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John Bailey

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Filmmaker

The Resume

    (August 10, 1942-November 10, 2023)
    Born in Moberly, Missouri
    Cinematographer for the films ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ (1971), ‘Winter Kills’ (1979), ‘Ordinary People’ (1980), ‘American Gigolo’ (1980), ‘Cat People’ (1982),’That Championship Season’ (1982), ‘The Big Chill’ (1983), ‘Silverado’ (1985), ‘Swimming to Cambodia’ (1987), ‘The Accidental Tourist’ (1988),’A Brief History of Time’ (1991), ‘Groundhog Day’ (1993), ‘In the Line of Fire’ (1993), ‘Nobody’s Fool’ (1994), ’As Good As It Gets’ (1997), ‘The Kid Stays in the Picture’ (2002), ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ (2002), ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ (2005), ‘The Producers’ (2005), ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ (2009), and ‘A Walk in the Woods’ (2015)
    Elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2017)

Why he might be annoying:

    ‘Variety’ editor Peter Bart told Bailey he was the rudest man he had ever met.
    He floated (and withdrew) a controversial proposal to add a new Oscar for ‘Best Popular Film’ (2019).
    He floated (and withdrew) a controversial proposal to no longer have the acting Oscars presented by the previous year’s winners (2019).
    He floated (and withdrew) a controversial proposal to include performances of only two of the five nominees for Best Song in the Oscar telecast (2019).
    He floated (and withdrew) a controversial proposal to present the awards for four categories (cinematography, film editing, live action short film, and makeup and hairstyling) during commercial breaks in the Oscar telecast, then showing the winners’ acceptance speeches later in the program (2019).
    There were complaints that he did a particularly poor job of explaining the last proposal, creating a widespread (albeit mistaken) impression that the four categories were being dropped from the Oscar show completely.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He worked frequently with directors Paul Schrader and Lawrence Kasdan.
    He shared an award for ‘best artistic contribution’ at the Cannes Film Festival with production designer Eiko Ishioka and composer Philp Glass for ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’ (1985).
    He was a jury member at the Venice Film Festival (1987).
    It’s not as if he was coming up with a bunch of changes to the Oscar show on his own – the proposals he presented had been approved by the Academy’s Board of Governors.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 34 Votes: 91.18% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying