2010 Academy Awards Thread

[Spinal]

You skipped Amadeus sucka.

[Pop Trash]

Unforgiven deserved it IMO.

Indeed. I'd say Schindler's List and Silence of the Lambs as well.

[Boner M]

Midnight Cowboy too.

[ledfloyd]

haven't seen amadeus or midnight cowboy. i like silence of the lambs enough. i don't really care for unforgiven or schindler's list. though unforgiven is better than alot of other winners.

glad i haven't caught any flak for leaving out shakespeare in love.

[Spinal]

glad i haven't caught any flak for leaving out shakespeare in love.

It didn't deserve to win, but it's better than the film everybody was expecting.

[MadMan]

Look, I stopped really giving a shit when Chicago won Best Picture. I was very surprised actually that No Country For Old Men won, considering that the Coens had gotten the shaft before.

[BuffaloWilder]

I don't claim to be an expert on cinematography, but Avatar for best cinematography? Really? I think this brings about the question of whether CG/animated films and live-action should be considered alongside each other for the same nomination.

It works by usually the same basic principles, except that you're building from the ground up inside a computer instead of shooting live on-locations.

As for Best Picture, it's a real toss-up between District 9 and The Hurt Locker, although I think my interests lie most with the latter, if only by a little bit. Not one but two tried-and-true action films nominated? Three, if you count Avatar?

Am I in bizarro world?

[Beau]

Avatar is probably going to win.

Sorry, y'all.

[Skitch]

I don't think Avatar will best pic or director. The Oscars are politics, and Cameron has already got his. Which is why Bullock will probably get best actress.

I think it would be better to let em sit a year. Then every year we have the Oscars for year or two previous. Let's some time for films to really sink in. Sometimes it seems like the Academy is "blown away" by a pic that doesn't hold up.

I'm still surprised Beautiful Mind won. Again, politics.

[Raiders]

Midnight Cowboy too.

For undeserving winners? Indeed.

[Spinal]

Sandra Bullock ... Best Actress?

What's next? Julia Roberts? :|

[Watashi]

Sandra Bullock ... Best Actress?

What's next? Julia Roberts? :|

Is this a trick question?

[MadMan]

Oh and if Avatar wins, that means a sci-fi action movie finally won Best Picture. Even though far superior ones have been made over the years, including (funny enough) District 9, which is also nominated this year.

[Skitch]

Sandra Bullock ... Best Actress?

What's next? Julia Roberts? :|

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't vote for her, I'm just guessing she will win, based on Hollywood politics. I want to be clear on this. Lol

[balmakboor]

Since I started watching the Oscars in 1978, I can only think of a handful of times where they totally fucked up with best picture. By fucked up, I mean the movie was unworthy of the honor and was significantly inferior to the other nomimees.

For example, I don't think Slumdog was a worthy winner, but the other nominees all had their problems as well. I would've been happier with either Milk or Button, but I wasn't heartbroken or anything.

The fucked up winners for me were:

2006 - Crash
2003 - Chicago
2002 - A Beautiful Mind
1997 - The English Patient

I'm tempted to mention two others although they may not quite fit my criteria:

1983 - Gandhi
1982 - Chariots of Fire

As impressive as it is in many ways, I really think Gandhi is a deeply flawed and disappointingly by the numbers biopic that gave me no insight into the man beyond what I could read in an encyclopedia. That was actually the year for me that I lost faith in the Academy. Gandhi to me was tone deaf while E.T. was fucking Mozart.

I won an Oscar poll by predicting Chariots of Fire, but I wasn't happy about its win. We've since learned that director Hugh Hudson was a sub-hack and that over-edited, gloopy mess of a movie is only remembered now for a scene of guys running on a beach to Vangelis. (Hell, that's about the only way it was remembered in 1982.) Raiders of the Lost Ark is the definition of classic and Reds is a flawed but fascinating bit of historical epic filmmaking -- basically Warren Beatty trying to be Woody Allen and mostly succeeding.

But, the movie that would've gotten my vote then and now is Atlantic City. If I ever put together a list of movies nominated for best picture that have never received the high praise they deserve, it might top my list.

[Fezzik]

As impressive as it is in many ways, I really think Gandhi is a deeply flawed and disappointingly by the numbers biopic that gave me no insight into the man beyond what I could read in an encyclopedia. That was actually the year for me that I lost faith in the Academy. Gandhi to me was tone deaf while E.T. was fucking Mozart.

ritch:

I am SO glad I am not the only one who feels this way. For as much money as it made, and how beloved it was at the time, I find that E.T. is now criminally underrated (maybe "dismissed" is a better word here?).

In talking to people I know who are into movies, the film just isn't held in that high a regard, and that attitude seems prevalent in a lot of what I've read, as well. I just don't understand it. To me, its still Spielberg's most touching, emotionally wonderful film.

[Ezee E]

I'd say I probably started actively watching, and being interested in the Oscars at around '94. The only one that surprised me with its wins were Shakespeare in Love and Crash (albeit just a little). Out of what was nominated, I never really had a problem with the winners either, except I thought there was no way that Shakespeare in Love could be better than Saving Private Ryan.

I still don't know.

[Arthur Seaton]

And I really liked The Hurt Locker, Precious (why the hate, Match-Cut?),

Because it's so far over the top?

[baby doll]

Because it's so far over the top?

Why is that necessarily a bad thing, even in a film that purports to be realistic? Its story is definitely extreme, but it didn't seem to me completely outside the realm of possibility.

[baby doll]

As far as the Oscars historically screwing the pooch, I've seen all the winners since 1998, and I liked Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and even Crash when I saw them, but they're so mediocre I can barely remember them now. Gladiator, Million Dollar Baby, The Departed, and Slumdog Millionaire sucked. No Country for Old Men is a good film, but it's far from the Coens' best work (I prefer Blood Simple, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man). It won because it was an adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel, was utterly humorless, and presented a view of the world that was comfortingly pessimistic, and therefore had "prestige." It was also a revisionist western, so it had the air of telling us something new about the world while really telling us old about the movies (i.e., in the movies, the good guy always wins, but in real life, that's not always the case--never-mind that things in real life are rarely so clear cut as they are in the film). It's more accomplished as storytelling than Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, but it's every bit as pretentious.

[Spaceman Spiff]

It's more accomplished as storytelling than Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, but it's every bit as pretentious.

What?

[baby doll]

What?

That's right.

it [has] the air of telling us something new about the world while really telling us old about the movies (i.e., in the movies, the good guy always wins, but in real life, that's not always the case--never-mind that things in real life are rarely so clear cut as they are in the film).

[Hugh_Grant]

Why is that necessarily a bad thing, even in a film that purports to be realistic? Its story is definitely extreme, but it didn't seem to me completely outside the realm of possibility.

Errr, maybe because I've worked in the inner city and known young women like Precious, I found it to be beyond that realm--and then some. For once I agree with Armond White.

[Qrazy]

That's right.

So if the good guy doesn't win the film is pretentious? Or do you just mean that you feel both films are forcing the point that the good guy doesn't win home too hard?

[baby doll]

Errr, maybe because I've worked in the inner city and known young women like Precious, I found it to be beyond that realm--and then some. For once I agree with Armond White.

When I say it's not "completely" beyond that realm, I mean that it's pretty unlikely that everything that happens in the film would be happening to one person, but there are US teenagers who are functionally illiterate, have abusive parents, and so on. In any event, I wasn't bored. As for White, he seems to expect that any film about black people should some how be representative of all African-Americans, as if that were possible.