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Official Oscar Nominations and Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

Adam_S

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Ballhaus' omission was my biggest dissappointment (after Dreamgirls snub) as well.
 

Craig S

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Not exactly true. The nominees for these categories are chosen by a small committee, but for the final award all active and life members of the Academy are eligible to vote - provided they have seen ALL nominees at theatrical screenings (video/DVD viewings are not eligible).

This is from the Official Academy Awards Rules, an invaluable resource for all Oscar-philes.

But your point is well-taken. Amelie was a light, romantic crowd-pleaser (although very well-reviewed), had multiple noms and a very successful US run at the BO - and was beaten by the more serious No Man's Land. Pan's is in a similar situation. It has multiple noms & I believe it will clearly be the most financially successful of the 5 FF nominees (it made the Top Ten list last weekend even before all the noms). You couldn't call it "light", but it is a fantasy. The film most likely to play spoiler is probably The Lives Of Others, which has received raves everywhere.

In Pan's favor, it's one of the best-reviewed films of the year, and it's one of the trio of superb films by the very hot and visible "Three Caballeros" (Del Toro, Cuaron, Gonzales Innaritu). Because of this, I'm sticking with PL to take the award.
 

rich_d

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The five best picture nominees are all strong, no problem there.

However, I'm not really excited but any one of those films as I am to Children of Men or Pan's Labyrinth so (at best) I might just tape the show. I haven't watched it live in years.

I don't see Dreamgirls as that strong. If one were to listen to the Broadway score and the film score the latter comes up sadly lacking.

My guess is that Marty gets his win this year. They've honored Clint enough in recent past and they've excluded Alfonso Cuarón who seriously out-directed everyone this year.
 

Holadem

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Things are uncharacteristically quiet on the Oscar front this year, no? I was hoping the absence of a controversial release (Brokeback Mountain, or to a lesser extent Million Dollar baby) might allow discussions to center on movies this time around, rather than a whole array of peripheral topics (euthanasia?)... but silence appears to be the alternative. I guess this year's crop of nominees hasn't exactly generated any soul-stirring passion?

--
H
 

Malcolm R

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I don't think most people have even seen many of the big nominees, outside of "The Departed." Have any of the rest cracked the $30m barrier at the box office? People can't be excited about films they haven't seen.

I haven't seen any of the BP nominees. Mostly since I don't get to the theater much anymore since I got my projector. I'll catch the DVDs later.
 

Patrick Sun

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Well, since my top film pick was "Children of Men" and it didn't even get nominated in the BP and BD categories, this has led to a tepid interest in those races for me this year. Please let CoM win Best Adapted Screenplay (simply as tight an economical script as anything else this year).

Marty's getting the BD and it's a make-up Oscar (mainly for his work in the 1970s-1990s), but I wouldn't even rank his work in The Departed in my top 5 directorial efforts this year, but so it goes. It would be a wild upset if Eastwood got his 3rd BD Oscar, but I wouldn't mind it if that happened. Also, if LfIJ were to pull an upset in the BP race, that's be okay with me as it's probably a more relevant film given the current events situation half-way around the world, but I suspect The Departed has the best shot (with Babel not too far behind a la the "Crash" factor), but it's just not that "great" a film to win BP, just more of an ensemble piece with a so-so story.

Best Actor and Best Actress are pretty much slam-dunks this year as well (Whitaker and Mirren), and each race (actor/actress) is somewhat representative of a weak field this year. This year's supporting races aren't too interesting to me either, and it'll probably be a Dreamgirls sweep in Best Supporting actor and actress (Murphy/Hudson) and I didn't much care for that film.
 

Adam_S

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I simply don't get this attitude. Departed is probably the best directed film of the year, and one of Marty's crowning achievements because of its subtlety and elegance at incoporating the deeper subtexts and themes into a typical B movie structure. It's simultaneously the most John Ford and Nicholas Ray type movie he's ever made.

If he genuinely deserves it, it's hardly a makeup oscar. He's not campaigning for a makeup oscar like Gangs of New York (which only created the subconscious thought that if he needed it on the grounds of a 'makeup' he didn't actually earn it or deserve it on merit alone that year).

Departed is as strong a moment in his directorial career as any of his darker and more famous films.

I've always thought Kevin Costner had a greater achievement in Dances with Wolves than Scorsese with Goodfellas. Goodfellas was the better directed film, that's not something I'd question, but Costner had the superior achievement in directing. Scorsese has been evaluated by his peers five times and always been found to not be the best overall achievement in directing in that year, the oscars evaluate the year's achievement in the context of that year, because no one can predict what will be considered a 'classic' in five, ten, twenty or forty years. Chances are it will probably be a film that was very well liked upon it's initial release as well, and that's what the crowd (the academy) bets on happening. Some voters will also evaluate each nomination in the context of the nominee's entire career, but noone can reliably say that every voter is aware of that context, or even cares about it. Some don't care, some just aren't informed, but the only context in common to all the voters is the context of the year being voted on. Sometimes enough press and word of mouth about a single nominee will sway the voting, and that may be the case for Scorsese, as it was for Randy Newman, and may someday happen for Kevin OConnell, but that's enough of a rare event to be more of a notable anomaly than a reliable indicator of actual academy practice. If it were reliable Lauren Bacall and Peter OToole would have oscars for their most recent nominated efforts, Alan Arkin and OToole should be unstoppable this year if it were reliable, it's an anomaly to be honored for a career with a competitive oscar, it just happens that the anomalies are often controversial and thus generate disproportionate discussion to their actual significance to how the academy votes. And we can only assume that the award was for a career achievement, it's always possible the voters DID feel that performance was better than the other four and not a single career achievement vote was cast.

What I find amusing is that two years ago, Eastwood came out with a classic movie-movie and knocked out Scorsese's cineaste achievement, this year Scorsese has a classic movie-movie and will probably knock out Eastwood's cineaste achievement.

Controversy drives discussion because controversy means theres a lack of consensus and the social aspects of being human are constantly trying to sort out a community opinion, and healthy debate from both informed and uninformed opinions results in the most intelligent consensus pick. This year there's little to promote discussion for two reasons, only one of the films has been seen by a lot of people (two, maybe, now with Little Miss Sunshine on DVD) and there's no real controversial movies to promote discussion about the race. Last year people were eager to talk about homophobia, racism, the deterioration of media, and the portrayal of terrorists and counterterrorist measures, their relative merits as issues, their relative merit in the terms the film portrayed them in and the reaction of the academy to all the above. There was a lot of controversy driving discussion about four of the films. This year lacks that discussion. No one wants to talk about the true level of atrocities committed by the Japanese on Iwo Jima for whatever reason, and it's not something the film chose to address, so it's being tastefully ignored. Last year was an excessive overload of 'important social issue films that are good for you' this year lacks those loaded topics.
 

rich_d

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We disagree. Heck I have nooooo idea how John Ford's name gets brought into the picture but SEVERAL current director's smoked what Scorsese did in The Departed (which I really liked).

Btw, what are the deeper subtexts and themes of The Departed?

I agreed with Patrick, it's makeup time. Which I can live with as few have done more for film preservation and appreciation than Marty has over the years.

My opinion is that COM not even getting NOMINATED for BD will be viewed as a blatant Oscar muckup (ten years from now).

Then maybe Alfonso Cuarón gets his makeup Oscar.

And so it goes.
 

Malcolm R

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Oops! You're right. So I guess people have seen them. They're just not all that passionate about whether they win awards or not.
 

buttmunker

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I just watched Dreamgirls, and thought it was "just a movie." That's not a good thing, as a film to knock my socks off would be considered "An Experience."

And what the heck was Eddie Murphy nominated for, anyway? Singing? We all knew he could sing ("Party All The Time" was a #2 hit, after all), and he obviously can act, but I didn't see what all the hoopola was about. There was nothing special there.

I think the nomination should have gone to Brad Pitt for Babel.
 

Michael Reuben

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This year we don't have our usual "guild awards" thread; so I'll just note here that, with Little Miss Sunshine having picked up awards from the Writers, Producers and Screen Actors Guild, its odds for the Best Picture Oscar are pretty formidable.

M.
 

Holadem

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I swear I am defecting to the "I hate the Oscars" side. Is the pay better over there?

--
H
 

Casey Neutron

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I'd forgotten that Brad Pitt was one of the producers of "The Departed." I'm sure he'd be very pleased to see "Babel" win Best Picture, but if "The Departed" wins he'll get to ascend the stage and accept an Oscar. Wonder which film he'll be checking on his ballot.
 

Vickie_M

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I moved the Guild results to a web page because it all fits on one page. This is the latest up-to-date version:

suspended-in-gaffa.com/guilds

They're all done now except for the Golden Reels, which don't get announced until the day before the Oscars, and the Hair and Makeup people, who don't care enough about their own people to announce their nominees and winners.
 

Nathan V

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I believe I recall reading that Pitt is not one of the producers who would receive an oscar if the film won; they narrow down the number of producers who actually get the oscar (Crash-Cheadle debacle, etc).

I would be very happy to see Babel or the Departed win, but I have a sinking feeling it's gonna be Little Miss Sunshine, what with the guild domination. Bab and Departed tied for drama at the ACE's (second time in history!), and Dreamgirls got the other one. Departed will take screenplay; LMS will take adapted. Pan's will probably take score, and cinematography, despite the COM ASC win, and a few other craft awards, along with FF. Pan's is 100% guaranteed to win makeup. I can see Dreamgirls taking sound; it could be a bit of a battle between Pan's and DG for the techies, which I see DG getting at least a few. Acting is all a foregone conclusion; the question marks are BD and BP (and animated feature!)

Regards,
Nathan
 

Quentin

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Holy cow!!! Talk about a tough year where anyone can win!! The Departed and Babel TIED for the ACE Eddie yesterday. I was counting on that win to help me pick the winner.

Some help!!
 

Adam_S

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in terms of help, you have a three way race between Babel, LMS and Departed. a win for Babel or Departed at ACE would have tipped the balance slightly in favor of either. On the other hand Departed has DGA, ACE and WGA wins, which only five films in history have also had, all five of which won best picture and director, (Sound of Music, Patton, Dances with Wolves, Schindler's List, Forest Gump).

On the other hand stats will come back to bite you in the ass, especially this year. Perhaps we should bug Seth to plug the guild wins into his magic formula to see what it comes up with this year?

And the three way heat for best picture opens up the race for a spoiler such as The Queen (and to a lesser extent, Letters from Iwo Jima).

So, is Departed a guys movie with wide appeal? Is it serious enough to win, ala Bridge on the River Kwai, French Connection, Patton, Gladiator, Unforgiven, and Braveheart? Or is it the more common guys movie that loses because it's not important enough?
 

Rob Foss

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I think the question is whether it's a voter movie with sufficient appeal to the Academy's predominantly 50+ age group. My own feeling - and I read the other day a couple of critics making the same point - is that The Departed will get its reward in the Director category and that will be considered sufficient. But as I say that's my personal feeling. It is still an open race and with only 23-25% of the vote in such a divided field needed to win, The Departed could still pull it off. The trouble is so could The Queen, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima and Little Miss Sunshine.
 

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