*** Official 2003 Academy Awards Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Brian W.]

Someone asked several pages back if any film had ever won 10 Oscars. The answer is yes: "West Side Story."

The record-holders are:

Return of the King - 11
Titanic - 11
Ben Hur - 11
West Side Story - 10
The English Patient - 9
The Last Emperor - 9
Gigi - 9
Gone With the Wind - 8
From Here to Eternity - 8
On the Waterfront - 8
My Fair Lady - 8
Cabaret - 8
Gandhi - 8
Amadeus - 8

 

[Seth Paxton]

It just so happens that my current film course is Film Adaptation, and one of the more notable signs of a BAD adaptation is to grab too many literal scenes yet to miss out on the overall tone or theme of the novel. We just read A Talented Mr. Ripley and then watched Purple Noon which is a godawful adaptation of the novel, yet portrays the disposal of Freddie far closer than Minghella's much better overall adaptation.

Another good film that by accuracy standards is a wretched adaptation...The Player. Tolkin's work falls into line with an existentional exploration of a man who has detached from emotions and society in the era of 80's greed instead of some satire on the Hollywood institution. American Psycho (the film) is a much closer "adaptation" of Tolkin's player in terms of theme and tone.


And the award is NOT Best Adaptation. It's Best Adapted Screenplay, ie the best screenplay based on previously written work. The screenplay merely needs to be a good one, yet not eligible for Original because it borrows or is based on some other writing.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Yes, he was doing bits from Edwards films, though the crowd didn't seem to get it or even really his Cato jokes at some points.


Robert A,

Wow, I think I disagree with almost everything you said (in terms of opinion I mean). Amazing how two people can see things so differently. Like I thought Crystal was simply doing a Williams impression, not a commentary on how Williams is out of touch or something. He did drag the joke on for too long, but other than that I thought he was almost funnier than Williams himself doing it.

I also think Renee is a great actress, I thought she was the best thing about Cold Mountain, a film I liked, and I really thought she was great in Chicago, a film I loved.

The divergence of tastes here is odd since we agree often on films I think. Oh well.

 

[nolesrule]

How could Titanic have been a great movie? We're talking about a film that didn't even get its screenplay NOMINATED for an Oscar. To not even be nominated shows that the film had a story unworthy of Best Picture recognition.

And remember, only 5 films get nominated for Best Picture. 10 get screenplay nominations.

 

[Robert Anthony]

I dont' think he was doing a commentary on Williams--I just thought the fact he was bombing with the joke while STILL being funnier than Williams was says something about Williams humor anymore.

I dont' think he was meanspirited or anything, I think he was actually dragging it on long to at least get a laugh with it, but the crowd wasn't responding, so it ended up going into the realm of the uncomfortable pretty quickly. At Robin's expense.

The Renee thing is my bad.

 

[Robert Anthony]

I think it's funny that ROTK sweeps the oscars and all we can talk about is how Titanic was so undeserving

 

[Paul_Scott]

Lyne's Lolita is another perfect example.
far more 'faithful' to the text than Kubricks version,
but the Maudlin, melancholy tone is wholly at odds with Nabokovs sarcasm and irreverent game playing.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I'll tell ya what was undeserving, that crappy Ben-Hur. Snooz-o-rama. It was all the girls going to see Heston with his shirt off. That film sure hasn't aged well. It's so fake looking, especially the chariot race where you can see on the blue screen lines. And Heston is so wooden in it. It's so overrated.


Just wanted to freshen the air with new twist. Actually BH is in my top 5 all-time personal faves.

PS - the Oscars don't suddenly become "good" or "right" because they picked your film this year.

However, I sure wish people would note that films of all sorts can win Best Picture. Big money, small money, darker, musical, comedy, romance, heavy drama, action, epic, western, social commentary...and now fantasy.

Or am I supposed to believe that American Beauty, Gladiator, Chicago, and ROTK are all the same basic type of film? I sure as hell don't put those DVDs in the same genre section in my house.


Oh no, by all means pass her by, go for her friend at the party, be my wingman. Yes, I realize I have no shot but I have just a little bit more than absolute zero chance now that you are passing on her.

 

[Haggai]

The stuff Carrey was doing with the Indian accent was a reference to The Party, which starred Peter Sellers as a fish-out-of-water Indian at a big house party in England. They showed a clip or two from it in the Edwards retrospective. It was from 1968, after the first couple of Pink Panther Sellers/Edwards collaborations. I saw it some years ago, and I remember it being pretty silly and not that memorable overall, but with some totally classic Sellers moments mixed in.

 

[Malcolm R]

It's still only 5, as it either belongs to the "original" or "adapted" category. Each film still only has a chance at 1 of 5 slots.

 

[Nicholas Vargo]

"Lord of the Rings" sweeped and I'm glad, even though I didn't think it was the best film of the year (That honor goes to "Lost in Translation" in my book), but LOTR was due, and before LiT came into my radar, I was with you all over the fact that ROTK would win Best Picture, and even though I wanted LiT to win, which it probably would've if not for LOTR, I knew in the back of my mind that ROTK would get Picture. Amazingly, however, I didn't think it would sweep and that was the surprise.

The real disappointment was Bill Murray losing to Sean Penn, but after thinking about it during the day, he might get another chance to be nominated with his next film "The Life Aquatic", the new film by Wes Anderson which should be coming out this fall. In the back of my mind, if this film is really good, he should be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination and possible Oscar win. So Bill Murray will probably be nominated again, and I hope he does, and if so, he should win.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Yup, that's my take. No one ever said it had to be faithful - it just has to come from another source. Technically you could take the title and the names of characters but change everything else and it'd still fit this category. Faithfulness is irrelevant - it's an award for the best screenplay that originated from something else...


And I'm also one of those who thought Titanic should have won six years ago and I still feel that way now. Not sure where this groundswell of alleged opposition to it is coming from, or who out there supports The Full Monty over it - outside of the rabid Titanic haters, who'd probably pick From Justin to Kelly as the superior flick...

 

[nolesrule]

But in any given year, what are the odds that the 5 best films are all original or all adapted?

 

[nolesrule]

From Justin to Kelly? Now that's going too far.

As far as The Full Monty, I guess you just have to appreciate British humor. It was an all-around excellent film.

If I wanted to watch a story about star-crossed lovers, I'd watch Romeo and Juliet (Zeferelli) or Moulin Rouge.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Rather odd. Silly too, assuming that Cruise was backstage and therefore no camera could get his reaction, they could've left the shot on Renee, or even shot another nominee to see her reaction instead.

It's nice to see someone thanking another's generousity in work-ethic, especially if that someone is a bona-fide superstar. Perhaps it'll knock some sense into spoilt diva-type starlets; someone with the clout and star-power of Cruise, and who could "behave badly" and get away, is acknowledged as having great work ethic whilst many young-uns don't.

Count me too among those who appreciated Robbins' classy acceptance speech, and that he resisted the urge to make an overtly political statement. At the same time, urging sufferers of abuse to get help, considering what his role in Mystic River was, was an excellent statement to make.

And am I amongst the minority in saying I enjoyed Crystal's performance? Though as someone earlier noted, "too much naked Crystal"...

 

[Craig S]

First off, let's note that the Titanic screenplay DID receive a WGA nomination. There seems to be some assumption that this script is universally considered a piece of shit. This is far from the truth.

When people diss the Titanic screenplay, what are they really referring to?? The dialogue. And yes, as has been mentioned here, there was quite a bit of bad dialogue in Titanic. But dialogue is only one component of a screenplay.

Back in 1998, at the height of the Titanic hoopla, Oscar-winning scribe William Goldman wrote a piece for "Premiere" magazine which eloquently defended the Titanic screenplay (I've looked for the article online, but as yet can't find a link). He put it uder the scrutiny you demand, and argued that as an "engineering blueprint", the Titanic screenplay was indeed nomination-worthy storytelling.

He talked about the structure - how the present-day framing sequences were effectively used to convey information about the ship itself (layout, the exact sequence of events that led to the sinking), and also to establish the character of Rose and get us on her side from the beginning. It was a fascinating piece and is worth searching out. It is reprinted in the book "The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays" (chapter - "Rocking the Boat").

You can argue back & forth about Titanic for days, but the simple fact remains - the damn thing worked. Not for everyone (there is no film ever made that works for everyone), but for more people than any other film in the last several decades. The numbers don't lie.

My personal experience in seeing the film for the first time doesn't lie, either. By the time the boat went into the water, a rowdy Saturday date-night crowd of hundreds was as one - completely absorbed in the events on the screen. You could've heard a pin drop in that theater. Jim Cameron had transported us back over 80 years to that night in the North Atlantic. It was one of the great moviegoing experiences of my life. Titanic was, and remains, a VERY worthy recipient of the Best Picture Oscar.

 

[Tino]

Well said Craig. Roger Ebert also defended the Titanic screenplay as a perfectly structured one. For all we know, it may have been #6 that year.

And this one's great. Apparently for a film to be considered great, it must have a best screenplay nomination? Riiight.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I'm sure people realize that Steven Spielberg or Tom Cruise was doing the presenting because, well, last year's winner for Best Director, Roman Polanski, wasn't going to be available to do the task...

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Polanksi's unavailability was a nice turn of fate.

I can't think of anyone better than having Spielberg present the BP Oscar for ROTK to Peter Jackson.

I love it when Speilberg said it was a sweep.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Hey, just found out I won the office Oscar pool! Woo Hoo!