Oscar bits and Bites
The Atlantic posts the annual grip about the “most insane, illogical award choices in Oscar history,” and sites the usual suspects — natch, Citizen Kane over How Green was My Valley, Roberto Benigni over Edward Norton, surely to work certain supporters of a certain actress up into a wild frenzy. But check it out if you are unfamiliar with the refrain.
Scott Feinberg talks to Greg P. Russell, sound mixer and many times nominee for Transformers III. That is here.
The Guardian asks, why does the Academy snub fanboy friendly films? And the answer is this: first, they don’t want that to be the future of Hollywood and they’re fighting it tooth and nail, and second, the Academy voters are, by and large, fathers and grandfathers of fanboys.
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How about Crash over Brokeback Mountain, and Denzel over Russell in 2001, or my fav Marlee Matlin over Jane Fonda in 1986.
Also, the folks over at Cartoon Brew have been posting short but illuminating interviews with the directors of each of the nominated animated short films. The last one (on dark horse A Morning Stroll) went up today.
What lazy journalism. Hepburn’s Oscar for Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was not her last of four wins, but her second. And they decry the victory of veterans over New Hollywood without acknowledging that Mike Nichols won the Direction award.
Having said that, Hepburn’s award was certainly a sympathy/career vote (considering Spencer Tracy’s death and her lack of a win in over 30 years), but they must have REALLY liked her the next year in The Lion in Winter to award her again so soon.
No less infuriating is this article’s assertion that Ford’s magnificent How Green Is My Valley was the most forgettable of the 1941 films nominated for Best Picture. This includes Sergeant York, not one of Howard Hawks’ highlights, and Suspicion (ditto w/r/r Hitchcock).
“How Green Was My Valley” may be the best film not to deserve the Best Picture award. It would have been a fine winner in any other year.
Shakespeare over Private Ryan
Slumdog over Benjamin Button(I think Fincher deserved Director Oscar only for this, not Social Network)
Chariots of Fire over Riders of the Lost Ark
Gandhi over E.T
Out of Africa over Color Purple
The Hurt Locker over Avatar or Inglorious Basterds
Or you could say that Academy voters are aging fanboys … the guys (they’re mostly guys) who loved Mean Streets and Badlands are now voting for the mature Scorsese and Malick films. The Boomers have shifted American culture — old people now refuse to believe that they’ve become unhip. Gen X guys like me are just as bitter about it as we were when Cobain was alive and kicking, except we’re creeping into that old and far from hip demographic too. I mean, I spent most of DRIVE squinting at the screen, wondering what the hell I was watching. An emo Taxi Driver? What the hell is this thing? Oscar voters are, sadly, more like me than the fanboys.
I agree Dan 100%.
ABM over Gosford Park, Fellowship, Moulin Rouge and more.
Naming Geraldine Page one of the worst choices of all time is lazy journalism as lazarus said. And I`m a HUGE fan of Whoopi Goldberg and one of the very few people I talked to who though she should win for Ghost. There are 2 ways you should win an Oscar: for the performance or the career. Geraldine Page is one of the best hollywood actress of all time. She had been nominated 7 times before The Trip to Bountiful and it proved to be their last chance to award her since she died the year after she won the Oscar. She absolutely deserved it. And she was very good in the film.
Since I`ve been following the Oscars in the Shakespeare In Love year, some of the worst choices for me are:
- Roberto Benigni over all the other 4.
- Jennifer Hudson over all the other 4.
- Gwyneth Paltrow over Fernanda Montenegro and Cate Blanchett.
- Crash over all the others and the un-nominated The Constant Gardner, Match Point and A History of Violence.
- The King`s Speech over The Social Network, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, Inception and 127 Hours.
- Tom Hooper over all the other 4 and the un-nominated Danny Boyle and Christopher Nolan.
Using the term lazarus used: “lazy journalism“.
And the way they talked about about How Green Was My Valley… of course it did not deserve but.. worse than Sargent York?
Roberto Benigni deserved Oscar.
And i forgot about Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind (probably best “true sci-fi” film). it was better than Annie Hall (overrated simple movie). But it was not even nominated for BP.
The Academy’s questionable choices are too numerous to mention. Some of you may disagree, but here’s a handful taken only from the best actor races:
1940 – James Stewart (Philadelphia Story) over Henry Fonda (Grapes of Wrath) or Charles Chaplin (Great Dictator)
1943 – Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine) over Bogie (Casablanca)
1944 – Bing Crosby (Going my Way) over anyone else
1947 – Ronald Colman over John Garfield, Gregory Peck and Michael Redgrave
1959 – Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur) over James Stewart (Anatomy of a Murder) or Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot)
1964 – Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) over Peter O’Toole (Becket) or Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove)
1968 – Cliff Robertson (Charly) over Peter O’Toole (Lion in Winter)
1969 – John Wayne (True Grit) over Jon Voight or Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy)
1995 – Nicholas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas) over Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking) or Anthony Hopkins (Nixon)
2000 – Russell Crowe (Gladiator) over Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls)
Some of you may think I’m nuts, but I’ll defend to the death the choice of Art Carney (Harry & Tonto) over his competition in 1974 (Albert Finney, Murder on the Orient Express; Dustin Hoffman, Lenny; Jack Nicholson, Chinatown; and Al Pacino (Godfather II).
The reason is actually pretty simple and nobody wants to acknowledge it – fanboy films by and large suck ass.
@red-wine wlee Harry Potter’s last film didn’t suck
The worst for me was Michael Caine winning for The Cider House Rules.I hate when they give it to someone who already won, unless that someone gave truly the best performance – and that is not the case here.The movie is nothing special,his performance was routinely done.Michael Caine is such a great actor, a legend, and he won an Oscar for a movie like that.The movie that wouldn’t have a notable place in his filmography if he hadn’t won an Oscar for it.And with that competition (Cruise, Osment, Law, Duncan)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/feb/17/oscars-2012-snub-fanboy-films?newsfeed=true
“Certain Hollywood actors seem to revel in their geek status, whether it be grinning Simon Pegg turning out to pose with Stormtroopers at Star Wars-related events, or painfully earnest Andrew Garfield arriving at Comic-Con in a ropey homemade Spider-Man costume. If we’re to believe his on-screen persona, Seth Rogen is a naive, dope-smoking slacker who struggles with the ladies, not the hugely successful actor and screenwriter who has taken Hollywood by storm in the past couple of years. Could this be why the star of Knocked Up and Pineapple Express has just gone on record to berate the absence of Drive and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol from this year’s Oscars hunt? Is he simply playing up to the image of the overgrown kid who loves genre movies with plenty of spectacle while secretly gorging himself on Terrence Malick?
“I honestly thought Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was one of the best movies of the year. It got no love from awards, whatsoever. I loved that fucking movie!” Rogen told Collider. “It was great! And, I thought Drive was awesome too. That got nominated for an Independent Spirit award, but didn’t get any Oscar nominations.”
On the other hand, perhaps Rogen has something of a point. Take a look down the list of nominees at this year’s Oscars, and there’s a notable absence of genre material in the major categories, while a number of movies that were actually pretty poorly received by critics appear to have inexplicably crept in.
Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-stylish superhero tale cum gangster exploitation flick, is the most obvious omission, nominated only for sound editing. With his Cannes-celebrated thriller, Winding Refn pulled off the rare trick of creating a movie that was so much more than the sum of its parts. How Albert Brooks missed out on a best supporting actor nod for his grimy, grimly functional mob boss is beyond me.
Don’t just take my word for it. According to the review aggregator website rottentomatoes.com, Drive was one of the top five widely released movies of 2011, with a 93% “fresh” rating. That’s way ahead of best picture nominees such as War Horse (76%) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (45%), a film which ought to fare better at the Razzies.
The year’s top wide-release film is another genre effort, David Yates’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, with a staggering 96% “fresh” rating, ahead of every single film on the best picture nominees list bar The Artist (97%). Other genre films which performed well with critics but picked up little or no Oscars love include Duncan Jones’s Source Code (91%), Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block (90%), perfectly pitched comedy horror Tucker & Dale vs Evil (85%), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (83%, confined to the best special effects category) and JJ Abrams’s warm and cuddly sci-fi thriller Super 8 (82%). Even the latest Fast and Furious film, which the excellent Twitchfilm blog has been semi-jokingly touting for awards season glory all year, managed 78%.
The truth is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has always been loth to honour genre fare. It took until the 1990s for a western to win the Oscar for best picture (barring 1931′s Cimmaron), and neither Dances with Wolves (1990) nor Unforgiven (1992) slipped all that comfortably into the classic John Ford/Howard Hawks mould. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy triumphed largely in the technical categories until Return of the King took the best picture Oscar in 2004. The first Star Wars triptych was also confined to wins in the technical categories, though Frank Oz would surely have won best puppet for Yoda had the organisers seen fit to include such a gong.
What is unforgivable from the Academy (though it is not as bad in this regard as the Golden Globes) is the lazy inclusion each year of films and actors who fit a certain A-list Hollywood mould: the George Clooneys and the Steven Spielbergs, these days even the Brad Pitts. The body also likes to reward film-makers and thespians who it regards as having been under-praised in the past: hence the best supporting actor nods for venerable veterans Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow this time around. Finally, there’s the bias towards movies with grand, sweeping themes and/or plenty of historical import: hence, the presence of the execrable Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the blandly average War Horse this year and victory for (solid but hardly spectacular) Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker two years ago.
The other reason that genre movies often miss out is easier to understand. Studios may trumpet the wonders of 3D and the awesome impact of seeing a particular blockbuster on a huge IMAX screen, but such plus points do not translate well to awards ceremonies where famous faces are usually the centre of focus. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol may have been one of the year’s most enjoyable spectacles, but wheeling out the guy in the Nirvana T-shirt and unkempt facial hair who handled the technical stuff is not quite as sexy as seeing Michelle Williams or George Clooney arrive on stage to collect their best actor prize from last year’s incumbent.
It’s also worth pointing out that many of the films this column triumphs do not need the kind of boost that Oscars glory brings to find an audience. Awards season rightly rewards movies which may otherwise slip under the radar – until recently only The Help of this year’s major contenders had passed $100m at the global box office. Decent fanboy-friendly films from the past year such as Thor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Source Code will find their audience without help from the Academy, which is why studios did not pitch them for an Oscars run.
Rogen should perhaps not weep, then, for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which earlier this year emerged as the most successful film in the series so far at the box office. But Drive … well, Winding Refn’s film has been shockingly under-served. It’s exactly the kind of film which could have done with a little help from the Academy. More than any other film this year, its absence hints that Oscars voters remain, at heart, out-of-touch, po-faced stick-in-the-muds.”
Other notables you forgot to mention, these wins below were also travesties!
1. Gywneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love over Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth and Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station
2. Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins over Kim Stanley, Seance on a wet Afternoon
3. Renee Zellwegger, Cold Mtn over Shohreh Aghdashloo in House of Sand and Fog
4. Yul Brynner, King and I over Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life
5. Anthony Quinn in Lust for Life over Robert Stack in Written on the Wind
6. Rita Moreno, West Side Story over Judy Garland in Judgment at Nuremberg
7. George Chakiris, West Side Story over Montgomery Clift in Judgment at Nuremberg
8. Grace Kelly, Country Girl over Judy Garland, Star is Born
9. Catherine Zeta Jones, Chicago over Meryl Streep, Adaptation
10. Nicole Kidman, The Hours over Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven
11. Titanic over LA Confidential
12. An American in Paris over Streetcar Named Desire
13. Patty Duke, Miracle Worker over Angela Lansbury, Manchurian Candidate
14. Josephine Hull, Harvey over Thelma Ritter, All About Eve or Hope Emerson, Caged
15. Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon
16. Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara over Hope Lange, Peyton Place or Elsa Lanchester, Witness for Prosecution
17. Elizabeth Taylor, Butterfield 8 over anyone that year, especially Greer Garson, Sunrise at Campobello
18. Peter Ustinov, Spartacus over Sal Mineo, Exodus
19. Oliver over Lion in Winter
20. In the heat of the night over Bonnie and Clyde
21. Glenda Jackson, Touch of Class over anyone that year as Ellen Burstyn, Exorcist
22. Ingrid Bergman, Orient Express over Valentina Cortese, Day for Night
23. and one of the biggest travesties! Ellen Burstyn, Alice doesnt live here anymore over the amazing performance of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence
Since this is Oscar Bits and Bites, I have a bit and a bite.
I just got the new EW where they interview four anonymous AMPAS members and get their take on who they’re voting for in the various categories. Here’s what they came up with this year.
BP: Two votes The Artist, one vote Moneyball, one vote Tree of Life. (The Actress they talked to is very irritating when she says why she isn’t voting for certain movies–such as Hugo being a “children’s film” and children’s films shouldn’t win best picture, or The Artist being amazing but a BP should have sound. *head palm*)
Director: Three votes Hazanavicius, one vote Malick.
Actor: Two votes for Clooney, one for Dujardin, one for Bichir.
Actress: Three votes for Davis, one for Streep.
Supporting Actor: Three for Plummer, one for Jonah Hill.
Supporting Actress: Three for Spencer, one for McTeer.
Karger’s projections: The Artist. Hazanavicius. Clooney. Davis. Plummer. Spencer. Midnight for original. The Descendants for screenplay. (I’m still going Dujardin in actor, I think, otherwise I agree with his picks, I think).
I was gonna defend Peter Ustinov, but then I remembered I don’t argue with challenged peoples
My list of terrible Oscar acting choices through the years:
- Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) over Peter O’toole (Becket)
- Glenda Jackson (A Touch of Class) over Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist)
- Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny) over Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives)
- Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) over Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater)
- Julia Roberts (can’t even remember the damned movie’s name . . . the title that sticks in my brain is Myra Brekinridge but that was a terrible Raquel Welch movie from the 1960s?) over Ellen Bursten (Requiem for a Dream)
I don’t argue with challenged peoples
You’re missing all the fun, bro.
The year I gave up on the Oscars was actually the year CHICAGO won. It wasn’t even that I thought anything else was “robbed”. I just thought it wasn’t very good. I love musicals and it was actually the first one in the entire genre I remember not liking. I thought it was boring and sounded like it’d been filmed in a barrel. If it hadn’t been for CZJ it would have been a complete waste, imo. Thinking of the other talented people they could have cast instead of the adorable notion of casting non-singers and non-dancers just upset me every time. *shakes it off*
So in the Brokeback year, I was just as disappointed in myself for believing again as I was in the result. By now, it’s old hat. That’s why I’ve been able to laugh off the piss poor 2011 season. I’m neither shaken nor stirred. lol
When we look back, it’s a fallacy to say certain films that won are forgettable. We may forget such films today because our zeitgeist has changed, no longer relevant, but back then, enough people were riveted and moved, and voted for them. It was relevant to their time in history–and it may not have been direct, but escapism has always been one of the themes in film magic. Film makers of yesterday were passionate about their creation too. Understand the past and learn from them, see it through their eyes, and find a connection.
Any thoughts on frequent snubbing of Leonardo DiCaprio?