"MCfan2, I also thought it was interesting that only a year after the diversity board was formed, 3/5 honorees are minorities. That's more minorities than the last 3 years combined. It's also more minorities than the first 10 years combined."
There have been 5 minorities in the last three years: 2012: Buddy Guy 2011: Yo-Yo Ma & Sonny Rollins 2010: Bill T Jones and Oprah Winfrey
During the first 10 years there were 8 minorities 1978: Marian Anderson 1979: Ella Fitzgerald 1980: Leontyne Price 1981: Count Basie 1983: Katherine Dunham 1984: Lena Horne 1986: Ray Charles 1987: Sammy Davis Jr
Francis Ford Coppola hasn't gotten the award. But Clint Eastwood has.
Kind of tells you who they're interested in honoring. It ain't pretty.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
...not sure what you mean, Roscoe. Eastwood is nine years Coppola's senior and also has a much more extensive filmography, because of course one may combine his directing and acting output, not to mention a much longer career with excellent output across decades, arguably better quality work throughout the ups and downs of his longer career's span.
If you're making a point, it's oblique at best and ill-reasoned at least.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
I'd have thought the point was perfectly clear -- that one of America's greatest filmmakers was not being given an award that has gone to several of significantly lesser stature.
When Eastwood makes a film to equal Coppola's THE GODFATHER I and II, APOCALYPSE NOW and THE CONVERSATION, hell will have officially frozen over. Eastwood's a hack director of basic cable movie of the week caliber schlock, like the tedious Violence Is Bad western UNFORGIVEN and the Lifetime Movie Of The Week MILLION DOLLAR BABY, and, fwiw, one of the worst actors alive.
Opinions, folks, we've all got them.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
Nothing wrong with having an opinion. My opinion was simply that by comparing Eastwood and Coppola directly you seemed to be considering Eastwood on his directorial merits only (in which I'd agree with you that Coppola is more deserving) and not factoring in his status as an International Hollywood Icon (and one of the two or three most influential actors in the history of the Western genre) who happened to have a notable and extensive career behind the lens, too.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
Frankly, in order to consider Eastwood on his merits would mean agreeing that he's got any at all to begin with, and well, frankly, beyond an undoubted degree of Minimal Competence behind the camera as a director and an ability to remember his lines as an actor, he hasn't got any.
As for being an Icon, well, if that's all it takes to pick up one of those Kennedy Center awards, then Miley Cyrus is due any day now.
Ugh. Sorry to hijack the thread. These awards things always annoy the hell out of me.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
Hehe, and veering into a threadjack debating the merits of Clint Eastwood's competence (or lack thereof) is certainly at least a 90-degree turn. Just curious if I had missed a point you were trying make initially, but I think we each see where we're going with this. Back to our regularly scheduled program of wondering why Carol Channing was deliberately and violently thumbed in the eye by Caroline Kennedy during the announcements of this year's Honorees. Which was really just unnecessary, when you think about it.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.