Slashdot Mirror
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.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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?
--
You're Reading Managed Agreement
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.
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
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Titanic had 14 nominations, and it won 11 of them. ;)
13 is a hell of a lot for one movie..well done, epic, mainstream movies with decent to excellent acting are the movies that make those huge Oscar sweeps, simply because so much work goes into them. Makeup, effects, costuming, editing, sound, cinematography...that's where these movies get those huge numbers
Of course, I think he had enough screen time to qualify for best actor, but they'd never nominate an elderly British actor that most people have never heard of. Have to think of the ratings.
Hmm...they did for Gods and Monsters
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.
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
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.
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.
> Still, it's a wonderful day indeed when *anything*
> by Tokein is nominated for an Academy Award.
The day would be more wonderful if Tolkien was getting credit instead of the plagarist Tokien
ID-10-T is a way of life
Titanic had 11 oscars, but if you notice, NONE were for acting and/or quality of plot. They had all the technical stuff down, FX, sounds, Costumes. . .etc. I can only hope they reward Jackson's et al. creative ability on plot (Screenplay) and Ian's ability to act. I don't want LOTR to get only Tech oscars. . .they deserve better!
I hate to compare a movie of epic proportions like LOTR to the slimemold of Titanic.
People who are against human cloning must be bitter they are not good enough to be cloned.
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...
:-)
</sarcasm>
Dude, I'm sure your post was really insightful and all. It's just that I am not sure how to read it.
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.
"Luke Skywalker was a terrorist"
That's one of the most low-key, insightful commentaries on current events I've seen.
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.
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 say the movie is an insult to Tolkein, but it was he himself that sold the movie rights to it, for whatever reason. Call me cynical, but I think Tolkein's surviving family is motivated by something other than 'honoring the memory of JRR.' The movie is good, and I'm glad that it was finally made, after the rights being sat on for so long. If the author sells the movie rights to his works, I hardly think it is fair to come along and blame the filmmakers for actually going through with it.
BTW, this movie is no Scary Movie 2 or Leprechaun 4.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Also,
It was J.R.R. Tolkien himself who decided that, in the movie version of LotR, Tom Bombadil's part could (should?) be easily skiped.
So, he knew that it would become a movie. And P. Jackson is a Tolkien fan himself. As well as most of the artists in charge of wepons, CGI, costumes...
A whole bunch of Tolkien fanatics!
They even called P. Jackson "the Hobbit" during the film making.
BTW, I liked the books, I liked the movie.
And, as P. Jackson says, "the movie is just another way of telling the same history". Have in mind that Tolkien thought his work as a collection of poems, oral tradition, writtings, legends, songs.... telling a history. He was a Linguist, so this is why he took this approach. This is why it took so long to Christopher Tolkien to assemble a logical set of stories and compile The Silmarilion.
I remmeber reading that he submited the "drafts" of his work to sons and colleagues something like this:
"Hi Son,
"I just found this poem. Tell me what do you think.
"Love,
"JRRT
"Once upon a time, in a hole there was a Hobbit...."
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.
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.
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
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.