"68"

Fifty years ago saw the beginning of a transformative year for our country and the world. Even at the tender age of nine, I could sense the tumult all around me. It was both bewildering and exciting.

As film apes life, rain is inevitable in the cinema. Wet weather has driven plot, established a range of moods, and symbolically drenched countless spurned lovers and star-crossed suitors in untold romantic comedies. Thrillers and horror films use dark weather to cultivate a sense of dread – though if you’re going to get murdered, it would be much better to face your doom on a sandy beach, holding a Mai Tai.

I love Steve McQueen, and I know I'm not alone. For me, it’s impossible to separate the "King of Cool" from his passion for anything with wheels, excepting wheelchairs and tricycles. 1968's "Bullitt" showed us what he could do in a souped-up Mustang. And five years prior, he displayed his motorcycle-riding prowess in the classic get-out-of-prison war film, "The Great Escape.”

I was captivated by last year’s smash hit “Frozen,” not only for its stunning animation and catchy songs, but for its story, which featured female characters in primary, heroic roles. It is a story about women, in fact… the men are almost incidental.

We all make mistakes. From leisure suits in the ‘70s, to “hypercolor” clothing in the ‘80s, to rat tail haircuts anytime, we Americans are notorious for making choices that seemed like good ideas at the time. Despite our less-than-stellar judgment, we tend to demand more of our finest institutions. In particular, we expect our most prestigious award-givers to choose the right winners. Is that too much to ask? Take the Academy Awards (please!). Today, we thought it might be fun to go back through history and point out the most obvious mistakes in the history of the Oscars. Focusing on past recipients of the three major awards (Best Picture, Actor and Actress), we’ll identify the times when Oscar really fell down on the job. And, sad to say, it’s happened more than once.

Consummate actor Jack Lemmon had a habit of saying to himself before every take: “It’s magic time.” This may strike some people as mildly eccentric, but I would remind them that magic is precisely what he went on to create.