Well Deserved Honor

The annual Academy Awards ceremony is something I've become less and less interested in in recent years, despite the fact that I'm an avid follower of cinema. This year, the Academy, in it's inifinite dimmness, decided to make the awards even less relevent by doubling the amount of films nominated for Best Picture. What's the result of this shamelessly commercial descion? Crap like The Blind Side is now a "Best Picture Nominee." People are always suprised when I tell them that I don't watch the Academy Awards, but this year I planned on at the very least watching the intro because Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts intrigued me. Well, now it looks like I'll be sticking around for a bit, at least, because Deadline Hollywood has revealed that a tribute to late filmmaker John Hughes is planned for the evening. Usually a montage runs of all of the industry people who've passed away, but Hughes will get his own segment on the telecast which is expected to involve former cast members from his past films, which, it's worth noting, include both of the hosts (Martin, of course, starred in Planes, Trains & Automobiles and Baldwin played a bit part in She's Having a Baby.)

There are other filmmakers who's work I admire more then Hughes; who was more blessed as a writer then he was as a director; but there's nobody can boast a resume of work that touched me and affected me more then the work of John Hughes. An Oscar night tribue is a well deserved honor. As an aside, there's an interesting write up on Hughes and his work in the new issue of Vanity Fair.