Comments on: Oscar madness!

By: Richard Harland Smith

Richard Harland Smith — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:42:33 +0000

Yes, indeed, the point has been made – I stand corrected and happy to be corrected!

By: Chris Tate

Chris Tate — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:35:40 +0000

I’m sure someone else has pointed this out but, they hand out Hugos for more than novels. They have two Best Dramatic Presentation awards, one for long form(movies), another for short form(short films and television episodes)as well as awards for shorter length fiction, non-fiction, fanzines and what not.

By: Al Lowe

Al Lowe — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:36:12 +0000

How about the Sarah Siddons Awards?

What is really unique about these theatrical awards is how the whole thing came about.

That great witty movie ALL ABOUT EVE opens with and concludes with the Sarah Siddons Awards ceremony and the rest of the movie is told in flashbacks.
But the Sarah Siddons Awards never really existed. Writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz made it up for the 1950 movie, which, incidentally, won the Best Picture honor that year.
That didn’t stop Chicago. In 1952, a Sarah Siddons Society was formed in that city. An award was first given out in 1953 to Helen Hayes for her performance in the play MRS. McTHING. The society gives out scholarships and sponsors theater/dinner gatherings and also gives out the Sarah Siddons Award for outstanding performance in a Chicago theatrical production.
Sarah Siddons, by the way, was a British actress, who lived from 1775 to 1831 and was best known for her portrayal of Lady MacBeth.

I guess the moral is: Never underestimate the power of the movies.

By: Carol Witt

Carol Witt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:17:36 +0000

Oops, the Short Form should read “under 90 minutes”.

By: Carol Witt

Carol Witt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:16:42 +0000

The Hugo Awards have a category for Best Dramatic Presentation: actually, since 2003, they have two, both Long (90+ minutes) and Short (90 minutes) Forms. The winners for 2009 were WALL-E and Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to view the winners by category on the Hugo site, but Wikipedia has a list of winners and nominees — including of Retro Hugos — at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Dramatic_Presentation (it has links to the pages for the awards once they were split).

Perhaps a post discussing some of the Hugo Award winners and nominees will be in order when the 2010 Awards are awarded in early September.

By: Peter Nellhaus

Peter Nellhaus — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:14:03 +0000

As far as industry awards go, I’m much more intrigues by the Cesar awards for French films, and the Hong Kong Film Awards. Katheryn Bigelow has nothing on Ann Hui, last year’s winner for best director, and a nominee again next year. In Hollywood, it’s considered novel for a woman to be nominated for best director, while in Hong Kong, Ann Hui and Sylvia Chang are usually in the running.

By: Tim Lucas

Tim Lucas — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:22:50 +0000

No, I don’t have the AVN Award yet, you nut, but I’m working on it! ; – )