March Madness Preview: 1950s Bracket/Babes And Bombshells Division

March Madness Preview: 1950s Bracket/Oscar Faves Division

March Madness Preview: 1950s Bracket/Sweet And Sassy Division

March Madness Preview: 1950s Bracket/Singers And Dancers Division

If You Haven't Already ...

Vote in the alternate Oscars poll for 1927.

As soon as we nail down the last of the pairings for the 2014 Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament, I'll start promoting the matchups—the tourney starts on March 2.

Reader-Voted Alternate Oscars: A Permanent Home

I've created a separate page for reader-voted alternate Oscars, here.

So far, I've only set up votes for 1926 and 1927, but I'll be doing other years eventually, not necessarily in chronological order—maybe I'll do 1939 next. Everybody knows 1939, right?

In the meantime, follow the highlighted link above and scroll down to vote on the films of 1927, a year that includes three contenders for the best silent movie ever made—The General, Metropolis and Sunrise. Oh, and stop along the way to vote for 1926's best director, supporting actor and supporting actress.

The vote never closes, so if you haven't seen all the movies, vote now, and come back later and vote again. Try not to be piggy about stuffing the ballot box, but by all means, participate.

Mini-Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

Maybe the critics aren't as fond as I am of those history lessons Golden Age Hollywood used to serve up—e.g., The Life of Emile Zola, The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Pride of the Yankees—but I thought George Clooney's movie The Monument Men, about the real life efforts to rescue stolen art from the clutches of the Nazis, was a pretty interesting yarn.

Okay, it's not that old Burt Lancaster movie, The Train, which is both a great action picture and a great think piece, but I learned stuff I didn't know, never looked at my watch and didn't feel like I'd wasted my money. As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

With Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, and a bunch of other people.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Galileo Galilei's 450 Birthday

The greatest astronomer ever, Galileo Galilei, was born 450 years ago today. To quote National Geographic, "Discoverer of moons, toppler of Aristotle's physics, and celebrated loser of history's most famous heresy trial, Galileo Galilei's greatest invention, in truth, was our own modern world."

You want to treat yourself to something special? Get yourself a good telescope (I inherited mine from my father-in-law) and look at the Galilean moons of Jupiter sometime. It'll blow your mind if you'll let it.

A New Poll: Alternate Oscars Of 1926

I'm testing out a new polling device ahead of the 2014 Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament which begins in March. To say the Monkey has had trouble with blogger's polling widget in the past would be a polite understatement. So I'll be going with Polldaddy.com this time around.

At the same time, I've been kicking around the notion of creating a permanent poll on a separate page allowing readers to vote on alternate nominees for alternate Oscars. The polls at right are a sample of what you might see on such a page.

If you don't know anything about the movies of 1926, I encourage you to vote anyway. Ignorance has never stopped the Academy, why should it stop you?

A Very, Very Brief Review: My Sister Eileen (1942)

A screwball comedy starring Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair, about two sisters from Columbus, Ohio, one a writer, the other an actress, who move to New York City, figuring if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

Any movie that ends with a cameo from the Three Stooges gets a thumbs-up from me. Russell received her first of four Oscar nomination for this (she never won). Blair is good, too.

3.5 stars out of 5.