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Oscars Retrospective: Tom Jones (36th Academy Awards Review)

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Tom Jones Suite~Tom Jones - John Addison           I have to give the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences points on this one for originality. Tom Jones is probably the single most bizarre and against-type movie to have ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. We’ve seen 35 of these movies made so far and usually they’ve been big romances, sweeping epics, experimentations with new sound systems, Westerns, war dramas, character studies of alcoholics, societal satires, blue-collar fairy tales, heartwarming comedies and Biblical epics. Reaching into the future, they would bestow their greatness upon more of the same as well as adding some Mafia dramas, white man’s burden/guilt, period pieces, biopics and fantasy films. A dry screwball comedy set in medieval Britain though? Yeah, that’s a unique one.           Tom Jones is based upon a comedic novel called The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749) and is about the...
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Success or Snub? Tom Jones (36th Academy Awards Review Pt. 2)

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To see part 1, click here . The Great Escape Suite~The Great Escape - Elmer Bernstein           On November 22nd, 1963, Americans everywhere shared in a legendary bout of generational trauma when the inspirational, charismatic and Hollywood-handsome President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, leaving the country in the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson, while initially very popular (mainly because of his shameless use of Kennedy’s ghost for political purposes), would turn out to be much meaner, sleazier and seemed like more of the old guard that didn’t have the best interest of the youth in mind (and, in fact, may have even had something to do with Kennedy’s death himself). Civil rights activists especially recoiled since a Southerner was in the White House at a time when the civil rights movement was coming to a head. Faced with skepticism and grief at the loss of the most beloved President since Franklin Roosevelt, the young baby boome...
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