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Seriously, reassure me here folks :

..does anyone really give a rats ass about them ? The amount of media coverage I find really bewildering.

You cared enough to make a thread about it.

Myself, I'm happy that danny boyle now has an oscar to his name as I think he is worth that, unhappy that Mickey Rourke didn't win. Beyond that the whole "british victory at the oscars" the media is touting over here is bewildering, yes.

My wife and I walked out of Slumdog Saturday night after about 20 minutes. Thats the second horrible movie She Who Must Be Obeyed has dragged me to. I'm embargoing movies until one of the holy trinity appears: Transformers/Star Trek/Terminator. Of course, if they do a movie about Brazilian sambo dancer gals, I am so there.

SAO PAULO – A Brazilian carnival queen famous for her skimpy attire is grabbing headlines again for painting President Barack Obama's face on her body.

Viviane Castro paraded nearly nude early Saturday with the U.S. leader's visage on her right thigh. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's face was on her left thigh.

Castro's stomach read "for sale" — a message she said represented the sale of Brazil's Amazon to the U.S. Many here fear the U.S. wants to control the resource-rich region.

Castro appeared in last year's Rio Carnival parade wearing nothing but a strategically placed piece of tape 1 1/2-inches (4-centimeters) long , violating a little-enforced nudity rule and drawing a penalty for her samba group.

She wore the same patch this year.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/gallery/0,23492,5037570-5007153,00.html?from=public_rss#

But it's exactly the same for the Brits.

Who cares how many Robbie Williams has? Not I. Spice Girls received a Lifetime Achievement, 3 years after their first single?

Award ceremonies are pretty much just bad jokes.

whatwhat wrote:You were hacked off at the hoopla over the event enough to make a thread about it.

.

Fixed.

There usually fun to watch, but I just can't figure out how some movies get awards and others don't.

I didn't see "The reader" and I'm not planning to, but shouldn't there be a rule against movies which scream "give me an oscar, I'm doing something historical/political". It got medicore reviews as far I can tell.

Also, I'm really pissed that Dark Knight didn't even get nominated for best movie or best director and that Benjamin Button got the SFX award.

This may be a lot whining, but maybe I just like movies too much to "appreciate" them as the oscar jury does.

One more thing: The Academy Awards seem to be only "big" movie award which has an extra category for foreign films. Seems a tad arrogant to me.

Benjamin button.

What a useless premise for a movie. What does that 'gimmick' have to do with anything?

What do you mean by "matter"? Do they influence the course of human events driving it to some glorious destiny? No.

On the other hand if you work in the industry they matter a whole lot. It increases your value quite a bit and insures more work. It also matters because it is your peers giving the award.

It is still subjective and they make some messed up decisions but it isn't really telling others how to feel, just how the AMPAS does. I agree that Dark Knight should have at the very least got nominated for Best Film considering it was one of the best reviewed films and had a major cultural impact but I don't think they could bring themselves to nominate a comic book film. Or course it could be that the people that were picking figured everyone else was going to pick it so they went with the underdog and by that everyone ended up picking something else.

So do they matter? If you are a sound mixer who wants a pay raise and more work, yes. If you are just some person who watches movies, eh, not so much. You either enjoy it or you don't but it's been going on for 81 years so why stop now.

Deadshane1 wrote:Benjamin button.

What a useless premise for a movie. What does that 'gimmick' have to do with anything?

Did you see the movie or just a trailer/summation?

They should really just call the Best Stuffy Historical/Costume Drama Featuring Lots of Stuffy White People award.

Seriously, I think it's good that Slumdog won just because it doesn't completely fit the mold. But the reality is that you generally know whether or not something could even be considered for Best Picture as soon as the ink is dry on the first draft of the script. Certain genres of film merit consideration, others do not. Breeding (and by this I mean the particular people involved in making the film) counts too. It's all just figure skating, really.

But we so do love our red carpets and silly talks with vapid celebrities conducted by even more vapid interviewers.

Deadshane1 wrote:Benjamin button.

What a useless premise for a movie. What does that 'gimmick' have to do with anything?

Yeah, The Picture of Dorain Gray, what the hell does that gimmick have to do with anything? I'm not defending the film, I've not seen it, just pointing out that one of the greatest works of literature of all time had a vaguely similar 'gimmick'.

Slumdog won because in these grim economic times the Academy wanted to vote for a feelgood movie.

The portion I saw wasn't feelgood.

Yeah, you kinda have to watch ALL of movies to get the point sometimes...

Not if you can't freeking sit through it.

There's been a disconnect between the Academy and the movie-going public for quite some time. When Chris Rock hosted the Oscars a few years ago he did a small piece where he interviewed people coming out of theatres, asking what they had seen. Admittedly the piece was done for laughs, but most people either hadn't seen or hadn't heard of the nominees for best picture, and were seeing comedy films and other things that are forever ignored by these sorts of awards shows.

Even this year Will Smith took at a dig at this sort of thing, saying that he liked action movies more because of the car chases, explosions, excitement and because they have fans.

The fact that The Dark Knight wasn't nominated for best film is just pathetic. It is the 4th film in history to make 1 billion (by itself that is - obviously series like LotR and Star Wars have made 1Bil, but that's collective). And then films like Buttons and The Reader are just 'Oscar-bait', the type of film the academy loves even if no one else really cares.

I still watch it, because I enjoy the show, but each year the 'big' films are just a bunch of dull period pieces that most people haven't seen.

BYE

The Oscars are a joke. And Slumdog Millionare was a good film, but it wasn't THAT good.

H.B.M.C. wrote:There's been a disconnect between the Academy and the movie-going public for quite some time. When Chris Rock hosted the Oscars a few years ago he did a small piece where he interviewed people coming out of theatres, asking what they had seen. Admittedly the piece was done for laughs, but most people either hadn't seen or hadn't heard of the nominees for best picture, and were seeing comedy films and other things that are forever ignored by these sorts of awards shows.

Even this year Will Smith took at a dig at this sort of thing, saying that he liked action movies more because of the car chases, explosions, excitement and because they have fans.

The fact that The Dark Knight wasn't nominated for best film is just pathetic. It is the 4th film in history to make 1 billion (by itself that is - obviously series like LotR and Star Wars have made 1Bil, but that's collective). And then films like Buttons and The Reader are just 'Oscar-bait', the type of film the academy loves even if no one else really cares.

I still watch it, because I enjoy the show, but each year the 'big' films are just a bunch of dull period pieces that most people haven't seen.

BYE

QFT

I voted yes, if only for the fact that once you win an Oscar, it pretty much cements your career within the movie industry. Even nominations can do wonders for your career.

In this past one (no matter how cheesy the musical sections were), I absolutely loved the Judd Apatow short that was a spin-off of Pineapple Express. I'm also really glad that Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor, because despite being dead, he completely deserved it. I think he became one of three actors to receive an Oscar post-mortem.

H.B.M.C. wrote:There's been a disconnect between the Academy and the movie-going public for quite some time.

Well, I don't know if you know this ( ), but the Oscars aren't a public opinion poll. It never has been for the movie going public. That is what the People's Choice Awards are for, though it is even more of a joke. The winners for that, if they were being honest, would be determined by revenue generated. More people paid to see the Dark Knight than any other film, so therefore it must have been the peoples choice as the best movie that year. The Album that sold the most copies, ect ect. No, this is for the people within the industry to judge each other. Directors vote on directors, actors vote on actors, producers on producers and so on. The only one that every member can vote for is best picture, everything else you have to be in that field.

I like the sort of movies that the award snobs try to pretend don't exist, so screw 'em! Even the Dark Knight was on the verge of being too pretentious for me. Unless the add a special category for movies like Grindhouse, Hellboy 2, Silent Hill and anything by John Carpenter, my life-long Oscar ceremony boycott remains in force.

Um, yes the Oscars matter. Films that do well in the Oscars record big box office bumps. This is sufficiently well established that studios will spend millions courting Academy voters, often to the point that lower quality films and performances win Oscars because their behind the scenes marketing was so good. Famous examples include Shakespeare in Love and Crash.

Or do you mean 'do I care about the Oscars?' Then the answer is somewhat... I've usually seen all the movies nominated, or at least all but one of the movies. They're not the list of the best movies of the year, because they have an absolute blind spot for certain types of movie. Next to Slumdog Millionaire and Milk, the other best movies of the year were The Dark Knight, Wall-E, Waltz with Bashir and In Bruges, but comic book movies, animation, arty self-exploration and genre pieces don't get the interest of the Academy.

But as a list of the best movies from among the bio-pics, epics and historical pieces (especially holocaust films), they're pretty good.

Anung Un Rama wrote:One more thing: The Academy Awards seem to be only "big" movie award which has an extra category for foreign films. Seems a tad arrogant to me.

It's kind of impossible to decide exactly what's foreign these days, because financing and talent comes from all over the world. Slumdog Millionaire was shot in India, with British and Indian actors, directed by a Brit, produced and financed by Brits at first, before finally being distributed by Americans. Best foreign film tends to default to best film that isn't in English, which is a category most awards shows have (such as the BAFTAs).

H.B.M.C. wrote:There's been a disconnect between the Academy and the movie-going public for quite some time. When Chris Rock hosted the Oscars a few years ago he did a small piece where he interviewed people coming out of theatres, asking what they had seen. Admittedly the piece was done for laughs, but most people either hadn't seen or hadn't heard of the nominees for best picture, and were seeing comedy films and other things that are forever ignored by these sorts of awards shows.

There are Academy blind spots, particularly for animated films. But box office success has never been a problem for the Academy. Slumdog is just short of $90 million at this point. Last year No Country for Old Men grossed $75 million. The Departed grossed $132 million. Crash made $54 million (okay, that one was a bad call). You have to go back a long way to find an oscar winner that didn't make money.

The fact that The Dark Knight wasn't nominated for best film is just pathetic. It is the 4th film in history to make 1 billion (by itself that is - obviously series like LotR and Star Wars have made 1Bil, but that's collective). And then films like Buttons and The Reader are just 'Oscar-bait', the type of film the academy loves even if no one else really cares.

I still watch it, because I enjoy the show, but each year the 'big' films are just a bunch of dull period pieces that most people haven't seen.

People think the best craft of the year might be found outside of the biggest grossing movies of the year. To argue otherwise you would also have to argue that 40K is the best ruleset out there, because it sells the most copies.

The best art isn't necessarily to be found in the biggest films, not to say the oscars truely reward art, but they at least pretend to. The fact that Rattatouille beat Persepolis for animated feature last year proves they don't care about art.

sebster wrote:People think the best craft of the year might be found outside of the biggest grossing movies of the year. To argue otherwise you would also have to argue that 40K is the best ruleset out there, because it sells the most copies.

And sometimes something is popular because it's actually good.

BYE

Its an alien concept isn't it...

You don't watch a lot of tv H., do you? Or listen to the radio? Then again, maybe it's worse over here then in Australia.

I think we're talking movies.

WallE was popular because it was GOOD. Dark Knight was popular because it was GOOD. Now I generally like smaller movies as well, but dissing of popular movies because they are popular successes is off the mark.

Nothing for In Bruges?

Sometimes, popular movies are just entertaining (romance, explosions, hero rising to the challenge) and not great works of art. I'm looking at you Jerry Bruckheimer. I'll stop to watch Armaggedeon any time it's on TV, but I wouldn't put it in my top five of all time either.

The problem is that the Academy seems to think that the masses are unwashed and dumb, and only go to movies because of dumb gags like crotch-shots and nudity. Hence, any movies that makes money must be nothing but crotch-shots and nudity. And profanity too.

Wall-E was good, but imo not quite as good as Ratatouille.

And the Academy gave awards to movies for the unwashed masses before, but I can't figure out why Benjamin Button got SFX and Make-Up. At least Make-Up should've gone to Hellboy.

I disagree, WallE wipes its robotic butt with Ratatouille film cells