Beverly Hills Crybaby

 

I’m not generally the sort of person to engage in gee-whiz celebrity gossip, but two tidbits from IMDB Daily News caught my eye this morning.

1) Eddie Murphy apparently stormed out of the Oscars after losing to Alan Arkin. Way to show good sportsmanship there, amigo. Rest assured that Arkin didn’t deserve the prize… as with Gloria Stuart’s win for Titanic in 1997, and Scorsese’s long-overdue Best Directing Oscar, Arkin is being rewarded in his twilight years for his overall body of work, not the performance for which he was nominated. Arkin didn’t deserve this win, Eddie… but then again, neither did you. As I mentioned before, Ben Affleck got robbed for Hollywoodland.

2) Scorsese says he’s glad he never won an Oscar until now, because it may have changed the way he made the rest of his films. I’m scratching my head over this. The question that comes immediately to mind is: how do we know it still won’t change the way he makes movies? Scorsese’s no spring chicken, but he’s probably got another 10-20 years of moviemaking ahead of him. Do I need to worry that he’s going to begin churning out crowd-pleasing claptrap? If so, take back the silly gold statue and save one of my favorite artists from himself.

-CSJ