Official Academy Awards Nominations 2010 Thread (Announced) (2 Viewers)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Chuck Mayer

Here is the irony. Of every discipline brought to bear, only one is uniquely cinematic. Only one discipline defines filmmaking. And they let Tyler Perry (who is a director and knows better) completely shortsell it. Editing is filmmaking. Everything else is a borrowed discipline.

But don't you know, the Academy voters just pick whatever film they want to win Best Picture for editing (if nominated for both categories) or whatever film has the most cuts (if not)!

The irony is that this year The Hurt Locker has a more plausible claim to best editing than it does to best picture. More than any of the other nominees, The Hurt Locker depended on editing and sound design to tell its story.

Even more so than screenwriters, editors are completely disconnected from what happens on set and are therefore the least understood and the most easily dismissed by the rest of the crafts. It's very hard to pick out a well-edited picture, however it's very easy to point out a poorly edited picture. The editing played a major role in hampering my enjoyment of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for example.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Scott, I certainly don't mean to say that editing is the most important element (in some movies, it is). It is the most unique one...the most singularly cinematic. I believe the actors create a performance, and the editor tells a story with it, sometimes complementing the actor and sometimes failing the actor (but I'll concede your experience, of course).

My intent would not be to belittle the actors or their input, but to celebrate other disciplines as equals in the context of the award shows. My language is sarcastic towards the writing of the show, not Perry, Bullock, or Stiller. Because the AA does stuff like that every year. And most people only know of cinematography through what Sandra Bullock says.

I thought The Hurt Locker was worthy of every award it won save one...screenplay. That was the weakest element of the film. That said, I thought it was a pretty soft year for BP nominees.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Chuck Mayer

That said, I thought it was a pretty soft year for BP nominees.

Yeah, there was no "This movie must win!" for me this year. Although if I was an Academy voter, my vote would have definitely gone to Inglourious Basterds. I'm not really bothered that The Hurt Locker won but, to me, I thought there were alot of movies (nominated and not nominated) that were better.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Originally Posted by Andy Sheets

Quote:

Yeah, pretty much. The Best Animated category was largely created in response to Beauty and the Beast getting nominated and they didn't want any more uppity cartoons taking Best Picture slots from "real movies".

Really? If that's the case, I have to wonder why it took them 10 years to add the animated category.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Originally Posted by Chris Will

Well, I still think Up was the best movie of the year. I also think the Best Animated Film category hurt it's chances at getting Best Picture. I'm not saying it would have won but, I think it would have been given more consideration if it was only in the Best Picture category. I just think that the Academy voters gave it the Best Animated Film win and then looked over it for BP.

I think more of a case can be made for Wall-E and Ratatouille which got better reviews. Wall-E was actually the 2nd best-reviewed film of 2008., Ratatouille was the best-reviewed film of 2007.


http://www.metacritic.com/film/awards/

 

[Jose Martinez]

Here's a Time article on why Avatar lost:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1970502,00.html?cnn=yes&hpt=C2

 

[Hanson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TravisR

Yeah, there was no "This movie must win!" for me this year. Although if I was an Academy voter, my vote would have definitely gone to Inglourious Basterds. I'm not really bothered that The Hurt Locker won but, to me, I thought there were alot of movies (nominated and not nominated) that were better.

I agree about IB and THL. I made my peace that IB wasn't going to win, and since an Avatar win wasn't really any better, I started the night knowing that Best Picture was just going to elicit a shrug.

A little upset about the screenplay award, however.

 

[Michael Elliott]

According to that Time article SAVING PRIVATE RYAN should have won and THE LORD OF THE RINGS should have lost. Not too much put into that article except a weak conspiracy theory.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Best ratings in 5 years:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=10044174

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Originally posted by Jay E:

To get such a long tribute like he did last night...much longer than anything the Oscars did recently for people such as Marlon Brando or Stanley Kubrick was just way too much pandering fto the demographic.

Actually, they did do a tribute to Kubrick the year after he died. I'm not sure about length, but they did single him out. I felt the John Hughes tribute was nice, but it should have ended after the video; bringing out all the actors might have been a little much.

Overall, I thought it was a really awkward show, and not very well-produced. Martin & Baldwin were surprisingly very unfunny (except for the Paranormal Activity bit, which I did laugh at), a far cry from Hugh Jackman's spirited turn last year.

I'm conflicted over the Original Score dance number. I'm glad they did something to highlight the score nominees (something they haven't done in a while) and some of the dancing was pretty impressive, but it certainly wasn't the best marriage of music and dance I've seen.

As for the extended Actor/Actress introductions, at least they didn't also do it for the supporting categories, like they did two years ago. I agree, though, they've got to get rid of that; I know they're trying to make things actor-centric to pull in more ratings, but just show us a good clip and move on.

Something else they must stop doing is using a featured artist for the memorial segment; with all due respect to James Taylor, it takes the focus off the people they're supposedly honoring.

As for the awards themselves, my favorite movie of the year was A Serious Man, but that didn't have a chance, so I was glad Hurt Locker won for Best Picture and Director.

Also, I know that they were trying to hurry up at the end, but it would have been nice for them to re-name all the Best Pic nominees. I think that would have been a better use of the time than the history lesson about the last time there were 10 films nominated.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Michael Reuben

Best ratings in 5 years:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=10044174

Next year, 50 Best Picture Nominees!

 

[MielR]

I find it extremely disrespectful to Bea Arthur, Farrah Fawcett, and Ricardo Montalban that they couldn't spare 5 seconds on each actor to honor them. Somebody really screwed up.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Originally Posted by TravisR


Next year, 50 Best Picture Nominees!

And Martin and Baldwin will be joined by all three Jonas Brothers as co-hosts!

 

[Edwin-S]

Originally Posted by Jeff Adkins




Really? If that's the case, I have to wonder why it took them 10 years to add the animated category.

Because they never had to worry about an animated film being nominated for Best Picture or coming so close to winning it before? Funny how Best Animated Picture shows up as a category shortly after Disney's "Beauty and The Beast" gets nominated. In the case of "UP", the only reason it got nominated was due to the expansion of the roster of nominations from five to ten films.

 

[Hanson]

Originally Posted by TravisR

Next year, 50 Best Picture Nominees!

Hooray! Best Picture nom for Cop Out after all!

That reminds me of the SNL sketch from the Ashton Kutcher episode.

I didn't much like Up. The opening scene was nice, but the rest of the movie was tedious. Like Fitzcarraldo with talking dogs minus the riveting insanity of Klaus Kinski.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Originally Posted by MielR .

BTW, the only possible disrespect to Ricardo Montalban would be forgetting the very fine tribute paid to him in last year's In Memoriam segment, just over a month after his passing on Jan. 14, 2009.

 

[Parker Clack]

I had the same problem. I am going to get with Mibbit and find out what caused that to happen.

 

[Ken Chan]

Originally Posted by Michael Elliott

According to that Time article SAVING PRIVATE RYAN should have won and THE LORD OF THE RINGS should have lost.

SIL was a comedy set around screenwriting and acting; SPR is best appreciated on the big screen with an awesome sound system. Gandalf is slightly older than the average Academy member.

Not that there's much there, but the article is mostly right -- except that those are not really "U.S. soldiers" in Avatar.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Originally Posted by Ken Chan


SIL was a comedy set around screenwriting and acting; SPR is best appreciated on the big screen with an awesome sound system. Gandalf is slightly older than the average Academy member.

Not that there's much there, but the article is mostly right -- except that those are not really "U.S. soldiers" in Avatar.

If the writer is going to say THL won because of politics then a movie that pays tribute to the greatest generation should have walked away without any problem. If the older group doesn't like something ground breaking then they wouldn't have liked the LOTR trilogy. At least that's how I personally look at the article and his opinions. Could it be that Cameron is hated? I would certainly buy that argument over the others. I'm not sure if he's hated but I'm sure people are jealous.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Originally Posted by Edwin-S




Because they never had to worry about an animated film being nominated for Best Picture or coming so close to winning it before? Funny how Best Animated Picture shows up as a category shortly after Disney's "Beauty and The Beast" gets nominated. In the case of "UP", the only reason it got nominated was due to the expansion of the roster of nominations from five to ten films.

If it took 10 years to add the category, that doesn't strike me as shortly. As far as coming "so close to winning", the actual vote count is never released. For all we know, BatB finished a distant 5th in the voting. Considering the reluctance to vote for an animated film, it wouldn't surprise me if BatB finished 5th.

I would think that the increased popularity of animated films is the main inspiration for adding the category. I think they added the category not because they were afraid an animated film would win best picture, they added it so they could vote for an animated film. Without the animated category, there's still be no animated film winning best pic.

If you were to put the academy membership into two categories: those who create animated films and those who don't, wouldn't it work out to say 10% to 90%, or something like that? Just no way an animated films gets the top award.