Movie Talks Archives

Posted by: Derek237 at February 26, 2008, 8:59 am

Topic: The OSCAR chat thread...!! (and predictions) Forum: JoBlo

Exorcise my thoughts or forever hold my peace: Best Animated film: I could personally see why The Simpsons Movie was left out, it wasn't a landmark example of great animation, though it was an undoubtedly fun movie...but what I'll never understand is how Bee Movie didn't get a nomination while that Surf's Up movie did....Bee Movie wasn't great, but I liked it and the animation was incredible. Jerry Seinfeld must've been pissed off. But either way, hard to argue Ratatouille. It was a great film. The animation was perfect. It deserved it. No question about it. I just don't see why they couldn't have had 5 nominees this year and have included The Simpsons and Bee Movie. They only had 5 nominees for one other year, and that was in 2004 or 2005...so I don't really understand the logic. Best Visual Effects: Didn't see any of the nominees but even I thought Transformers was snubbed. Golden Compass....just a bunch of fuckin' polar bears or something. Pretty lame. Best Sound Editing: Didn't see Ultimatum yet so I can't say much. But I did think that NCFOM was going to win a lot of "filler" awards just to make it look like a sweep so I guess I was wrong....the sound categories are really hard to make a clear distinction of because it's not as if you can say, "oh this sound already exists and they did a great job of editing it all together" compared to "wow, they had a great sound team and they created and innovated some great, unique sounds"...well, I guess sometimes you can. But as for films this year it maybe wasn't too obvious. Best Sound Mixing: Pretty much a ditto. Best Orginal Song Once won. Once deserved it. I am incredibly happy about it and I'm also happy about Marketa Irglova getting to say her part...that was a nice moment this year. As far as looking at all the nominees, I always have to roll my eyes when Enchanted or Dreamgirls gets 3 noms....you just gotta think, SLOW YEAR. This isn't like The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast where you have such an abundance of GREAT songs that they could easily fill in each slot...but oh well. I am a little dissapointed that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story didn't get a nomination for at least one of its songs....the songs were hilarious, and not only that, they were pretty damn good, too, to be honest. And come on...how fucking awesome would it have been to see John C. Reilly perform as Dewey Cox during the ceremony. I would have really loved to see that and if the movie were a bigger hit, I bet that would have happened since, keep in mind, while this is an award show, it's still a TV special that wants to rake in as much ratings as possible. That would have added some much needed spice to the show, as apposed to seeing Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill arguing over who looks more like Halle Berry, which for two really funny guys, was painfully unfunny. Well, there's no more sense griping about it. Once deserved it and it got it. End of story. Best Original Score There hasn't been a truly stellar line-up of scores since 2001's noms for Harry Potter, LOTR:FOTR, A.I., A Beautiful Mind, and Monster's Inc. 2005's were good but none really dominated the films...Brokeback's score, though really memorable and almost monumental, only occupied, what, 15 minutes of the film altogether? Anyway...this year...not entirely impressive...I didn't see Atonement so I can't say anything for it, Michael Clayton, 3:10 to Yuma, Ratatouille...all good scores but nothing spectacular. If I had to say which one I felt deserved it I'd say Ratatouille because as I've mentioned earlier, it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Best Makeup As long as Norbit didn't become an Academy Award winning motion picture, I guess every body's happy...but POTC3's nomination was a skillful practice in redundancy. Best Costume Design A poorly-reviewed period piece winning for its costume desgin??? Finally! Best Art Direction Can't argue with Sweeney Todd here, I guess. I would have rather seen TWBB blood win, but it's not as if it's a complete insult like Chicago winning over Gangs of New York (I will never let that go! Do you hear me? NEVER.) Best Editing I thought There Will Be Blood should have taken it. But to be totally honest, I am a huge film nerd, but I never ever say to myself walking out of a movie, "The editing was amazing!"....I do know from some little experience making crappy student films about what a skill and a patience-trying effort editing is, but they say the best editing is the kind where you don't even realize there is any...so I think I felt that more with TWBB than any of the others. Best Cinematography No arguments here! I'm glad TWBB won at least something else than for Daniel Day-Lewis...you know something's up when even the cinematographer feels the need to thank him in his speech. "we're all just standing on the shoulder's of Daniel Day-Lewis", I think he said. Best Original Screenplay Sorry I don't remember who posted it, and it would take me forever to scroll around each page, but somebody posted Tom Wilkinson's opening monolgue from Michael Clayton, and for me that just really re-established how brilliant there writing was. Before I saw Michael Clayton, I just assumed it was based on some best-selling novel I've never heard of, and even during watching it I thought that to be all the more likely. But this was an original screenplay! And It was amazing. It deserved to win. I thought it was going to be the surpise upset of the night, but it wasn't. And when they called Diablo Cody's name I kind of cringed, not because I didn't like the writing of the movie or the movie itself, I loved it, but just at what the award itself reperesents. It's as if the Academy's saying: "These independant films can make it to the Oscars, as long as they have a great cast and make over 100 million dollars...you don't stand a chance of winning Best picture, but don't worry, we'll give you the screenplay award as a consolation prize!" So I don't think we've seen the last of that...which kind of irks me. BUT...believe or not, this just may have been my favourite moment of the night. I liked Cody's speech...and you can tell she's trying to be the strong, confident woman, but towards the end when she said "I want to thank my parents for accepting me just as I am" and had to turn her head as the tears came out. That was moving. Just thinking about that wells my eyes up. I think Cody's moment up there fits with how the film is exactly well. You first see her, look at what she's wearing, you're thinking what the hell? is this a joke?...but those first impressions are meaningless and the carpet of emotions, so to speak, is pulled from beneath your feet. Best Adapted Screenplay My two favourites were TWBB and NCFOM. Either win would be a good one. But I guess since TWBB is so much different than Oil! you could almost argue that it's an original screenplay, so I think No Country had the edge. And I had just finished reading the book Sunday morning, too...and really, it's so faithfully adapted, that you almost think they should give Mcarthy and Oscar, too. But as writers, you have to the Coens credit, here. In lesser hands, the book could have been ruined, could have been tweeked around to make the suspense more spectacular, the plot could have been contrived to have some crazy mexican stand-off in the end or something. I honestly believe that. We've seen that before. And sometimes it takes a great writer to see other great writing and do everything possible to translate it faithfully. The Coens did this. Best Director(s) I think I would have been happiest if NCFOM got this award, along with best picture, but Paul Thomas Anderson at least won for his screenplay. But the thing about PTA is that when it comes to the awards process and the general response of the film, he's overshadowed by Daniel Day Lewis. Everybody knows, however, that No Country is the Coen's labour. The Coens have been around for a long while now, some of their work has been great, some has been okay, some has actually been bafflingly awful (*Cough*, Intolerable Cruelty, *cough*)...but I think this is their best film. So it's hard to say they didn't deserve this, because they did. And after this night, the Coens are pretty much set for Oscars. They'll have to make the best film ever made to win ever again. PTA, though, he's still fairly a fresh face...he's not quite the househould name...I'm not even sure his best is yet to come because I honestly feel There Will Be Blood is among the best films ever made, but that doesn't mean The Academy won't honour him eventually. It was the Coens' night. And it was nice to see them win, even though they're not the best pubic speakers. Best Supporting Actress Oh, I am so happy Swinton won. I honestly thought Ruby Dee had the upper hand...and the really sad thing is, that after making American Gangster I don't think she ever once had the thought that she'd be getting awards for it. And as the nominations for all of them rolled in, she seemed pretty incredulous about the whole thing and if you saw her interviewed on Oprah, when Oprah asked her if she thought she'd end up getting an Oscar nomination, the way she said "No..", is just hilarious and shows how truly surprised she has been by all of this. But when I saw her there on Oscar night...she looked like she really wanted to win. That's a bad place to be. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it looked to me. Pending viewings of Gone Baby Gone and I'm Not There (fuck Atonement, lol), I'd say the better (wo)man won. Best Supporting Actor I think I could write an essay on the brilliance of Bardem's performance, so I guess I'll leave it at this: he deserved it. The dude is awesome. Viva Bardem. Best Actress The writers strike was pretty scary but it looks like the Academy is back at what it does best: awarding beautiful actresses who perform in uglified makeup! Woo! Well I can't say much for Cotillard because I haven't seen the movie and if it weren't for all these awards I surely would never have heard of her. Some have said that the performance is way over the top, and others say it's brilliant, so I don't really know, and won't until I see the film. I was hoping for Page to win, though. Best Actor I can't believe Johnny Depp didn't win! I am so pissed off! Just kidding, Lewis deserved it and am happy they gave it to him. There are some years where the actor, or actors in favour lose to another performer who also did a great job, like Lewis and Nicholson losing to Adrien Brody, but this just wasn't one of those years. It would have been a poor decision to give it to anyone else. It's one of the best performances by anyone ever, IMO. Best Picture Say Anton Chigurh comes to me and flips his coin, he says "Heads- you gotta sleep with Natalie Portman, tails- you gotta sleep with Scarlett Johansson." Maybe I'd want one more than the other, but it's an unlosable coin toss, and that's pretty much the situation with TWBB vs. NCFOM....both are great films and I'm not upset that one won over the other. Wouldn't it have been cool if Denzel said: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie?" That would have been great, but I loved NCFOM and it is a fine choice for Best Picture of the Year. other stuff Things that pissed me off: There's only one thing that really made me angry and it had nothing to do with (this year's) winners or losers of awards...but just to see that hack American Idol reject, barely being able to read off the teleprompter, a physical manifestation of everything that is wrong with fame and success and awards, giving a truly great actor like Javier Bardem his much well deserved Oscar. That wasn't right. A match like Hellen Mirren handing Day-Lewis his Oscar couldn't have been any better, but imagine if Mirren couldn't appear there and they decided that Paris Hilton should give it to him. My profound thought of the night: Those poor Coen brothers. We have all seen damning evidence that they're clearly not the most social people in the world, but you got to figure they'd probably be hitting up some of those post award shows, just mingle a little bit. Frances at least would probably drag them. But they have fucking six Oscars between the both of them to carry around. How the hell does that work? You'll always see that candid shot of Hellen Mirren or Hilary Swank going off to Burger Shack or something to eat with their Oscar right there at the table. But to have three? Now that's a juggling act.

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