The 86th Annual Academy Awards

[CaptainCanada]

Back in 1978, the first Star Wars film lost to a movie about Woody Allen and his girlfriend, written and directed by Woody Allen and his girlfriend, starring Woody Allen and his girlfriend as Woody Allen and his girlfriend. What a stretch that must have been for their acting talents!

Annie Hall is one of the most influential and best-loved romantic comedies in the history of the genre. And while Allen more or less plays a variation on his standard comic persona, that can't remotely be said Diane Keaton.

The Oscars are a popularity contest. Not about popularity among the general public, but about popularity among people who have a vested interest in keeping both imaginative fiction (in all its genres, but especially science fiction) and conventional heroism from being taken seriously.

That vested interest being...?

 

[suarezguy]

Didn't watch the show, watched Gravity and it was OK but underwhelming; the other movies seem good but not worth full price. Usually like Matthew McConaughey so kind of glad he won.

 

[Professor Zoom]

And yet, GRAVITY became the first science-fiction film to win for Best Direction....and I believe the third Best Director winner three years in a row not to win Best Picture. And the second in three years to win Best Direction for a 3-D production.

And yet what? How does that contradict what I had to say? Cuaron's vision wouldn't have been at all successful without the technology available and the people at the keyboards doing the work.

You think he could've done this 20 years ago? 10?

He made have had the vision, which is important, but without the animators and the technicians, it wouldn't have been seamless and as realistic. It's why they they won so many of the technical awards.

Cuaron's winning Best Director in efffect cracked the glass ceiling for nominated sci-fi films. Beyond its well-deserved technical awards, GRAVITY was the first in its genre to snag the second most major award.

Return of the King cracked the glass of genre films. Sure, Gravity is the first specifically science fiction film to win for best director, but Return of the King got there first. Best director AND best film.

 

[Professor Zoom]

''Genre'' films can also be loosely defined as thrillers, which may give the Oscars reason to discount most of them. And more often than not, thrillers which win Best Picture (THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) tend to have their chief villain escape. The directors of FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN films may be wondering what the hell they did wrong.

Genre films could also be loosely defined as all films.
But, they aren't. Certainly not on this board.
Genre films are pretty much sci-fi, fantasy, action.

The point is: Gravity didn't crack any glass that wasn't already cracked by Return of the King. To point a finer point on it: Gravity, while clearly science fiction, is a very realistic movie (in fact, I would say the only fantastical thing in it is Bullock's character being allowed into orbit with her emotional baggage). It's basically Apollo 13.

Then we have Return of the King, with it's elves, it's hobbits, magic, etc.

Certainly more out of the box than many many many Oscar winning films.

I also keep wondering if the Academy wouldn't have voted for an untraditional comedy in 1977 (ANNIE HALL) had STAR WARS not been in the running. A lesser of two ''evils?''

Or, quite possibly, many thought Annie Hall was the best picture of that year--regardless of box office.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I have for some time asserted (and I stand by my assertion) that all fiction is genre fiction, in that all works of fiction represent at least one genre. In the unlikely event that a work is utterly unlike any previous work of fiction, the work is not without a genre; it is simply the type-specimen defining new genre (arguably, Coover's "The Babysitter" could be regarded as the type specimen for "contemporary realism with multiple parallel realities"). For a work of fiction to be utterly without a genre, it would have to be utterly indescribable.

And no, Gravity is not Apollo 13. Apollo 13 is a realistic and reasonably accurate representation of real events, based on Lost Moon, Lovell's memoir of that particular mission. I lived through those events (I was 7 years old at the time), and while all I knew at the time was what the television networks and the newspapers covered, I remember the uncertainty over whether the crew would survive. Gravity, on the other hand, is a work of fiction.

 

[Professor Zoom]

It feels like this was directed at my post, if not, then....

And no, Gravity is not Apollo 13. Apollo 13 is a realistic and reasonably accurate representation of real events, based on Lost Moon, Lovell's memoir of that particular mission. I lived through those events (I was 7 years old at the time), and while all I knew at the time was what the television networks and the newspapers covered, I remember the uncertainty over whether the crew would survive. Gravity, on the other hand, is a work of fiction.

Well clearly. It's also a realistic and reasonably accurate representation of what MIGHT happen if it were to be real.

That is why Gravity is LIKE Apollo 13. As in similar.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I also keep wondering if the Academy wouldn't have voted for an untraditional comedy in 1977 (ANNIE HALL) had STAR WARS not been in the running. A lesser of two ''evils?''

The Academy loves Woody Allen, so I doubt the competition was a huge factor.