Academy Awards

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Natalie Portman HAS to win for Black Swan! She shoulda won for The Proffessional back when she was a precocious little darling too!!
It would SUCK if Benign won for portraying a lesbian. Did anyone even SEE that movie that stole it's title from The WHO?

The star of The Social Network-Jesse Eisenberg- had better win Best Actor over Colin Firth. That wooden pompous ass Colin is the Worst Actor Ever! lol
INCEPTION should win Best Picture first-because it's IMAGINATIVE & not a freakin' remake & second--because we all went to see it! 6 times more people saw it than King's Speech. Even Helena Bonham Carter-who is up for Best Supporting Actress for her role in King's Speech said "Sometimes he (Colin Firth) would look at me during filming & I was just yawning & looking at my watch."
I'd be happy if The Social Network won too tho...that is a fast paced BRILLIANT movie!

Tangled should be UP for Best Animated Flick! Best Animated Flick Ever! CRIME that it ain't nominated.

I'm hoping David Fincher will win Best Director for The Social Network too!
As I said, that is a BRILLIANT film!
The director of Black Swan could win & I'd be just as happy. That is a DARK freaky picture of a mental breakdown!!!

We'll see in a month--Feb. 27th! Anne Hathaway  & James Franco will be hosting!!

[uwe]

I found Inception hugely disappointing, the plot let everything down. And I really love Da Caprio's acting. I prefer Shutter Island any day, now that was a well thought out, deeply disturbing plot with a great twist.

What's wrong with acting being a lesbian? I thought Brokeback Mountain was a great love story irrespective of sex scenes with two dicks.

[Nocturnal]

I don't care if "The Kids are Alright" is about lesbians (I have watched a ton of "movies" about lesbians, so I'm used to them  ) What bothers me is that this movie has won at the Golden Globes and is up for an Oscar. This movie barely showed in theaters and is easily rented already. While I think the three main actors are good at what they do, how does a movie that has bombed (worldwide less than 30 million in ticket sales http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kidsareallright.htm ) this badly earn such high nominations? Smells like someone doing favors for someone to me. I realize box office revenue should not be the determination for how good a movie is, but weren't there quite a few successful movies that should have been nominated? Hell, Jackass 3_D made almost $170 million, could that be up for a "documentary" nomination? Sorry if I sound cynical, but I guess I am cynical.

[uwe]

Actually, I find the more esoteric Academy Award choices regularly more gratifying to watch (something like The Hurt Locker) than when they choose a successful or semi-successful film. Those choices have me more often than not wonder "Why the hell that one?".

[Nocturnal]

But usually their choices have at least been movies that had created a buzz among the viewing public. This movie didn't make a blip on the viewers radar. And it had plenty of advertising.

[uwe]

I haven't seen it, but I like the thought that it cost only 4 million bucks to make (and has made so far 30 million at the US box office which in my book is not horrible for that type of adult drama, Brokeback Mountain cost 14 million to make and grossed abour 80 million in the US and another 90 million in foreign markets, it was widely regarded as a commercial success) and might tell a story without all too quick judgements.



It's not the kind of movie to attract a teenage/twen audience (most 16-year olds of either sex don't have fantasies about Julianne Moore and Annette Bening making out with each other) and with those people out of the window it's hard to be commercially successful via ticket sales. DVD sales and rents is another matter, as that is the age-appropriate medium for a film like that (and you probably won't need a 3D-version!), it might still do well there. Some huge commercial box office flops have been viable commercially via DVD sales and rents.

Of course I'll watch it on DVD too. And I watched Avatar in the cinema because I thought it would only make sense seeing it there. Blockbusters have a place but perhaps it's not the Academy Awards which are after all about actors and acting, stories and storytelling.

[Highlander]

(cynic) The Awards are all about snubbing success; and occasionally offering succour to those they feel they've snubbed for too long... (/cynic)

[uwe]

I think that is a clichée. Successful individuals like Spielberg have received awards and I think it makes sense that he received them for Schindler's List and not Jurassic Park. Maybe, just maybe, Schindler's List will be regarded as the more timeless and enduring piece of work in fifty years from now rather than Jurassic Park (for all its achievements in making animation bound several leaps forward). Whenever a movie tells a good story and has serious, mature actors in it, it has a chance to get an award, success or not.

Why anyone would think that the acting in, say, Avatar is more praise-worthy than the one in, say, The Hurt Locker is beyond me. The Oscars have never celebrated box office sales per se. It has become popular to bash any kind of art appreciation as elitist and remote from public tastes, but I ask you, while it is ok we have so many McDonalds restaurants on earth (and I sometimes go there too), must we recommend them annually as the best places to eat out at?  

[Nocturnal]

This is just my opinion, but the acting/voice over in Avatar was terrible. The visual was fantastic and I could see it winning an award for the work that it took to create the movie. The acting and story were terrible IMO and it shouldn't have been up for best movie.

I think my point with 'The Kids are Alright' is that it seems like a movie that no one cared or talked about (unlike Brokeback or Hurt Locker) but yet its up for another award. And the 30 mil in tickets is worldwide, not just U.S. I have it on my Netflix list because it looks like it could be a decent movie. But even after winning the GG, it wasn't a long wait for it when I added it to my movie list. I don't know why this bugs me, but it does. I do realize that there are movies that really take off when they hit the store shelves, but that is kind of rare.

[uwe]

You yanks have no patience!!!  The Kids are All Right didn't even start running in Germany (a major movie market) before end of November last year. Give it some time. And of course the Golden Globes and Oscars will boost ticket sales (at least for a period of curiosity) in the aftermath.

My impression was that The Hurt Locker was totally obscure last year. Iraq War films aren't popular with people still aching about the daily loss of loved ones and the thing that grabbed the headlines was that it was directed by Herr Cameron's ex-wife. I thought it was a good, somber movie, curiously neutral in its judgement whether the US had business down there or not. It was a film about men doing their job and shutting everything else out. Something men excel at doing. As Iraq War movies go, I preferred The Messenger a bit more, perhaps because it was more uplifting even in its sadness.

[Highlander]

Avatar was a spectacle but not "best picture" - "Hurt Locker" was also directed by Cameron's notable but amicable ex... nudge-nudge, wink-wink... (written whilst Uwe was posting)

otoh... Spielberg justifiably won for Schindlers List, as he did for Saving Private Ryan - should ET have got it instead of Ghandi... errr... noooo... (Das Boot missed the cut that year - failed to even make the Best Foreign nomination - ridiculous)

Lord Of The Rings - Return Of The King is a prime example for me - 11 Oscars - the proverbial "swept-the-board..."

What was so radically different about part three...? The previous two lost to "A Beautiful Mind" and "Chicago" - the former is a good film but BP by comparison? The latter...!
If they gave BP to part one, they would have been hog-tied... the art of the tactical vote...

Peter O'Toole and Burt Reynolds in 1962 and O'Tooles bad luck over 7 other occasions... settled with a "lifetime"

just my pov re two fave examples

[uwe]

I agree, Lord of the Rings III was a weird choice. It wasn't even the best in the series (that was II with its portrayal of schizoid Gollum), but I guess they wanted to commemorate all three. LotR was another spectacle and in that sense another cinematic feat, but man did it contain some bad, leaden acting. The Gollum guy should have won an Oscar for best supporting role though.

Uwe

[Pilgrim]

As a Tolkien fan, I thought the LOTR series all deserved Oscars...and the series should have gotten a special Oscar.  In 60 years I have never seen a series to equal it in quality and capturing the original work.  

The Harry Potter series is good overall, but is not as faithful to the original work, and the first half of film about the last book is a real dud.  I could edit 20+ minutes out of it and improve it a lot.

[uwe]

Admittedly, I was never a fan of the book.

[Highlander]

iirc, the only major character lost was the "green-man" Tom Bombadil; something Peter Jackson (partially) regrets...

Curiously, the character is in an official film-character trading card game...