On Golden Stars: Was Mirren Being Snarky?

"My sister told me all kids love to get gold stars -- this is the biggest and best gold star I’ve ever had in my life," Helen Mirren said as she accepted her Oscar statuette Sunday night.

Was this some sort of shout-out or allusion to fellow nominee Judi Dench? Could she have been rubbing it in that she won, or sending a subtle "you were great, too" message to a friend?

The reason I say this is because "gold stars" play a role in Dench's movie Notes On A Scandal. Whenever her character, Barbara Covett, has a particularly juicy entry, she puts a gold star (or two, or three, or four) next to it in her diary, a way of marking the pages she finds most devious and thrilling. (I allude to this in this note on a movie.)

Was Helen sending a subtle shout-out or was she being snarky?

Or am I reading too much into this?

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Go to this website. Click "Trailer and Clips." Go to the last video on the list, Gold Star Day, and enjoy Dame Judi Dench in a deliciously revealing clip. It's a great clip, despite the mistake noted below. (It's worth taking the trouble to find; make sure you click "next" in the trailer and clips section so you can find the final clip, which is Gold Star Day.)

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From www.moviemistakes.com:

"There's a scene where Barbara Covett is writing in her journal and the voice-over refers to it as 'A Gold Star Day,' and we see a close-up shot of Barbara's index finger pasting a gold star on the page of her journal; her fingernail is unpolished and just a bit grimy. In the next shot, we see Barbara still writing in her journal but now her nails are polished pink. "

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