Oscar Roundup 2010
I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, so I'm not sure whether Kathryn Bigelow's success tonight really reflected the merits of her movie or if it was just the Academy's way of apologizing for snubbing Point Break. But there were some clear-cut winners and losers at the Oscars this year, and as we sit here wondering when Beau Bridges will finally take home a golden statuette we should take a moment to recognize those victories and defeats:
Winner: randomly selected black actors. Whenever someone from Precious won an award, the camera would zoom in on the people who made and starred in the movie. And then it would show us any black face it could find, whether or not they had anything to do with the picture. Unless Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson had cameos that no one told me about.
Loser: randomly selected blue actors. In the future, people who believed a genre movie about an extraterrestrial Blue Man Group would do well at the Academy Awards will be viewed with the same bewilderment as people who believed Chairman Mao was building a better breed of democracy in China.
Winner: my teenaged years. When an Ingmar Bergman or a Billy Wilder dies, he gets a few seconds in the annual death montage. When John Hughes dies, he gets a tribute that was probably longer than some of the nominees in the short film categories. Apparently, my generation now runs Hollywood.
Loser: my middle-aged years. At the end of the tribute, they trotted out all those actors and actresses who had starred in Hughes' movies and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THEY'RE OLD. THAT MEANS I'M OLD. I'M HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE AND I'VE BARELY STARTED LIVING. WHY, LORD, WHY?
Winner: James Cameron. Because he stopped beating his wife.
Loser: Hannibal Lecter. An actress informed us tonight that no horror movie has won an Oscar since The Exorcist, a statement that airbrushes The Silence of the Lambs out of history. It won Best Picture, people. I know you wish you gave the prize to Point Break that year, but you missed your chance.
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John Hughes left on his own terms and turned his back on Hollywood. La La land can't help but find it fascinating. You really want me turned into fuck off and leave me alone.
Really? A wife-beating joke? Classy.
I thought it was deliciously subtle
(needed to look @ imdb to get it)
Sounds like you (Jack) didn't get it.
On International Women's Day none the less!
It is never funny to joke about battery (unless it's a man getting his ass kicked on International Women's Day)
What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?
You can only tell that joke if you have balls and raisins don't count
Even if that were true, it's not actually a joke about battery.
Silence of the Lambs is debatable as horror. It could just be a dark drama.
It's more of a thriller. Clarice must find Buffalo Bill before he kills the girl in the pit.
It's a highbrow slasher movie.
Uh, it's a comedy, you fools. Buffalo Bill is Andy Kaufman.
Most of all, it is deathly boring.
Silence of the Lambs was a great movie, but it's not a horror movie. It's basically a crime drama.
Silence of the Lambs is an inspirational flick.
I hope you mean to take cooking lessons
Entomology
I am glad you didn't say Mask-Making;-)
Seamstressing was the next best lesson learned.
If Silence of the Lambs was horror, so was Return of the King.
I see both sides of this argument.
In horror's defense, Lambs does include a scene in which someone wears another person's face.
That's usually in the resume of a horror flick.
I still want to know why murderous psychopaths always get spacious homes and apartments.
Perhaps the MO for the crazy serial killer should not be "He kept to himself" but how many square feet does his bungalow have.
Because they live in rural areas, and don't spend much money on renovation or even upkeep.
Are we still talking about a movie? Because it is a movie!
In horror's defense, Lambs does include a scene in which someone wears another person's face.
The wearing another person's face thing was pretty horrific when John Travolta and Nicolas Cage did it.
The Hurt Locker was just OK. Hollywood "realistic" as opposed to actually realistic.
I don't even know how anyone could begin to compare John Hughes to someone like Billy Wilder. Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Home Alone vs. Stalag 17 and Sunset Boulevard (though maybe that just reflects my William Holden mancrush). I liked Hughes' movies fine, but seriously it's not even close.
He was best man at the Reagan wedding and an alcoholic. I loved him in the David Larrabee role.
It's not just William Holden; there's also The Apartment or even the hilarious One, Two, Three.
As for John Hughes, my recollection when he died is that there were people slagging him off because his movies are a product of the 80s, and you've got a lot of people who hate the 80s. I don't see why a movie like The Breakfast Club is any worse than, say, The Graduate.
The Apartment is a very rare thing: a Best Picture winner that really was the best movie of the year. (Note: "really" is a euphemism for "by Jesse's taste.") That's a very short list: The Apartment, The Godfather, Annie Hall, maybe Unforgiven and No Country for Old Men, and that's pretty much it.
What 1984 picture was better than Amadeus?
Also, Star Wars was better than Annie Hall.
Repo Man, Once Upon a Time in America, Love Streams, and This Is Spinal Tap were all better than Amadeus.
And the Killing Fields.
The Killing Fields was better than Amadeus (assuming you were being serious).
And since Jesse thinks life began in 1960, I will remind him Casablanca won best picture in 1942. See also
It Happened One Night 1934
From Here to Eternity 1953
Bridge Over the River Kwi 1957
In the Heat of the Night 1967
Patton (Yes it is better than MASH) 1970)
Schnidler's List (yeah it is unwatchable but that is not because it isn't great film making)
For other examples of movies that actually deserved the award.
Schnidler's List (yeah it is unwatchable but that is not because it isn't great film making)
Isn't an unwatchable movie a bad movie by definition? A movie is intended to be watched. That's like saying an inedible dish is a great meal.
It is unwatchable for me, because the subject is so hard and the movie is so powerful. I remember being riveted by it. But at the same time, never wanting to see it again. I really have no desire to ever watch the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan again either. But, I will still admit it is great film making.
Ah, that makes sense. I was curious as to why it was unwatchable. I thought it was a great, albeit depressing movie.
It Happened One Night 1934
A great movie, but not as great as The Black Cat or The Thin Man.
From Here to Eternity 1953
A good movie, but overpraised.
Bridge Over the River Kwi 1957
A very good movie, but this was the year of Paths of Glory, Sweet Smell of Success, Wild Strawberries, and Throne of Blood (not to mention the Chuck Jones short What's Opera, Doc?, which really was the best picture, feature length or not).
In the Heat of the Night 1967
Eh. Not a bad movie, but not a great one. Do you really think it's better than The President's Analyst or Play Time?
Patton (Yes it is better than MASH) 1970)
If you won't accept MASH as an alternative, how about Five Easy Pieces?
Schnidler's List (yeah it is unwatchable but that is not because it isn't great film making)
It's overpraised because of its weighty subject matter. I would have given the prize to Short Cuts, and if you're an Altman-hater you still might agree to my backup choice of Groundhog Day.
It is all a matter of taste Jesse. But I would take it Happened One Night over the Thin Man. I like the Thin man but It Happened One Night I think is funnier.
Paths of Glory is good. But Bridge Over the River Kwi has aged better. It is just the more entertaining Hollywood movie. It connected with millions for decades now. I am part of the Paths of Glory cult to, but we are a pretty small group. You should go with the movie that over the long term is more beloved.
The President's Anyalyst is okay. But really, how is it anything more than a more goofy Dr. Strangelove? In the Heat of the Night is just awesome. Come on how can you compete with Sidney Poitier yelling at Rod Steiger "They call me Mr. Tibbs".
Patton is one of the greatest war movies of all time. I have seen it I bet a thousand times and still can watch the whole thing.
Five Easy Pieces is annoying as hell. Jack Nicolson concert pianist who freaks out and does the working class bit. Are you kidding?
And I thought Short Cuts was terrible. It was like Nashville only not cool enough. Altman had lost it at that point. Seriously, does anyone ever watch that movie anymore? It was just a vanity project.
Claudette Colbert refused to do the scene where she pulls up her skirt to show her leg and Capra told her that he couldn't blame her because she didn't have nice enough legs. Needless to say, she did and had. If you look at her face, It has a sweet you bastard moment.
Jesse,
I would also add All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930 to that list.
I would also add All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930 to that list.
It has been a long, long time since I saw that one, and mostly I remember thinking the book was better.
Have you seen the Russian movie Earth? It's nominally a propaganda film, but the director clearly wanted to do something more interesting and he mostly got away with it. (The propaganda parts play like tongue-in-cheek interludes.) It was pretty much the last time a Soviet filmmaker could get away with that before Stalin started cracking down at earnest. It gets my nod for 1930. (And if I have to pick an American movie instead, I'll go with Animal Crackers.)
No. I have never seen earth. But have you ever watched the machine gun scene in All Quiet? The one long shot down the trench with the machine guns going and people just being mowed down. No music, no dialog just the sound. That movie deserved the Oscar for that scene alone.
I'll rewatch it. The only part of the movie I can remember at this late date is the preachy scene at the end. It may be interfering with my appreciation of the earlier bits.
I'm one of those people who loathes The President's Analyst. It comes across as a bunch of older people trying to be "edgy" to appeal to the younger crowd (get a copy of Bob Hope's I'll Take Sweden for a good example of this), with a tacked on anti-business conspiracy theory plot that presages all those crappy 70s conspiracy theory plots (I'm talking about you, Parallax View).
Sorry, but I prefer the Hollywood squares embracing their squareness in a movie like Yours, Mine, and Ours.
Yours Mine and Ours is actually pretty funny, although the best of that genre is David Niven in Please Don't Eat the Daises.
All Quiet on the Western Front.
Given that Groundhog Day is the best movie of all time, I think I can accept that. 🙂
Not only is it not worse, its clearly better than The Graduate.
Katherine Ross > Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald x 10.
You philistine!!
Ross may be better looking (and I enjoy her, Paula Prentiss and Tina Louise in The Stepford Wives), but the story as a whole is no better. It's just that The Graduate came along in the 60s, so you've got the aging Boomers still foisting it on us.
I actually like that movie. And I am not a boomer. Great sound track and Dustin Hoffman does a great job in it.
I think my biggest problem with it was I expected so much more. I just didnt get something about it. It had some good bits but, eh, didnt work for me.
On the other hand, I was in high school in the 80s, so The Breakfast Club just worked.
Im willing to call it a generational problem, but a truly great movie should work across generations.
As Hughes movies go, I will take Ferris over BC any day.
Really? I hate Ferris. He is a little shit who basically ruins his friend's life in the name of "helping him get out of his shell".
On the other hand, I was in high school in the 80s, so The Breakfast Club just worked.
That's why I liked River's Edge so much. It reminds me of my high school years.
hey, nick has invited us on the Reason cruise. Will it turn out like Speed II? Or will it be like a sappy rerun of Love Boat?
I was just going down the list of prices for different levels of accommodations, and unfortunately it ended before "sleeping bag on poop deck", which is about the level I could afford. I had no idea there were so many wealthy libertarians out there.
You mean you are not an evil monocle wearing fat cat industrialist like the rest of us?
If you don't know who the sucker is at the preserve the wealthy their current status table, it is you.
Bigelow was involved in the Oliver Stone mini-series "Wild Palms."
No shit? Wild Palms was sweet.
But in their montage for horror films they included footage and dialogue from Silence of the Lambs. How do you reconcile that?
That made it odder, didn't it? The left hand didn't seem to know what the right hand was doing.
I like how the actress who won Best Supporting Actress for Precious said, defiantly: "This shows it's about the performance, not the politics" when she probably won for politically-related reasons: Hollywood showing how un-racist it is. I admit I didn't see her performance but was rooting for Vera Farmiga, who was terrific in "Up in the Air" (so was Anna Kendrick for that matter).
Didn't see "Up in the Air", but I felt that Vera Farmiga was awful in "The Departed".
Oh, and brilliant writing by Jesse, as usual. I felt the same way about the John Hughes tribute. Matthew Broderick was the only one who was well-preserved.
Well, there ARE benefits from making a pact with dark powers. That's why people do it.
Actually, I think Sarah Jessica Parker is the equivalent of Broderick's Portrait of Dorian Gray. He stays young looking, she changes into some Wicked Witch thing that frightens small children (and grown men).
Ironically, the only thing in which I've found Parker attractive is Hocus Pocus, in which she plays a (kinda slutty) witch.
Umm... Square Pegs? Come on, that's the hottest show ever.
its really interesting.I loved him in the David Larrabee role.i liked very much and his movies.
....................
adamsjacson
thanks
mls
The Hurt Locker was good, but not realistic at all. I suppose it was real in spirit but not in details. Also the scenary was off.
Why is a soldier suing Mark Boal for using his life story without compensation?
The Hurt Locker is so inaccurate meme was released about two weeks ago to try to hurt the film's chances at Oscar time. That likely means it was the studio people behind Avatar that did it. Interesting.
Most of the accuracy complaints are pointless. They intentionally used the "wrong" modern uniforms to link the film viscerally to modern news footage. The idea that no EOD guy is that foolhardy has more validity, but falls easily into "we are making a dramatic film, not a documentary" territory.
As far as the scenery, they shot the film within miles of the Iraqi border. not sure what more they could have done.
Mark Boal was imbedded with EOD troops but you have to account for dramatic license.
Avatar reviews: 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA, 2) http://www.teapartiers.blogspot.com
I loved the Hurt Locker. I don't care if it made the military look like a bunch of John Waynes, it is an exciting, fun movie.
The most important thing that got lost in all of this was that the academy finally used IRO for Best Picture this year. We actually got a winner that had the majority of votes instead of a plurality where one movie is able to eek over the top with theoretically only 21% of the vote [which may explain Titanic, Rocky, Driving Miss Daisy, Shakespeare in Love over Private Ryan, Silence of the Lambs beat Point Break(?)].
Now if only we can get that concept to spread to politics. Finally, a good political idea coming out of Hollywood.
IRO has it's own problems. For example it's non-monotonic (it's possible to lose because too many people voted for you).
All voting systems have problems. Arrow's Law and all that. But some are better than others.
Point Break was easy to beat since it wasn't nominated. Silence of the Lambs was easily the best film nominated that year.
P.S. Can anyone tell me -- is Precious worth seeing or is it just another one of those movies everyone has to rave about to be PC?
It depends.
Do you like repeated kicks to the junk?
I've heard it was very good, but very depressing.
Yeah, I have to agree with the people who say that Silence of the Lambs isn't horror. It's a police procedural. The protagonist is only in any jeopardy for about twenty seconds, and it's really an action sequence not a horror sequence. You can't make a horror movie out of people sitting around talking about other people being killed. [OK, maybe you can, but this is not that film.]
It was Law and Order SVU with slightly (only slightly) better acting and a few dirty words. I thought that movie was okay when I saw it. I tried to watch it again a while back and got so bored I changed the channel. Frankly I don't see how it is any better than something like Seven. I have no idea how the hell it won a Best Picture Oscar.
I thought Seven was crap.
I haven't seen it in a while but you are probably right. But, Silence of the Lambs still wasn't any better.
I thought Seven was crap
The Shatner version was pretty good, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgd7S0fJiec
Saw that, and yes, it was awesome. As is everything with the Shat.
And I am totally in the minority on this, but I like the 1986 version of Red Dragon (Manhunter) with the ever underrated William Peterson in the lead a lot better than I ever like Silence of the Lambs. I will still watch that movie.
The scene where he thinks he sees his girlfriend cheating on him and he tears the upholstery off of the dashboard with one hand just radiates malevolence.
Good call. Manhunter is far superior to Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon or Hannibal.
Dude, Manhunter is truly great.
Michael Mann before he realized he had to always BE Michael Mann, if you get my meaning.
I kind of like that movie's Hannibal Lechter, too.
And the serial killer in that film is MUCH more interesting than Buffalo Bill.
You are absolutely correct. Manhunter is a hell of a lot better, and Brian Cox is a much better actor than Hopkins.
I can watch Manhunter endlessly.
I'm curious -- would you consider Se7en to be horror? It fails in all the ways you list.
I thought Seven was crap.
Right there with you. Awful.
Matthew Broderick looked preserved, but not in a good way.
I wonder if the former Brat Packers got paid for their appearance. If not, why humiliate oneself so? Vanity? Masochism? Hollywood may be the City of Dreams, but it seems to thrive on cruelty.
A way to get back in the consciousness of casting directors. Those people need jobs. Except for Judd Nelson, he just needed a ride home.
Isn't Nelson a big libertarian now?
Then we turn on a dime and adore him like a god.
then get on your knees.
Not that kind of a god.
mortals don't get to make the rules;-)
Are you a god?
well, let's just say I have been worshipped.;-)
Don't answer Ray...
I'm not sure whether Kathryn Bigelow's success tonight really reflected the merits of her movie...
It doesn't. But watch it anyway and despair.
my middle-aged years. At the end of the tribute, they trotted out all those actors and actresses who had starred in Hughes' movies and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THEY'RE OLD. THAT MEANS I'M OLD. I'M HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE AND I'VE BARELY STARTED LIVING. WHY, LORD, WHY?
It was nice of them to give a job on national TV to that nice transvestite to play Molly Ringwald.
I think we're missing the biggest winner here: true sci-fi fans. A world where Avatar is the first sci-fi movie to ever win Best Picture is not a world for me.
From what I saw of The Hurt Locker, I have no desire to see it, but like Crash a few years ago, it was useful as a foil against lefty PC propaganda masquerading as a film.
I never thought of it that way. But it would have been pretty sad that the first and only sci-fi movie to win Best Picture were to be Dances with Smurfs.
Yeah, but it would have been cool if District 9 was the first sci fi flick to win..
Are you referring to Crash beating out Gay Fatal Attraction?
The Hurt Locker also makes for a useful foil against righties as well. Now when the NR and BigHollywood crowd bitch and moan that the movies that win are only small budget, lefty propaganda movies over more deserving high grossing conservative movies, one can respond with, "Well, the Hurt Locker over Avatar is the exact opposite situation."
The Oscars has two modes depending on the mood of Hollywood at the time: 1) Critically acclaimed movies with small grosses win and 2) Critically acclaimed movies with large grosses win. If your movie is the opposite of the current zeitgeist, you don't stand a chance.
It is interesting that Hurt Locker, a movie where American soldiers are portrayed as something besides deranged, victimized killers, won. I guess Hollywood finds it easier to embrace the military now that Iraq and Afghanistan are Obama's wars.
Also Sandra Bullock winning for a performance in a feel good family pro Christian movie is pretty stunning to. More stunning than the Hurt Locker winning (which I have a feeling was the result of people disliking Cameron as much as anything). Maybe liberal Hollywood is dying.
That's what they said when Chariots of Fire won. Liberal Hollywood is a Hydra.
Or maybe the culture war crap is b.s. The Hurt Locker was a well made, riveting movie that was entertaining. Avatar was a big budget blockbuster, that had a lot of CGI. Actors, the largest bloc of voters, hate CGI because it may hurt future job prospects and big budget blockbusters haven't fared well since Gladiator (with the exception of Return of the King). Not to mention, this was a nice f.u. to Cameron.
The Oscars have always had more to do with Hollywood politics than world politics, despite what political commentators* would have you believe.
* They do this because they want the public to believe that more people care about their world than actually do.
I have a thought: Why not go back through the history of the Oscars and redo them all to get to the "real" winners? Even taking differences in taste into account, any such exercise has got to be better than what the Academy does. I stopped paying any attention whatsoever to the Oscars a couple of decades a go.
RoboCop in 88!
Better than Rain Man, certainly, but my choice would be A Fish Called Wanda.
What about Star Trek fans as the losers. This version was the first Trek film to win an Oscar.
You have to admit, it had the best Star Trek makeup artists ever.
Have you forgotten The Fortune Cookie?
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Any winner ever has to be better than Crash.
They should have just called that movie Holy Shit, Fluffy Really Hates the Self-Absorption of Californians.
Gentleman's Agreement might be worse than Crash. (If you're not familiar with the film, which won Best Picture for 1947, I ranted about it here.) I don't know, though -- Crash is pretty wretched.
I disagree. Well, except for the scene where June Havoc has to remind herself to "stop being so kikey".
Dean Stockwell as the kid who doesn't get why people would be anti-Semitic is good too.
If you want a crappy anti-prejudice movie, watch Philadelphia. It's so awful it makes Guess Who's Coming to Dinner look subtle.
Was there an awards show last night? Did "Gilligan's Island" win anything? How about "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"? The Detroit Lions? The Yugo?
Meh - then nothing worth noting, whatever the awards were for...
When we run through video libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of film criticism or school filmmaking, for instance, let us ask, does it contain any concrete reasoning concerning character or plot? No. Does it contain any story concerning matters that make any sense? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
"let us ask, does it contain any concrete reasoning concerning character or plot lots and lots of explosions?"
Hume never mentioned explosions.
I have one thing to say to any of you who were watching the Oscars last night: at the same time, I was at a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert, so I win, suckas.
I celebrated the Oscars by watching "Gomorrah" on Blu-Ray. I feel like I came out way, way ahead, thanks.
I read that as "Gamera" and thought you had really, really come out ahead.
I watched The Oscar on TCM. It's one of those movies in the "epic fail" genre: movies that are so god-awful that they're hilarious.
I thought Cameron maybe deserved best director just because of the techy feats he pulled off. But a best picture has to have good acting, a good plot, and good writing, and Avatar had none of those.
Hurt Locker was brilliantly shot and acted, but I didn't really get the hype overall. Need to watch it again, as I fell asleep during parts of it.
Also, Meryl was robbed.
Falling asleep during The Hurt Locker is quite an achievement.
Not if you have an untreated concussion.
Which would explain a lot.
Greatest Oscar travesty? The Last Emperor (zzzzz) winning when RoboCop was easily the best film that year.
Didn't realize that Cameron had a history of beating his wife but if he isnt doing it anymore than that does make him a winner even if he lost best picture. Cooper's Sports Picks laid out some of the odds and props for the oscars last night that really would have amused you, whatever the case it was good that it didnt run 8 hours like it used to.
Bigelow snubbing point break is ironic in many ways one small blip being the Swayze (who was in point break) having a small segment during James Taylor's memorial for those we lost in 2009
Oscar show! famous stars! I saw many sexy big and beautiful...I think car is the most dangerous place for them. Photos of under wear is taken..
please log in to see.
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Avator is the best.
"Didn't realize that Cameron had a history of beating his wife but if he isnt doing it anymore than that does make him a winner even if he lost best picture."
That was a joke. Bigelow is his ex-wife and cameron didn't "beat" her this year for the Oscar.
We actually got a winner that had the majority of votes instead of a plurality where one movie is able to eek over the top with theoretically only 21% of the vote [which may explain Titanic, Rocky, Driving Miss Daisy, Shakespeare in Love over Private Ryan, Silence of the Lambs beat Point Break(?)].
Now if only we can get that concept to spread to politics. Finally, a good political idea coming out of Hollywood.
In the future, people who believed a genre movie about an extraterrestrial Blue Man Group would do well at the Academy Awards will be viewed with the same bewilderment
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