Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Birthday Suits: Oscar-Snubbed

Today's birthday list doesn't make me feel celebratory so much as oscarighteously furious. Perhaps I should explain. It's only the four first birthday boys whipping me into a golden frenzy. Then things calm down.

Claude, Ann and Dick

Todays Birthdays 11/10
1889 Claude Rains, never won an Oscar. This despite being a great screen actor, whose filmography reads like a catalogue of Golden Age greatness. He's an actor who made indelible contributions to not 1, not 2 but 7 Best Picture nominees, a number that doesn't even reflect films like Notorious, Now Voyager, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, Mrs. Skeffington or The Greatest Story Ever Told. He didn't even get an honorary statue!
1925 Richard Burton, never won an Oscar. This despite winning exactly as many nominations as Liz Taylor won husbands.
1928 Ennio Moriccone has never won an Oscar. This despite being a world reknowned composer, being worshipped by film fanatics and revolutionizing how people scored Westerns.
1932 Roy Scheider never won an Oscar. This despite giving one of the truly great performances of an entire decade (All That Jazz -- more on that great film) replete with them. And it was a biopic performance no less! All That... plus Jaws and The French Connection.

(whew) officially done bitching about Oscars... for now.

1944 Tim Rice, clever lyricist of movie songs you know and love (or loathe) from their ubiquity
1949 Ann Reinking, sometime actor, great dancer
1955 Roland Emmerich, world (and cinema) destroyer: Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC and 2012. Ugh
1960 Neil Gaiman, prolific brilliant author. Go, Coraline!!!
1977 Brittany Murphy acts "I hope not sporadically"
<--- 1977 Won Bin (or Bin Won if you prefer) actor, gorgeous creature, star of two recent Korean Oscar hopefuls: Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War and this year's buzzy Mother
1978 Eve, rapper, fledgling actress, Hurl Scout
1982 Heather Matarazzo, actress, Anne Hathaway foil, out lesbian, Dawn Wiener
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