The Oscars have, and always will be a popularity contest. They rarely take skill and quality into account.
Will A Norbit Hurt Natalie Portman's Oscar Odds?
- Thread starter Elizabeth Grunewald
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ha ha good oneElizabeth Grunewald said:
...wait. You're serious.
My God.
All right. In a perfect world, the most prestigious award in a given category should be given to who is chosen to be the most outstanding in that category, chosen regardless of any other outside interferences. In a perfect world, such an award would also be given to a highly diverse crowd, including people from several countries, who have acted in several kinds of movies, distributed by several kinds of company, with no bias. Therefore, we do not live in a perfect world, and thus, the Oscar is an award given to the performers with the most PR who happened to have worked on a role that coincides with the award he or she is more fit to run for.
No Strings Attached could theoretically hurt Portman's Oscar hopes, but it won't be anything like Norbit. Norbit ruined Eddie Murphy's chances because it served as a huge, flashing reminder of his entire career. It's true that he made a lot of seriously hilarious films way back in the day but it's also true that few if any of them could be considered "Great Movies." And he puked out countless piles of garbage between then and 06. So when everyone went to see Dreamgirls, they were shocked that Eddie Murphy was capable of pulling off such a beautiful performance. Norbit then caused everyone to remember exactly why Dreamgirls shocked them. "Oh yeah! Eddie Murphy cannot stop making shitty movies."
Natalie Portman doesn't have that same type of baggage. However, there is a much bigger issue that might deny her the Oscar she deserves. She simply is not "due" yet. The Best Actor/Actress Awards are in large part about lifetime achievement. Portman is just now entering her prime and doesn't have a lot of classic performances behind her. She's young, talented and potentially has many more nominations ahead of her. Best Actor/Actress tends to go to people who have been making great/well liked movies for a long time and not the ones just hitting their stride. Annette Bening is the most likely candidate to snatch it away by those standards but I like Portman's chances. Black Swan is just that good.
Natalie Portman doesn't have that same type of baggage. However, there is a much bigger issue that might deny her the Oscar she deserves. She simply is not "due" yet. The Best Actor/Actress Awards are in large part about lifetime achievement. Portman is just now entering her prime and doesn't have a lot of classic performances behind her. She's young, talented and potentially has many more nominations ahead of her. Best Actor/Actress tends to go to people who have been making great/well liked movies for a long time and not the ones just hitting their stride. Annette Bening is the most likely candidate to snatch it away by those standards but I like Portman's chances. Black Swan is just that good.
I really blame that more on George Lucas's horrendously awkwardly written dialogue and shitty directing. I mean, Samuel L. Jackson and Liam Neeson were both in that movie too, and there performances were pretty much just as bad. You can't really blame anything on the actors in those movies.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Aye, Ewan Mcgregor is a good actor as well. It's just that...oh god, why did they have to be that bad?RJ Dalton said:
Agree with this article only the work being the actor/actress is being nominated for should be considered. This is my problem with the oscars it's not amount talent and artist merit but politics and elitism of the academy.
Oh how I wish we all had the old Eddie Murphy back...the one from his stand-up days. I always thought his stand-up was better than Pryor's (blasphemy I know).
That the Academy has both very little credibility and tends to consistently overlook Award-worthy films can in large part be explained by the fact that the votes of their members are usually secured by the lobbying efforts of the major studios. It's common knowledge in Hollywood that the major studios spend an average of $250,000 per nomination (e.g., placing trade-paper advertisements, hosting screenings for the Academy's members with free food and liquor and aspiring starlets willing to be humped by aging industry insiders, and showering them with expensive swag-bags and other gifts). If you don't have the budget to lobby the Academy's voting members and play the game, then you'll usually find yourself losing in the nomination sweepstakes.Kel_Sumo said:
I love Natalie Portman. She's my all-time favorite actress. With ease.
I hope it won't hurt her odds. Another movie she has done has nothing to do with the role she's praised of. That should be obvious. Then again, The Academy Awards aren't exactly the most logical and honest. Way too much money in that business. I prefer Cannes.
I hope it won't hurt her odds. Another movie she has done has nothing to do with the role she's praised of. That should be obvious. Then again, The Academy Awards aren't exactly the most logical and honest. Way too much money in that business. I prefer Cannes.
This.... see Sandra Bullock's completely undeserving win last year based on her 'career', or Judi Dench's win for her what, 10 minutes of screen time in Shakespeare in Love. Or how about the Academy's 'Black Year' in which Halle Berry and Denzel Washington took best actor and actress the same year Sidney Poitier was given a lifetime achievement award?Super Toast said:
How about Heath Ledger? Not that it wasn't deserved, but it might have been a more interesting race had he been alive. The Academy is completely 100% biased and only strives to protect it's 'image'.
How else do you explain 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' winning for BOTH make-up AND special effects, over superior special effects packages like Transformers and Iron Man?
I'm still annoyed that Sharlto Copley wasn't even considered for best actor last year. He made Wikus in District 9 his own role, and he made us LIKE the character, even after he was a twat at the beginning of the film. I honestly couldn't believe that film was overlooked by the Academy; it was so epic, sad even, and it was ignored in favour of films about bomb defusal experts (Hurt Locker) and Sandra Bullock being nice to a black guy (The Blind Side). Also Avatar...I liked it, but thank God it didn't win Best Picture.
Have to say, they have made very good choices in choosing the best Animated Film...but does ANYTHING match up to Pixar films?
Have to say, they have made very good choices in choosing the best Animated Film...but does ANYTHING match up to Pixar films?
Hey! The nominees get announced on my birthday!
And if this "Norbit" screws Portman out of an Oscar, then the people at the Academy are more shallow than I thought. Why would they base their judgment on a movie other than the one for which she's nominated?
And if this "Norbit" screws Portman out of an Oscar, then the people at the Academy are more shallow than I thought. Why would they base their judgment on a movie other than the one for which she's nominated?
Politics, and not unjustifiably so.Elizabeth Grunewald said:
When they hand out these awards, especially the individual "Best Person at Blah" awards, Hollywood is putting a stamp on this person. They're basically saying, "Make more people like this. And the rest of you? Be more like this person."
That's why we have an industry in which actors know full well that they need to play someone that is either gay, ugly, mentally handicapped, just plain "edgy," or some combination of the above, and they'll be guaranteed an award. Jake Gyllenhaal spent a couple years fishing around each of those trying to snag an Oscar, didn't he?
Well, with everyone so critical over Hollywood's remakes with bad scripts and bad casting, they're trying to protect some sense of artistic integrity. Sometimes exactly what "artistic integrity" means to them is hazy or misguided, of course, but at the core is still a desire to ensure that they are rewarding the right kinds of films and actors. If most of an actor's movies are complete shit, quick cash-ins, or other "waste products," a single bright spot isn't enough for these folks to want to go, "Ah, great job! You've got the approval of all of us now!"
Natalie Portman has done some good stuff. Of course, it isn't until recently that she's really displayed any range. Some of her earlier attempts (like Anywhere But Here or Where the Heart Is) just weren't convincing. The Star Wars stuff suffered from horrible scripting and direction. And her kid-acting stuff? Well, she was supposed to be a precocious, but emotionally blank child, so that worked out.
Black Swan was a great move for her, and it was well done. She sold it, and it was a great movie. But there could still be reasons that something like Strings could diminish her chances. Black Swan was also very well written and directed, which can sometimes make an actor appear a bit better than they are--this is why the actor's other works are sometimes taken into consideration. Was the greatness of the performance a result of a one-trick horse finally being used correctly (like, say, Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler in off-beat dramatic roles)... or is it really because of something the actor contributed to the production? Basically, was it a fluke?
In Portman's case, even if Swan doesn't put her over, it has at least put her on the right track. The movie will get some kind of award, for sure, and her name is attached to the project. If nothing else, she'll have lit the path that leads her to an award later, if she stays the course.
I hope she wins. She deserves it; Black Swan was a remarkable performance.
And, let's be blunt... No Strings Attatched will probably outperform Black Swan at the box office, and an actor has to eat. (Not literally, I'm sure Portman is in danger of starving, but you get my point.)
And, let's be blunt... No Strings Attatched will probably outperform Black Swan at the box office, and an actor has to eat. (Not literally, I'm sure Portman is in danger of starving, but you get my point.)
What it all comes down to is really bad directing and writing. Think about the logic of half the lines of dialogue in those movies. It rarely makes sense when you think about it. On top of that, the characters are mismatched for their personalities. Obi-Wan was supposed to be brash and impatient in the first movie and Megregor tries to play that personality, but he's written with the dialogue of a worrier and a whiner. All he does through the first half of the movie is sit around doing nothing and complain to Qui-Gon about things, while Qui-Gon, who's supposed to be the wise Jedi master, is always doing the things that a brash and impatient younger Jedi would do, yet Neeson still is trying to play his character as wise and thoughtful because this is what Lucas told them their characters were. On the whole, the clash makes it difficult for good actors to pull off. They're trying to figure out their roles as they're acting them and you see that as the movie proceeds. It's not bad acting, it's bad directing.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Hayden Christensen gets a lot of blame for his portrayal of Anikan Skywalker, (I've never seen him in any other movies, so I don't know how good he can actually act), but really, you could have given his role to a finely tuned Shakespearean thespian and he couldn't have made that part any more believable. The writing and directing are just that bad.
