Filmanthropy can be one of a number of things - helping those less fortunate to make films, helping in the preservation of the films and screening classic films for others. While this makes me realize that I am a filmanthropist in more ways than one, Variety has a great little report on some bigger named filmanthropists and their ventures.

My favorite filmanthropist on their list? Martin Scorsese:

Sometime in the late 1980s, Martin Scorsese learned that more than 75% of silent films had either deteriorated or disappeared completely. “It was even more disturbing to realize that 50% of all films made in America before 1950, sound and silent, were gone.”

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Social Action and Cinema YouTube Videos of the Day:

1) Media That Matters : The Farm Sanctuary

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here >>>

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Sydney Pollack passed away yesterday of cancer. The 73 year old director, actor and writer has been making us think and smile since he first started directed TV episodes and went on to make The Slender Thread in 1965. Beyond his films and performances, Syndey was also active in the world, specifically as an advocate of artists’ rights and for dreams of an old Hollywood:

He added that he was motivated by two factors: “First, I have to satisfy the needs of popular art. Second, I don’t want to be intellectually insulting. I want to raise issues and questions that are sufficiently intriguing — so people I care about will like them, too.” [Washington Post]

For Pollack’s rich filmography, some great videos and more on his work as an activist click HERE >>>

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Part of the fun of watching the Oscars every year is listening to the speeches and hoping for words of wisdom, inspiration and of course words that make us laugh from some of most talented folks in the industry.

Below are my Top 5 Oscar Speeches from last night that made the 3+ hour show worth it.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor for There Will Be Blood : It should be said that I have long been a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis, but that aside, his acceptable speech last night had all the elements - he started off with a simple joke, inspired us with his carefully crafted tribute to the great Paul Thomas Anderson, and then touched our hearts with the thanks he gave his co-stars and his family - all the while keeping calm and not rambling.

And that’s the closest I’ll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you.

My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town. I’m looking at this gorgeous thing you’ve given me and I’m thinking back to the first devilish whisper of an idea that came to him and everything since and it seems to me that this sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson.

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