Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

I am so TICKLED to think WE spend $250,000 per annum to finance an OUR FAVORITE OLD MOVIES LIST! (And of course the movies are getting -- BETTER.)

Multiply this by thousands such stunts and GOD KNOWS how much money our GUVMENT wastes.

And I am NOT going to call the Librarian of Congress a blithering idiot, but something has sprung a leak:

"The registry should not be seen as 'the Kennedy Center Honors,' 'the Academy Awards' or even 'America's Most Beloved Films'...."

But DAMMIT, Dr. Billington, that's what it's become. The "Registry" was willed into being by one of the millionaire Thumbs-Up Twins wanting to flatter himself. And it doesn't even preserve anything -- only THE CONSPIRACY can do that, and outside of George Feltenstein's outstanding work it's still largely ignoring its past.

And since you mention them the Kennedy Center HHonors are a joke to hang a fundraiser on. Here's the list of honorees from 1978: Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein. Okay, a touch of glitz, but every name is a distinguished artist of the highest caliber. Now it's all show-biz types and some second-rank classical musician the TV audience has never heard of. (Hey Mabel! See this guy with the curly hair? Don't he look like Larry the Stooge -- only uglier?) The latest fundraiser became a PR disaster when some simp named Simpson couldn't sing a song (by an HHonoree whose chief distinctions are her whiny voice and her BOOBS). Non-singers notwithstanding this sort of thing has become an embarrassment and a press release. Stop it. We know you won't.

(Via MediaBistro)