It's awards season. The Oscar nominations came out today. I used to care so much about it and my sister and I would make lists and decide who we thought would win and who we thought should win. Now I don't see as many movies as I used to and so my responses aren't educated anyway, and I don't really care either. I don't think you can really compare performances and say one was better than another (I mean, obviously you can say someone was great but if someone else is great in a different way, how can you say who was greater? I will say, that isn't a great sentence.) For example, in 1962, Gregory Peck won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird". I love that movie, and I think Gregory Peck is pretty good in it, but guess who else was nominated? Jack Lemmon, who played an alcoholic in "Days of Wine and Roses" -- he was terrific -- what a wonderful actor he was! Peter O'Toole, who played T. E. Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia" -- another absolutely wonderful actor and an iconic role for him, too. Marcello Mastroianni, the great Italian star, in a really dark comedy about a guy who decides he has to kill his wife in order to marry another woman, because divorce is illegal in Italy (I don't think that's true nowadays); and my personal favourite, Burt Lancaster, in "Birdman of Alcatraz" -- he was an extraordinary actor and everything he did was so glorious and true and big that no one could hold a candle to him. So how do you choose? They're such different roles -- you get someone playing a scene chewing part like Jack Lemmon going through the delirium tremens of alcoholism, and then the noble character of Lawrence, and the quirky weakling character Mastroianni plays and then two quiet characters, like Atticus or Robert Stroud -- they're all great -- and I'll bet there were other great acting performances that year as well.
Anyway, that's my preamble to the journal topics which are similar for all grades this week.
Senior Drama: Which censorship scene meant the most to you? Explain why. Do you have any suggestions to the group which performed it that might help make it better? Write them down here and then share them with that group.
Drama 9/10: Which playbuilding scene impressed you the most? Explain why.
Drama 8: Which "Creation of the World" scene was the best? Give at least three reasons why.
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