My Studios

Without beating dead horse (which usually implies that you are), the hollywood award mentality irritates me tremendously. According to what is being posted , most musicals from the 40's and 50's don't deserve nomination beause they don't have 'deep character' and 'powerful story threads'. No offense, but that is like calling a chicken sandwich lacking because it doesn't have a beefy enough taste to it. It shouldn't. It should taste like chicken and be judged accordingly.

There is nothing wrong with spectacle film winning Best Picture if it succeeds above and beyond its intentions. That's what makes it great. The Wizard of Oz is not a deep movie yet it one of the best films of all time. Several of the Marx Brothers filmwer probably worthy of at least a nomination, but they were snubbed because they were 'just a comedy'.
Hitchcock's filme were consistantly overlooked by voters because they were viewed as popcorn and not a good enough kind of movie to be nominated.

And my favorite and most abused point- Annie Hall is considered a better film than Star Wars. I have never seen Annie Hall. Most of my friends, even the film fans, have never seen Annie Hall.

Most everyone I know has seen or has been influenced by Star Wars. And if timelessness/ aproachablity to the film is one of the aspects that makes a film great. Star Wars own that in spades.

And yet it was dimissed by the voters as film worthy to be the Best Picture. I'm sure there are other examples, but this one's so notably obvious I thought I wouldn't confuse it in the process.

Saying that Star Wars should have won Best Picture over Annie Hall because of its timelessness is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. At the time the two movies came out, you didn't know the timelessness or impact Star Wars would have on future generations. Its easy to say that it should have won now, but back then it was different.

Also musicals have had a great history of best picture winners, some examples are West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

Saying that big budget successes don't have Oscar wins is an absolute joke, does anyone remember Gladiator? Forrest Gump? Rocky? Just to name a few

The reson horror movies don't win Best Picture Oscars is because 95% of horror movies that come out every year are absolute trash and aren't even worty of the Academy's time, except for Silence of the Lamb's, which is actually a great horror movie.

And if you look back at the movies that won best picture in the 40's and 50's many of them are cinematic classics.

Everyone knows that the films that win Best Picture Oscars are very character driven films, which is the reason movies like Crash and Million Dollar Baby won, and having said that the reason why movies like Transformers aren't nominated for best picture is because they are just big budget action movies that don't have much character development. The Academy tries to look at which movie is the best OVERALL movie, meaning story, characters, pace, feel, etc.

The Academy Awards like the pretentious 'look at me - I have an important moral' type movie. Some of them are complete crap. E.g. Crash. Brokeback Mountain should've won.

The truth is Academy Awards aren't a science. One year they're gonna pick the best film there is out there, one that wasn't chosen because of intensive promotion from its distributor but just because it's a pure piece of art, like "Million Dollar Baby", and one year, they're gonna award a film that shouldn't even be nominated, like "Chicago" or "A beautiful Mind", films that were almost "sold" to the academy.

Last year it was even different, they handed the Best Picture award as a consolation gift, because that one great director, Scorsese, had never been awarded. Even though the film was good, it wasn't worthy of a Best Picture Award, simply because it had been made better 4 years earlier in "Infernal Affairs".

Chien i completly and totally disagree on The Departed it was defintley the best film of last year by a long shot what should have won Children Of Men? Letter From Iwo Jima? DreamGirls? there was nothing else close in quality to The Departed. Anways i totally agree on Chicago and A Beatiuful Mind they didnt even deserve to be nominated. Meanwhile i still havent seen Crash so i cant put an opinion on it but i have seen Brokeback and if that had won i would have hung myself that movie was awful. Sin City could have won best picture that year even though it wasnt nominated that film was a masterpiece.

wow, relax guys....don't start cutting yourselves over it....

the academy actually seems to get most of their calls right, in my opinion....the departed was the best made movie out there last year (yes, i believe it) and it was awarded the oscar....just seemed like a consolation coz scorsese should have had 3-4 by now....

as for chicago and a beautiful mind, i must disagree, i loved both of them, and they're definitely worthy winners....there might have been other movies that came close but those 2 movies were brilliant....'a beautiful mind' touched me so deeply that i actually went all the way and applied to princeton and asked if i could speak to john nash....of course they told me he wasn't there, but still, my point is it had an impact on me....now the academy might get it wrong from time to time, but who doesn't?? right?? i mean, these guys have to analyse the top movies soooo much and decide which is best, so i think rather than saying they are wrong, maybe us....the guys who just watch a movie once or twice....could be wrong?? or just seeing things differently than them??

and jameydunne, about why 'transformers' kind of action flicks doesnt get it, it's like the difference between ultimate moguls and just box office....in box office, it's just the over-the-top blockbusters that will win you the league, but in ultimate, you also need to give equal importance to the quality of the movies (which is what the top 5 - the movies 'legs'; PTA - the movie's draw/popularity; IMdB - the quality....are aimed at)
so while the box office is similar to MTV awards or Teen Choice Awards, the Ultimate Leagues which consider all aspects like quality/substance in the movie, are similar to the Oscars....

did i fumble all that out without losing you??

finally, tuan, i sort of agree with you about some movies....for example, i watched american beauty yesterday, and wondered why it won best picture....i could see the best director, best actor etc, but overall, i thought it wasn't a worthy winner....but then maybe the academy saw something in it that i didn't....also, transformers2 mentioned sin city, which should definitely have had a nomination at least....that i cannot accept being wrong about....

By the way, do you guys think 300 might get any nominations??

I doubt 300 will but i hope it does get some nominations since it was a great film.

ashkul, I gotta say (and I mean that friendly, from mogul to mogul), you're a bit too naive to think that academy voters are people who see all the films there is out there and spend time analyzing them to vote for the best.
The truth is probably closer to them voting for the film they enjoyed the most on DVD, the DVD that was sent to them by the distributors spending a lot of money to promote their films for Oscar campaign.

I'm pretty sure we see much more films than academy voters do, at least on my part. And i see them in better conditions, which is in a theater. And with a more objective eye, cause I don't know any of these guys making the films, they're not my colleagues, not my friends.

Of course, every now and them, some films manage to escape the system, films that tok everyone my surprise and charmed public and pros, films like "Little Miss Sunshine", or Ryan Gosling's perf in "Half Nelson".

That's just my opinion.
As for Scorsese's Departed, transformers, maybe you haven't seen the HK original, "Infernal Affairs", in this case I can understand you think it was the best film of 2006. If you have seen it, I don't understand. Anyway, "Children of Men", "The Good Shephard", "Flags of Our Fathers", those were films that could have won, and they weren't even nominated...

Chienfantome wrote:

ashkul, I gotta say (and I mean that friendly, from mogul to mogul), you're a bit too naive to think that academy voters are people who see all the films there is out there and spend time analyzing them to vote for the best.
The truth is probably closer to them voting for the film they enjoyed the most on DVD, the DVD that was sent to them by the distributors spending a lot of money to promote their films for Oscar campaign.

I'm pretty sure we see much more films than academy voters do, at least on my part. And i see them in better conditions, which is in a theater. And with a more objective eye, cause I don't know any of these guys making the films, they're not my colleagues, not my friends.

Of course, every now and them, some films manage to escape the system, films that tok everyone my surprise and charmed public and pros, films like "Little Miss Sunshine", or Ryan Gosling's perf in "Half Nelson".

That's just my opinion.
As for Scorsese's Departed, transformers, maybe you haven't seen the HK original, "Infernal Affairs", in this case I can understand you think it was the best film of 2006. If you have seen it, I don't understand. Anyway, "Children of Men", "The Good Shephard", "Flags of Our Fathers", those were films that could have won, and they weren't even nominated...

cmon chien....academy voters consist of thousands of people who have 'contributed to the field of motion picture significantly' - that means the average hollywood agent/press is not invited, but people of great artistic integrity and achievement and experience are....and there are literally thousands of them....now, from amongst these voters, if someone wants their own movie to win an oscar, they'd probably be able to influence about 20-30 close friends who might also be members (already a stretch) and buy off about 50-60 others (breaking point) without the academy finding out....but in the whole big voting picture, this is insignificant....in my opinion, the only thing that shouldn't be allowed is the excessive and intense campaigning studios use to influence voters....and by the way i checked up on this....and all voters are expected to have seen all the nominated movies for best picture, best actor/actress and supporting (not a rule, but one of those upheld by conscience kind of guidelines)....so i'm not as naive as you thought i sounded i hope??

C'mon Chien... Flags of our Fathers? That was such a weak film.

The Good Shepherd was really slow in pace but it paid of in the end as it was a pretty great film. A real quiet intensity to it.

Ashkul, I didn't mean voters don't watch all the films nominated, thank god they do. I was talking of the first step, to choose the films nominated. And it joins the fact that some distributors spent millions for campaining.
It's not normal that at the end of the year, it's so easy to predict which films are gonna be the ones nominated, without them being, most of the time, the best of the years.
It's all about the movies that are gonna be pushed by their distribs and those who "look like" nominees. If it really was the best films there is out there, then "Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind" or "Children of Men" would have been nominated.

Tuan, as for "Flags of our fathers", I honestly think it was the strongest american film of 2006, narratively dense, emotionnally powerful, intelligent in its speech, visually stunning. It wasn't an easy flm, but to me it was the richest of last year.

Chienfantome wrote:

Tuan, as for "Flags of our fathers", I honestly think it was the strongest american film of 2006, narratively dense, emotionnally powerful, intelligent in its speech, visually stunning. It wasn't an easy flm, but to me it was the richest of last year.

well, letters from iwo jima won a nom last year, so thats some kind of vindication....and there WAS a bit of criticism/"how-the-F-ing" the year before when 'flags' didn't get an oscar nod....for me, a nomination would be enough, but just my opinion....

by the way, isn't there any way to stop studios campaigning for their movies?? those are the real bastards you want to shoot down chien....

I know ashkul, it's the system that is rotten

But hey, at least some films manage to sneak in anyway, like "Little miss Sunshine" last year.
It's true "Letters from Iwo Jima" got nominated, and it was so satisfactory that it took its spot from the dull "Dreamgirls". It was an excellent film too, although I admit I preferred Flags.

I read an interview with Morgan Freeman about Oscar voting, and he said he just ticks the box of the film he's heard about, and most of the time he doesn't know about any of them. Hence Lord of the Rings winning in 2003/4.

300 won't get much in terms of noms, as its only good quality was its visuals. Perhaps a nom there, but not much else.

As for the Departed Debate, I found the film enjoyable, but United 93 was a much better, more powerful, and more moving film.

numbersix_99 wrote:

I read an interview with Morgan Freeman about Oscar voting, and he said he just ticks the box of the film he's heard about, and most of the time he doesn't know about any of them.

holy-friggin-jesus-christ Wham-bam-goddamn-son-of-a-bitch-SHIT!!!! morgan freeman just lost soooo many cool points in my book dude....the previous line is from one of my college cheers by the way (it begins with a 'Mcgill once, Mcgill twice....and ends with a 'here's to mcgill, fu*k fu*k fu*k, here's to fu*king Mcgill Mcgill Mcgill!!!!) i like how that particular bit applies to so much in my life....

My Studios

ADVICE & ANALYSIS: