Question: I know the Oscar statuettes are about a foot tall and weigh 8 pounds, but what are they made of, and is it true that they got their name because someone said it looked like their Uncle Oscar? That sounds like a made-up story.
Answer: Last part first: The official story is indeed that Margaret Herrick, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' first librarian in 1931 and its executive director from 1943 to 1971 (and for whom the Academy's Los Angeles library, where I've done my share of research, is named), saw one of the statuettes (designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for the first ceremony in 1929) on a desk and exclaimed that it looked just like her Uncle Oscar. Which is sort of alarming in that it implies that her uncle was a bald nudist with a thing for (perhaps compensatory) swords. Many people prefer the slightly ruder version in which Bette Davis sugge
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Question: A while back, I saw a preview for a movie with Johnny Knoxville in which he's confessing to a priest and his confessions are so bad the priest kicks him out of the church. I haven't heard about it since, but would love to know the title.
Answer: I haven't seen the trailer to which you're referring, but Johnny Knoxville has two completed movies kicking around, one awaiting a belated release and the other playing theaters on a regional basis. The Ringer, a broad comedy directed by Barry Blaustein and executive produced by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, stars Knoxville as an all-around failure who comes up with
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Question: As an antique myself, I naturally gravitate to the movies of the '40s, and I've been searching all over for a movie about a county or state fair that included a singer, Mel "the Velvet Fog" Torme, who sang a soliloquy about "Mrs. Perkin's marvelous mincemeat pie that's as pleasing on your stomach as her daughter is on your eye." Please tell me if you can help an old woman reclaim part of her youth.
Answer: I'm not absolutely sure about this one, but I think you might be looking for So Dear to My Heart (1948) a combined live-action/animated film about a farm boy (early Disney child-star Bobby Driscoll), who raises a black lamb in hopes of winning a blue ribbon at the local fair. Mel Torme and Robert Wells wrote a
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