THE TEN-YEAR LUNCH, YOUNG AT HEART, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE: Oscar’s Docs
by Andre Soares
The Oscar-winning documentaries Young at Heart, The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table, and You Don’t Have to Die will screen on Monday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Linwood Dunn Theater as the final installment of "Oscar’s Docs, Part Three: Academy Award-Winning Documentaries 1977–1988." Oscar-winning producer Sue Marx and executive producer Jennifer Warren will take part in post-screening discussions.
Young at Heart (top photo), the 1987 Documentary Short Subject winner co-produced by Marx, follows the journey of two widowed artists in their mid-eighties who meet on a painting trip and fall in love despite differences in temperament.
(On Marx’s website, there’s a quote by Gregory Peck: "I loved your documentary and that wonderful couple! The Oscar went to the right filmmaker.")
Aviva Slesin’s The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table, the 1987 Documentary Feature winner, revolves around the group of artists and intellectuals — snooty (or brilliant, depending on your take) people like Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Sherwood — who traded quips while stuffing their faces at New York’s Algonquin Hotel during the 1920s.
The Ten-Year Lunch was written by Peter Foges and Mary Jo Kaplan, and it is narrated by Heywood Hale Broun, son of Algonquin Round Table member Heywood Broun. Among the interviewees are playwright and former Round Tabler Marc Connelly and actress Ruth Gordon.
Malcolm Clarke and Bill Guttentag’s You Don’t Have to Die, the 1988 Documentary Short Subject winner executive produced by Warren, tells the story of Jason Gaes, a young cancer survivor who went on to help other children to overcome their fear of the disease.
"Oscar’s Docs" is a comprehensive screening series of every short subject and feature to win the Academy Award for documentary filmmaking since the category was established in 1941.
The series will return in September 2008 with its fourth installment, screening Academy Award-winning documentaries between 1988 and 1998.
Tickets to "Oscar’s Docs" are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID. Tickets are available for purchase online at www.oscars.org, by mail, or at the Academy box office during regular business hours. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved.
The Linwood Dunn Theater is located at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood. Free parking is available through the entrance on Homewood Avenue (one block north of Fountain Avenue). For additional information, visit www.oscars.org/events or call (310) 247-3600.
Photos: New Dimension Films (Young at Heart), Direct Cinema (The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table), Filmworks, Inc., and Tiger Rose Productions (You Don’t Have to Die)
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