Honorary Oscars 2010

The Academy Governors have announced the winners of this years honorary Oscars.  For the second year in a row, they well be given out in a separate non-televised event.  This year on November 13.  In either a desperate move to cut down the show, or perhaps the perceived lack of interest in seeing old timers accepting non-competitive awards, I still feel shammed in that the general public isn't invited to watch.  However, whatever.  This years selection is:

Irving J. Thalberg Award: Francis Ford Coppola

• Coppola has received 5 competitive Oscars over his career
• 3 for directing, producing and writing The Godfather Part II (1974)
• 1 for producing The Godfather (1970)
• 1 for writing Patton (1970)

 Whatever the motivation to give him a sixth Academy endorsed statute, one must claim that his career is safely coveted into the legendary category.  With The Godfather, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and The Outsiders on a single resume, I'm more than fine with Mr. Coppola receiving another accolade. 

Honorary Oscars:

• Jean Luc-Godard- The French New Wave master was selected even though he's never been acknowledged at the Oscars, not once.  In a selection, perhaps like last year's mention of Roger Korman, it's a nod of paying homage to a career that the AMPAS wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole competitively.  Worthy is an understatement for one the living giants in the international film community, even if I personally am not a great fan of his work in general-- I probably shouldn't have typed that, I feel like the Fellini basher in Annie Hall already.
• Eli Wallach- Superb actor whose also gone unnoticed his entire career in the Academy, despite six decades in the industry in such laudable films as Baby Doll, The Magnificent Seven, How the West Was Won, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and The Misfits.  Still acting with roles in this year's The Ghost Writer, and the upcoming Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
• Kevin Brownlow- British film historian and documentarian.