The Oscars Are Going to Suck

[pilouuuu]

I simply cannot understand the nomination of The Tree of Life. It's and awful, awful movie. If you have the chance to watch it, don't! It's simply boring non-sense.

And Andy Serkins not being nominated as best actor... Yes, Oscars suck and probably always did.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Do people still watch the Oscars, though? Won't most people just Google the results afterwards, not caring about the pomp of the suspense of an outdated, pointless, contrite show that is continuously wrong? Tastes have changed. Why willingly waste your time watching something you'll know will only serve to annoy you?

Not counting "it's your job", though, because otherwise we'd never get to see Bob tear apart the Twilight movies or Transformers.

 

[deathninja]

I never understood the Oscars, it all seems to be whoever had the lowest budget/most painfully obvious message/had the most cast die that year get the award.

Then again, that's the arts through and through, right?

(I'm a STEM postgrad, my brother's a literature postgrad, sparks *all* the time...)

 

[Andrew_Eisen]

Yeah, I haven't cared about the Academy Awards in over a decade. But, my family loves its annual Oscar pool and I hate to be a party pooper so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXAaxBdPNtE

I felt that was a fair compromise.


Happy Oscar Sunday everyone! Me? I think I'll do my taxes instead.

Andrew Eisen

 

[cerebus23]

Ummm Why was Dances with Wolves winning the Oscar unforgivable? (Unless you're referring to the fact that Godfather 3 was even considered)
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP9a10PK54g>This was a far greater travesty.
And For the record I DO remember Crash
Cause it was awesome.

indeed it was. I'm still reeling, however from the 94 Oscars, where Forrest Gump beat out not only Shawshank Redemption, but also Pulp Fiction.

Ditto, this for me was the final straw in the academie's coffin was forest dump beating two of my personal best movies of all time, watching some brain dead moron luck his way thru life blindly in some overly cute optomisitc way was not anywhere near the best most thought provoking or most creative film out that year period.

But all of the "travesties" mentioned on here are exactly right also, goodfellas, driver, saving private ryan, are all much better films than the ones the old men in hollywood deemed safe enough or cute enough to bestow a award upon.

Nevermind the blatant lobbying for these awards by the different studios for their backed movies, which more often than not buy enough votes to get the safe hollywood choice, and when the academy is feeling they have to mix things up, then they pick some safe small picture that noone with half a pulse would want to sit through.

No the whole system is a joke, and i agree kermode awards or even rotten tomatoes are a much better yardstick to judge movies by than any crap hollywood wants to try and put out.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Ummm Why was Dances with Wolves winning the Oscar unforgivable? (Unless you're referring to the fact that Godfather 3 was even considered)
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP9a10PK54g>This was a far greater travesty.

I agree with your first point. I disagree with the second.
Shakespeare with Love was a good movie, and deserved the victory in a year of uninspiring movie releases. Are you suggesting Saving Private Ryan should have won instead? That film attempted half an hour of plotless, shockless, gore factor, and still somehow scooped a nomination. Few movies force me to turn them off, but I can honestly say that was one of the least interesting films I've watched half of.

Shockless gore factor:? when a director is trying to accurately re-create the horror of the actual D-Day landings at Omaha beach, and he has the veterans who were really there saying that he's created the most frighteningly realistic depiction of them in any film ever made, then I don't think you can really claim it wasn't justified.

The only reason Shakespeare in Love won was because of its producers launching a smear campaign against Private Ryan. Then again it was a Weinstein film, so of course it was going to be utterly safe, predictable, and swiftly forgotten tripe known only for getting an award it didn't deserve.

 

[MightyLB]

Ummm Why was Dances with Wolves winning the Oscar unforgivable? (Unless you're referring to the fact that Godfather 3 was even considered)
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP9a10PK54g>This was a far greater travesty.
And For the record I DO remember Crash
Cause it was awesome.

indeed it was. I'm still reeling, however from the 94 Oscars, where Forrest Gump beat out not only Shawshank Redemption, but also Pulp Fiction.

I have not seen Goodfellas yet, as I have quite a bit of "great films" Netflix backlog to work through yet, but I have seen Awakenings [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/]. Dances With Wolves was the bigger movie, but Awakenings had better acting and more sincerity, and is better deserving of the award.

Also something I wish would get more and deserved attention: animated feature films. Now that the Best Picture nominees number ten instead of five, the Academy feels more comfortable nominating Up and Toy Story 3 (a year too late for the Academy to be in its comfort zone to include WALL-E among the Best Picture nominees), but I remember the 64th Academy Awards, where Beauty and the Beast was considered good enough to be included in the five-only group. It lost to The Silence of the Lambs. Someday I'll sit down and watch it (and probably also fellow-nominees JFK, The Prince Of Tides, and Bugsy for good measure) and try to find out why, but I have the feeling Anthony-Hopkins-plays-a-crazy-guy will fail to earn as much respect as I give to The Tale As Old As Time.

Awarding a good movie, that happens to be rooted entirely in current trends, is anathema because down the road that movie might not age well as trends change. In comparison period dramas tend to remain "relevent" having dealt with a documented period as opposed to "of the moment" pop culture.

I present as counterpoint Gone With the Wind. All films, even those set in a different time period, are still subject to the time in which they are made. Gone With the Wind and the book it was based on were both part of an early-20th-Century cultural perception of romanticizing the American Civil War - a collective view of the conflict as the South's noble-but-ill-fated fight to the end and a way for America to say, "Ah yes, it was sad and dramatic, but it's all in the past now, and it really wasn't that bad." The film does not try to say much about the causes and effects of the Civil War itself, but primarily views it more like a natural disaster, inescapable and with almost no warning, through the eyes of the protagonist Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett's need to survive comes not from an internal strength, but from pure self-absorption. This would make for an intriguing character study worthy of analysis through the years, except that Scarlett goes through no character growth until the last ten minutes of the film, and by this point, it's a marvel anyone still cares about her well-being.

African-Americans in Gone With the Wind are happy, contented, mostly-invisible slaves before the War, and a dangerous, omnipresent, mostly-invisible menace after the War. Hattie McDaniel would win the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar and be the first African-American woman to do so, but her role was "Mammy", a character who was given no other name in the film and who embodies much of the "Mammy" stereotype that the African-American community abhors for more than a few good reasons. [Hattie McDaniel, talented actress with long career, wins Best Supporting Actress for playing a maid. Viola Davis, talented actress with long career, nominated for Best Actress for playing a maid. There's a whole other post somebody can write on how little/much the Academy has changed.]

By the time Ken Burns's documentary The Civil War came along in the 90's, American culture was embracing the viewpoint of, "The Civil War wasn't that bad. It was worse." In another fifty or so years, a feature film or TV documentary about or set in the Civil War will reflect the future's view of the conflict. The Academy does not strive for artistic survivability, as it were, for this only possible in hindsight. If the Academy really did have the ability honor the films that would "stand the test of time", the 1939 Best Picture wouldn't have been Gone With the Wind. It would have been The Wizard Of Oz.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

when has the Oscars been any good?

What this man says. The Oscars, like most awards, are for recognising services to the Oscars. I'm sure it's wonderful for those that win them, but they always follow what is "needed" rather than what is "earned".

Now the Razzies, they're worth following

 

[TownTattle]

Slumdog Millionaire is a very popular film here in the UK and a great film overall in my estimation (then again I am a Danny Boyle fanboy)

Will have to disagree with Bob on 'The Artist' there, I found it entertaining throughout and different. Also, the use of silence definitely is not a gimmick. It shaped the entire film, emphasising visual presentation.

To be honest, Bob sounds childishly bitter over 'The Artist' being the favourite, but hey, that's just my impression.

 

[LordLundar]

I never saw Dances With Wolves, so...
lucky me, I guess

It's actually a good, no strike that, really good movie and worthy of an Oscar Nomination. It's just that it was up against some better contenders such as Goodfellas and Godfather 3 which didn't even get a nomination and should not have won.

In another year with not such tough competition there would be no argument it should win. It's just while it was good, great even, there was better if even by a small margin.

 

[pilouuuu]

I'm so glad that The Tree of Life got nothing. Really! That movie is garbage! But I'm also sad that there were no awards for Rise of the Planet of the Apes...

 

[RA92]

Actually, the important thing about Oscars is that...

Bitches don't have the balls to let Ricky Gervais do the opening monologue.

<youtube=BvHXzP2SpLA>

Bitches don't have the balls to let him do it twice.

<youtube=YQrMGlIE79M>

 

[pilouuuu]

5 buck on that MovieBob will ***** about Tree of life didn't won.

The Tree of Life is such a sad imitation of a movie. A glorified screensaver with pointless acting in between and a non-existant plot. I'm really glad it didn't get any awards! Don't ever watch it unless you have problems getting asleep or want to get utterly bored.

 

[Therumancer]

[

I present as counterpoint Gone With the Wind. All films, even those set in a different time period, are still subject to the time in which they are made. Gone With the Wind and the book it was based on were both part of an early-20th-Century cultural perception of romanticizing the American Civil War - a collective view of the conflict as the South's noble-but-ill-fated fight to the end and a way for America to say, "Ah yes, it was sad and dramatic, but it's all in the past now, and it really wasn't that bad." The film does not try to say much about the causes and effects of the Civil War itself, but primarily views it more like a natural disaster, inescapable and with almost no warning, through the eyes of the protagonist Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett's need to survive comes not from an internal strength, but from pure self-absorption. This would make for an intriguing character study worthy of analysis through the years, except that Scarlett goes through no character growth until the last ten minutes of the film, and by this point, it's a marvel anyone still cares about her well-being.

African-Americans in Gone With the Wind are happy, contented, mostly-invisible slaves before the War, and a dangerous, omnipresent, mostly-invisible menace after the War. Hattie McDaniel would win the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar and be the first African-American woman to do so, but her role was "Mammy", a character who was given no other name in the film and who embodies much of the "Mammy" stereotype that the African-American community abhors for more than a few good reasons. [Hattie McDaniel, talented actress with long career, wins Best Supporting Actress for playing a maid. Viola Davis, talented actress with long career, nominated for Best Actress for playing a maid. There's a whole other post somebody can write on how little/much the Academy has changed.]

By the time Ken Burns's documentary The Civil War came along in the 90's, American culture was embracing the viewpoint of, "The Civil War wasn't that bad. It was worse." In another fifty or so years, a feature film or TV documentary about or set in the Civil War will reflect the future's view of the conflict. The Academy does not strive for artistic survivability, as it were, for this only possible in hindsight. If the Academy really did have the ability honor the films that would "stand the test of time", the 1939 Best Picture wouldn't have been Gone With the Wind. It would have been The Wizard Of Oz.

The differance is that "Gone With The Wind" is a period drama, and the civil war was at that time history, and known to be relevent. Compared to a movie entirely based on current trends that nobody knows are going to endure.

If anything the attitude espoused by "Gone With The Wind" on an unchangable series of events is MORE relevent due to how political trends have changed how people tend to view the same period in history. To be honest you could say that it also came a lot closer to the realities of the situation than current takes on the Civil War, both by being closer to the truth, and less tied up in post-civil liberties movement attempts to re-write history.

For example right now you see a tendency to try and present every southern plantation owner as a demon given flesh, and go on about the horrible conditions of black workers, the stereotype of which comes from taking the absolute worst isolated events from a period of decades (many of which got th slave owners in big trouble) and combining them all into a potrayal of what day to day life was like. "Gone With The Wind" gives a more accurate portrayal of what the average was like, with a self absorbed but not paticularly evil leadership, and a bunch of slaves that are fairly happy and well taken care of. More akin to the old "I wanted for nothing except for freedom" line (from Hemmingway I believe) than current civil liberties rhetoric.

That said, it could be said that the story of "Gone With The Wind" is more about the period, and the lifestyle, than it is about a love story or what happens with Scarlet even if those ARE aspects of the entire thing. Indeed it could be said that the time that movie was made was the only time such an honest and accurate portrayal of the subject matter could have been created.

When you look at how "Gone With The Wind" is constructed, it's top notch, with elaborate sets, good acting, beautiful cinematography for the time, and a great directing job. It's by no means my favorite movie, or even one I find paticularly entertaining but I can see why it's considered to be almost in a league of it's own.

Your counter-presentation of "The Wizard Of Oz" kind of fails because why that movie is more entertaining, from the perspective of the movie-makers craft it's NOT as good. This doesn't mean it's not excellent, but it's not in the catagory of "Gone With The Wind" on the levels that are supposed to matter. For one it's based on a well known children's book so probably wasn't given that much credit for writing because of the source material. Then you have to consider it's a musical which relied on portions of the movie relying less on being a movie than a dance stage, and also relied on cute factor and "awww, look at all the midgets together like that" to sell it. It's quite the production, but from the Academy's
perspective hey probably figured that all the gimmicks carried it as much as skill at movie making or any paticular performance. Did people love the movie because it was such a great movie, or because of all the gimmicks? To an audience that distinction might not exist, they only care "was I entertained" but the point of the Academy is supposed to be to view it a higher level than just that.... which is why so many boring, but well constructed, movies win. It's not so much a matter of the Oscars being exclusively the tastes of old white men (as Bob puts it, but he blames white guys for just about everything it seems), as about movies on a level that doesn't ever occur to the typical movie goer. Truthfully I think even "buffs" like Bob who know more about movies on a technical level than the average person really "get it" on the academy level... so few people do, which is why it's so exclusive. Filling the academy with a bunch of pop culture aspects, and minorities representitive of
the moment, would ruin the fairly narrow focus it's supposed to have.

Personally I like to occasionally think that the guys at the Academy are entertained by the same stuff most of us are. Probably some of them are at their video-viewing happy place watching porno with a beer in one hand like the lowest, and most common demographic imaginable... and that all of them appreciate the FX ridden blockbusters and entertainment spectacles that we do on some base level. The thing is that when they are sitting there for the awards they are "at work" and trying to apply very specific sets of criteria, some of which are doubtlessly exploited by film-makers while hunting for Oscar (though the way it's done is a bit differant than how Bob angrily described it). "Was it entertaining" is probably pretty low on the list of standards, and "Does it appeal to the mainstream" probably doesn't even register. Chances are if they really gave awards without those standards, we'd have the same group of old leches at least nominating Jenna Jameson (or the reigning porn queen of the moment) for best actress, and the best boob job on film for best special effect, every year.

 

[coogs42]

This is why I think the Kermode Awards are the best awards. For those who don't know, the rule of the Kermodes is that you cannot win a Kermode for a category in which you have been nominated for an Oscar. Here are some of the films which won Kermodes over the past few years:
Pan's Labyrinth
Moon
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Let The Right One In
Senna
We Need To Talk About Kevin
A Scanner Darkly
Son of Rambow

Of all those movies listed, I've seen Almost Every one of them (Haven't seen Moon, We Need To Talk About Kevin, or Senna.) Methinks I need to find this Kermode fellow and follow him. Also, I agree with A Scanner Darkly, because until I had seen Requiem for a Dream, I would have called that the best anti-drug movie ever made.

OT: I watched my first oscars about two years ago, when it was Avatar or Hurt Locker being one of the winners. I remember my sister freaking out because she thought Avatar should have been the winner (to be fair, she was 18, and She hadn't seen the other 9 Nominees. Neither had I, but Avatar wasn't that good.)

If you want to watch some Kermode, I highly recommend you start with his rants on Sex and the City 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on YouTube (shouldn't be that hard to find, type in "Kermode rant" and those 2 should be the first ones you see.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's sad that solely based on the trailers for the nominees (even before they were nominated), I knew what the winner for Best Picture was weeks in advance.

What's worse? So did everybody else.
Billy Crystal was relatively amusing for about a minute, and then I got up and left to study calculus.

Yes. I preferred studying a subject I find boring, routinely dislike and become frustrated with to watching Billy Crystal act like a jackass during The Academy Awards.

Now the Razzies, they're worth following

I hear Adam Sandler is primed to sweep, given his 11 nominations.

 

[eljawa]

The Artist winning isnt a surprise. Its an industry award, and all of the film majors I know were rooting for it. So that is no surprise.

Beyond that, I thought the oscars were much better this year than last year, even if it was a bad year for films