The Great Interland Oscar Thread!

[LMP]

*double post*

 

[Babydoll]

I said rumor has it, not what I think.

 

[mabel]

LemonMacPhisto, I saw Letters from Iwo Jima last weekend (I'll be seeing Venus sometime this weekend). I wasn't as blown away as many critics were, but I don't really have a huge problem with it being nominated for Best Picture (certainly not at Dreamgirls' expense). I'm not big on war films in general, and I'm kind of take him or leave him when it comes to Clint. I didn't see Flags, but I'll probably have to check it out when it comes out on DVD in a few weeks, since it seems like they really should be paired together.

I definitely would have loved to have seen Children of Men (or Pan's Labyrinth, or Little Children) take that last slot, but I can't say that I'm terribly surprised that it didn't with the late release date and the pretty blase' campaign. It almost seemed like a thrown together after-thought once their solid reviews came out. Clint has the clout to have a last minute release carry him to the big game, unfortunately, I guess the same can't be said of Curon and CoM.

I hope the fact that 4 of the 5 nominees were released in July-October will encourage more studios not to play the "let's hold off till the last gun-fire" game next year. I really don't know why they insist on doing this. Last year, Crash was a summer release, and Capote and Good Night and Good Luck were both released in October (I think). It's not like they're consistently 5 for 5 with mid to late December releases being nominated.

 

[LMP]

I said rumor has it, not what I think.

The Oscar nominees have already been announced, that's what we're discussing right now.

 

[yeter]

I'm glad (and surprised) Little Miss Sunshine was nominated.

I just saw Babel and I don't think it is as great as all the hype made it out to be. I liked the Japanese story line and I thought Rinko Kikuchi was AMAZING.

I'm glad Mark Wahlberg got a nomination. I wouln't be surprised if Jackie Earl Haley won best supporting actor since he has won all the film critic awards. I always wondered what had become of Kelly Leak!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Paul Greengrass deserves to win for best director in my opinion, he had an almost impossible task but he made United 93 a film that was not cliched or overblown. It told that story with dignity and simplicity-the story speaks for itself, no need to make it anything else. The movie should have been nominated too. Scorsese did a great job of course.

Dreamgirls definitely didn't deserve a best picture nom, when you see it you think it's better than it really is because of Jennifer Hudson. But looking back it's really just lackluster and poorly shot and the music is bad other than Jennifer Hudson's songs-that's just my opinion.

Leo should have been nominated for The Departed and not Blood Diamond, and I would pick Djimon Hounsou or Mark Wahlberg over Eddie Murphy to win that category.

I haven't seen Notes On A Scandal, and the only Best Picture nom I haven't seen is Iwo Jima-no interest in war movies right now. I haven't seen Last King Of Scotland either. I hate how the suburban megaplexes won't show certain movies

I think the hype for Babel is overblown too, but I have a suspicion that it will win for best picture and will be this year's Crash

 

[elevation2u]

I think the hype for Babel is overblown too, but I have a suspicion that it will win for best picture and will be this year's Crash

my thoughts exactly

 

[corianderstem]

Oh, don't even get me STARTED on Crash.

I may still go see Babel, if only to check out the performances. I've no interest in the Iwo Jima movie. I'm sure it's excellent, but I'm not a big fan of war movies.

 

[yeter]

Did anyone catch the SAG awards last night? I hope that there will be some surprises at the Oscars ( at least in the supporting actor/actress categories) but I think that it's wishful thinking on my part.

Little Miss Sunshine won for Best Ensemble Cast but I just don't see it winning the Oscar for best picture as much as I liked it.

I'm pulling for the Departed and Scorsese (finally)!

 

[Lila64]

I did watch the SAG Awards. A little

I've still never seen CRASH, nor most of the 2006 movies, except Little Miss Sunshine. Don't think it will win best picture, but it was quite entertaining!

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Oh, don't even get me STARTED on Crash.

I may still go see Babel, if only to check out the performances. I've no interest in the Iwo Jima movie. I'm sure it's excellent, but I'm not a big fan of war movies.

I rented Crash when it won and did not get why everyone thought it was so wonderful.

And lucky me gets to watch it again for school, but thankfully it's not for another couple of weeks.

 

[corianderstem]

I can sum up the movie in two seconds: Hey, everyone's a little bit racist!

The movie just rubbed me the wrong way, and it was just so overrated.

I watched the SAG awards and was glad I did, if only to see Julie Andrews get a life achievement award. LOVE. HER.

 

[Liesje]

I can sum up the movie in two seconds: Hey, everyone's a little bit racist!

The movie just rubbed me the wrong way, and it was just so overrated.

I watched the SAG awards and was glad I did, if only to see Julie Andrews get a life achievement award. LOVE. HER.

I agree with all three.

 

[mabel]

I can sum up the movie in two seconds: Hey, everyone's a little bit racist!

Have you seen Avenue Q?!?!


Anyway, yeah, I definitely didn't get the big to-do about Crash (though I wasn't that crazy about Brokeback either...I was pulling for an upset by Capote or Good Night and Good Luck).

And for the Crash/Babel comparisons...I didn't love Babel, by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought the performances were strong all around and it was shot beautifully, which at least gives it an edge over last year's winner...Though, there were definitely HUGE chunks of the movie that didn't work for me. It's solidly at #5 for me out of the nominees this year.

 

[corianderstem]

Ha ha ... I haven't seen Avenue Q, but I really want to. I didn't realize I was ripping off one of their song titles!

I found Brokeback didn't live up to its hype for me, either. It was good, just not as good as I had heard.

 

[LMP]

I hate how studios release movies way too late in the year as a rush for Oscar noms.

Look at what happened to Dreamgirls and Children of Men.

 

[mabel]

Ha ha ... I haven't seen Avenue Q, but I really want to. I didn't realize I was ripping off one of their song titles!

I found Brokeback didn't live up to its hype for me, either. It was good, just not as good as I had heard.

Just had to ask! It's a hell of a fun show.


I definitely think the late release had a lot to do with Children of Men being ignored (and the fact that they seemed to have kind of given up before they started, as far as mustering up any semblance of a campaign). I do think that Dreamgirls had the opposite problem. I definitely don't think the late release had much to do with their snub, but more their excessive over-hyping. Then again, maybe the way they had their late release did play into it, what with the $25 road show and all. For me, it just didn't live up to the hype. Some great performances (though I don't necessarily think Murphy and Hudson are that great that they sould be cleaning house like they are) and top notch design. And that's where they were recognized. No problem there for me!

 

[LMP]

I still think little Abigail Breslin deserves the Supporting Actress award.

Without her playing that part, Little Miss Sunshine would not have worked.

and Children of Men better win Cinematography for the last 30 minutes alone.

 

[corianderstem]

I hate how studios release movies way too late in the year as a rush for Oscar noms.

Look at what happened to Dreamgirls and Children of Men.

You're kidding with Dreamgirls, right? It got eight nominations, more than every other movie, just not the one everyone thought it would. (Apparently it's the first movie in Oscar history to have the most nominations and not be nominated for Best Picture.)

Agreed on Children of Men, though.

 

[LMP]

You're kidding with Dreamgirls, right? It got eight nominations, more than every other movie, just not the one everyone thought it would. (Apparently it's the first movie in Oscar history to have the most nominations and not be nominated for Best Picture.)

Agreed on Children of Men, though.

Well I meant Best Picture, and 3 of the noms are for songs.

 

[corianderstem]

I don't think that had anything to do with when it was released, honestly. That movie did not suffer one iota from lack of press or a rushed release.

But three songs from the one picture is indeed ... weird. I didn't realize three of the songs in the movie were original. I know the Beyonce song "Listen" is ... I assumed everything else was originally from the Broadway show?

 

[LMP]

Prince's song wasn't even nominated, I don't understand that.

I guess the music from Dreamgirls transcends the music from other movies this year?

Frankly, I'm surprised the freaky screamo shit Michael Caine listened to in Children of Men wasn't nominated

 

[corianderstem]

I've been out of touch with the song nominees for the past few years. I didn't even know there was a song from An Inconvenient Truth until the Golden Globes. What a strange movie to have a song tacked on to.

And ditto the Prince song. What movie was that - Happy Feet? If that's the flick, I'm okay with the lack of a nomination, if only because then I hear less about that stupid movie.

And in the Still Bitter category, I'm still bitter that REM wasn't nominated for "The Great Beyond" in whatever year Man In the Moon came out.

 

[LMP]

Prince's song was for Happy Feet, yes. Why it was on so many Top Whatever lists I shall never know.

Cars is winning all of the animated awards anyways.

The Best Song bits are always a sham, after U2 lost to Eminem I stopped caring about that category.

 

[corianderstem]

While I was righteously outraged when Eminem beat U2, once I calmed down and was done wailing and gnashing my teeth, I had to admit that Eminem had the better song.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I don't think there's any way that will win for Best Picture-could happen though, who knows?

By Ty Burr, Boston Globe Staff | January 30, 2007

If the upcoming Oscar race actually were a race, Queen Elizabeth II would be haughtily sprinting neck and neck with the bickering internationals of "Babel " while the Boston mobsters of "The Departed " took running potshots at the Japanese soldiers of "Letters From Iwo Jima ." And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a dented yellow VW mini-bus would break through the front line, its broken horn bleating in triumph.

One year after it stormed the Sundance Film Festival and six months after it conquered the nation's art houses, "Little Miss Sunshine " is starting to look like the film to beat for best picture.

This is not how the script was supposed to read. The top Oscar doesn't go to a comedy but to an important, weighty film, the sort Hollywood likes to hold up as its annual contribution to Culture. "Sunshine" is the scruffy upstart that, at best, gets tossed a best original screenplay bone. After winning the Golden Laurel from the Producers Guild on Jan. 20, though, and then, on Sunday night, taking the Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture , "Sunshine" now has a momentum other best picture nominees don't.

Consider that actors make up a quarter of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , and consider that last year's SAG award went to "Crash ," a movie no one expected to win best picture. "Sunshine" has similarities to that film that may represent a sea change in how -- and when, and where -- the Academy perceives "quality" fare. In short, the established post-Thanksgiving "serious season" of awards-worthy releases may have to be rethought.

"It follows the pattern of 'Crash,' " Emanuel Levy , the author of "All About Oscar ," explained yesterday. " 'Sunshine' won the ensemble award, it was released earlier in the year, and it has become available on DVD. I think the marketing campaign was superb all along, plus the fact that the producers mailed DVDs to everyone."

Still, can a movie both this dark and this silly make it all the way? David Poland , editor of the industry website Movie City News , has doubts.

" 'Little Miss Sunshine' is a straight-out comedy, which Oscar hasn't deigned to award in 29 years, since 'Annie Hall,' " he said. "It's also a film without a director's nomination , and that film wins best picture about once every 25 years on average."

On the other hand, it's the lone upbeat experience in a field of best picture brooders, and it may benefit from the distinction. Certainly the failure of "Dreamgirls " to get a best picture nomination leaves "Sunshine" without feel-good competition. ("Dreamgirls" won when the two movies went head-to-head at the Golden Globes.)

The conventional wisdom holds that "Departed" will win Scorsese his directing Oscar but is too bloody and genre-bound for the top award, that "The Queen" isn't quite cinematic enough for anything except a win for Helen Mirren and possibly writer Peter Morgan, and that "Letters from Iwo Jima" is too, well, foreign.

That leaves "Babel" as the only other serious contender for best picture, and "Babel" may be too much this year's "Crash" for a repeat to be in the cards.

If "Sunshine" makes it all the way, expect a lot of chatter about the triumph of the warmblooded little Sundance indie over the slower-moving dinosaurs of Hollywood prestige. That obscures the fact that this never was much of an indie to start with -- not with names like Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear in the cast and a story line bolted onto a well-tested road-movie template. Audiences and Academy members have responded to the film not because it's different -- it's not -- but simply because it's extremely entertaining.

And topically so. Said Levy, "The message is the thing. If you vote for 'The Departed,' you're voting for a gangster movie. If you vote for 'Little Miss Sunshine,' you're voting for some real issues pertaining to the American dream. It's an ensemble -- that's a plus -- and it's a three-generation story. I can't think of any other film in competition that's doing all of the above. Plus it's very well acted."

In other words, a best picture Oscar for "Little Miss Sunshine" wouldn't celebrate what the independent

 

[corianderstem]

Interesting article. I won't be mad if it wins, at least.

 

[U2girl]

Maybe this will be like last year when everyone talked about Brokeback Mountain yet Crash won the movie of the year award (having recently seen both, I concurr).

This year Babel is hyped up and Miss Sunshine wins? Or maybe none of the above and Scorsese wins director award AND Departed wins for best movie, making this an Oscarsese night.

 

[elevation2u]

I watched the SAGs, Hugh Laurie won

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

By David Germain, AP Movie Writer | February 3, 2007

LOS ANGELES --For decades, Martin Scorsese has had the deepest respect of his peers in Hollywood. This awards season, he finally may come home with the trophies to prove it.

Scorsese's "The Departed" -- his return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions he helped pioneer with films such as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas" -- was a leading contender for Saturday night's top film honor at the Directors Guild of America Awards,

The other nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel."

This was Scorsese's seventh nomination for the Directors Guild honor, a prize he has never won, though the group did give him a lifetime achievement award in 2003. "The Departed" also marked his sixth nomination for best director at the Academy Awards, an honor that also has eluded him.

A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.

But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the Feb. 25 Oscars. A Directors Guild win would help give him the inside track.

The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards. Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.

Scorsese, Inarritu and Frears were the only three of the five guild nominees who also earned best-director slots for the Oscars. The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the Sept. 11 docudrama "United 93."