Fun Monday Awards Show

It's awards season in filmland so our topic for this week's Fun Monday is right in line. Our host this week is the very clever Sayre over at Sayre Smiles . Sayre's giving us the chance to hand out our own film awards instead of listening to the critics. The only hitch is that our awards have to be for the films that we actually OWN. Nice twist, Sayre!

My DVD collection is quite modest as you can see from this photo (embiggen to read all the titles). That's for a couple of reasons. My TV is circa early 1990s so I have no recording or playback capabilities. Mostly though, I rely on Netflix rentals for my significant film addiction. Those I prefer to watch on the computer. The titles you see here are for films that I watch over and over to the point of having multiple copies of some.

Here are my awards by category:

North and South, the BBC mini series based on Elizabeth Gaskell's novel set in England at the start of the mid-1800s Industrial Revolution, gets my awards for: Best Picture, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Yes, I love everything about this series:

Best Picture -- a compelling love story that plays out between two principled people who must overcome prejudices of place and social class to find happiness together. Along the way we get a fascinating glimpse of how lives were changed, for better and worse, by the industrial revolution.

Best Actor -- Richard Armitage as John Thornton the powerful self-made cotton manufacturer in Milton, a northern England mill town. Armitage owned this part in all it's complexities.

Best Actress -- Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret Hale, the proud daughter of a southern parson who is forced to follow her father to Milton to live when he leaves the church. Hale is magnificant as the priviledged daughter of the south who soon sides with the poor workers in Thornton's mill while reluctantly falling in love with Thornton.

Best Supporting Actor -- Brendan Coyle as Nicholas Higgins, a firebrand union organizer who fights Thornton and befriends Margaret. He eventually smooths the way for Thornton and Margaret to work out their differences.

Best Supporting Actress -- Sinead Cusack as Hannah Thornton,the fiercely proud and stern mother of John Thornton. Hannah Thornton tries to protect her son from losing the mill and from loving Margaret Hale, whom she does not think worthy of her son.

Here's a brief trailer for the film so you can see why it has won so many of my awards:



Best Group -- goes to The Complete Jane Austen. I'm learning that most people aren't on the fence when it comes to Jane Austen novels or films made from her novels. It's either love or hate. My good friend Kittyhawk swears that she would rather be waterboarded than read Jane Austen! I, on the other hand, read and re-read her novels like modern day page turners. If forced, I'd rank Persuasion, her bittersweet tale of love lost and found, at the top of the list. Next would be Pride and Prejudice for the epic battle between the proud Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Sense and Sensibility is a favorite for its portrayal of two sisters' disappointments in love when they lose their wealth and position in society. Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey sheds light on how lonely it must have been for children who are forced to live with prosperous family--tales of outside looking in. Emma is my least favorite novel and film because I don't care for the Emma character very much, nor her silly associates. Nevertheless, I need it in the collection.


Best Score -- goes to the 1980 version of The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond in the lead. Neil played the son of an orthodox Jewish cantor who must defy his father (Lawrence Olivier)in order to pursue his dream of being a pop singer. This was the first VHS tape that I bought. In the 1980s, like many other people (okay, women)I was wild about his music. I even slept on the sidewalk overnight in line at the box office for tickets to a Neil Diamond concert in Lexington. I wore my friends out going to this movie and then bought the VHS tape. All the music from the movie was great--from the Jewish cants and folk songs to his pop songs, but the favorite is still Hello Again:




Well, this awards show has, I fear, run way over time! Be sure and check out Sayre's Fun Monday list for other awards ceremonies.

(Image credit: John and Margaret -www.fanpop.com)