My commenters and emailers are pointing out whom AMPAS failed to honor this year. (Please let me know if there are more names.) There’s outrage over missing Patrick McGoohan, so good in Braveheart. Also Eartha Kitt. I think my pals Bernie Brillstein and Guy McElwaine weren’t included. Don LaFontaine, THE voiceover artist on most film promotion, was omitted even though he was also the voice of the Oscars. Not included was George Carlin. And it’s inexplicable why Irv Brecher, one of the movies’ greatest writers and actually nominated for an Oscar (Meet Me in St. Louis) was left off the list. I’m told Irv’s widow was devastated that he wasn’t shown onscreen. After all, he was the only writer to receive sole credit for a Marx Bros movie (At the Circus and Go West.)  He also wrote the screenplay for Bye, Bye, Birdie and Dubarry Was A Lady — not to mention directed Ernie Kovacs in his last movie, and Robert Wagner in his first. How could they not have paid tribute to him? Because he starred in a YouTube video that was instrumental to keeping morale high during last year’s writers strike? And, one of my commenters points out, “It’s interesting that they included film critic Manny Farber this year, although in 1999 they refused to include Gene Siskel despite much lobbying from Roger Ebert. I think at the time they said film critics were not part of the Academy, so it wasn’t appropriate to include him. Was this a one-time exception, or will the ‘In Memoriam’ montage include critics from now on?” (Heath Ledger was prominent in last year’s.)

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.

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