The Honoraries: Danny Glover in "To Sleep With Anger"

We'll be celebrating each of the upcoming Honorary Oscar winners with a few pieces on their career. First up is Danny Glover.

First and foremost, a big fucking congratulations to Danny Glover, whose long, reliable, multi-pronged career is tremendously deserving of the Jean Hersholt Award he will be awarded this year. 2021’s absolutely superb group of Honorary winners makes it all the more fucking absurd these shows aren’t televised, but that’s a whole other tangent. We here at The Film Experience are paying tribute to our favorites among Glover’s remarkable body of work, and when pressed about my favorite of his performances, I immediately went for Charles Burnett’s 1990 feature To Sleep With Anger.

As with Places of the Heart, Glover’s arrival comes just around the fifteen minute mark, by which time we have not only met most of the cast but have gotten acquainted with To Sleep With Anger’s unusual tone...

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The Honoraries: Danny Glover in "Places in the Heart"

We'll be celebrating each of the upcoming Honorary Oscar winners with a few pieces on their career. First up is Danny Glover who turns 75 today. Happy Birthday to a fine American actor!

by Eric Blume

Danny Glover shows up about fifteen minutes into director Robert Benton’s 1984 Oscar winner Places in the Heart, looking dapper and handsome in his worn suit, with an effortless charm that belies his character’s backstory.  He insinuates his way into the life of widowed Edna Spalding (that year’s Best Actress winner, Sally Field) and into the film’s narrative. Sadly he always stays on the sidelines but Glover provides a radiance and a verve that display his burgeoning talent and resourcefulness.

Places in the Heart marked Glover’s first large-scale film role, and he seizes the role of drifter Moses and does everything he can with it...

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The Honorary Oscars are back with a worthy quartet!

by Nathaniel R

After a year off from the Honorary Oscars, thanks to COVID-19, we deserved an awesome list this year and the Academy has provided. This is exactly the type of list we need each year wherein the Academy honors people who haven't already won Oscars but contributed indelibly to film culture. At the next Governor's Awards, which will be on January 15th, 2022 (instead of in its usual November spot) the Honorary Oscar will be given to actors Samuel L Jackson (one previous nomination, Pulp Fiction) and Liv Ullmann (two previous nominations, The Emigrants and Face to Face), and the actress/director/screenwriter Elaine May (two previous nominations for writing for Primary Colors and Heaven Can Wait). If you count honorary prizes this means 89 year old Elaine May will just be an Emmy short of EGOTing since she's already won a Tony (The Waverly Gallery) and a Grammy (An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May)...

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What went right and what went wrong at the 93rd Oscars.

by Nathaniel R

Which Steven Soderbergh film begins with a ton of promise before getting bogged down in the middle due to its relentless seriouness? Which of his films comes chaotically lurching back to messy life near the climax but still can't stick to the landing? I don't have an answer for this question except to say "The 93rd Academy Awards if it counts!"  And should it?

The Soderbergh produced ceremony made good on its intentions to not be like every other Oscar ceremony. Not that that was ever in doubt given the worldwide pandemic that put such a dampening slog on awards season (among other admittedly more serious effects). More satisfying than the arbitrary changes in presentation or category order -- thrilling even -- was the pre-show buzz that this would feel more like a movie which the "opening scene" bore out...

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Mickey @ 100: From "National Velvet" to "The Black Stallion"

Here's Baby Clyde to conclude our brief Mickey Rooney Centennial celebration

Many years ago, as a Golden Age Hollywood obsessed tween, I dragged my poor brother up to London with me so we could stand outside the stage door of the Savoy Theatre. The West End debut of the smash hit Broadway revue Sugar Babies was playing and it starred the legendary Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller ...from actual HOLLYWOOD!!!

As a little kid from a decidedly un-glamourous council estate, who spent all his spare time poring over books about old movies stars, this was too good an opportunity to miss. It didn’t turn out quite as I’d planned. We arrived at the stage door with plenty of time before the show began to find a handful of like minded saddos also waiting. They informed us that Miss Miller was already inside which was of course unfortunate, but Mickey was still to arrive. A little while later he did...

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