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2009 Oscar Nominations

The Dark Knight deserved better. Typically Hollywood. They have a chance to nominate a movie that people actually paid a ton of money to see yet they go with five movies that nobody is going to remember in a year or two.

The Corpse deserved his nomination. The one I was really glad to see though was Robert Downey Jr. He deserved his nomination and I'm amazed the Academy actually decided to recognize a comedic role.
 
Ethros said:
Maybe this is a stupid queston, but isn't the point of these to award the best film of the last 12 months?
So why every year do all the nominations of the films come from about a 2 month part of the year, with all the films released in said time?

Do the OAPs who obviously vote in these things find it hard to recall back an longer than that?
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Something like that although with the advent of things like DVDs of the films being nominated provided to the voters, it is not that bad for films released earlier in the year. But it is still not great.

However, (IMO) many films are specifically made and target the Oscars. For example, for years major Woody Allen films only came out at the very last of the year to qualify for Oscar consideration. This is why you see all the depressingly melodramatic films released around that time as well. I consider movies like 'Cold Mountain' to be merely attempts at Oscar grabs.

I also get tired of genre bias, and I am not just talking about scifi. If the film is not "serious' or unpleasant, it is usually not taken seriously. And just because an independent film gets all artsy and tries to be deep, it does not mean that it is any better than a film like 'Love Guru'.
 
Orintho said:
However, (IMO) many films are specifically made and target the Oscars. For example, for years major Woody Allen films only came out at the very last of the year to qualify for Oscar consideration. This is why you see all the depressingly melodramatic films released around that time as well. I consider movies like 'Cold Mountain' to be merely attempts at Oscar grabs.
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This is my main problem with the Oscars. It's not that the Oscars are too "highbrow". (The Oscars are *supposed* to be highbrow. They're not just supposed to affirm audiences' existing blockbuster preferences.) It's that too much energy is being devoted to churning out pre-packaged Oscar contenders. I'd prefer if we had a wider range of choices among highbrow movies, but the desire to win more Oscars has led to a ridiculous level of box checking among Oscar season movies. In that respect, I agree with Ross Douthat's commentary here:

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/the_oscars_2.php

Studio executives are a risk-averse lot in the best of times and, faced with the cruel Darwinism of the holiday season, they seem to have decided that the best way to hedge their bets is to green-light films within an ever narrower range. How else to explain this house-of-mirrors movie season: two Clint Eastwood movies released within 40 days of each other; a pair of Oscar-caliber Kate Winslet performances playing against each other in the local art house; and not one or two, but five films about the Holocaust and Nazis playing between mid-October and the New Year.
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DarthPipes said:
Typically Hollywood. They have a chance to nominate a movie that people actually paid a ton of money to see yet they go with five movies that nobody is going to remember in a year or two.
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If you were voting for best picture, wouldn't you choose the one you thought was best rather than the one that the most audiences liked?

There is bias against genres other than drama, but frankly a lot of blockbusters aren't great and comedy and action are, I think, much more subjective than drama.

I haven't seen The Reader but of the others Slumdog Millionaire was the best (disappointed that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Doubt didn't get nominated).
I also don't really like having a Best Animated Feature category given that only a very few are released each year.
 
DarthPipes said:
The Dark Knight deserved better. Typically Hollywood. They have a chance to nominate a movie that people actually paid a ton of money to see yet they go with five movies that nobody is going to remember in a year or two.
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I fail to see how this attitude is any better than an attitude of "Why should TDK get an award? It's a low-brow superhero flick that nobody is going to remember in a year or two."

Given that Milk actually led to me trying to actively embrace the gay community in my area instead of sitting on my ass while others worked for my rights, I would have to say I'll likely remember it for the rest of my life.
 
The Dark Knight didn't deserve any nominations in my opinion, no matter how popular it was. Ledger's performance was excellent, but it was not a challenging role. Downey's performance was much superior, much more challenging technically and even funnier.

Sites like metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes can still suffer sampling errors. The large number of samples doesn't remove the problem of rating ambiguous reviews. Even worse, regarding critical reviews as samples of a move's quality, then simply counting them doesn't address systematic errors in the reviewing process. Such as the desire of critics to not be too different from their audience. Indeed, many critics operate as a feature designed to attract readers, and their reviews as a whole operate as barometers of popularity, not artistic quality. The emphasis on internet feedback has sharpened this tendency.

Don't forget, reverse snobbery ("just plain folks" or faux populism) is no more valid than snobbery.

Anyone who imagines Hollywood is some far left ivory tower either hasn't actually been paying attention to what's on their screens, or has a far right perspective. Or both.

As for rants about PC---everyone who is being honest knows that pretty much the only "PC" that is widespread is disdain for people who use racial epithets. Feeling that is dire insult says too much about you.
 
stj said:
Ledger's performance was excellent, but it was not a challenging role. Downey's performance was much superior, much more challenging technically and even funnier.
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While The Dark Knight didn't deserve a Best Picture nod, and RDJ's performance truly is worthy, don't discount Ledger's...which is also more than worthy. There is some truly phenomenal acting going on there, like that which is rarely seen. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea in terms of how enjoyable one finds it, but it's one hell of a performance.
 
Top41 said:
I can't believe Revolutionary Road was totally shut out. Kate Winslet and Leonard DiCaprio were both phenomenal, and the adaptation was incredibly true to the book.
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That actually didn't surprise me at all. The reviews I've read have been very mixed at best, though most have been very complimentary of Winslet. I hope she pulls in Oscar gold some day, because she's truly been taking chances in a variety of films.


T'Baio said:
While The Dark Knight didn't deserve a Best Picture nod, and RDJ's performance truly is worthy, don't discount Ledger's...which is also more than worthy. There is some truly phenomenal acting going on there, like that which is rarely seen. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea in terms of how enjoyable one finds it, but it's one hell of a performance.
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Couldn't agree with you more. I went to see The Dark Knight fully expecting to be underwhelmed considering the galactic hype, especially when it came to Heath Leder's turn as the Joker. But her impressed me to significant degrees. His performance really seemed to depict a strange madness I hadn't seen before. Death or not, in my eyes e fully deserves at least the nomination.
 
Once again Kate Winslet gets an Oscar nom. :D Sadly, I fear once again she'll leave empty handed. :(
 
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
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Nice to see that one wasn't overlooked. But Roarke has got it in the can.
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder! That's the greatest nomination the Oscars have ever made!
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Another field where the winner is a foregone conclusion, but I'm sure Downey will get more insane roles like that, which will give him chances to win...hey what about Cowboys and Aliens? :D
What the hell is Milk or The Reader? Has any average film goer even heard of these films?
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The Oscars are becoming an art-film ghetto. But I prefer that to them becoming just another iteration of the People's Choice Award. Let em be highbrow, they'll pay for it by taking a hit in the Nielsens.
 
Zion Ravescene said:
Once again Kate Winslet gets an Oscar nom. :D Sadly, I fear once again she'll leave empty handed. :(
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Well she needs to do a film about the Holocaust
"I'm doing it because I've noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust you're guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times; never won. The whole world is going 'why hasn't Winslet won one?' That's it, that's why I'm doing it. Schlinder's bloody List! The Pianist. Oscar's coming out of their arse"
:lol:
 
T'Baio said:
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder! That's the greatest nomination the Oscars have ever made! I love Ledgers performance, but I hope RDJ wins, as the nomination and performance is more courageous than Ledgers.

Way to go, RDJ!
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Yeah, but he's not going to win. That award belongs and will stay with Heath.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
What the hell is Milk or The Reader? Has any average film goer even heard of these films?
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The Oscars are becoming an art-film ghetto. But I prefer that to them becoming just another iteration of the People's Choice Award. Let em be highbrow, they'll pay for it by taking a hit in the Nielsens.
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I can't speak to Milk or The Reader which I haven't seen and may very well be art house films, but Frost/Nixon and in particular Slumdog Millionaire, while small films are not. Frost/Nixon, as strange as it is going to sound, is more like a crowd pleasing boxing film than anything else. Subject matter and quality aside, it's structured like a Rocky film; Nixon as Apollo Creed. And Slumdog while quite good and inventive in many places, mixes very familiar audience pleasing Hollywood ideas. It is only the central plot conceit and the "exotic" locale which hides this familiarity from immediate detection.
 
T'Baio said:
stj said:
Ledger's performance was excellent, but it was not a challenging role. Downey's performance was much superior, much more challenging technically and even funnier.
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While The Dark Knight didn't deserve a Best Picture nod, and RDJ's performance truly is worthy, don't discount Ledger's...which is also more than worthy. There is some truly phenomenal acting going on there, like that which is rarely seen. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea in terms of how enjoyable one finds it, but it's one hell of a performance.
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Great point. RDJ did an outstanding job, but his role did not quite hit those depths that I saw Ledger pull off. Every now and then an actor really hits it, and Ledger did. But this is one of the problems with the nature of this kind of award show - so many great performances can get overlooked or not even recognized, let alone the problem of different performances 'competing'.
 
Even if you forget the subject matter - which is admittedly Oscar bait, Milk is just a great looking film and as such, deserves to at least be acknowledged.
 
firehawk12 said:
Even if you forget the subject matter - which is admittedly Oscar bait, Milk is just a great looking film and as such, deserves to at least be acknowledged.
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It's that point that I think gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. Winning the Oscar is a great achievement, the goal of so many pictures. However, just being nominated is a great thing to. Is it as great as winning? No, but it sure has its benefits.
 
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