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13 Nominations to Rule Them All
PatSmarty was among the onslaught of people who noted that the Oscar Nominations have
been announced and that FotR has 13 of them. Beautiful Mind
and Moulin Rouge also in there too.
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I always stay on top of Slashdot so that not a single Oscar nomination passes me by. Does anyone know how Snow Dogs is doing in the Oscar race?
--
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Not a wholly informative hyperlink that. See the full list, here
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
On one hand, I really want FOTR to do well, but on the other, I'm afraid that the success of FOTR will change the editing/special effects process of TT and ROTK...
Still, it's a wonderful day indeed when *anything* by Tokein is nominated for an Academy Award.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Cases in point: "I am Sam" and "A Beautiful Mind". I would have included "Moulin Rouge" but Kidman's character didn't last that long.
It's wonderful of course that LOTR has so many nods, but it was expected.. What I wasn't expecting is how many nominations Moulin Rouge received. I personally find that fantastic. It's definitely a love/hate movie, but dude, few movies achieve its level of artistry.
Though, I think A Beautiful Mind should have gotten an effects nomination, since it takes damn near wizardry to make *math* look cool.
"In the end, we all fall back on fiction." -- Lonely Planet
In 1982, E.T. was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, but it won just one, for Best Visual Effects.
Being nominated is fine and such, but the real test will be on oscar night.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
To avoid the new lamesness filter, I need to increase the average length of my lines
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What percentage of these films were released in the past 3-4 months? What percentage in the first 3-4 months?
"Besides Crowe, who stars as Nash in ``A Beautiful Mind,'' the best actor nominees were Sean Penn as a retarded father seeking custody of his daughter in ``I Am Sam''; Will Smith as boxer Muhammad Ali in ``Ali''; Denzel Washington as a rakish bad cop in ``Training Day''; and Tom Wilkinson as a vigilante father in ``In the Bedroom.''
A Beautiful Mind: released 13 December 2001
I am Sam: released: 28 December 2001
Ali: released 25 December 2001
Training Day: released 5 October 2001
In the Bedroom: released 19 January 2001
Moulin Rouge: released 16 May 2001
Proof that Americans can't remember what happened in the entertainment industry for very long.
Forrest Gump
Rain Man
the list goes on and on
Im sorry but it doesnt take a genuis TO ACT RETARDED
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Why are most of the leading men portraying ... uh, dammaged characters. Besides Ali (who later in real life suffers problems) these seem to all be retarded/schitzo/rakish/problematic characters somehow.
Hollywood loves problematic characters, hates problematic people.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the previews when it came out. I thought it would be a musical with some original music. Most of it was just pop songs scored differently. bleh. Can't believe how long it was either. I had to stop myself from laughing because my finance was enjoying it and I knew if I wanted to have any hope of sex that night that I'd have to enjoy the movie too. ;)
They just had Jennifer Connelly on the Today show talking about her nomination. yum yum. She's been intelligent eye-candy in enough movies, it's about time she was nominated.
Of course you know LOTR won't win Best Picture. It doesn't have any mentally handicapped people or crazy people in it (unless you count Saruman? Maybe they should have promoted it as "Boromir: One mans journey through madness" or "The Dark Lord: He saw the world differently")
"HI THIS IS BOROMIR. GIVE ME THE RING"
"I think that's a little too enthusiastic Boromir"
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
In Sean Penn's case, he wasn't even acting.
My guess is that this Oscar list is interesting to Slashdotters because one of the movies is about a super-geek, mathematician. That alone gives it a "nerd factor" worthy of Slashdot mention.
Those bastards at the MPAA want to destroy your civil rights! If they have their way, we will all be living in an Orwellian nightmare! The Slashdot community should fight them! Boycott! Boycott!
2 seconds later....
OOHH! Academy Awards? Cool! LOTR RULEZ! I saw it 34 times and gladly gave the MPAA hundreds of dollars! HOORAY FOR THE MPAA!
On the contrary, It takes a very good actor to act retarded in a believable fashion
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
how many nominations is this movie avalible for, total? 15? 20? Have any other movies ever done this before? I think "Titanic" had 7...
13 seems like alot, but it doesn't mean anything without somthing to compare it to.
moox. for a new generation.
Come on, taking on the role of a mentally-retarded person has been the cheesy cliche thing to do for years in Hollywood. Actors pray for that role because it ALWAYS seems to bring critical acclaim. "A Beatiful Mind" I can deal with, even if it is sensationalized, at least it's about a real mathematician.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
This year is the first year for the Animated Feature Oscar, and 3 films made the cut from the several that were put forward: Shrek, Monsters Inc, and Jimmy Neutron...surprisingly, all 3 are CG films, despite a few traditionally animated films that were still in the submission pool. Shrek also got a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
IAAA (I am an actor), and I can tell you from experience that playing a character with a mental illness is a very challenging role to pull off convincingly. It is not just about "acting retarded" as another reply to this post stated, but rather it is about trying to understand a mental state that you have never experienced directly and then being able to convincingly portray it to an audience in such a way that they can really believe the character is real. I haven't yet had the chance to see "I am Sam" or "A Beautiful Mind" yet, but I don't doubt for a minute that Sean Penn and Russell Crowe deserve their nominations.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Personally, I can't stand most Hollywood films, so I haven't seen A Beautiful Mind, but you might check out Pi, another film that makes math look cool. The direction is aggressive and extremely indie, but it's worth checking out.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Okay:
1. Slashdot discusses new search appliance
2. Lord of the Rings has been nominated for 13 academy awards, tied for 2nd all time. Not only is it a movie, but a series of novels that's just a bit popular with the computer crowd.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
Movie studios hold the releases of all of their "Oscar hopefuls" till late December releases. So it's no surprise that most of the movies that get nominated were released in the last month or two of the year.
(By the way, the dates you mentioned *must* be wrong or some of them wouldn't be eligible for Oscars. There must be some sort of release before Jan. 1 for them to be eligible.)
I appreciate the movie & books being of interest, but this story is about the number of nominations for eligibility to win a little gold statue.
(nominated for best foreign language picture)
Elling is about a guy from an asylum who has just moved into his own apartement.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
If you want to check out the movies that have had the most Oscar nominations, check out this list for summaries by film.
;)
The nominations record is held by Titanic and All About Eve (1950) at 14, and the most wins award is shared between Titanic and Ben Hur (1959, 12 nominations) at 11. Titanic is the only of these three to have won Best Picture. It's kindy funny that of 12 nominations for Ben Hur, the only it didn't win was Best Picture. Damn, what's it take?
I'm not sure, but I'd also imagine there are more categories now than in 1950, so those numbers might not be all *that* meaningful.
BEST PICTURE:
Shouldn't. It's a good film but not the best of the year. It's not a complete, self-contained story, and that usually counts for a lot.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ian McKellen
Shouldn't. It's a token nomination: Ian McKellan practically did nothing that was worthy of winning an award. He brings the same class to LOTR that Guinness brought to Star Wars, but his largely-ignored work in other films is so far superior it's almost laughable. Plus, Gandalf's an easy character to play.
BEST DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson
Won't, but should. His work in showing characters of disproportionate size in the same shots is hugely underrated. It takes talent to fit that as seamlessly into a movie as Jackson did.
ART DIRECTION:
Would any other year, but might lose to Moulin Rouge.
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Should. Had too much nice stuff to look at.
COSTUME DESIGN:
Shouldn't. Fantasy adventure is pretty easy to make neat-looking costumes for.
FILM EDITING:
Shouldn't. LOTR wasn't as clean in some areas as it could have been.
MAKEUP:
Should. The beasties were great.
MUSIC (SCORE):
Dunno. They all sound the same to me. There hasn't been a really fantastic score since The Thin Red Line.
MUSIC (SONG):
If this is for the Enya song, shouldn't. It contributed nothing to the movie except once the credits were rolling. This award is custom made to silly Disney or Pixar movies.
SOUND:
Should? Didn't see Black Hawk Down or Pearl Harbour in one of those arena theatres. Still bombs and machinery crashes are easy -- Jackson had to incorporate unusual sound effects (eg: the Balrog).
VISUAL EFFECTS:
Shouldn't, but probably will. For all the good stuff, there was some sloppy CGI work at times in that film.
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY):
Shouldn't. Much of what made the book great was edited down, and the dialogue was run of the mill push-the-plot-forward stuff (except when it was oh-looky-we're-talking-about-THE-THEME stuff).
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I think that Peter Jackson is a shoe-in, first of all. It's been pointed out that LotR is one of the world's foremost genre-establishing tales, and its been mis adapted for screen/animation enough times that this attempt was viewed with great trepidation. Jackson is obviously the man with the vision that turned the epic into an excellent on-screen adaptation. Trying to envision ways to portray/convey all that he did is difficult.
With 13 nominations -- well, best picture is the one to bring them all, and in the Dorothy Chandler pavilion, bind them. I have to say, I'd have seen LotR regardless of what anyone said about it, but I had to go in hoping for the best but fearing the worst, because fantasy never has done well on the big screen. And of course, I was stunned by the quality. At some point, best picture might be awarded for the vision of bringing something with variety in. I'm a little concerned that with last year's gladiator win, they may want to award BP to something less 'epic' and more quirky, like 99's American Beauty. Still, popular movies clearly do better in the BP race, partially because the whole academy gets to vote on it, I'm sure, whereas only one's peers vote for related oscars (ie, directors vote for directors).
Anyhow, I think LotR may win simply because it may have the power to create an onscreen genre just as it did in print -- and what a marvelous accomplishment. But if the sequels perform as well, then they'll have essentially grossed $900M on a $300M budget -- that would basically be in line with Titanic ($600M back domestically on a >$200M movie), and hollywood loves a winner. Also, those kind of numbers are the sort that might bring other fantasy novels to the screen. That would be a paramount accomplishment.
Sorta makes me wonder whether too any people's sense of self-worth gets bolstered somehow if LOTR wins an Oscar or two - i.e. if you all like LOTR you must all like me....
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
All your one ring am rule them all.
(ducks and runs...)
"Information wants to be paid"
Memento got nominated for best original screenplay ("written directly for the screen"), even though it's based on a short story.
Even though it wasn't a very popular movie, I am really surprised Jim Carrey didn't get nominated for his work in the Majestic. I thought this year the Academy would throw him a bone after the whole "Man on the Moon" controversy.
The tale of a modern hobbit...
C 20 4F6E65204F5320746F
2 69 6E67207468656D20
0 62 696E64207468656D
.coms doomed to die,
I was visited by a mighty computer-magician who knew many secrets.
During our conversation I told him about that I had installed a new
Windows version. I showed him the install CD which was perfectly
round and glittered magnificently.
My friend face became dark when he saw the disk. To my astonishment
and distress the wizard threw it into the microwave oven and turned
it on at the maximum. I gave a cry and tried to turn it off , but
the magician held me back. Holding my breath I watched as the CD was
revolving in the oven. Then the magician got the CD from the oven and
dropped into my hands.
- It's quite cool. Take it!
The CD was unscratched and cold and it seemed to have become thicker
and heavier in my hands.
- Hold it up! - said the magician. - And look closely.
As I did so, I now saw fine lines, finer than the finest pen-strokes,
running along close to the center of the CD. They shone piercingly bright,
and yet remote, as if out of a great depth.
4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2
2066696E64207468656D2CDA4F6E65204F5320746F20627
616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732
- I cannot read the fiery letters - said I in a quavering voice.
- No - said the magician, - but I can. The letters are hexadecimal,
of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which
I will not utter here. But this in the Common Tongue is what is
said, close enough:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
It is only two lines of a verse long known in SysAdmins-lore:
Three OSs for the Corporations under the sky,
Seven for the Software-lords in their halls of Silicon Valley
Nine for Mortal
One for the Dark Gates on his dark throne
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
He paused, and then said slowly in a deep voice.
- This is the Master CD, containing the original source code of
Windows. This is the CD that he lost many ages ago, to the great
weakening of his monopolistic power. He greatly desires it - but
he must not get it.
I sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand,
like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf me.
- This CD, - I stammered, - How, how on earth did it come to me?
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
Mental illness doesn't necessarily mean retarded.
Hello Clarice.
"I Am Sam" is embarassingly bad... it's a desperate plea for an Oscar that has inexplicably been heeded. Heaven help us if he wins because we can expect a boatload of crappy "I Am Retarded" flicks from aspiring "Actors" within a year.
Of those, I reckon it'll go like this:
1. Best Picture - No way. The Academy is a bunch of rich old farts that wouldn't know high fantasy if it leaped up and bit them in their collective white asses. It'll go to "A Beautiful Mind", because the Academy loves actors portraying mentally ill people.
2. Supporting Actor - McKellen takes it. Ben Kingsley's already got his Oscar (IIRC, for Gandhi), and c'mon, not even the Academy would be so twisted as to give it to Jon Voight.
3. Director - Toss up. Since Jackson's a semi-unknown who isn't American, they'll either give it to him by a landslide or ignore him totally. I reckon it'll go to Jackson, though.
4. Screenplay - They'll say "No originality in LoTR" or something and give it to A Beautiful Mind.
5. Art direction - Moulin Rouge. Deserves it, too.
6. Cinematography - A nice safe category that no-one gives a fuck about, so it'll go to LoTR.
7. Sound - Who cares? But it'll probably go to Pearl Harbor or other such dreck.
8. Original score - God knows, but I sure hope it ain't A.I.
9. Pearl Harbor or Vanilla Sky.
10. Costume - Moulin Rouge, again deservedly.
11. Film editing - Black Hawk Down, because it's Ridley Scott, and we can't be unpatriotic or anything, can we? Fuck Ridley Scott.
12. Makeup - LoTR, definitely, just for the Uruk-Hai.
13. Visual effects - LoTR, again because no-one cares about this category.
I have in fact seen both movies, so I do actually know what I'm talking about.
... so you think a 3" tall Kylie Minogue singing in front of an OBVIOUSLY fake starlit sky (did you even SEE what symbols the stars showed?) is more natural than say - 4' hobbits hugging a 6'6" wizard? I sure as hell didn't. The special effects of MR are good, but nothing compared to LotR. The best effects of LotR are the ones you don't notice. The effects of MR can best be compared to the firework of Gandalf at the party, but even then, they aren't as good.
"The effects [of MR]were cleaner and more natural and more impressive all-around [than LotR]"
Hmm
The music (songs) of MR is better, hands down, but that's probably just because I could recognize words and sing along with many of the songs; since I can't speak elvish, this is impossible for me to do with the songs of LotR. Wether the score of MR is better than that of LotR I don't really know - I didn't much notice the scores of LotR or MR, and I usually only notice scores, when they suck the life out of a movie/scenes.
Hugo Weaving vs Nicole Kidman? Kidman is the better actor and aparently singer, and I know who I'd rather have sex with, be in a relationship with and marry (and since I'm a heterosexual man, that means Nicole Kidman - plus she's probably rich, so I could just sit at home and surf the net all day long). I personally believe that Hugo Weaving was a wrong choice for Elrond, as he can't quite shake the image of Agent Smith.
Is Moulin Rouge better than LotR? In my oppion - no, but oppinions are like assholes - everyone has one. In my oppinion "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0211915) is a better movie than Moulin Rouge all round, but Amélie is not as good a movie as LotR all round.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
This review of "I am Sam" questions whether it is ethical to roll your eyes, laugh in a childlike way, slur your speech and call it a performance?. Another review notes that , the performance - showy and contrived - is all too obviously meant to get Oscar's attention.
I have avoided the film.
I first heard about LOTR being made into a film about 2 years ago. I'd never read the books, but had always wanted to. I quickly bought the books, and read them even quicker. I fell in love with the story. I watched the film's developement very closely over those 2 years, reading Tolkien Online and TheOneRing.net almost daily. I bought the soundtrack (excellent!) and a couple books. I even bought some miniatures. I reread the books a few months before the film was released, and enjoyed them even more the second time. I caught a showing of the film on it's first day out, and have been back for a total of 7 times (so far!).
Now, if you had told me 2 years ago that LOTR would be nominated for 13 Oscars, I would have said you were nuts. This is truly an amazing accomplishment, and LOTR deserves every one of them.
OK, I know I'm in the minority, but I loved A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. If you hated anything about it, or hated the ending, or whatever, I encourage you to see it again once the DVD comes out and look past the obvious. A great site devoted to analysis of the film is Mysteries of AI. There's a ton of information on the site (although, he doesn't have it totally done at this point).
Re: if you hated the ending... ask yourself if Monica was real or not.
As for the Oscars, I was really disappointed with Osmont not getting a best actor nomination. I thought he was fantastic. I didn't really expect a best picture nomination, because it was so dark and so many people didn't get it ("what's with the aliens??" ARGH!)
I think this is one of those pictures that will only be appreciated in 20 years after people start taking it apart.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I understand that Moulin Rouge was a love/hate film, but how can something like that be nominated for best picture? I think everyone kind of agrees that LOTR was good. I did, and I am not a fan. (easy, easy, it's OK). But MR? What a stinker. My fiancee, who is a French teacher, and I were both looking forward to it. We were the only ones in the theatre, and we were laughing out loud at how utterly stupid the movie was. We only lasted a little over half way through it. We kept thinking - the stupidity will stop, and they will get to the movie - but it didn't. There were many things I didn't like about LOTR too (like the Titanic-esque 3 minute pans of the scenery with little CG people walking along) but overall it was a good movie. Too many people hated MR for it to be best picture. At best, it was a Barney show on acid.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You're right, but the reason for this practice is the short memory span of the Oscar voters.
But Lynch is the "chosen loser," there just to make it look as though the Academy would--in theory, someday, maybe, but probably not--consder giving an award to one of the big-g Great Directors, rather than to a popular favorite/studio system whore--just like he was the "chosen loser" in the years he made Elephant Man and Blue Velvet (and, I think, Wild at Heart, but I don't remember).
Robert Altman is nominated for a similar reason. He should have won about thirty years ago for Nashville, but they blew it, like they blew it with Scorcese (and gave him the nod for Goodfellas, which is so much worse than Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, or King of Comedy, that it might as well have been made by George Lucas) and Kubrick and Hitchcock and
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Kind of like "The Net" for math....
And then you threw them away and replaced them with much more pithy, accurate words. Thank you!
I thought it was technically the best F/X movie of the year, even though its story was somewhat lame. A recent thread here said the FF animation house is now gone.
I would agree with Wateshay in that playing someone handicapped - even someone who is temporarily handicapped (by drunkeness say) is a difficult thing to do. You have to maintain consistency throughout AND (in the case of drunkeness of some mental afflictions where the sufferer would be considered "High Function") you have to play it as though you were trying to be "normal"/sober. Don't real life drunks spend most of their time trying to show how undrunk/sober they are? A badly acted drunk ignores that human tendancy and falls down and loudly hiccups alot. An individual human with some social awareness will try to minimize their differences (usually - unless they are an COBOL coder ;-) this ongoing attempt is what the actor has to capture.
IMO Dustin Hoffman did not do this (as the character did not call for it) in "Rainman" as the character was not afflicted with a condition that would/could allow him to care how he was percieved by others. He did have to be meticulously consistent throughout though, which I thought he did - though whether that merits an Oscar is another question.
For an interesting take on a handicapped person who is definitely "not nice" check out "Proof" from 1991. Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from "The Matrix") plays a blind person who believes that no one is telling him the truth, he tries to document this belief with photographs. Russel Crowe plays a friend in one of his early film appearances. Hit the imdb for more info. ( www.imdb.com generally or specifically (for "Proof")):
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102721 )
All that being said - Hollywood will continue to crank out manipulative junk because we will go and see it. The Oscars are set up to advertise the manipulative junk that Hollywood produces. No one wants to see movies about normal people in normal situations - so it should be no surprise that this sort of thing is getting and will continue to get nominations.
In this light I am more impressed by an actor who is willing to switch from Hero to Villain rather than "normal" to "non-normal"(Ben Kingsley from Ghandi to his role in "Sexy Beast" which incidentally has gotten him an Oscar nomination - though I have to agree that it is not a "normal" person he is playing!)
Some actors either refuse to play a villain, or their agents won't allow it (or they never get a good villain script... I'd like to see Tom Hanks play a villain, but I doubt that the "star machine" will let him now. If Ronald Regean had played the right villain (and done it well) he might never have made it to the oval office.
For an interesting take on the whole "Oscar" thing dig up a copy of Danny Peary's book "The Alternate Oscars" which details year by year from 1927 to 1992 or so (and is blessed somewhat with hindsight) the award winners and what didn't win or didn't even get nominated and should have (IHO). He manages to remove much of the hype and politics of the day (substituting his own of course - but still a fresh and interesting view). The book is OOP, but a good library can get you a copy on interlibrary loan.
In the end though the only Oscars really worth checking out are what I think of as the "foundation" ones for Cinematography, and best adapted, and original screenplays. Without those things every Oscar that follows would be much much more difficult. Those awards also tend to have a bit less hype, and thus a bit less political crap, attached to them.
Amelie is up for Best Foreign Film, as well as Cinematography, Art Direction, and Original Screenplay.
I absolutely adored Amelie, and I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to go and see it if it is still playing in a theater near you. Like "Life Is Beautiful", it is thoroughly enchanting. If you are a confirmed cynic, without a skosh of whimsy in your heart, don't bother, but otherwise, this is a fabulouse flick.
When possible they release films that they think will get Oscar nods so that they're still in theaters when the nominations are published (second best is to bring it out again for another crack). What kind of proof about national character is that?
Parent comment was knowingly making that joke. =)
It's 2002. The current century is still in its early part... ;-)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
1. Movies won't make a big box office in America if they have subtitles.
They don't. Look at a list of the top grossing movies.
2. Movies made outside of Hollywood are of inferior quality and marketability.
This is possibly the only point that could be a false belief, but I wonder who really believes this?
3. Americans are too stupid to understand films which portray a cross-cultural perspective.
In specific cases this wouldn't be true, but generally this is dead on.
4. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is an American institution.
It's not? It was started in Hollywood, and still is in Hollywood. Despite all my protestations Hollywood is still part of the USA
Exactly which one of these is a false belief?
In the last 17-20 years (don't remember exact number), Every Best Picture But One Was Won By The Film With The Most Nominations.
In other words, FoTR is nearly a shoe-in for best picture.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Why recommend a book to a stranger just because you enjoyed it? You don't have a financial stake in the book, after all. Why tune into your local sports team when it is playing for the championship, especially if you haven't been doing so during the down times? For that matter, why post your pearls of social criticism to Slashdot? Surely by now you've given up on making the masses as enlightened as yourself.
The answer, I think, is that people are social animals. We like to share information, we like participate in a greater social whole, and we like having that greater whole validate our viewpoints. Fandom is just one facet of this.
Basing your self esteem entirely upon the the whim of the Academy, or upon the results of a game where surely chance plays a considerable part is clearly not a good idea. However, that's not what most people are doing. They're just participating in a pleasant diversion, a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bet. If "we" win, then I feel good for a few hours or days. If "we" lose, I have a few minutes of cathartic disappointment and move on to the rest of my daily life.
While I probably participate in fandom less than most people I know, I don't feel any contempt for it. I find it perfectly understandable and harmless. What I don't really have a good handle on is what the Germans call Schadenfreude -- the pleasure that comes from raining on somebody else's parade.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You know what real men do do? They tell sh*t like they see it. If they don't like the movie, they say so. They don't say what they hope she wants to hear so they'll "get laid."
I saw Moulin Rouge the other night and I said it sucked to my wife. BTW, one of my favorite comedies I've seen lately was Bridget (sp?) Jones' Diary, so don't tell me I don't like "chick flicks".
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I've noticed the people who proclaim Moulin Rouge to be the best film of the year are often the same people proclaiming Magnolia to be "*the* film of the 90s."
One:
Best picture
Three:
Actor in a supporting role
Directing
Writing (adapted screenplay)
Nine:
Art direction
Cinematography
Costume design
Film editing
Makeup
Music (score)
Music (song)
Sound
Visual effects
The big one, three major ones, and nine techncal. I guess the dwarves get no respect, just as in the books.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
>>If it wins, it will be up there with Schindler's List, Amadeus, and Gandhi.
It'll also be up there with Rocky and Titanic.
The truth is the oscar voters probably didn't see a lot of the movies, they saw excerpts on video tapes the studios sent to them.
It's all about what one is looking for. The awards show that most reflects what I consider to be good movies, is, perhaps sadly, the MTV movie awards. The oscars is a mutual masterbation party where the predominently uninteresting people give strokes to other uninteresting people in return for strokes of their own, and a few interesting people get stokes to either legitimize the whole affair, or by accident. I like to see the deserving rewarded for their skill. But I am so consistantly disapointed by the Acadamy choices, it's hard to be even interested, let alone excited.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
AMEN! Best movie of the year.
I saw the trailer for "The Majestic" and all I could do was turn to my friend and say "Ooh, look at me! I'm Jim Carrey, I want an Oscar!"
I had the identical thought when I saw the trailer except I said "Smells like Oscar desperation."
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I agree 100%.
I mean, look at two roles in the last two decades that won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Both with truly superior performances, though I liked Forrest Gump way better because through Gump's simple-mindedness we see he's a man of more insightful wisdom than almost everyone else that is supposed more intelligent than him. It is truly one of the very best movies of the 1990's.
It is still (IMHO) Tom Hanks' finest performance as an actor.
Indeed. I just got finished with the actual biography. I got into a conversation with a co-worker yesterday. I started listing scnes from the movie that were blatently wrong.
1) The scene with him giving the baby a bath. The truth is that Nash actively avoided both sons that he had. He was in in a mental institution when his wife gave birth, and left for Europe shortly after that.
2) Nash's acceptance speech for his Nobel prize. The truth was that he was divorced at the time.
3) His roommate. The truth was that Nash never seemed to suffer from visual halucienation.
4) The Nazi bomb idea.
5) Nash teaching today. Apparently he is in residence at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, but only teaches an occasional seminar.
6) Nash's work for the Department of Defense. Nash worked for RAND for a while as a researcher, but was apparently more involved in pure mathematical research and game theory than active code-breaking.
7) Princeton. The truth is that Nash did quite a bit of work at MIT, but the movie leads you to believe that Princeton was the only place he ever did anything.
8) Nash's recovery. The movie would have you believe that it was entirely Nash repressing the illness. In truth, it would seem that Nash has actually been in remission. As he says it, it seems like the volume of the ideas have been turned down, allowing him to concentrate on reality instead.
9) His idea for his equilibrium theory. Nash has stated that the idea came from thinking about nations trying to acheive what they want, not from a hot chick in a bar.
10) The scene with the pens in the faculty louge. Nothing ever happened like that.
I did not like the movie, both as a math/psych student and as a movie buff. Crowe definitely deserves for Best Actor, but little other than that.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
The reason why E.T.: The Extraterrestrial didn't win the Best Movie Oscar was the fact late in 1982 a movie came out that did match the type of movie AMPAS members really like: Gandhi.
Gandhi was both an epic and socially-conscious movie (both of which AMPAS members really like), and Ben Kingsley's performance as Mahatma Gandhi was really good (he definitely looked the part).
Also, the total overkill of marketing for E.T. really turned off too many AMPAS members, too.
Cinematogrophers vote for best Cinematography, [...]
IIRC, everyone votes for cinematography (or any other category). It's just the nominations that get defined only by the people who work in that category. So the cinematographers came up with the nominations, and every AMPAS member - no matter how little clue (s)he has - can vote and decide who will get the statuette.
Or the utterly wonderful Aussie indie film, The Interview.
If you haven't see it, it's very, very, very much worth seeking out for a rental. The DVD is pretty spiff, too.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Screenplay - They'll say "No originality in LoTR" or something and give it to A Beautiful Mind.
Sure it's not original - it's an adapted screenplay. It was one of the most difficult adaptations of a book to movie form ever done and it was handled superbly. It is better than most people who love the book dared to hope.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
If Holy-wood is such the archvillain (MPAA, CSS, DMCA, Jack Valenti, judge Kaplan, et caetera), how come Slashdot is the first to jump on the people's opium bandwagon?
Even if FOTR misses out there are still two more movies on the way. I wonder how that will effect things? Considering that they were filmed together and were never really meant to be considered separately, it seems almost silly to award them individually. What if FOTR does get best picture (or if it doesn't)? How will that bias the attitudes towards The Two Towers and The Return of the King, when they come out? As it stands now I can predict that the same nominations and wins will be EXPECTED for these films when they come out due to the similarity. Otherwise it will just seem wierd.
Of course this is an exceptional situation - I can't think of any other film sagas that were so tightly integrated in production and story. If I were the academy, this is where I'd start considering some sort of special award for the saga as a whole in '04.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I'm glad that Memento got nominated for the best screenplay and film editing awards. It was the most thought-provoking film I saw last year. Brilliantly written and executed with a stunning performance from Guy Pearse, it was perhaps also the best film of the year, Lord of the Rings notwithstanding. It certainly has major geek appeal, dealing with identity, memory and personality and the role of time. Its also one of the truly great "puzzle" films. It takes most people several viewing to work out what is really happening. Take a look at this Salon article (with major spoilers, you have been warned) for some insight into the complexity of this film.
I predict Memento will get the Screenplay award and that Lord of the Rings will take best picture.
Sailing over the event horizon
You might be a geek if: :)
- Every combination of two, three, or four letters is a meaningful acronym for you
"Yeah, I think we all want FOTR to do well. I feel the same way about ABM, although RH's vision may differ substantially from what SN had in mind. IIRC, GL overcame similar obstacles in TPM... "
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
"So best actor is determined with your dick?"
No, but I didn't say that. How did you come to that conclusion? Don't project your tendencies onto others.
"sure NK would love to marry someone whose sole goal in life is to sit in front of the web and surf all day."
Good - then I know who to contact about a potential marriage. While I'm out, I could pick up a bag of "sense of humor" for you, what do you say?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
IANAA, but both my parents were. I did, however, work in a mental hospital.
It's absolutely true that it is extremely difficult to play a mentally ill person. However, it does not therefore follow that actors who do a bad job of it automatically deserve awards. Writing an operating system is hard, too, but that doesn't mean XP is good.
The only reasonably accurate portrayal of the behavior of psychotics I have ever seen on film was Ophelia in Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet. The character in Pi didn't act like a psychotic, but the film did evoke a reasonable image of mania.
Patch Adams was probably the worst offender in this regard. Absolutely none of the characters were even remotely right, with the possible exception of the catatonic guy in the wheelchair. Crazy People did get the concept of schizophrenic insight (which is real and very common), but that was in the writing, not the acting.
It's tough to remember (esp. after Rocky 4 and 5 *gag*) but the original Rocky *was* a great movie. I mean, the great characters, the focus on the interaction between Rocky, Adrian, and the brother, it wasn't just a "fight,lose,train,fight,win" movie. Mainly because Rocky lost! Anyway, IMNSHO, they should have stopped after the first one, definetly after the third, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the original was great.
:-)
Oh, and Titanic wasn't as bad as some people try and say it was, but I'm not going to try and defend it either
Hey I can take it! :)
Amelie: Yes its foreign. But why can't it have been nominated for best picture? Is there a rule that best picture has to be a drama?
I watch mostly foreign films because I can see them free. I have to pay to see American films (I can see many indepedents for free too, just don't do it much). I also go to the retro theater fairly often, but they don't show the latest Hollywood stuff.
I enjoyed Memento. It was really good. But I believe it was released in 2000 so doesn't qualify for this year's awards.
The main reason I don't see much Hollywood films is they are dreck. Most are paint-by-numbers productions that are obviously run through a market driven corporate analysis before being released.
Comedies: most are pretty bad. You have some good romantic comedies every year, but so many are either of the Disney variety (talking animals) or the other extreme with lots of sex and bodily functions jokes (any Adam Sandler or other ex SNL star).
Dramas: Range the gamut some are good, most are predictable.
Horror: We actually had a decent year for suspense/horror this year. Nicole Kidman's film was good. Jeepers Creepers was decent. It broke many conventions of the genre, but still wasn't pushing any envelopes.
Sci-Fi: explosions and SFX dominate these things. Same with action films. I miss the action *drama*. Now there's no plot, just non-stop action sequences strung together with MTV editting.
Yes, Cannes is a good place to see movies. It has gone more Hollywood recently, but Cannes is an excellent example of my main point. Cannes doesn't happen in December.
For those of you suffering from John Travolta withdrawal after reading that article, check out this year's Razzies Nominations list. Hungry for awards that Keanu Reeves, Tom Green AND Charlton Heston can compete for? Check it out!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Besides, you spend all that energy whining about the moderation on Slashdot, and you accuse me of wasting my time??
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Has to compete against Star Wars II and Rings II.
Wow. So Amelie, a foreign movie (not bad at all, BTW, saw it tonight myself and I think it deserves it's place on the IMDB's 'best movies ever' list), is nominated a fair number of times, and not just as best foreign movie. I never realized the Oscars nominated the best 'whatever' worldwide. And yet, a huge majority of nominated movies are American. Hmm. :)
(Oh wait, what did the 'A' in MPAA stand for already...)
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Ah ah. Many people seem to agree with you, too: Amelie is number 13 on the IMDB's list of top movies ever. Interesting, isn't it? :)
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.