just "good" is Frank Borzage's Lucky Star and even that's still only ***.5. It really is just a terrible year for American films.
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