This. Crash was crap compared to Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck.
The GGs aren't always the best predictor of what will win the Best Picture Oscar...five years ago, The Aviator won the Drama GG, but Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar.
The Golden Globes
- Thread starter MeanJoePhaser
- Start date
This. Crash was crap compared to Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck.
The GGs aren't always the best predictor of what will win the Best Picture Oscar...five years ago, The Aviator won the Drama GG, but Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar.
I was actually genuinely surprised at a lot of this year's winners. I think most of the television awards were well-deserved, which includes all of the wins for Dexter. It was a tough decision between Dexter and Mad Men and I think both came out winners in some capacity.
As for film, I was pretty disappointed. Robert Downey Jr. delivered a great performance in Sherlock Holmes but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was also fantastic in (500 Days) of Summer. Gordon-Levitt delivered a much more emotionally authentic performance, so I was sad to see him get passed over in favor of Downey Jr. Jeff Bridges winning for Crazy Heart was very well-deserved, so no complaints there.
However, Sandra Bullock winning for The Blind Side was just cringeworthy. It was an awful performance in an awful movie and I'm surprised to see both getting so many accolades. I think it was just, in all honesty, a bad year for women in film. Carey Mulligan should have won for An Education.
The biggest pleasant surprise of the evening was Jason Reitman (and his writing partner, Sheldon Turner) winning Best Screenplay for Up in the Air. That was truly unexpected and I was very happy to see Reitman win. I was expecting Quentin Tarantino to win, and judging by Reitman's acceptance speech, so was he.
Another surprise was James Cameron winning Best Director for Avatar. I thought for sure that Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, had this award. Much like how Reitman unexpectedly trumped Tarantino, it was obvious Cameron was equally surprised when he won over Bigelow. I also thought that Cameron winning would be a consolation prize for all of his hard work on Avatar, and that Precious would be the underdog and walk away winning Best Picture, but I was dead wrong. Almost all of my predictions (well, most of them) came out completely shattered.
One final note: I loved The Hangover, but (500) Days of Summer deserved to win. The Hangover was just a successful regurgitation of a lot of familiar elements in almost every comedy over the past few years, and while very funny, it wasn't that original. On the other hand, (500) Days of Summer was a clever, fresh and innovative comedy that was also very heartfelt and genuine. It deserved to win.
As for film, I was pretty disappointed. Robert Downey Jr. delivered a great performance in Sherlock Holmes but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was also fantastic in (500 Days) of Summer. Gordon-Levitt delivered a much more emotionally authentic performance, so I was sad to see him get passed over in favor of Downey Jr. Jeff Bridges winning for Crazy Heart was very well-deserved, so no complaints there.
However, Sandra Bullock winning for The Blind Side was just cringeworthy. It was an awful performance in an awful movie and I'm surprised to see both getting so many accolades. I think it was just, in all honesty, a bad year for women in film. Carey Mulligan should have won for An Education.
The biggest pleasant surprise of the evening was Jason Reitman (and his writing partner, Sheldon Turner) winning Best Screenplay for Up in the Air. That was truly unexpected and I was very happy to see Reitman win. I was expecting Quentin Tarantino to win, and judging by Reitman's acceptance speech, so was he.
Another surprise was James Cameron winning Best Director for Avatar. I thought for sure that Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, had this award. Much like how Reitman unexpectedly trumped Tarantino, it was obvious Cameron was equally surprised when he won over Bigelow. I also thought that Cameron winning would be a consolation prize for all of his hard work on Avatar, and that Precious would be the underdog and walk away winning Best Picture, but I was dead wrong. Almost all of my predictions (well, most of them) came out completely shattered.
One final note: I loved The Hangover, but (500) Days of Summer deserved to win. The Hangover was just a successful regurgitation of a lot of familiar elements in almost every comedy over the past few years, and while very funny, it wasn't that original. On the other hand, (500) Days of Summer was a clever, fresh and innovative comedy that was also very heartfelt and genuine. It deserved to win.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I was so glad that Quentin Tarantino lost. He is the modern day Orson Wells, which is fine with me on both counts.
Rob
Rob
Other than the fountain/dancing scene and the split screen scene, I didn't think it was that original. Anyone who has seen a lot of Woody Allen movies will recognize a lot of that movie's stylistic quirks as ones that Allen's movies did just as well long ago. Also, between those beautifully whimsical scenes, there's a fair bit of lame junk in the movie like the terrible narrator, the implausibility of Tom's job/the scenes in the office, and some pretty weak character development on the part of Summer.
Tom is very nicely developed and written, but Summer is so much less evolved...we don't get to know much about her besides her taste in music and that she doesn't take the relationship as seriously as Tom and in a romance, one character being about ten times more interesting than the other really drags it down.
"The Hangover", while obviously not as deep or ambitious is simply more consistent and succeeds better at what it's trying to be. There's some dumb stuff in there (I wasn't a big fan of that cliche Chinese gangster humour), but it manages to be fantastically funny and unpredictable from start to finish, whereas "(500) Days of Summer" tends to alternate between being great and weak.
I don't understand how comparing Tarantino to Orson Welles is critical of Tarantino? I like Tarantino a lot myself, but I think comparing him to Orson Welles is giving him more credit than he deserves! He's an excellent director, but I don't think he's at as high a level or as brilliant as Welles was.
Such as?
I thought the narrator was well-done. It reminded me of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
What was so implausible about them?
Summer is very well-developed.
You just weren't playing close enough attention. We know from the scene between Summer & Tom in the office that in college she was very organized. We know her previous boyfriends from talking with Tom. We know other personal information when she divulges to Tom midway through the movie. A part of the lack of development was intentional: the film was seen through Tom's eyes as he tries to get to know Summer, and he has to past her barrier that she has erected.
It might be more consistently funny. I'll give you that.
Unpredictable? I dunno. It was a bunch of contrivances and wholly unrealistic circumstances very loosely tied together. Like, how "unpredictable" is the straight-laced character going crazy at the end and finally coming out of his shell? Or how the characters always miraciously find their way out of situations that would be normally impossible to get out of? I know it's a comedy but it took any sort of plausible reality and just completely demolished it. Don't get me wrong. I loved the film in its very character-driven humor and dynamics but it was completely predictable and unoriginal.
Well that talking to the camera stuff is right out of "Annie Hall" and the scene where Tom is in a bunch of European art flicks is referencing the movies of Ingmar Bergman, who is Woody Allen's idol and is referenced visually and in dialogue in tons of his movies. I really enjoyed that scene in "(500) Days of the Summer", I'm just saying it's not that original.
I thought the narrator was well-done. It reminded me of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[/QUOTE]
The difference is that the Hitchhiker's Guide narrator was actually witty and saying funny, meta stuff. The narrator in this movie didn't really have anything to say that wasn't cliche, corny, or obvious.
The way Tom quit was pretty stupid. It was completely unrealistic. For someone to make a big speech at work talking about how he thinks what he and his co-workers are doing is total movie fantasy bullshit and such an overdone movie or even sitcom scene. It would never happen in real life. It's supposed to seem gutsy, I guess, but it just looked really fake to me.
Yeah, I keep seeing this argument that it's okay for Summer to be so much more one-dimensional than Tom because the movie is told from his perspective, but I just don't buy that. This is where I think the whole gimmick of the movie jumping through time always from his perspective hurts it.
You get all this background information about her, as you specified, but unlike with Tom we never really get to find how she feels or what her personal philosophy is, unlike what we get with Tom. Again, I know that's intentional because everything is from Tom's point of view, but I think that makes the movie weak.
I'll admit there's a bit of a personal bias. Generally with romantic movies I need to feel like I've gotten to know both people in a couple fairly well in order to be satisfied. One of them being such a mystery in terms of what she thinks and feels frustrates me. I kind of hated Summer because she kept both Tom and the audience at a distance so that ultimately she just comes across as cruel, shallow, and lacking personality. A few personality traits and interests does not make a complete character.
I can't really argue here. If I thought it was unpredictable and you didn't, I can't convince you otherwise or vice-versa. I think it was pretty obvious that they were going to get out of their dilemma no matter how crazy it got, but I was always surprised by how. And I was genuinely surprised by that guy telling off his fiancee at the end.
Interestingly, despite our disagreements, I think we basically feel the same way about two different movies. I like "(500) Days of Summer" a lot, I just don't think it's as consistently fresh and original (as I said, aside from a very few scenes) as it wants to be, just as you seem to think "The Hangover" is not as unpredictable and original as it tries to be.
R
ring
Guest
every other award ceremony is getting more glamorous..nobody talks about cinema...its a place of doing networking and promotional marketing...
RobertScorpio
Pariah
and showing off big hooters...Miriah Carrey's hooters were going to explode at any moment
rob
rob
