Oscar blather

[ironymaiden]

i think Katheryn Bigelow rocks and i'm so happy that i got to see her do Q&A for The Hurt Locker at SIFF. when Streisand read her name i burst into tears. (still so happy that barrier wasn't broken by Sofia Coppola. ) i liked The Hurt Locker, and i'm glad it got recognition, but in ten years that film will be a footnote.

Avatar wasn't going to win, not because the film was less worthy, but because James Cameron has a shelf full of statues for Titanic. the academy has already recognized him, and for a film that is more palatable to voters. they do that "due" or "deserved" thing constantly. (i see the whine about bad writing in Avatar and i want those people to rewatch Titanic and then reflect for a few minutes.)

i spend a lot of time and money on movies, and i enjoy thoughtful discussion of same. Oscar season is usually a time when film discussion comes to the fore. it's a pleasure. i haven't enjoyed it quite so much this year because the venom spewed about Avatar seems to always come in the same breath as "$$$" and "not that i've seen it". i'm seeing comments about how lousy it was that the dude from Hurt Locker who broke campaigning rules got caught.* i didn't see thoughtful discussion of the other nominees at all :/



*my kneejerk reaction to this is that they probably also want to free Roman Polanski. who is a completely free millionaire child rapist as long as he stays out of the US. boo hoo. rules are for everyone, rich and poor, famous and not-famous, and that applies to an indie film producer as well as to a brilliant auteur with a sad personal life.

Comments

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm glad Avatar didn't win, because I'd rather see a far more-deserving film pick up that first SF BP. If Avatar had won, it would be obvious that it was only because of the sheer scope of its phenomenon, and not necessarily for anything truly great about the film itself, which was, IMHO, mostly just a very pretty but otherwise shallow and derivative spectacle.

[ironymaiden]

i just hate people victoriously dancing on Jim Cameron's grave when he's been so mellow and publicly rooting for his ex-wife the entire awards season. the noise from the Avatar-hate hid the fact that there were two SF films nominated for best picture this year :(

as far as the quality of the film goes, IIRC you had trouble dealing with the 3D. i had an ideal viewing experience, center-center at the science center IMAX, which made it for me. it's the first time that i've ever experienced 3D that was a full part of the film and not a dizzying gimmick. that's a major achievement in film making. and Avatar is something that can only be a movie, not a television show, not a stage play. spectacle is part and parcel of what makes a film. i saw around 90 films in the theater in the past year, and nothing had the visceral power of Avatar. i woke up after it was over (no argument on the shallow/derivative) but when it was happening i was completely engaged. i don't get that very often.

i didn't see enough of the nominated films to make a fair judgement of who really deserved to win.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love spectacle. Don't get me wrong. I also think the CG and art direction work in Avatar was the best part about it. (I got about a third of the movie in 3D--enough to see what the fuss was about--and while impressive, it didn't seem to me to be the major step forward in that area that some were saying.)

It's just that the story left me really, really bored because the characters were so shallow and the dialogue was terrible and the world-building was almost a direct ripoff of other stories.

In a way, it felt a lot like the SW prequels: Pretty, but ultimately substanceless. And I kind of feel the same way about Cameron as I do about Lucas these days. They're great at what they do, but then they go try to write actual scripts instead of just concepts, and it all goes wrong.

To me, an award-worthy film really has to have the whole package. It can't be just good performances or good tech work or good writing. Everything has to come together. And with Avatar, it just didn't. A very, very pretty package, to be sure, but there was nothing inside. And therefore I don't think it deserved BP.

[odisseas.livejournal.com]

Hello friends!
http://www.petitiononline.com/avatar10/petition.html

For those who want to show respect and support to Cameron and his Movie!

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

We haven't yet seen Avatar. Partly because because of story line concerns, partly because when your first 3-D experience is Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, well, 3-D seems a little scary after that.

However, those folks we Oscared with all commented on how different the movie was seeing the clips "flat" and what an immersive experience the film was at imax. Completely different from anything else.

Just a generic 3-D comment. Avatar was intended and designed for its 3-Dness. A friend of ours saw "Alic" which had 3-D applied to it due to studio demands. She complained about it, and said she couldn't wait to see it again without the 3-D, which she felt interfered with Burton's visual imagining and the art direction.

So it seems to me that hopefully studios and art directors et al will keep in mind that to be successful, the technology needs to be an integral part of the film's design. That shouldn't be surprising, I suppose, but I found it interesting.

[markbourne.livejournal.com]

The Oscars, the big ones, fell out as just about everyone predicted, and I'm very satisfied with the Bigelow/Hurt Locker wins. I was rooting for Hurt Locker largely in hopes of such a small, "indie" film (a fluffy terms nowadays, granted) getting such a big win and thus a wider audience. And I'm extra pleased by the subtext: women can make "guy films" too, not "just" Nora Ephron romcoms.

One of the folks with whom we watched the Oscars expressed dismay that Avatar didn't win because "sf never gets the Oscar." I countered that after Avatar's huge success that an Oscar would be superfluous. At this point it has probably been seen and enjoyed by more people than the past fifty Best Picture winners combined, and Cameron's obvious pathbreaking achievements are irrefutable, never mind weaknesses in the script. (And yes, hasn't he been splendid re Bigelow's nomination despite the press trying mightily to manufacture a "battling exes" scenario where none exists?)

My only regret: That we didn't get to hear -- experience? -- acceptance speeches from Mo'Nique and/or Gabourey Sidibe. At least one of them would have been repeated for years in Awesome Oscar Moments montages.

[ironymaiden]

you missed the Mo'Niique speech? i thought it was pretty great, especially the mention of Butterfly McQueen. (i wish i had missed Ben Stiller's entire appearance and the interpretive dance.)

i'm sorry about Gabourey Sidibe. she was definitely my sentimental favorite, and a role like that is so vanishingly rare that she isn't going to get another fifteen chances *cough* Meryl Streep *cough*.

[markbourne.livejournal.com]

::thwacks own forehead:: D'oh! I did catch Mo'Nique's speech and thought it quite fine. Momentary memory fail there.

I'm hoping we see more from Sidibe soon -- I haven't yet seen Precious as I fear it will pulverize me emotionally -- but she seems so sweet and honestly talented, not to mention simply different and new, that I'd hate to see her vanish after this. Of course, she has Oprah as her advocate, so it's guaranteed that she's fielding offers and opportunities as we speak. Plus she received such gracious praise from Sandra Bullock in her acceptance speech, and that should raise her status a tad more.

Speaking of Sandy B., I would have been happy with any Best Actress win among that group, but I'm inordinately pleased that Bullock got it simply 'cuz I've always liked her personally whether or not I've cared for any particular movie she's in. Didn't see The Blind Side, so don't know if she actually was "the best," but her win pleased me all the same. What a poised and lovely acceptance speech. Earlier in the week she personally accepted her Razzie Award too with good humor, and that adds further appeal.

Probably no return of Sally Sparrow to DW, though. Still, go Carey Mulligan!

Agreed re Ben Stiller's bit, and I got the impression he felt similarly. Relatedly, here's hoping that whoever wrote the material for Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin is today looking for another job.

I thought they official did away with interpretive dance segments years ago for all the painfully obvious reasons, so its return perplexed me. Why not play those segments from the Best Score nominations over stills or footage from the films they were written for? Granted, the dancers were awesome on toast, but context is so foundational that I'm amazed it gets chucked out the window like that.