Between the BAFTAs and The Oscars.

Well here we are half way between the BAFTAs and the Oscars – the British Academy Awards and the Academy Awards proper. I say the Academy Awards proper as opposed to the American BAFTAs which is what the Americans say about some of their things.

They described Casualty as the British ER when Casualty was on over here way before ER – it's just something they do, I suppose, thinking that anything on television started over there.

The number one TV show over there is Dancing With the Stars which is a BBC Production (they even produce it) taken from Strictly Come Dancing which is a hit over here.

Their title is better, of course, but 'Strictly' – as they call it here – is taken from a very old popular show on TV called Come Dancing which was a top dancing show for many years over here; it was a competition between professional ballroom dancers. Sometimes there would be solo dancers and sometimes formation. I have to say it was very impressive, even though I hardly watched it, and my parents and most people of their age, then, loved it.

In the 1980s TV series, Edge of Darkness, Joe Don Baker played a CIA agent and would praise to the skies Come Dancing saying what a great show to have on television – yes, by the way, the same Edge of Darkness which was a recent feature film and totally unwatchable.

So next week I will miss the Oscars which was something I really enjoyed; I enjoyed the day with the parties, the pizzas and the razzamatazz.

We lived close enough to the place where the Oscars are held each year to be affected by it and, of course, it took them a week to get the streets ready, so at the moment I can imagine the streets of Hollywood will be blocked off. Hollywood Boulevard itself will be for pedestrians only; it is interesting as you can go and look at the rehearsals they hold in the street.

Not with stars, of course, but with extras; they get out of limos and other extras are in the crowd and cheer them; it's a rehearsal for the cameras and they do as much as they can.

They have tarpaulins in case of rain which very rarely have to be used and they build a bridge across Hollywood Boulevard to use for interviews and camera shots.

All the windows opposite, in the Roosevelt Hotel and other places, are blocked off and there is nowhere you can go on the boulevard to look through windows.

The people you see cheering have tickets to sit in those places and the security is so tight that on the day you cannot walk along Hollywood Blvd without going through security cages and being felt all over by faceless security people.

Hollywood Blvd goes from east to west and so do all the other streets with Boulevard as their tag – Sunset, Melrose and Beverly.

At about eleven-o-clock on the day of the awards, the limos have to line up on Beverly Blvd with the VIPs who are attending the show.

Inside the limos the nominees are being comforted as they sit in the big line of traffic and when they reach Hollywood Blvd they arrive in a pre-ordained order.

I have noticed that the big stars arrive later and the smaller ones and the technical nominees arrive very early; when the limos drop them off they go around the corner to the Highland Centre Parking lot.

When it's all over I should imagine it's a mess of confusion trying to find your limo – one year Steven Spielberg was interviewed holding a load of coats as he waited for both the limo and his wife – just like we've all stood waiting for our women holding bags and coats.

Standing around inside the theatre are people called seat fillers; these are people dressed formally who sit in seats as soon as one of the stars gets up to either present an award, receive one of just goes to the loo.

When I moved there in 1995, I knew someone who had worked on the production side of the awards many times, and he told me about the seat fillers and I tried to get in on it, just for the crac, but I was told they didn't need anybody else.

After the awards there are plenty of parties, plenty of after the awards TV shows and interviews; some of the shows are at the parties (never inside) and the day after, the LA Times is full of the red carpet pictures and Academy Awards stories and the day after that it all stops till the end of the year; that's when all the films, who will be nominated for the following year's Academy Awards, will be released. The reason for this is that the films which come out in the first six months or so of the year are forgotten.

The Iron Lady, for example, was released in the last week of December and some films over the years have been released on December 31^st – the last qualifying day. Sometimes those films only play for one week, to get the qualification in, and are released later.

One film that would have been nominated for Oscars was Bloody Sunday which was a British film but some clever clogs put it on TV in Britain first which disqualified it.

There are Oscar shows in Australia, Britain, Japan, Norway and probably many more but there is only one Oscar show and that's in Hollywood.

This year Billy Crystal will be presenting which means that Jack Nicholson will probably go so he can sit in the front row so Billy can make jokes about him.

The show, the razzamatazz, the people, the paparazzi and everything else is great fun but it doesn't mean anything at all.

The best actor, the best film and everything else is something that cannot be defined. It's only an opinion – I mean how can you compare one acting performance to another. One of the greatest performances by an actor one year was by Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop – he wasn't even nominated!

By the way, the name of the theatre, where the Academy Awards are held, is the Kodak Theatre and the company, Kodak, have just gone into Bankruptcy. They had signed a 20 year sponsorship deal in 2000 and because of their bankruptcy they had hoped to take their name off the theatre; a bankruptcy judge ruled that they could but the owners don't want that to happen; so we shall see what it will be called next year.

The Academy Awards.

I thought I wrote about the Academy Awards last year but not so; so here we go.

To start off if I went out of my front door I could be at The Kodak Theatre, where they have the show and present the awards, in five minutes; walking.

The streets around here will be very busy as Hollywood Boulevard will be blocked off and made into a pedestrian precinct and why they don't make that permanent is beyond me.

They build a bridge across the street to enable ABC Television to put their cameras on and they also interview people on it.

Over the street from the Kodak Theatre is a Belfast type security fence where you have to be searched or patted down just to walk along the street; the footpath is unavailable to pedestrians and the Kodak Theatre is not in view from anywhere across any street or building; it's all be blocked off.

So when people ask me if I go down to watch the arrivals the answer is no.

Now don't get me wrong I really do enjoy the show and I see nothing wrong with it but the winners are not always the best; there will be a big shock if Colin Firth doesn't win for best actor because he has been in the frame from the time he opened his mouth on the first day of shooting The King's Speech; it seems to be a forgone conclusion as it is every year.

The strongest voting block in the Academy are the actors and they will also be the ones to choose the best film.

Everybody is only allowed a vote in their own category and everybody votes for the film and that's why the actors are so powerful.

Let me get one thing out of the way; if anybody tells you they know the winner of any of the Academy Awards they are mistaken. It is the one award where it never leaks out. The reason? Only two people know so if it leaks out the one that did not do the leaking will know the other guy did it – and here in the USA you can't bet on it. In fact I don't think you can get a bet on anywhere after the voting papers have gone in; if you don't believe me and think the winner gets leaked take it up with Price Waterhouse!

I know an actor who lives here, and gets plenty of work, who goes out to Santa Monica on Academy Award day and reads his book in a place where the awards are not on; the rest of us are eating pizza or going to Oscar parties – and there must be thousands of Oscar parties here.

In the afternoon before the show starts it's very hard to park at Rock and Roll Ralphs – the local supermarket – as people are in their buying booze, finger food, pizza, ready made party feast and lashings and lashings of ginger beer. I put that last one in as you can't buy it here but I love it.

Living down the street within eye sight of my balcony is Helen Mirren; on the year she won for The Queen I was in London so didn't see the limo arrive to pick her up; but she goes to loads of award ceremonies and I haven't seen a limo yet. I might have done if I'd been looking through the window I suppose.

Now who is that above?

That is the great Randy Newman; singer songwriter, composer of film music. He is the nephew of Alfred Newman who scored over 200 films; he was nominated for 45 Academy Awards and won 9.

His nephew, Randy, gets nominated nearly every year and never gets nervous because he knows, sometimes, that he doesn't stand a chance; he has been nominated for 19 Academy Awards and won 1; he was the one winner that the orchestra would not drown out for going over his allotted time in his acceptance speech; he looked at them and said “some of these guys sometimes work for me” - he was only kidding, of course, but would you want to upset him?

I have always liked Randy Newman and his songs which I think are very clever; read this from Wikipedia - Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from Newman's own experiences. For example, the 1972 song “Sail Away” is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of “Political Science” is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, “Short People” was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people.

He is nominated this year for the song in Toy Story 3 and was on the radio today being interviewed.

On one of the movies (Air Force One) he scored, the director changed his mind about the music at the last minute and asked Jerry Goldsmith to do the music and he (Newman) was asked today how he felt about such things. I mean it takes a long time to compose, score, arrange and record music for a full length feature film.

He said he accepted it; he said in other departments, such as costumes, the costume designer would approach the director to see if a hat is suitable for one of the characters and the director would be the one to choose with no consultation. It was as if the director - who could be just a few months out of college – was suddenly an expert on hats. He said the rejection of his music was exactly the same!!

I like Randy Newman.

Javier Barden and The Golden Globes.

There he is above: Javier Barden.

Reputedly the new Marlon Brando or more likely the one and only Javier Barden – he's Spanish and it's a Spanish name so the 'J' becomes an aitch so it should sound like Havier!!

Whether you think he's the greatest actor since sliced bread, you've never heard of him or you think he sucks he has, apparently, turned in yet another breathtaking performance in his latest movie Biutiful which has been described as heart wrenching.

So you would think that Señor Barden might be nominated for a Golden Globe?

Not a chance!

Johnny Depp has been nominated for two films that he is in; I have nothing against Johnny Depp but one of the films, The Tourist, in which he starred with Angelina Jole took one of the worst panning by major critics than any film in recent memory.

In fact I have heard that when Angelina Jole was told the film had been nominated and so had she as well as Johnny Depp she burst out laughing.

When you see that people or movies have been nominated for a Golden Globe or that they have won a Golden Globe you will know that it means diddly squat.

So what are The Golden Globes? Well they are organised by The Foreign Press who consist of eighty one journalists who live here and write reviews for their newspapers and magazines that are published in their native countries; they nominate and choose the winners – the SAG Awards and The Academy Awards are chosen by many thousands of people who usually work in the business.

Someone was at a party last week and was introduced to a member of The Foreign Press and as soon as this person was introduced The Foreign Press member blurted out 'but I didn't vote for The Tourist!'

Now to say one award is better than another award is accepting that awards are important and not just publicity stunts but I am saying in the scheme of things these latest nominatios make The Golden Globes look like a joke. People here have always treated them like a joke and not to be taken seriously but in nominating Johnny Depp and Angelina Jole The Foreign Press are presuming that they will attend the awards ceremony which goes out live on television here. In fact that's all it is – a television show.

The Golden Globes has a reputation of being the best party in town so that usually guarantees a good attendance.

Ricky Gervais is introducing the show again this year, I believe, and will probably send the whole thing up the way he did last year.

One of the things all the winners have to do when receiving their award is to thank The Foreign Press – give me a break!

Bugger Bogner - the Oscar goes to . . .

There is a small town on the south coast of England called Bognor Regis; it was, originally, plain old baldy Bognor but King George V went there to convalesce with his wife, Queen Mary, in 1929, and as a result, the King was asked to bestow the Regis (of the King) suffix onto Bognor so since then that is what it has been called.

In the new film, The King's Speech, King George V is admirably played by Michael Gambon and there is a death bed scene in the film when the family gather around his bed to await his death.

There is an apocryphal story about this moment in history and I'm glad to say that the film makers avoided it. It goes like this: someone says to the King something to do with Bognor, something like 'when you're better you can go to Bognor' or 'we'll always have Bognor' and the King is supposed to have replied 'Bugger Bognor' and died making those his last words. I saw the film last night and when the moment came I couldn't help but whisper to my wife 'Bugger Bognor.'

The film itself, The King's Speech, is absolutely wonderful; I won't be surprised if it wins Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards in February.

The performances are first class with one exception; Timothy Spall is totally miscast as Winston Churchill. He is never what you might call bad but he is on a hiding to nothing being miscast as he is not Winston Churchill by any stretch of the imagination.

There are other well known people of the day with Helena Bonham-Carter playing Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Claire Bloom playing George V's wife Queen Mary but two performances stand out and they are Colin Firth as George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist Lionel Logue; they both deserve to win for best actor and that might be a problem.

If they are both nominated for best actor they could cancel each other out. However, if Colin Firth is nominated for best and Geoffrey Rush for best supporting they could get both – plus the film getting best picture.

King George VI had a very bad stammer and the King's speech in the title refers to two things: his speech in general and the speech he had to give to the nation on the advent of World War II in 1939.

The King's stammer seemed to be on nearly every letter; he had problems with his p, m, k and d sounds and others too and he is helped by an actor (Rush) who discovered, without any qualifications and letters after his name, that he had a gift for helping people with their speech defects.

As an actor he would because when you go to drama school half of the time you are studying speech.

In Hollywood at the moment people have on their CV that they trained with so and so in cold reading classes, commercial audition classes and all the other part time stuff but at drama school, when I went, we studied for three years full time speech and drama from 10:00am to 4:00pm every day.

We messed around, of course, like any other students and laughed through the lessons when we were trying to strengthen our diaphragms; we laughed at the fact that we took breathing lessons when we had been breathing all our lives and we had more fun when we had to try and touch the ceiling with a very big stretch and then let go letting our arms fall almost touching the floor – but we did it.

We would all chant par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo, par pay pee paw poo; I italicized the ones you have to stress – try it.

The other thing we would do is; 'one by one they went away' – in one breath going on to 'one by one and two by two and three by three' all the way to ten in one breath. It was great fun but it gave us breath control.

We would do tongue twisters like Tiptoe Tommy Turned a Turk for Tuppence and lots of others to help our diction.

At the end of it the fun we could do long Shakespeare speeches and the like with a lot of confidence; it didn't mean that none of us were physically sick before going on stage and didn't give any of us talent, where it didn't exist, but it helped our instrument; the instrument we had to play was our bodies – not just our voices but our bodies.

In our year at drama school there were about 30 students and only a few of us stuck it out as actors; a lot of the others were very sensible and went into speech therapy and successful careers.

I'm not saying speech therapy comes easy to actors but it is a kind of second nature; some of the techniques that the Geoffrey Rush character used in the film I had already worked out. For instance I have never heard anybody singing with a stammer or when they are really angry or losing their tempers.

When the King would swear he didn't stammer; he could say the 'f' word and the 's' word and all the others and this was part of his therapy.

I have never tried to help anybody with a stammer but I have helped someone eliminate a lisp; that was all down to the placement of the tongue. It was the same technique as in the film – repetition and tongue exercises.

I had a very slight stammer when I first went to drama school; I was suddenly thrust into an environment of people with great self confidence; sometimes I couldn't get a word in edgewise and nobody seemed to listen; I got to realise that there was some kind of panic in my throat and my chest as if I needed to cough but couldn't - then for some reason I started to tell jokes.

I would go around like a comedian looking for a stage taking my hat off, putting my hand out and cracking a gag. Then I would walk away; people must have thought I was crazy; but my stammer went!

So when I watched the King's Speech last night I could feel empathy for him because Colin Firth was so good.

Look for King George VI on You Tube and you will hear him give the speech and when you see the film you will know that Colin Firth was spot on – play it and you'll see what I mean.

One of the most important things about the film is the F-bomb; in the therapy it is used as the King didn't stammer when saying it; then as he is trying to get through the famous speech in rehearsal he goes through the emotions he feels by singing some of the speech to the tune of Swanee River or the Camptown Races and then in another part of the speech he has to say 'fuck fuck fuck' and there is a wonderful moment in the actual speech at the BBC when he pauses slightly, and he can't use the same help but has to think it; he looks for help to Geoffrey Rush on the other side of the microphone who mouths ' fuck fuck fuck' and the King carries on.

Some of the most extraordinary shots in the film are the long close ups on Colin Firth and how he is able to hold your attention through them; it was a technique the director in Colin Firth's previous film, A Single Man, used last year which worked very well. I wonder of the director of The King's Speech was inspired by the previous film?

Apparently The King's Speech got an 'R' rating because it used one fuck too many.

The only people who would be offended by this would be the archetypal 'disgusted' from Tunbridge Wells – or Royal Tunbridge Wells as it has become just like Bognor; well bugger Tunbridge Wells and bugger Bognor!

The Academy Awards

Well there's the view (above) from our apartment of Runyon Canyon; you can see what the weather is like here and it's the same ten minutes walk away to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood where today they are holding the Academy Awards.

So the whole world can see what the weather is like here – our kids in England can see as they bask in the cold there.

At the moment the red carpet is on wall to wall television and each star is being interviewed by all the TV stations. As I sit here typing this at 5.22 pm I can hear the multitude of helicopters hovering above sending pictures out to the rest of the world.

Elsewhere in Hollywood streets are blocked off as thousands of limos – some stretch and some not – are welcomed to the show; a lot of them are arriving in SUVs and to try and negotiate the streets just to get home is a pain; but I can stand it as it's only once a year.

The limos have been 'on the road' for many hours as they have to be guided to Hollywood and each has to arrive at a certain time. Then they go through a security system but before he went through the system George Clooney jumped out of his limo and walked along Hollywood to meet the fans and I'm sure they were delighted. He didn't just give them a quick hello he really stayed. There was so much fencing between him and the fans it reminded me of when I was in Belfast 35 years ago.

I've only known one person who actually went to the awards in a limo and she had to start out at 11.00 am and wait in the limo line on Beverly Boulevard; in the limo they had drinks and snacks.

The other person I knew who went was Julian Fellowes who won the Academy Award for writing Gosford Park and he told me he was surprised when he won as he thought the winners were, somehow, informed.

There are only two people who actually know the results at the moment and if it ever leaked out everybody would know where the information came from.

This is the one big event in America that the rest of the world take notice of; the super bowl, the basket ball play games, the so called World Series, The Golden Globes or whatever you can think of mean nothing to the rest of the world but the occasion today does.

On Thursday night The Roosevelt Hotel held a roof top party and today we have a notice on the front door of our building to tell us where we can complain about the noise – which I didn't hear by the way – and it seems to me that the people who would complain would be those who didn't get an invitation.

It's the same with movie shoots; there is a campaign to try and bring movies and TV productions back to Hollywood as over the last few years run away production has taken them off to far away places with strange sounding names – like New Mexico which gives a really good tax incentive.

But can you blame them shooting movies elsewhere when people complain here if you shoot in their street – just like the people complaining about the noise from The Roosevelt Hotel and the fact that for one week in their miserable lives they have to make a few detours around the streets.

Anyway on with the Academy Awards which start at 5.30 – I have my Guinness ready and the oven is cooking dinner timed to be ready for when the awards end.