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Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 01:00

Title: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 01:00
Let's not clutter up the Hurt Locker thread anymore.

It's great the Hurt Locker won best Director and Picture, eh?


Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: scarred on 08 Mar 2010, 01:03
blah blah bitch moan cinematography bitch bitch moan

also fuck sandra bullock.

ok now that's out of the way.

yaaaay christoph waltz! i was almost tempted to turn my tv off after he won because the high point of the ceremony was already over.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: BeoPuppy on 08 Mar 2010, 01:04
Hey ... I like Sandra Bullock. You have to appreciate anyone who comes to pick up their Razzie in person.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: RallyMonkey on 08 Mar 2010, 01:09
I don't have a problem with Kathryn Bigelow taking home Best Director, but there were probably 11 or 12 films much more deserving of Best Picture, 5 of which were nominated.

In terms of other awards, the two screenplay awards were the biggest upsets. In Best Adapted I never would have expected Precious to beat out Up in the Air, while I personally was rooting for In the Loop. For Best Original, I thought all four of the nominees going up against The Hurt Locker were far superior.

Best Supporting Actor was a really tough category. I think the right actor won, but that's a hard choice between Cristoph Waltz and Woody Harrelson.

The picture that was most snubbed, in my opinion, was A Single Man. But of course, that was snubbed before the show even started, with only a nomination for Colin Firth, which would have been a great Best Actor winner.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Inlander on 08 Mar 2010, 01:11
Well, at least they got the Best Song winner right.

And hey, the two hosts thing worked pretty well. How about that great rapid-fire Holocaust joke/Ugly Chicks joke double! Classy. But wait, what would make it even classier? I know, immediately after the line about the Jew Hunter and the Jew "motherload" in the room let's cut to a shot of the Cohen brothers to see how they like the joke. Nice work everyone, take the rest of the day off.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Lines on 08 Mar 2010, 05:30
Best part was definitely Christophe Waltz winning. SO happy about that. Everything else was ok.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Alex C on 08 Mar 2010, 06:46
5 of which were nominated.

Really? I didn't care much for a A Serious Man or Inglorious Basterds, and I'm figuring one or both of those must be factored into your thinking given the other films that were nominated.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: KvP on 08 Mar 2010, 09:48
At times it seemed like the banter between Alec and Steve was written for someone like Norm Macdonald.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: RallyMonkey on 08 Mar 2010, 12:38
Both A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds were at least in my top 5 of the year. I thought there was a lot to like in A Serious Man, and I think Inglourious Basterds was definitely Tarantino's best movie to date.

Here, I'll just give you a quick, off the top of my head list of movies I thought were better than The Hurt Locker, in no particular order:

A Single Man
A Serious Man
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
I Love You Man
Up in the Air
The White Ribbon
In the Loop
Up
Nine
Away We Go
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
The Way We Get By
Moon

Sure, there's a lot of movies on that list that I'd never even expect to be nominated (I Love You Man, Bad Lieutenant, Away We Go, In the Loop). But others on that list should have gotten serious consideration.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 12:48
Inglourious Basterds blows
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Johnny C on 08 Mar 2010, 13:35
sandra bullock showing up for the razzies is a desperate liar's attempts to roll with the punches
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: sandysmilinstrange on 08 Mar 2010, 14:02
Why the Sandra Bullock hate? She's done some shitty films, but Hilary Swank did The Next Karate Kid. Ability to pick a script doesn't necessarily reflect on an actor's ability.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: scarred on 08 Mar 2010, 14:17
Inglourious Basterds blew my mind

ftfy
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Ozymandias on 08 Mar 2010, 14:43
Why the Sandra Bullock hate? She's done some shitty films, but Hilary Swank did The Next Karate Kid. Ability to pick a script doesn't necessarily reflect on an actor's ability.

Yeah I have been a little bewildered by this myself because everywhere I go there's like "RRRRR SANDRA BULLOCK" and I'm just like "Man, guys, why did Sandra Bullock do to you lately?"
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Johnny C on 08 Mar 2010, 15:15
actually sandra bullock's movies are garbage and the blind side is vaguely racist and is just a tv movie with a huge budget and was worse than crash which on first watch at least had emotional impact due to the surprises of its interlocking narratives
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Johnny C on 08 Mar 2010, 15:15
except demolition man, that owned
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: sandysmilinstrange on 08 Mar 2010, 15:25
Eh... she didn't write it.

Also isn't it based on actual events? So I don't really see how it's racist.

And if it were, again, why is that being held against Bullock?
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Dimmukane on 08 Mar 2010, 16:10
Yeah, being from Baltimore, all the papers had articles about that.  It's about I think the Left Tackle on the Ravens?  Fuck if I know.  I just didn't care about that movie at all because it seemed like blatant pandering, which it turned out to be.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 16:43
Quote from: wikipedia
Claims of racism

The film has been subject to claims of supporting racism. Mark Blankenship of The Huffington Post wrote of the trailer, "[It] begs us to feel sorry for black people and feel grateful that there are white people in the world who can take [care] of them."[20]

Melissa Anderson of the Dallas Observer said the film "peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of blacks who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them... The filmmakers would like to lull you to sleep with this milk of amnesia, hiding behind the fact that this bewilderingly condescending movie is based on an actual person—but one who you end up knowing almost nothing about."[21]
huhhhhh
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 16:46
Would they be completely fine with the movie if Oher was white?
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Alex C on 08 Mar 2010, 17:21
I rather doubt they would be. For example, Forrest Gump was somewhat criticized for being condescending, since it's a movie about a man of below average IQ meeting great personal and financial success basically by doing whatever authority figures tell him.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: RallyMonkey on 08 Mar 2010, 17:44
I read an interesting article once written by the writer and director of Akeelah and the Bee that I wish I could find, but I can't, so I'll just detail it for you. He had won the Nicholl's Fellowship for his screenplay, but had trouble finding funding for the movie. He had actually had quite a few offers from studios, but turned them down. Why? They wanted to change Akeelah's teacher (Who was eventually played by Laurence Fishburne) from a black man, to a white man. Studios told him that the movie would be accepted much stronger by audiences if Akeelah, the 11-year-old black girl who goes to a predominately black school in South L.A. was mentored by a white man, rather than a black man. The writer turned down every offer until he finally found one that would let him retain the written race of his characters.

But the whole inner-city black kid being mentored to greatness with the help of a well-off white person is an extremely common find. Even in the film Precious (Which to me had a strong feeling of racism inherent in it) was struck with this problem in a way. One of the first lines of the movie is Precious saying that she wants to get a "light-skinned boyfriend", which kind of starts you off with an odd feeling, but you figure at some point in time she will get over her obsession with the skin color of her future significant other. Instead, you find that every single person who shows Precious any amount of affection in the film, has considerably lighter skin than her (Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Paula Patton). While every person that fucks her over have the same skin tones as Precious.

Normally, I'd feel I was being far too nitpicky if I was critiquing the casting in terms of skin tone. But in a movie that draws such an importance to race, that has comments about things such as the light-skinned boyfriend, I don't think it's too ridiculous to pay attention to things such as this. Especially when it's something that happens in almost every similar movie. But who knows, maybe I'm the racist one.

Though, when it comes to The Blind Side, I don't have any problems with it because A. it's a true story, and B. at least from the trailers (I have not seen it), it doesn't seem to be focused too much on race, and more on poverty. Though I could be wrong.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Jimmy the Squid on 08 Mar 2010, 19:32
Precious was also based on a true story.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 19:34
No it was based on a novel.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Jimmy the Squid on 08 Mar 2010, 19:36
Really? Every time I read something in the paper about that film they always harp on about how it isn't racist because it's based on a true story (perhaps the novel was based on a true story?). If it wasn't then hey, fair enough, I haven't even seen any of the films that got nominated except Avatar and Up.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Alex C on 08 Mar 2010, 20:00
I think it's important to remember that saying the movie has racist overtones isn't the same as claiming that the creators had a malicious agenda they were trying to perpetrate.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Lines on 08 Mar 2010, 20:34
Push is fiction that is based on people Sapphire had met, so it's not really a "true story", but it's still real enough.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: RallyMonkey on 08 Mar 2010, 21:29
When books that are advertised as non-fiction contain large amounts of untruths, I have a really hard time believing a fiction author didn't take huuuuuge jumps away from her source material.

EDIT: Also, Alex, I'm not sure if you were speaking to me, but I'm definitely not trying to imply that Lee Daniels, Sapphire, or Geoffry Fletcher are racist, just that they did a fairly poor job making material that deals heavily with race deal with it well.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 21:32
Push is fiction that is based on people Sapphire had met, so it's not really a "true story", but it's still real enough.
Well yeah, but tons of authors do that with their novels.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: KvP on 08 Mar 2010, 21:44
Inglorious Basterds was a mess of a film. Not even in a good way.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 21:47
Yay someone who agrees with me
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: KvP on 08 Mar 2010, 21:59
psssh whatever (http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/2398/georgea3810.gif)

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Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Alex C on 08 Mar 2010, 23:17
Yeah, my post was really aimed more at Zombiedude, who seemed to be a bit put off by such a strong term as racist being applied to The Blind Side-- I had meant to make the point earlier but didn't really feel like editing it in after the fact. Anyway, racist is such a loaded word that I would almost prefer that the articles he linked would open with the term patronizing instead and build their way up to dropping the R bomb. It's a much less shrill conversation once you make it clear that nobody thinks Sandra Bullock keeps a white hood in her closet. Then again, watering down language is probably best avoided long term.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: JD on 08 Mar 2010, 23:21
I'm more surprised than put off.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: David_Dovey on 08 Mar 2010, 23:30
I think it probably has a lot to do with there seeming to be an disproportionate abundance of "White Messiah" films in the cinemas, and particularly in the awards this year? If any one of these films came out any other time it probably wouldn't be much of a kerfuffle, but between The Blind Side, Precious and Avatar (are there any I'm missing) it seems to be a pretty insidious trend of late, and one that seems to be receiving hecka plaudits. Obviously the overwhelmingly white, financially-well-off types who vote for Academy Awards respond well to seeing a white, financially-well-off types saving minorities from their own social ills. Whodathunkit?
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: KvP on 08 Mar 2010, 23:37
Aherm, Precious is not a White Messiah film. It's an inspirational teacher flick, which is an entirely different rote prestige pic genre, but the the teacher is black. Light-skinned black, sure, but also a lesbian. So there.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: KvP on 08 Mar 2010, 23:47
Also The Hollywood Reporter has a good rundown of how AVADA screwed the pooch (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib047da6a5b38efffd8c97a4481514365).
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: David_Dovey on 08 Mar 2010, 23:51
What I don't get is why everybody got their panties twisted over Cameron's "king of the world" proclamation from the last time around. They know that it was a line from that movie, right?
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: E. Spaceman on 08 Mar 2010, 23:56
It still came off as gormless arrogance.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Inlander on 09 Mar 2010, 00:06
Also The Hollywood Reporter has a good rundown of how AVADA screwed the pooch (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib047da6a5b38efffd8c97a4481514365).

Whoa:

Quote
Then there's that preferential voting system

the Academy elects it Best Picture the same way Australia elects its members of Parliament!
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: scarred on 09 Mar 2010, 02:28
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a24/phyrexianmeatdog/TARANTINO-FISTPUMP.gif)
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: RallyMonkey on 09 Mar 2010, 02:49
Also The Hollywood Reporter has a good rundown of how AVADA screwed the pooch (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib047da6a5b38efffd8c97a4481514365).

The Hurt Locker winning was not really a surprise at all, much less anywhere near as big of an upset as the article makes it seem.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: BeoPuppy on 09 Mar 2010, 03:42
TARANTINO-FISTPUMP.gif

You wonder what he's doing with his other hand.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: scarred on 09 Mar 2010, 03:49
There are so many qualities to that gif that entertain me but the best one is that guy behind him. Part of me just laughs at his appearance but the other part is convinced he’s a wizard that shows up whenever QT is really fuckin high.
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: David_Dovey on 09 Mar 2010, 03:53
The white-bearded man is a personification of QT's ego.

We're so proud of you Quentin! You're bodacious! *whoosh*
Title: Re: The Academy Awards
Post by: Inlander on 09 Mar 2010, 04:36
Pretty sure Tarantino's ego looks like Steve McQueen.