Ninety-Nine-Year-Old Academy Voter Less Than Impressed by The Artist

Moviegoers scratching their heads over this year’s front runner for the Best Picture Oscar have a new heroine. Her name is Connie Sawyer, born when silent movies were all the rage.

She was the focus of a fun sidebar to the fantastic LA Times weekend look at the make-up of AMPAS voter ranks. Reporter Emily Rome caught up with Sawyer at the Motion Picture and Television Country House in Woodland Hills and got this super-senior AMPAS member’s thoughts on The Artist:

The movie was enjoyable enough, she says, but she frankly doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. “Hasn’t anybody seen old films?” Sawyer asked in exasperation. “They’re easy to make and easy to act. All you have to do is overact. I saw a lot of those films in my day.”

You are not alone, Ms. Sawyer. Many people are still trying to figure out why The Artist has been the darling of this year’s awards season. Sawyer, who joined the Academy after a role in the 1959 Frank Capra comedy A Hole in the Head, started out as a stand-up comic… during the Great Depression (!).

To read the full article, click here. There’s also this separate LAT piece about Sawyer’s fellow 101-year-old AMPAS member Arthur Gardner.

[Photo of John Goodman in The Artist courtesy The Weinstein Company]