'Isn't That A Daytime Emmy?' 'It Still Counts!'

Last week at the Grammys, producer, Scott Rudin, became the 11th person in history to join the EGOT club. For those of you not familiar, the EGOT stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony- the four major awards in the performing arts profession for television, music, film, and theatre. Rudin joins the ranks of actors, Helen Hayes, Rita Moreno, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, and Whoopi Goldberg, composers, Richard Rodgers, Marvin Hamlisch, and Jonathan Tunick (I don't know who that is either), director, Mike Nichols, and comedian/writer/director, Mel Brooks.

Since I'm always looking ahead, I wondered who is one award away from joining the EGOT ranks. But, the task of looking up every single person who's won awards at 4 different ceremonies over the past decades seemed a little daunting. Luckily, I live in 2012 and have the internet. Let someone else do the work! Thanks, internets! (Seriously, how did people find out anything back in the olden days without Wikipedia?) Because I had some time on my hands after not having to personally do the research, I decided to pursue another one of my loves- list making. I present to you the 10 Most Likely People to Receive the EGOT. Some of the people (and the award they need) may surprise you.

10. Ellen Burstyn, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Vanessa Redgrave, Geoffrey Rush, Maggie Smith What they need: Grammy
So, say you're a respected actor that has the triple crown of acting awards. You're a respected star of stage and screen. But, the odds of you winning a Grammy for Best Pop Song by a Group or Duo aren't looking very likely. How do you win that Grammy? The answer is simple- Best Spoken Word Album. You think Audrey Hepburn and John Gielgud were recording rap albums? Of course not. It's the surefire way for a respected actor to get that Grammy. Any of these six actors would have a great chance of winning if they did. In fact, Ellen Burstyn has been nominated in this category before. Perhaps all six should get together and record a multi-part collection of The Complete Works of Shakespeare so they can get it done in one shot. Perfect.

9. Cynthia Nixon What she needs: Oscar
Nixon is best known for playing Miranda Hobbs on 'Sex and the City' and won an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Emmy Award for it in 2004. She won a second Emmy in 2008 for her guest-starring role on 'Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit'. But, she's just as active on the stage and even appeared in two Broadway shows at the same time in 1984. In 2006, she won a Tony award for her role in the play Rabbit Hole (the role brought Nicole Kidman an Oscar nomination in the film version). She may even win a second Tony this year for MTC's revival of Wit. And what did she win a Grammy for, you ask? Why, you guessed it, Best Spoken Word Album in 2009 for An Inconvenient Truth. So, hard can it be to win an Oscar? Well, it's not the easiest thing (just ask Glenn Close). But, with the right role in an independent film, I could conceivably see Nixon winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Although she's never even been nominated for an Oscar, she's apt at both comedy and drama and is well respected in the industry. People have won with a lot less.

8. Lily Tomlin What she needs: Oscar
This comic was America's favorite lesbian long before Ellen came along (and also before we knew she officially was gay). And thanks to her Emmy nominated work on 'Laugh-In', she became one of the most famous comediennes in history–paving the way for females in the world of comedy. Her comedy album, 'This Is a Recording', won her a Grammy in 1972 and hit #15 on Billboards Hot 100 that year–the highest ranking a solo female comedy album has ever received. She has won 4 Emmys (out of 16 career nominations) for her comedy specials and a Daytime Emmy for voicing Miss Frizz on the animated show 'The Magic School Bus'. In 1986, she won the Best Lead Actress in a Play Tony Award for her one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. She even received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in her film debut, Robert Altman's Nashville. She still appears in film, most notably in Flirting With Disaster, I Heart Huckabee's, and A Prairie Home Companion. If she can garner another role that highlights her quirky charm, she would have a pretty good shot at an Oscar.

7. Robin Williams What he needs: Tony
The Juilliard trained actor/comedian has always tried to balance both the comedy (his 2 Emmys come from comedy specials and his 5 Grammys were awarded for his comedy albums) and the dramatic (his Oscar win was for playing Matt Damon's shrink in 1997's Good Will Hunting) in his work. Last year, he made his Broadway debut in the play A Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and received good reviews. If he continues to pursue roles on stage, and put that Juilliard training to use, he could very well land himself with a Tony for his efforts.

6. Trey Parker and Matt Stone What they need: Oscar
Who would have thought the duo behind a crudely animated show about four foul-mouthed children would be one award away from the EGOT? But the thing about 'South Park' (which has brought them 4 Emmys for Outstanding Animated Program) and Broadway's The Book of Mormon (which brought them 4 Tonys for Best New Musical, Director, Book, and Score and a recent Grammy for Best Musical Show Album) is that along with the off-color humor is a smartness, wit, and, yes, heart that elevates the material. It's never offensive just for shock value- there's always thought behind it. They've been Oscar nominated before in the Best Song category for 'Blame Canada' from the 'South Park' movie. I think they could very easily win an Oscar, especially if a film version of Mormon ever hits the big screen.

Marty, Mary Poppins, Liza with a 'Z' and Number 1, after the jump

Hugo Fails to Inspire

I finally got around to seeing Marty Scorsese's venture into 3-D, family-fun entertainment, Hugo, this past weekend. I was dragging my feet because I just had no interest. I felt similarly about seeing Moneyball. They just felt like a chore. Something you're just not interested in, but everyone says you have to. I was totally wrong about my feelings regarding Moneyball though. I'd hardly call myself a sports fan (um, shocker) and not really into sports movies in general. (Can someone explain why Warrior was so well reviewed? That movie was a giant sports movie cliché.) But, Moneyball found a way to make me engaged in a subject I normally could care less about. I can't say the same for Hugo...

Hugo takes a subject, the early days of filmmaking, that I am interested in, and somehow makes it lackluster.  The only parts of the film that actually did work for me were those scenes that revolved around early cinema. The rest of the story, involving an orphaned Hugo Cabret (played by the blank-faced, Asa Butterfield) living in a Paris train station, seemed disconnected from the story that obviously drew Scorsese to make the film. Everything involving kids and clocks and solving mysteries became tedious. It wasn't fun enough to appeal to childern nor was it smart enough to not bore adults. By the time we got to Georges Méliès, I kept wondering why the entire film hadn't just focused on him and his pioneering work in cinema.

Scorsese loves cinema- no one would question that. I'm just not sure why he so heavy-handedly keeps telling the viewer every other minute how amazing we should find it as well. We're at the movies- there's a good chance we already do feel the same way. The characters won't stop talking about how movies are like dreams while you're awake or something out of your imagination. The last thing I need is to be told that something is magical and enchanting. Show it to me and let me judge for myself. And all of the CGI backgrounds, green screens, and 3-D camerawork felt too cold and manufactured to ever actually produce something that was awe-inspiring. I wish Scorsese had taken more inspiration from those early Georges Méliès films and crafted things by hand with weight and dimension. Too often I think modern filmmaking relies too heavily on the computer, so you're always aware that it's not real. And for a movie that wishes to reach within your imagination, too often the awareness brings you harshly back to reality.