"I love comments like "The films aren't weak this year, but it was a weak year for film."
Huh?? "
b12b: I think that makes sense. Let me explain.
I don't think that the 5 nominated films for best picture could be called "weak" films, but I think that overall, it wasn't a stellar year for film - not even for performances.
Last year, we could have nominated 10 people per category and STILL had people left over. This year, we had to scrounge to even fill the 5 slots, in most cases.
Does that make more sense?
So while I wouldn't call BABEL, THE DEPARTED, THE QUEEN, IWO JIMA, or SUNSHINE weak films, I would say that it's a weak year because there were only literally three other films that could have POSSIBLY been nominated for best picture - CHILREN OF MEN, PAN'S LABYRINTH, and DREAMGIRLS. And even those three are iffy. See what I mean? Last year was an embarrasment of riches, for the most part - with the exception of the Best Actress category.
Munk--It makes sense. You think the 5 nominated films are not weak films or choices, but just about all others this year were weak.
I don't agree with that...
...but I understand what you're saying!
For those (like me) that are sad/upset that "Dreamgirls" did not get a "Best Picture" nomination, just remember this. Movies that never make it to the "Best Picture" nomination (or do and just don't win), are usually those that become classics and have a long life with the movie buying public.
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
like almost every year there are brilliant films that are ignored by the academy. It is a political machine and the nominees and eventual prize goes to the studio with the best marketing machine.
Babel - Deserved the nomination. It is a flawed film but extremely ambitious and its direction was solid. Amazing performances by the entire cast. This film even made me admire Brad Pitts acting ability. It also showed that Cate Blanchett is TRULY the new Meryl Streep. This woman can do anything. She spends 90% of the movie lying on the floor pissing herself and remained one of the most interesting characters due to Blanchett's performance
Iwo Jima - Deserved the nomination. Very interesting film. You find yourself sympathizing with the enemies of your own country! It also was a very interesting take on war. The fact that on all fronts of any war there are young men scared to death and unsure of what they are really fighting for.
Little Miss Sunshine - Great cast, seemless direction and a killer ending =(
The Departed - Does NOT deserve the nomination. Pan's Labyrinth should have had this slot.
The Queen - Does not deserve the nomination. If it were not for Mirren this would have been a TV movie of the week.
If it were up to me(and it should be) this years nominees would have been:
Iwo Jima
Pan's Labyrinth
Volver
Shortbus
Thank You For Smoking
I disagree...
With me or Ciaron?
Ciaron.
it wasn't a stellar year for film - not even for performances.
It was a weak year for film, yes, but I thought the Best Actress was extraordinary. Much better than last year.
Dig this...
Helen Mirren
Judi Dench
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet
Gretchen Mol
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Penelope Cruz
Naomi Watts
Annette Bening
Shareeka Epps
Catherine O'Hara
Ellen Page
Abigail Breslin
Maria Bello, The Sisters
Keeke Palmer
Ciaron - you've done NOTHING to make me want to see these movies any more.
Babel - wasn't interesting to me before, still not interesting to me - and reading what you said about Blanchett's character (an actress I never liked all that much anyway) makes me even less likely to see it.
Iwo Jima - sympathize with an enemy of our own country -- has this never been done for? Or even too difficult to do? I havent' seen the movie, but I'm betting from what I know there isn't too much original there. Story-telling 101 - if you reduce a LARGE idea to something personal, you could make the audience sympathize with anything or anyone. Not that it's a good idea, but if you told the story of Hitler as a tortured soul with deep-seated psychological issues you could PROBABLY make the audience sympathetic (hell, isn't that kind of what The Producers is about??)
The Queen - up until this nomination ALL I heard was how great Mirren's performance is. That's it. Nothing about the MOVIE itself. Fine - nominate her for best actress and give her the award. But is the film worthy of a best picture slot??
The Departed -- Like I said earlier, the one film I kind of want to see - though I hated Gangs of NY so I'm hesitant about this.
LMS -- I did enjoy this. Did I for a second think it would get a best picture nom. after seeing it? No! Some acting noms, yes. Screenplay? Almost definitely. But if the Academy REALLY wanted an indie comedy, then they should have had the guts to nominate Borat. (And yes, the film has the same problem as The Queen in that the performance is the center of everything - but how many times have we seen a character from a tv show thrown up on the screen in a horrible plot? This movie WORKS!)
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
I disagree...
What would yours be?
You really only think three other films could have been nominated? I had such a hard time coming up with my list. There were a lot of great movies this year! Did you see "Inland Empire"?
No, I did not. It's strange, I hadn't even heard about INLAND EMPIRE until it was long gone.
I liked THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, but it's just not best picture material for me.
The 5 for me would have been:
BABEL
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
THE QUEEN
UNITED 93
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
Ciaron - you've done NOTHING to make me want to see these movies any more.
Did you think I was trying to make you see the films?
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
UNITED 93 Munk
I won't see that film. I'll have to take your word for it.
Why won't you see it, sensitive subject?
It's brilliantly done. I do hope that one day you'll watch it. It's done with great taste.
Broadway: I watched SHERRYBABY again last night. It's been forever since I had seen it. What a horrid, horrid, horrid movie. But Maggie Gyllenhaal give one fierce performance. If the movie had been better and her part had been written better, I think that she could have gotten into the best actress race over Winslet.
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
Why won't you see it, sensitive subject?
You could say that. Wait one last question. Not only to you but to everyone. What about "Volver"? Thoughts? The fact that Pans Labyrinth was left out of the best picture cat makes me not want to watch the Oscars. It was one of the finest films I have ever seen (and I am not alone in that assessment) and not only deserved the nomination but the prize as well. It was also the best directed film of the year but don't get me started on that.
Well, I think what they did was smart.
It wouldn't have won in the best picture category, but it's a shoe-in in the best foreign film category. It was a good decision.
Loved VOLVER, but not one of the 5 best pictures of the year, for me - but most definitely in my top 10.
People complain when something predictable is nominated and wins.
"Well, I saw that one coming. There were no surprises this year. What a boring Oscar show."
No entertainer ever likes to hear that! So, they throw in curves and surprises on their ballots. They band together in little pockets of "rebel support" and vote in "underdogs" until virtually every film on the list looks like the same underdog, year after year.
What's wrong with voting for something that most people are expecting you to vote for? Are they so self-conscious as to worry they'll be called predictable and boring?
Hell, YES, this is Hollywood we're talking about.
I find the desire to be edgy and surprising with opinions to be THE most boring, predictable and repetitive behavior of all. See it for what it is, not for how it makes you look to others if you like it. That's much harder to do than one might think.
I'm barking up the wrong trees on that one, I know.
On a related note...
Personally, I don't need any film to pull out my guts, make me burst into tears or vomit, in order to know that it was good, that I was "there," and I enjoyed it.
It's a movie, not a wrestling match.
Many of my favorite films, that had an impact on me, and I mean films that have stood the test of time (30-90 years) weren't "wrenching" in such a way. What they did do was entertain, first and foremost. They sweep me away to another place with story-telling, content, style and inventiveness.
A trip to the shrink, shower, or the emergency room, after seeing any of them was not an indication of its greatness, or a substitution for achievement.
I still don't believe it is.
That's my problem with the current crop of movies nominated this year (and actually not just the Best Picture nominees). That has been my problem with many of the Oscar-nominated movies of the past ten years, more or less.
I have such a love-hate relationship with Oscar and the film industry... so it seems.
If the movie had been better and her part had been written better, I think that she could have gotten into the best actress race over Winslet.
I hated it, too. But, I think Gyllenhaal and Gretchen Mol should have gotten in over Winslet (who was also wonderful).
I don't. Winslet was brilliant.
Broadway Star Joined: 10/15/06
Many of my favorite films, that had an impact on me, and I mean films that have stood the test of time (30-90 years) weren't "wrenching" in such a way.
I would love to read what some of those films were. I agree 100% with what you said btw.
I always prefer the quieter films. I also love underplayed acting. A perfect example of that would be both Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompsons AMAZING performances in "Remains of the Day".
"It wouldn't have won in the best picture category, but it's a shoe-in in the best foreign film category. It was a good decision
Was it though? This is the kind of thing that makes the Oscars so dull though. The films that deserve to win almost never do. Most of the best films of the year are not even nominated.
I think all of the best films of the year were included in one place or another, save for some design and music nominations for THE PAINTED VEIL.
What "best of the year" films didn't you see nominated?
b12b: I don't think that a movie should make you weep and cry and see a therapist to deserve the OScar for best picture. Typically, I do like dramas better - but there are several occasions where comedies deserved to trump their dramatic, wrenching competitors. e.g., SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.
Munk--I totally agree about Shakespeare in Love. It deserved to win. It would deserve to win this year, as well.
Ciaron--I absolutely agree about Remains of the Day, although it took me more than one viewing to really see it. It has become one of my favorites of the past 20 years, along with Howards End, A Room With a View and Sense & Sensibility (at least in that genre, but actually in any genre).
I'm not big on "pull your teeth out" dramas. Once in a while, but rarely. Shock value (either dramatic or horror) never substitutes for a well-told story. But they can easily mask a bad one. Although I love melodrama quite a bit (like the Douglas Sirk films of the '50s), especially when it's crafted with great style. And there's nothing I hate worse than a heavy handed, political "message" picture in ANY genre.
I do love musicals. Guilty as charged. Certainly not ALL musicals, but you've already got me in the door, if you're singin' and dancin'.
Favorites:
The Wizard of Oz
The Sound of Music
Singin' in the Rain (not nominated for Best Pic, BTW)
Mary Poppins
Oliver!
West Side Story
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
The Band Wagon
Meet Me In St. Louis
An American in Paris
The Tales of Hoffman
The Red Shoes
Gigi
Chicago
(many more)
Not-so-very-popular musical favorites:
Scrooge
The Slipper and the Rose
Invitation to the Dance
Lost Horizon (admittedly a crazy choice)
And you've got me looking for the exit or calling in sick if you're a war movie, a mob movie or a western.
However, war movies, mob movies and westerns I DO love:
Gone With the Wind
All Quiet on the Western Front (still the best anti-war film ever made)
Casablanca
Reds
The Godfather (parts 1 & 2)
Unforgiven
Dances With Wolves
Actually I'm a huge fan of movies in general. So many favorites, and so many films that I can see and enjoy time and again. I have my own personal taste, and there are exceptions to all my "rules" about what I do and don't like. And my love-hate relationship with Oscar started at an early age. My grandfather attended every ceremony from the first one through the mid '50s when he retired from Warner Bros. My parents and grandparents had friends who were nominated and won. I now have friends who have been nominated and who have won. So I've grown up with "Oscar" and seen how it impacts and affects people from all perspectives. It doesn't mean I don't clap as loud as everyone else, and cry "foul" as loud as everyone else, from time to time.
It's just my own curious fascination with a strange, powerful, public ritual.
Ciaron - didn't mean to imply that. It was more of a general statement that the way you described the films reinforced what I was seeing about not wanting to see them.
Weak nominees. Weak year. Which makes DREAMGIRLS' snub even harder to swallow. But then again, are the 5 films nominated each year ever really representative of "the best"? If one or two of my favorites gets a Best Picture nod, I consider it a good year. But this will be the first time in a long time that I couldn't care less which film wins. I'm not rooting for any of them. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I'll be watching the awards in high-def for the first time, I'd probably pass on them all-together.
Luscious, if you dont think the 5 nominees are good films, then what would you have nominated? I'm curious as to what, besides DREAMGIRLS, you thought was worthy.
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