Oscar Winners

[filkertom]

Crisis averted. The horror of Avatar winning Best Picture would've been too much for our civilization to survive.

Or somethin'.

Discuss. Or, talk about something else.

Comments

[laurel-potter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was happy about that, too.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't care -- I haven't even seen it yet. But the outrage online engendered by the notion that it might, y'know, win an award for which it was nominated amused me.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

I was angry about Hurt Locker winning the sound categories. That should have gone to Star Trek--maybe Avatar. I think they should limit the voting on the sound categories to people who actually DO sound. To edit and create entirely new sounds, like that those in Star Trek, is much more difficult than blowing things up and taking things from a sound library like they did in Hurt Locker. And the mixing... well, I like to be able to actually HEAR dialogue. Maybe I'm weird.

That said, Avatar did not deserve Best Picture. I don't know which did, but it wasn't Avatar. (I'd have liked UP to win, but I know that wasn't going to happen.) Avatar was a good movie, but not the OMG BEST MOVIE EVAR!!!!111!!!! that some people were saying it was. It did deserve best visual effects.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Well, we geeks shall have our revenge. We may be snubbed, but people remember OUR movies.

For example, Star Wars lost for Best picture in 77. Without looking it up, name the movie that won? No? Okay. Name any other movie from 1977 then. Any at all. No? And did any of those movies become such a part and parcel of our culture that even Octogenarians laugh when you tell them to use the force? Everyone on the planet knows Star Wars; how many know the other movies from that year?

Awards are nice. Being memorable is nicer.

[allisona.livejournal.com]

Rule of thumb for Oscar pools- Sound awards almost always go to war films.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

The biggest beef I have with the winners is this film "Hurt Locker". So Cameron's Ex makes a movie, and apparently shows it for one week on 5 movie screens across the country. And then the academy gives her awards for everything, including "Best Eyeliner".

Sounds to me like lots of the academy hate Cameron's guts for some reason. Seriously, I never heard of this movie before the nominations were announced. And I know it wasn't showing around me anywhere. I even have an app on my phone to tell me what movies are on here, and I never heard of "Hurt Locker" or "slightly limping cupboard" or even the Bollywood version, "Bruised Closet". So if the academy loved this movie so much, I can only assume that they had private showings or something like that.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Er... every film with half a chance of being nominated is sent as a DVD to members of the Academy. That's all the movies.

I had heard of Hurt Locker which had been well reviewed. However, it is not a blockbuster and its Iraq theme was not playing well when it was released. Many venues didn't carry it because of that theme.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

No, not so much. There was definitely buzz and discussion about Hurt Locker going around, and it definitely played in theaters. This wasn't a hidden-away film by any means, and I don't see a victory for it as a snub against Cameron.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

As someone pointed out on the radio this morning...

More people had been turned away from showings of Avatar than those that seen The Hurt Locker.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Hurt Locker was big news among veterans groups. It was a small budget film that got a small distribution.

The fact is Avatar was visually impressive, but other than that? The plot was recycled, the performances were not that great.. it was Dances With Wolves with Smurfs instead of Indians. Other than the F/X, it really had little to say for itself.

Hurt Locker was brilliant.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, I was wondering if they'd trade off between having Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director and Avatar as Best Picture. Or for that matter the other way around. I wasn't (for some reason) expecting a Hurt Locker double-whammy. Not bad for an indie movie.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I thought Avatar deserved those awards it did win, though I am not completely sure about cinematography. I don't know if the best film won, but I do know that I didn't want a film to win when it had a hackneyed, overly simple plot full of holes, no characterisation whatsoever, and unimaginative world building. Not to say that Pandora wasn't beautifully realised, but pretty pictures do not a good movie make. And the pacing was rotten.

Mind you, I feel much the same about Titanic. Is it possible that the Academy has learned the lesson that making money is not the same as making art?

[kshandra]

Roger Ebert, on Twitter last night:

Shortest Oscar story in history: ( ! > $ )

(Speaking of whom, if you're on Twitter, and not following him yet, why the hell not?)

[alverant.livejournal.com]

The Oscars are just another example of the lack of respect sci-fi and fantasy has in the mainstream media. Apart from sound or visual effects (if that) we're lucky to get mentioned and we never win. Despite the fact best-picture-worthy movies were better than the movies that were nominated we still get snubbed.

They're not going to change so why do we continue to care what they say?

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

But it wasn't about disrespecting the genre -- at least, I have my serious doubts. Avatar was great in one respect: visuals. That's it. And maybe the story didn't have to be that strong in Cameron's eyes, because it was there to support, um, the visuals, but I would have regretted a Best Picture that didn't at least play at having the full package.

Which sci-fi and fantasy-themed movies do you feel had the whole shebang?

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

I was never on the Avatar boat to begin with. For some, strange reason, I never heard much about it other than it kept making loads of money in the box office. I heard somewhere that it was a rip off of Fern Gully and my wife mistook it for Air Bender and was protesting it initially.

Then, our housemate convinced us to go one night after work. It didn't take much convincing of me, I hadn't been to the movie theater in a while, so I was up for seeing something on the screen. So here I am going into a movie with only five pieces of knowledge about the film. It is very popular. People are calling themselves Navis. It is a 3D Film. It is supposedly a rip off of Fern Gully. It is directed by James Cameron.

Of those details, the only thing that gives me a piece of bias is the last one. I do not like James Cameron that much. This goes back to when I was much younger and was annoyed that suddenly Titanic was higher grossing that Jurassic Park (and any movie with Leonardo Dicarpio deserves to bomb!) It was a very childish thing but it stuck around.

Anyways, so I saw the movie and walked away going "meh". My issue with this movie winning Best Picture is that I don't think that the plot or the dialog were particularly impressive. James Cameron, it is clear to me, filled this movie with a lot of formula to make it rake in the money. Many of the 3D effects were gimmicky. The world building, however, was phenomenal and because the movie paired bad plot with excellent world building, I found it to be a serious disappointment.

For those wondering, I don't care about the fact that Fern Gully and Avatar are pretty much the same plot. Most stories are using old models. What does matter is how well you captivate the reader/viewer. In this case, Avatar failed. I found our hero captivating for only a little while. His character, particularly his relationship to his deceased brother was what really made me more conscious of the failures of the story. The brother's death provided no motivation to Jake. The brother's death is simply a plot device to thrust Jake into this cool world. I found this unforgiving as it made me, as a viewer, unable to trust the story.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Why does a brother's death have to be motivation? I got the impression the two were estranged at best and there was active dislike between them at worst. I know several people who would be neutral or even happy to find out their brothers are dead. And these are pretty nice people normally. They just have lousy brothers.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I thought we were looking at a split decision, where Avatar would get Best Picture, but Cameron would lose out as Best Director. Not entirely surprised that they gave both to The Hurt Locker, though. I think a lot of it has to do with either of two reasons Hollywood folks reportedly dislike James Cameron: (1) his incredible financial success (after all, how good can a movie be if it's loved by the masses? :-P and (2) his 13-year-old-esque acceptance speech for Titanic ("I'm the King of the World!" -- it might have been appropriate, but apparently very offputting to a large segment of the Academy).

Where did the funny man Steve Martin used to be go to? I miss him.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Protip: Best Director winner is always the same as Best Picture.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

So far, I've seen five of the ten nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, Up, and Up in the Air. Of those, I'd say District 9 was the best, followed by Up in the Air. Avatar's script was weak. (I'm in what appears to be a small minority, in that I think Up, for all its good qualities, is flawed.) I've wanted to see The Hurt Locker since I saw all the rave reviews for it when it came out last summer, but I missed it then, and now, rather than buy the DVD, I'll wait for it to come up on one of the cable movie channels I get.

Question for those who are slamming The Hurt Locker: have you seen it? And I think it's a stretch to view this as disrespecting genre movies when three of the ten nominees (four if you classify Inglorious Basterds as alternate history) are sf or fantasy.

My, grumpy today, aren't I?

[his-spiffyness.livejournal.com]

What did you think of The Blind Side? I haven't seen it and one of the internet reviewers I read described the movie as "Oprah Porn".

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

Your second sentence made me think of this:

http://www.paranoiddreams.com/comic/924

(For the sake of context: Bizarro Jesus has returned to earth to make sure all the squirrels have food and shelter.)

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Avatar, and would not have minded it winning the award. It wasn't a unique story, but who says it has to be a unique story to win? ./shrug

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

*SHRUGS*

I was hoping "Precious" would win.

No, it's not a story about how horrible black people are, it's a story about how horrible human beings can be.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I watched and enjoyed Avatar for what it was - a great eye-candy shut off your brain popcorn flick. But best picture material? No.

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

Avatar was a fun movie, but it was popcorn and eye candy.

I enjoyed it. It was pretty, it was exciting, it had some enjoyable characters, and it was perfectly good entertainment.

However, I've read fanfiction by 15-year-olds with more character development and original plot (albeit they may not have been so technically skilled).

Noble savages, check.
Evil corporation, check.
"All these noble savages need is a white guy," check.
Nature strikes back, check.
Vasquez-type cool Hispanic chick, check.
Virtual reality tank, check.
Final Fantasy graphics (was that Bhujerba with the floating rocks?), check.

The characters were fairly cookie-cutter cardboard.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it. I should probably hunt around and find a theater to see if it's still playing anywhere before it goes, since it's not gonna be the same without the 3D.

It definitely raised the bar on production -- what it is possible to do in a film.

But in terms of story, characters, drama, the traditional core parts of telling a good yarn and dramatizing it -- not so earthshaking, it just looked way cool.

I love Krull, too -- it was a fun film for its day (albeit with crappy FX) -- but it wasn't a Best Picture, it was just a fun picture.

There's a difference.