Final Word from Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Sex workers got unusual recognition with the awarding of five Oscars on Sun. to Anora, but all the praise for the film and its subject matter also raised the question of why Gene Hackman - who was found dead last week - got the 1992 best-supporting Oscar for playing mean ole Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett in Unforgiven and the actress playing the whore Delilah didn't. Delilah's the one who made the whole story possible by giggling about a customer's teensy little pecker, but she didn't even get a horse. True, in today's politically correct world she'd be banned from the Oscars for penis-shaming, but then so would Gene Hackman's character for running villains and other undesirables out of his town. It today's environment, Little Bill looks like a politician from AfD in Germany or SPD in the Czech Republic who wants to send migrants packing. Nearly every film review refers to Little Bill as being corrupt, but was he really? In Anora the moral questions are so easy, because the bad guys are the Russians. [ Czech Republic Clint Eastwood Academy Awards movie picture actor actress Anna Levine Thomson Fitzgerald ]