Hack Attack, fw murnau, gold derby, roger ebert, sunrise, tom oneil

'LAT' Oscar Blogger Rehashes 80 Year Old Argument For Reasons No One Quite Understands

The Uwe Boll of Oscar bloggers, Tom O'Neil, is at it again over at Gold Derby, where his idle hands on the slowest of slow news days has him making all kinds of trouble for one of the undisputed classics of American silent cinema. "Undisputed," that is, until today, when O'Neil asked and (regrettably) answered the positively unessential question: What was the real Best Picture Oscar winner of 1927-28?

We at Defamer didn't think we cared — but until you've seen O'Neil having his way with a masterpiece, you might be surprised what piques your interest (spoilers after the jump).

I've seen [Best Production winner] Wings a few times and liked it OK. But now that I've viewed [Best Artistic Picture winner] Sunrise, I must concede: Wings soars by comparison. Sunrise is paper-thin, hilariously schmaltzy. All three primary characters are cartoonish clichés and their performances 3-inch slices of honeyed ham.
Mind you, I'm the kinda guy who'd normally side with the weepie. On my top 10 list of fave pix of all time are Peggy Sue Got Married and Titanic. But I just can't shed a real tear when the farmer in Sunrise decides that he just — by golly! — can't off his sweet, dimpled wifey-pooh, after all. Nor could I cheer the scenes of the couple back together, all giddy smiles and kisses, posing for photos like newlyweds, dancing a happy peasant dance, joyous once he decided not to wring her scrawny little neck and hurl her over the side of the row boat.

What corn pone! Smothered in Cheez Whiz! Wings ain't Shakespeare or Scorsese, mind you, but it's better than that!

"Corn pone"? "Smothered in..." Oh, fuck it. Look, we've all got opinions. O'Neil can cough out whatever he wants. Nevertheless, there are some incontrovertibly great films that got movies as we know them where they are today. The haunting, technically dazzling story-in-the-shadows of a simple man's basic struggle with modernity, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, is one of them. See Roger Ebert's extraordinary review for in-depth reasons why, BUT: Film noir? Thank Sunrise. Psychological horror? Thank Sunrise. Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick, Scorsese? Thank Sunrise. The short-sighted, star-fucking O'Neil could very well be the main character here, which may in fact signal its most objectionable quality to his Titanic-adoring eye.

So why even mention him? Because people actually read this guy — casual fans wind up browsing him and voting in his goddamned polls outlining the "best" of 80 years ago. They don't discuss; they avoid. They don't watch; they ignore. And while we can endure it with our industrial-size grain of salt every Oscar season, Sunrise and you deserve better. So write a letter, start a petition — anything to make him stop. At least until this fall, when it's not about cinema anyway.

Was 'Sunrise' really Oscar's first best picture? [Gold Derby via MCN]

3:30 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
By STV
1,610 views
9 comments

Comments

Malis in Wonderland at 04:56 PM on 04/15/08
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What does this have to do with Lindsay Lohan again?
hughman at 05:20 PM on 04/15/08
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expect a remake of Sunrise soon with vince vaughn and kate hudson.
Colonel Mustard at 05:57 PM on 04/15/08
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Connectedness Index: 301

@hughman: And now they'll finally be able to CGI one really fucking great sunrise for it too, the way it SHOULD have been!
moochia at 06:26 PM on 04/15/08
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I'm glad to say this is the first time I've even heard of O'Neil, so perhaps the situation's not all that dire. And he's wrong, of course, about Sunrise, but one hopes that his amateurish, middle-school level composition skills should indicate to any reader that he is a...ahem...critic who should be taken with many, many grains of salt. Sunrise may seem dated by today's standards, but anyone familiar with any of the standard fare of the time ought to be able to see why it owns its place in the canon of film history.

That being said, The Crowd is even better...certainly better than the terrifically dull and decidedly banal Wings.

OK, kids, class is over. Last one out kill the lights.
LBJeffries at 06:30 PM on 04/15/08
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A Song of Two Humans, though?
Little Mintz Sunshine at 08:10 PM on 04/15/08
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Cone pone smothered in Cheez Whiz and actors you can't hear talk?!? Gosh durn it, things were better in the olden days.
Glass_Family at 08:34 PM on 04/15/08
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@moochia: "The Crowd" IS really great, but it ain't "Sunrise." Janet Gaynor breaks my heart.
Jaguares at 09:50 PM on 04/15/08
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@moochia: Word on "The Crowd." It's surprising how modern it feels. If you watch foreign films, then this will be your style due to the dialogue reading. The scene in the Fair is specially kick ass. Wow, I'd never thought I'd describe a silent film as "kick ass".
Jaguares at 09:53 PM on 04/15/08
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Also, I think the only reason to watch "Wings" is cause of Clara Bow, and she has better films. Plus, "Wings" also has Gary Cooper, who I've never liked, though the man was HOT!