Oversight Marathon Awards Part 1



It is four days into October, so you know what that means.  It’s time to award the best and worst of the Oversight Marathon.  This is the awards show to end all awards shows.  That’s likely due to it being written, and being more boring than watching the Academy Awards.  What can I say?  I’m talented like that.  Let’s get the show started.  No more dilly-dallying.

I’m going to start this marathon’s awards with the easiest big award to give out.  There are no runners up because the winner was so clearly the winner that I considered nobody else.  This is the award for Worst Actress, and it goes to Sofia Coppola.  Before you ask why it was so simple, go watch The Godfather Part 3 again.  She’s terrible, especially compared to all of the other actresses in this marathon.  Not to mention that her face irritated me through the entire movie.  Sofia Coppola, worst actress of the Oversight Marathon.

The worst actor of the Oversight Marathon was tougher to determine.  Most of the actors in the marathon were good, if not great.  You could argue that the winner of this award and the single runner up were also good, but they were the two noticeable lesser performances, to me.  The runner up for this marathon’s worst actor award is Kevin Spacey.  His performance in The Usual Suspects seemed over the top, and the mannerisms were forced.  It rubbed me the wrong way.  He did not win, however.  The winning, or losing depending on perspective, performance in this marathon was by Richard Gere in Chicago.  This is not to say that he gave a bad performance.  It might be my favourite, or second favourite, performance from the man.  The problem is that he couldn’t really hold his own amid the very good or great performances surrounding him.  Sorry, Richard Gere, but you get this award.

The third award of the night is for the most influential movie of the marathon.  Let’s get through the runners up first.  The Great Train Robbery is one of the first movies to get attention.  It used new camera movements.  But it didn’t get the award.  E.T. inspired many a child, at the time, to want to make videos or movies.  It gave people that creative spark.  It directly caused MAC and Me to be made.  It did not win the award.  King Kong helped to kick off the insanely large monster movie craze.  I don’t mean Wolf man, Dracula, or the such.  I mean Godzilla, Mothra and those guys.  King Kong also spawned two remakes, a crossover with Godzilla, possibly the game Rampage, and helped create the whole “scream queen” thing.  Still, this does not win the award.  Easily taking the award is The Jazz Singer, which helped to usher in the era of the talkies.  How could it not win?  That’s one of the most important steps forward in cinema history.  It’s like introducing colour to the movies.  Congratulations, The Jazz Singer.

Now it’s time for some rapidfire awards before we get to the final award of this half of the awards.  Here we go:

The Canucker – King Kong for having Fay Wray
The Award for Blatant Racism – The Birth of a Nation
Best Living Being Not of Earthly Origins – E.T.
Best Use of Food – Reese’s Pieces in E.T.
Best Stunt – Throwing an obvious dummy off of the train in The Great Train Robbery
Best Theme – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Okay.  Now it’s time for the final award of this half of the Oversight Marathon Awards.  This is the award for Worst Movie.  There was a clear winner.  Remember that none of these movies are outright bad.  There are some I liked less than others, and those are the ones that were runners up and the winner of this award.  The runners up are The Usual Suspects and King Kong.  Not much to say there, except that I was disappointed.  The winner of Worst Movie of the Oversight Marathon is the movie The Birth of a Nation.  There is so much negative to that film that it has to be here, even if I can see potential within it.  It destroys itself.  That’s how it is the worst movie.

Stay tuned when I return with part 2 of the Oversight Marathon Awards where you learn about what I thought were the bests of the marathon.  Until then, I am your host, and I am out of here.

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