Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials...

... Just leave us alone." (Thanks, Mr. Beale. More to follow in a bit)

The Film Editors guild bestowed their Best of 2006 awards this past weekend.
In the musical/comedy category, Dreamgirls took the prize. Surprisingly, there was a tie between The Departed and Babel in the drama category (I had been predicting United 93 but quietly rooting for Casino Royale, which is just another indicator of how wobbly my predictions have been this season). I’m not so sure this award gives either of these movies a better chance at Oscar glory. We’ll see. At least the countdown has begun.

One of the nicest things about TCM’s "31 Days of Oscar" is the chance, while surfing, to check in with many old favorites. Even if you have the title in you own library, there’s something very comforting about dropping in for a few minutes and realizing that, no matter how often we gripe and groan about the winners, Oscar often gets it right, i.e.:
--Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
--Patricia Neal and Melvin Douglas in Hud
--Legends of the Fall and Reds (for cinematography; even cramped onto a TV screen, these are two great-looking movies).

--and, of course, Network. One of my all-time favorites. Maybe Sidney Lumet's finest film. Paddy Chayefsky's too. Anyway, I can't tell you how many times I have seen it but late one night, a week or so ago, TCM had it on. Fifteen minutes, I told myself...I won't even stay with it til Howard's "mad as hell..." just see it get started. Impossible. It's like Casablanca, or Godfather 2, or Psycho or Top Hat .... I'm hooked every time. This is another example of where Oscar got it right: were Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway ever better? (OK, maybe just as good in Sunday Bloody Sunday and Chinatown, respectively). We'll save the Beatrice Straight victory for another post. Still baffles me to this day. (If there was a Best Cameo, then the award was hers for the taking...but..oh well...)

Now, not to quibble, but to qualify for TCM's annual festival, all a movie really needs is a nomination. Even so, the inclusion of The Hawaiians (1971) is a bit of a stretch. This sequel to George Roy Hill’s hugely successful Hawaii, picks up where that one leaves off (and still doesn’t wrap up the Michener novel on which it is based). It had just one nomination for best costume design, which it lost to Cromwell. This is a second-rate potboiler at best, and one of my favorite movies growing up, for all the wrong reasons. The Globes, by the way, gave Tina Chen a nomination which was understandable. She brings a bit of gritty grace to the otherwise over-the-top shenanigans played by Charlton Heston (as Whip Hoxworth, which I think would be a great name for a porn star) and Geraldine Chaplin as his wife, Purity. Yes, that’s right. Anyway, it might be worth a visit, if not for the whole thing, then at least a juicy scene or two.