*** Official 2008 Oscars Nominations List and Forum Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Haggai]

Actually that happened last year as well. Dreamgirls had 3 songs nominated, but the award went to the Melissa Etheridge song from An Inconvenient Truth.

I'm not sure what the exact historical winning percentage is when there are three nominees from the same movie in the same category, but if there's ever a danger of "splitting" your own vote, that obviously increases it quite a bit from having two nominees from the same movie in the same category.

In acting, the only instances I can think of off the top of my head were the first two Godfather movies in best supporting actor. Pacino, Caan, and Duvall were all nominated for the first Godfather, but Joel Grey won for Cabaret. For the second Godfather, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg were both nominated and lost, but the winner was De Niro from the same film.

 

[Haggai]

OK, with the help of the Little Golden Guy database website, I think this is the complete list of cases where one movie has had three nominees in the same category. I haven't 100% confirmed that these are the only instances in ANY category, but I think it's literally impossible in pretty much any other category besides best song or one of the acting categories. You can't have multiple noms for the same movie in screenplay, director, editing, art direction, etc. (obviously I'm discounting multiple contributors being grouped together for one nomination, e.g. the Coen brothers, since that's not an instance of a movie competing against itself within a category).

There have been 5 instances where it happened in the acting categories, and only one instance where one of those nominees was the winner (though the first instance, under current rules, would undoubtedly have split the noms between the actor and supporting actor categories). So this is a tough set of categories for a movie to compete against itself in.

Best Actor*

1935
Mutiny on the Bounty: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone
Winner: Victor McLaglen, The Informer

* The awards for supporting actor and actress didn't exist yet. They were put in the next year, I think largely because of this triple nomination in best actor.

Best Supporting Actor

1954
On the Waterfront: Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger
Winner: Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa

1972
The Godfather: Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall
Winner: Joel Grey, Cabaret

1974
The Godfather Part II: Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo, Lee Strasberg
Winner: De Niro

Best Supporting Actress

1963
Tom Jones: Diane Cilento, Joyce Redman, Edith Evans
Winner: Margaret Rutherford, The V.I.P.s

Best Song
Triple nominees from one movie have happened 4 times, all in the last couple of decades, with 2 wins and 2 losses:

1991
Beauty and the Beast: won for its title song

1994
The Lion King: won for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"

2006
Dreamgirls: lost to An Inconvenient Truth

2007
Enchanted: lost to Once

 

[Keith Paynter]

Makes me nostalgic for Will Farrell.

 

[teapot2001]

"Falling Slowly" is a great song and was the main one for the movie, how could you be annoyed by its nomination, Holadem? The recording sessions one is great too, and sounds great live like they performed at the Indie Spirits, and I would've liked to have seen that nominated along with "Falling Slowly" instead of replacing it.

There doesn't seem to be much feedback on this forum for this year's show. I'm gonna guess this will be one of the least watched Oscars.

~T

 

[Chris]

Yes, however, when they clap it becomes absolutely apparent that some people are "more" loved then others, which I think is a bitter slap to the families of those people. I mean, everyone has loved ones.. so don't clap during the tribute. Clap as a whole for everyone at the end. It's something that's grated on me for a long time....

 

[Marvin]

That happened at least one or two other times when there were multiple honorees, i.e. cutting off the mike after the band started playing. But even when they brought her back, it wasn't as if she had anything all that important or out of the ordinary to say.

Was everyone getting these little sound drop-outs at several points during the show? At first (during the Supporting Actor thank you speech), I thought maybe it was a time-delay censor thing. But afer a few more, it seemed more like a glitch in the HD broadcast.

As usual, I didn't see any of the movies before the show so I don't know if the right movie won. Based on one hearing, I'd say the best song won. But that 11 year old girl from the second song (Raise It Up) that was performed had quite a voice.

And I liked Jon Stewart better this time than the first time.

 

[Holadem]

A few things that contributed to a somewhat less magical experience:

Did it seem like much of the A-list usual suspects was missing? Or did the direction chose to focus more on the nominees than usual? There are a LOT of faces I did not see in the audience. It may be superficial but... where it the glamour?

I hope they go back to showing clips of the 5 best picture nominees throught the show. It seemed like the Academy was busier celebrating it's history than 2007 flicks. Thanks to it's 3 best song nominations and corresponding performances, Enchanted had more presence than everything else. I miss specific film-themed acts and clips, building up to the Best Picture award.

Sure, the BP slate wasn't exactly a ball of laugh... but some presence would have been nice. Unless I missed something, I don't recall Jon Steward referencing NCfOM or TWBB even once. The bulk of his rather thin movie-specific material dealt with Juno. I recall one Michael Clayton joke (rounding up the running time) and one for Atonement (Yom Kippur -- brilliant) but nothing else.

--
H

 

[PaulP]

Wow, I did very poorly :frowning:

 

[Marty M]

I was very pleasantly surprised that Slowly Falling was chosen for the Oscar. Bringing Marketa back on stage was something that had never been done before, to the best of my knowledge. I am glad they let her give her acceptance speach.

 

[ZacharyTait]

Poor Kevin O'Connell. 0 for 20!

Ouch! I went 10 for 24.

I completely missed The Bourne Ultimatium, picking Transformers for the Sound categories and No Country for Editing.

Actress and Supporting Actress were a crapshoot for me and I went with my heart instead of my brain on those, picking Ellen Page and Amy Ryan.

I thought that maybe Roger Deakins would split the vote allowing Robert Elswit to get in there and win for Cinemtography, but I stuck with Roger thinking that he would get a ride on the No Country bandwagon.

Art Direction and Costume were also crapshoots and I went with Atonement since it was a period piece and was embraced by the Academy unlike Elizabeth: The Golden Age.


I went with Pirates for Makeup, but when I saw the pictures of Marion before and after, I figured it would win.

For score, I listened to my heart again and went with Michael Giachinno for Ratatouille. I still think he should have been nominated for The Incredibles.

I wonder if Pirates and Transformers split the vote for Visual SFX, allowing The Golden Compass to win it. I thought the SFX for TGC were the weakest of the bunch.

I picked No End in Sight simply because of the subject matter.

No comment on the Doc Shorts, Live Shorts and Animated Shorts since I never see any of them and totally guess on those. If you ask me, they need to scrap these categories to the Scientific and Technical Oscars.

My favorite moment of the night was Marketa coming back on stage and giving her speech after being cut off.

The 4 acting wins were all non-Americans. The invasion has begun!

 

[IanDP]

I noticed about 5 sound drop-outs. And yes, the first I noticed was during Javier Bardem's supporting actor speech, but he was speaking in Spanish at the time so I assumed it wasn't the censors (unless it was some Spanish profanity).

I have DirecTV, by the way (going on 4 months), and usually my audio and video is flawless.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I too was getting sound dropouts, and I was pretty sure at the time that it was the broadcast, not my reception, because I've had almost no problem with sound since I switched from a cable box to CableCARD.

The ratings may be bad, but the lack of forum activity has its own cause. The Movies forum area has been relatively quiet for the last year or so. Most of the activity on HTF has moved to the hi-def areas, and a lot of the people in those areas have been too preoccupied with recent tech developments to spend much time at the movies.

M.

 

[Sam Favate]

I thought the production was lacking on the Enchanted numbers. Amy Adams deserved better (and deserved to be nominated!) than an unflattering dress and an empty stage. Kristen Chenoweth wasn't the best choice for her song, and that production felt flat too.

 

[teapot2001]

Now that you brought it up Holadem, the best picture build up was missed by me, too. Those old clips of past winners in the acting categories didn't do much for me, but I did like the best picture montage.

Something else that made it less special was that alot of the presenters seemed to announce the winner right after the final nominee was announced, instead of pausing for several seconds.

Besides for the honorary recipient, there were no other standing ovations given.

The intro with Seth Rogen and the other guy was bad. Makes me miss Will Ferrel, Ben Stiller, the funny Owen Wilson ... The Rock was really funny bringing up how frightening the face melting scene in Raiders was for him as a kid.

~T

 

[Ennsio]

Bourne Ultimatum really cleaned up on the technical awards, which was surprising but nice to see.

I wonder if the wins were based on rewarding the achievements of the entire trilogy (ala ROTK), or solely on Ultimatum?

On another note, in Canada we got the Oscars via CTV's feed on both CTV and ABC and the audio track was off by a fraction of a second the whole show. Did anybody else have this problem? It made it extremely difficult to watch the speaker's face.

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Though I too like the recording session song better ("When Your Mind's Made Up"), I think they got it right by choosing "Falling Slowly". It's the first time the pair sing together, shows them working through the song and is really the core of the film. Their relationship takes off from there. Would have loved to see "When Your Mind's Made Up" also nominated though (in place of that awful third song from Enchanted - the crappy ballad that was the last song played).

What I didn't like so much was the way the song was arranged for the Oscars - with sweetened strings and other accompaniment. It plays so much better and emotional as a duet. IMO the proof is here.

The other two songs from Enchanted were pretty good actually. My wife (who saw the film) mentioned that Amy Adams made them a great deal of fun in the film. Not sure why she didn't sing the second one...

Other random thoughts about the show:

- Tilda Swinton's acceptance speech may have been my favourite moment. She was genuinely surprised, thankful and yet still very funny (her comments about Clooney being really dedicated to the Batman costume...).
- I really enjoyed Jon Stewart's hosting. He was a bit flat last time out, but seemed more relaxed and even spontaneous (about Glen Hansard - "Boy, that guy was arrogant").
- I'm a bit bummed about "Madame Tutli-Putli" not winning the Best Short Animated film, but I haven't seen any of the others, so I can't comment. But the clips from "Peter The Wolf" just didn't compare...And why did they have to pick a story that's been done a hundred times already? Not fair I suppose...I'm sure the winner is quite deserving...
- Marion Cotillard was stunning. Wowza.
- And I have to say that I'm even curious to see La Vie En Rose now (not just because of Cotillard).
- I totally missed the section on Sunrise. What was the context? Just a tribute to one of the Best Picture winners from 80 years ago?
- I also missed the roll call of the dead - maybe I can find the video on Youtube. I can't say I "enjoy" it every year, but it's a nice reminder of those that have passed away. For the broadcast, they should really just mute the audience and play recorded music over it - even if you tell people to hold their applause, they usually can't.
- "Henry Kissinger - Man On The Go"
- Daniel Day-Lewis kneeling before Helen Mirren. She was pretty damn stunning too.
- The spoofs on the montages were pretty funny, in particular the bee one that included The Swarm. I mean, did you ever expect to see a clip from The Swarm at The Oscars?
- I liked the montages of the previous winners, but I agree with those that said there wasn't a great deal of focus on the Best Picture nominees.
- Marion Cotillard really was gorgeous...
- I still think Steve Carrell is one of the funniest people around.
- The audience really seemed to approve of the win by "Falling Slowly" - that was probably the biggest round of applause of the night.
- Not only were all the acting awards won by Europeans, it seemed most of the other awards were too.

Did I mention Marion Cotillard is really good-looking?

 

[Patrick Sun]

I have that DVD, just need to find some time to watch it. I probably picked it up for $5-$8 last year when the DVD went on sale.

 

[Holadem]

Thi, my feelings about the song are somewhat colored by the movie as a whole. At the time the song showed up, I wasn't fully in the film yet. So it doesn't carry as much emotional weight for me as it perhaps should have.

Of the films whose songs were nominated, Once is the only one I saw.

Purely based on last night's performances, I was rooting for August Rush to win. That 11 y/o was flat out amazing. And while I am not about to run out and buy the DVD, the performance alone put the movie on my radar. On the other hand, the performances from Enchanted nearly dropped the film from my to-watch list. Go figure.

Bob, what do you think of Marion Cotillard?

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H

 

[Michael Elliott]

Before the show there was some conversations going on about the public not being interested and I guess they weren't. I just saw on MSNBC that this had the lowest ratings in history.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

H, Amy Adams performance in the film totally sold two of those Enchanted songs, which were a lot of fun in the theater because of her powerhouse performance. Don't judge the film on the Oscars' poor interpretation. Like I said, having NOT seen Once and truly liking Enchanted, I believe they got Best Original Song exactly right. But they didn't do Enchanted any favors.

I'm unsurprised by the tepid criticism of Stewart from some of the "insider" blogs. They did the same thing last time he hosted. He's laid back and calm, and he isn't as star struck as some of the LA d-bags would like. He basically got famous and popular on his own terms. I think he is a GREAT host, and he was the big reason I tuned in last night. He can take the piss in a nice understated fashion. But subtlety doesn't play well at the Oscars. I didn't like everything he did, but he even handled the bad jokes pretty well.