Movie Thread

Krgrecw said:
Everyone I know thought it would win for that reason. Same reason Crash won and crash wasn't a great movie.
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I can't speak for 12 Years a Slave, not having seen it, but Crash was—by far—one of the worst films to win an Oscar in the last thirty years. It's especially frustrating because—while Crash, on purely its own merits, is a white-guilt-effacing, pat-me-on-the-back-for-having-met-a-minority piece of ****—each of the other four films nominated for Best Picture that year, and particularly Brokeback Mountain, but also Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck, were miles more deserving.

Meanwhile, Scorsese's only Oscar win came for The Departed, which—while a fine film, all around—isn't even amongst his best ten films; and really, as far as I'm concerned, no film that year (2006) deserved a Best Picture award, while the following year there were three or four deserving pictures, including There Will Be Blood (which was robbed), No Country for Old Men (which was good, but—again—was neither one of the Coens' best nor better than There Will Be Blood), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I also preferred to No Country for Old Men, but which wasn't even nominated), and Michael Clayton (a surprisingly good, underrated little drama).

And in general, the broad politics of these awards—and I don't just mean the "political correctness" or social advocacy angles—are always fairly annoying. For instance: Return of the King winning a "trilogy" award for all three films, when it was pretty clearly the weakest of the three in many regards.
 
jpx7 said:
I can't speak for 12 Years a Slave, not having seen it, but Crash was—by far—one of the worst films to win an Oscar in the last thirty years. It's especially frustrating because—while Crash, on purely its own merits, is a white-guilt-effacing, pat-me-on-the-back-for-having-met-a-minority piece of ****—each of the other four films nominated for Best Picture that year, and particularly Brokeback Mountain, but also Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck, were miles more deserving.

Meanwhile, Scorsese's only Oscar win came for The Departed, which—while a fine film, all around—isn't even amongst his best ten films; and really, as far as I'm concerned, no film that year (2006) deserved a Best Picture award, while the following year there were three or four deserving pictures, including There Will Be Blood (which was robbed), No Country for Old Men (which was good, but—again—was neither one of the Coens' best nor better than There Will Be Blood), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I also preferred to No Country for Old Men, but which wasn't even nominated), and Michael Clayton (a surprisingly good, underrated little drama).

And in general, the broad politics of these awards—and I don't just mean the "political correctness" or social advocacy angles—are always fairly annoying. For instance: Return of the King winning a "trilogy" award for all three films, when it was pretty clearly the weakest of the three in many regards.
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You've summed up the whole Oscar thing nicely. In my college film class (back before the VCR was invented and there were these "classic movie" theaters and that's the only way you could access a lot of that content), the prof always talked about how Rod Steiger was overlooked for "The Pawnbroker," so three years later, he won the Oscar for playing the racist sheriff in "In the Heat of the Night," which was kind of a cardboard cutout.

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" was an excellent movie. I guess I'm supposed to love the Coen brothers because the are hometown guys from St. Louis Park, Minnesota, but I find so much of their stuff uneven and I could never figure out why "No Country for Old Men" netted much of anything. Same with Scorsese. "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "Goodfellas" were all better (at least to me) than "The Departed." I still count "Taxi Driver" among the most underrated films of all time.
 
50PoundHead said:
You've summed up the whole Oscar thing nicely. In my college film class (back before the VCR was invented and there were these "classic movie" theaters and that's the only way you could access a lot of that content), the prof always talked about how Rod Steiger was overlooked for "The Pawnbroker," so three years later, he won the Oscar for playing the racist sheriff in "In the Heat of the Night," which was kind of a cardboard cutout.
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He's right: The Pawnbroker is such an amazing film; Lumet's direction is deft, but Steiger's performance is one of best, and most underrated, of that decade.

And, by the way, I actually saw it in one of those "classic movie" theatres, through a 35mm print, which is actually how I watch a lot of the films I see.
 
jpx7 said:
He's right: The Pawnbroker is such an amazing film; Lumet's direction is deft, but Steiger's performance is one of best, and most underrated, of that decade.

And, by the way, I actually saw it in one of those "classic movie" theatres, through a 35mm print, which is actually how I watch a lot of the films I see.
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All of those have closed in Minnesota. We used to have two or three theaters that specialized in that. Really stinks. Nothing like seeing movies on the big screen.
 
jpx7 said:
I can't speak for 12 Years a Slave, not having seen it, but Crash was—by far—one of the worst films to win an Oscar in the last thirty years. It's especially frustrating because—while Crash, on purely its own merits, is a white-guilt-effacing, pat-me-on-the-back-for-having-met-a-minority piece of ****—each of the other four films nominated for Best Picture that year, and particularly Brokeback Mountain, but also Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck, were miles more deserving.

Meanwhile, Scorsese's only Oscar win came for The Departed, which—while a fine film, all around—isn't even amongst his best ten films; and really, as far as I'm concerned, no film that year (2006) deserved a Best Picture award, while the following year there were three or four deserving pictures, including There Will Be Blood (which was robbed), No Country for Old Men (which was good, but—again—was neither one of the Coens' best nor better than There Will Be Blood), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I also preferred to No Country for Old Men, but which wasn't even nominated), and Michael Clayton (a surprisingly good, underrated little drama).

And in general, the broad politics of these awards—and I don't just mean the "political correctness" or social advocacy angles—are always fairly annoying. For instance: Return of the King winning a "trilogy" award for all three films, when it was pretty clearly the weakest of the three in many regards.
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I have to disagree with you re-No Country.

First I guess I'll say I don't consider Brokeback or Capote anything spectacular. It was a weak year.

I agree that Scorsese should have won for a number of other films he did (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas being the big one, but personally I'd also add Hugo to the list, such a fantastic movie) but the Departed was deserving and like you said it was weak. Though I do love Letters from Iwo Jima.

Onto No Country vs company. To me the reason I take No Country over There Will be Blood has to do with the direction. I don't think direction of There Will be Blood was on par with the Direction fo No Country. I think the story of No Country was better. What it comes down to as an advantage of acting. TWBB did have DDL rocking, but I don't know if the advantage was enough over Javier Bardem. Both are amazing movies. But I think No Country is a better movie while TWBB is a perfect example of how one actor can take over a screen.

I agree with the silliness of LOTR. I like A Beautiful Mind a lot, but Fellowship should have won best picture.
 
50PoundHead said:
All of those have closed in Minnesota. We used to have two or three theaters that specialized in that. Really stinks. Nothing like seeing movies on the big screen.
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It's really unfortunate, and the case in a lot of locales. I'm extraordinarily lucky that Chicago has a particularly thriving market in that regard.
 
zitothebrave said:
Sadly I think it didn't get the respect of it deserves because it was a children's movie.
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I loved Hugo—but my favorite Scorsese films tend to be the less ballyhooed (with the exception of Taxi Driver). I'm a huge fan of The King of Comedy, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, and Gangs of New York (except for the final scene), and they join Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Hugo, and either The Aviator or Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in my personal Scorsese top-ten—with The Age of Innocence being my favorite, followed closely by The King of Comedy.
 
jpx7 said:
I loved Hugo—but my favorite Scorsese films tend to be the less ballyhooed (with the exception of Taxi Driver). I'm a huge fan of The King of Comedy, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, and Gangs of New York (except for the final scene), and they join Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Hugo, and either The Aviator or Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in my personal Scorsese top-ten—with The Age of Innocence being my favorite, followed closely by The King of Comedy.
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Geez JP does your throat hurt yet? That's pretty deep.
 
Honestly, I was cool with just about any of them winning except American Hustle.12 Years a Slave was a very good movie, but the best performance in the movie was Michael Fassbender, and he didn't beat Leto. Leto was good, but Fassbender gave a far superior performance than the rest of the group.
 
After watching Fassbender's unforunate performances in The Counselor and Prometheus, I don't know if I can stomach 12 Years.
 
Hawk said:
After watching Fassbender's unforunate performances in The Counselor and Prometheus, I don't know if I can stomach 12 Years.
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Fassbender hate? interesting

i thought he should have won the oscar last night
 
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