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LoTR Takes 4 Oscars
E1ven writes "The Lord of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring won four awards, including Cinematography, Makeup, Music (Score), and Visual Effects. "
At least they have 2 more chances for Best Picture or Best Director. They
definitely deserved the ones they got.
A little OT, but...
Next year's Oscars may not have as many other good films. Do you think that the Two Towers is the likely canidate for next years?
Everything is mainstream now.
One Ring to [win] them all..
slashdot!=valid HTML
Which goes a long way to explain why I don't watch the academy award shows. It's more political and business than what really should be done, but, hey they have to sell advertising time while they pat themselves on their backs, right?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh please. All of this post-911 oversensitivity crap really has me on edge. Editing references to the towers out of NYC-based movies, "Fireman-chic", etc. and now you want to change the name of a movie (which has nothing to do with terrorism, NYC, or even any real place, for that matter) based upon being "sensitive"? Come on.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Well, I'll bet they've got two more chances at this one.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
In the UK our favourite film won 5 baftas (UK version of the Oscars) including Best Film and Best Director. See the BBC [news.bbc.co.uk] website for more info. My non-geek colleges all think that 'A Beautiful Mind' was 'OK', but 'LOTR' was 'blinding' - so what gives? Post-Sept-11 nationalism? Or genuine belief that LOTR wasn't one of the best films ever made?
"My word is my bond" - Cugel the Clever Jack Vance
Insensitive?? That book was named before the friggin buildings were built. Why should it have to change its name because some psychos blew up the buildings that stole its name?
We can't suddenly start censoring reality because something horribly happened. If we did that we are injuring our freedoms as Americans. And if we lose these freedoms then what is left of the country? The power of the United States comes from the incredibly smart men who drafyted the constitution and design our government. They gave us what no other country had, freedom. If that freedom is taken away then all is lost, the initials U-S-A mean nothing, the terrorists will have won.
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Why does /. have to concentrate on this film? Sure, it was certainly the most popular on /., but it would have been nice if you had said something like "A Beautiful Mind got the awards for best picture and best director." I dare say that A Beautiful Mind is also a film that alot of nerds found good. I mean, the movie is about a mathemetician who wins the nobel prize for pete's sake. And there were loads of other movies that the /. crowd really seemed to like as well.
This will probably get modded down as flamebait or troll, but whatever.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
The politicaly correct are weak willed psuedo-intellectuals that would not know how to hold a book without pictures right side up if the utne reader did not come that way. Those that feel justifed in meeting social problems with expedient political solutions that are far removed from the root causes of the situation should be drove to the sea and forced to crawl back in till they evolve a suitably advanced brain for deductive logic.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The oscars have never been about the best films. From day 1 (back in 1927), they were all about hollywood patting itself on the back.
It was started by film and production executives, is chaired today by the same types of people. The only way to even get involved in the voting for the oscars is to be invited to join the Academy by the Board of Governers and is limited to 'those who have achieved distinction in the arts and sciences of motion pictures'. A link with the brief history is here.
You'll never see a movie like LotR take top honours, now or ever, for a very good reason. It's not in hollywood's best interest to admit that a 'silly' sci-fi, fantasy, or comedy movie was the best they had that year.
To sum up: the Oscars are of the hollywood crowd, for the hollywood crowd, by the hollywood crowd. This is why I never watch awards shows.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
Of course, Tom Cruise's nauseatingly self-congratulatory "we need Hollywood more than ever" intro took the edge off this.
But Nora Ephron's tribute to New York movies was brilliant. In fact, the short specially-produced films were the highlight of the entire show.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Well, I don't think that is entirely fair. For all the hype, crap and bullshit that goes with each Oscars ceremony, what it is really about is universal appeal to a panel who all want to pick a good film that is somehow "universal".
Mainstream films are the only films that ever get a look-in at the Oscars, but comedies have won. Some people might even say that LOTR is a great book, but a dreary mainstream adaption. Visual effects aside, I didn't find the characters anywhere near as pensive or wrapped up in their world as in the book.
And, of course, no comment about your comment about changing names of films, but a couple of references for the fun of it:
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
We as a society need to get our priorities start on what is important in the world. Yes is good to know that LOTR:FOTR won 4 awards which they desevered but that information should be in the entertantment section where it belongs, not the front page where important news should be.
I completely agree.
When I look in the newspaper, I want to only read about the horrible atrocities that get me depressed about the state of our nation. There should be absolutely nothing pleasing at all on my front page, because I don't care if someone's happy. I only care about the sad things, and that's all I want to read about.
...The Two Towers in this post 9-11 age? I hope Peter Jackson shows a little sensitivity and changes the name.
Absolutely! Only by forgetting the past, erasing painful images, and ignoring anything that makes anyone, anywhere the least bit uncomfortable, can we get on with our blissful, ignorant lives under the rule of our teleprompter programmers who tell our "elected" officials what to say and do.
Perhaps we can also finally put to rest those rumors of a "Holocaust" in Germany in the late '30s and early '40s. But you probably have already managed to put any reference to THAT out of sight and out of mind as well.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
When you take into account the scope and work that Peter Jackson did, I don't see how he could not be voted best director.
He shot three films at the same time. Never Been Done Before.
He directed scenes in remote locations. Remote meaning remote from him. While he was directing local scenes. Never Been Done Before.
He created a beautiful work on screen of a masterpiece of fiction that most directors wouldn't even have the gonads to try. I don't agree with all his choices, but I respect them (well, not the Arwen character.)
While Ron Howard is a good director, and A Beautiful Mind was a nice film. Peter did so MUCH MORE and did it well that he deserves Best Director.
Now, as for Best Film. That is still a matter of taste. My movie choice wasn't even nominated.
Sorry, guys, but no way in hell was LOTR:FOTR the best picture of 2001. I saw 5 films in 2001: Shrek, Amelie, LOTR, Waking Life, and The Royal Tenenbaums. LOTR wasn't even the third best film out of that limited selection.
I like Peter Jackson, too (Meet the Feebles is something else) but he wasn't the best director of the year, either.
And now, even though it has nothing to do with LOTR, I would like to once again razz the Oscars for not even nominating Waking Life for best animated film, instead picking 2 blockbusters (Shrek, Monsters Inc.) and a glorified Nickelodeon pilot (Jimmy Neutron).
Of course, this is to be expected - the Oscars are a crock of shit anyhow. Figure skating is a more objective contest with less corrupt judging. Basically, the winner in each category is decided by bloc voting and horse-trading by the studios who control the bulk of academy members - so says a former professor of mine who's a member of the academy and actually has an Oscar under his belt, whom I'm inclined to believe. Most Oscar voters haven't even seen all the films in the categories for which they're voting - there's just too damn many films up for consideration for anyone to watch and still have time to do anything else.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
The Oscars have worse judging than NBA referees, in terms of "make-up calls". The only reason Russel Crowe won last year was because people felt he should have won for LA Confidential. His acting was nothing phenominal.
This year's prime example is Randy Neuman (sp?) winning for best song for that Monsters Inc tune. That song sounded EXACTLY like his past 10 million movie songs. But the dear old Oscars club wasn't going to let him go 0 for 16. The LOTR Enya song was by far the best, even my wife agreed!
It's all a sham and show put on for the drooling masses who get to see their movie star idols act like their not assholes. I'm surprised Russel Crowe didn't bite a chunk out of Whoopi's neck when she cracked on him.
Pay no attention to these awards. George C. Scott was the only smart one in the bunch. He wasn't even there when he won best actor for Patton. He was home watching hockey. He believed that these "competitions" spoiled the quality of films, making them pander to the masses instead of trying to raise intellectual and artistic bars.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
"The Lord of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring won four awards, including Cinematography, Makeup, Music (Score), and Visual Effects. "
In other words, it won all the meaningless ones. Sure, they're nice but does anyone actually remember who won any of those awards last year? 5 years ago? And it isn't like they are going to put that on any of the DVD boxes. FOTR was just a good fantasy movie and there is no way they could get around that.
Of course it wasn't like they came even close to choosing the best nominees. Denzel, in Training Day? Penn in I am Sam? WTF! They aren't even pretending to nominate favorite sons for good movies anymore (although their acting was suspect at least when Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds won they were for two good films). And don't get me started on the sham of a remake that was A Beautiful Mind (let's just say I know there is a special place in Hell for Opie now).
The Oscars are a sham. Does anyone remember Forrest Gump anymore? And what lost to it: Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Hoop Dreams.
What didn't get nominated this year for best picture or directing? Memento, Bully, Chopper, Ghost World, Monster's Ball, Mulholland Drive, Sexy Beast, Faithless... on and on. Any of which are deeper, more stylistic, more satisfying, and infinitely more memorable than any of the crappola that won or was nominated.
In truth they never meant anything. On the Waterfront lost and from that point on the Academy has been living a lie ever since.
Ok, that's it. I'm done.
What is music when you despise all sound?
* Give Frodo a incurable disease;
* Have Gandalf take a shot to the head and be mentally impaired for the next two movies;
* Arwen's role in Two Towers should be to sleep with some Orc played by Billy Bob Thorton;
* Sam gets Rain Man autism;
* Strider overcomes his disabilities and is able to kill Orcs using only his left foot;
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Now, personally: I enjoyed LOTR: FOTR, but there were much better films this past year, some of which weren't even nominated. FOTR is a good flick, but it isn't high art and it isn't Best Picture.
For that matter, I wouldn't have voted for ABM, either: I would have voted for In the Bedroom, though I think Black Hawk Down and Monster's Ball should have been nominated.
As much as /.ers think that the Academy wouldn't recognize an F&SF flick for Best Picture, it would be my argument that FOTR was the most commericial and the most Hollywood of the choices in the Best Picture category. FOTR ranks right up there with Forest Gump in terms of marketing, and would have won for the same reason if Opie hadn't made a decent movie this year.
So, no, no upset here. Oh, and it's Gandalf, dammit!
As far as precedent dictates, The Two Towers and The Return of the King are just as eligible for Oscars as The Fellowship of the Ring.
Take Star Wars for example. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were both sequels to A New Hope, but both ESB and RotJ won awards, even after ANH won 6 Oscars.
I'm sure there are other examples as well, but this was the first one that came to mind.
Furthermore, IMHO, "Towers" and "Return" have a greater potential of being recognized, simply because the story was just getting started with "Fellowship". The next two will hopefully be even better than the first.
Don't give up hope!
For those who watched. Did anyone else want to reach inside their TV and smack Halle Berry, not just for completely losing it, but for thanking her lawyer.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
(Plus, I doubted Jackson had a chance against Howard, that was nearly a shoe-in for him. And I suspect that because they 'had' to give ABM the top nod given that they were unable to give the Best Actor nod to Russell Crowe (with Denzel in the competition), and that might have made up for it).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Why would a site that is so anti-MPAA give a hairy orcs ass what the MPAA thinks of a movie?
/. is a community, but few communities hold a single viewpont on any given issue.
First, the site isn't anti-MPAA. Many of it's users are. The site is a news and discussion forum.
Second, not all Slashdot readers are Anti-MPAA. Some don't give your hairy orc's ass about the issue. Some, like me, realize the issues and have come to an internal compromise. Some users haven't bought a movie ticket or DVD in years. You have to realize that there are many thousands of posters, and not all have the same opinions about issues.
Sure, industry awards are a circle jerk. So? Don't watch. Go to your local independant movie house and Fight The Power.
Just remember,
The Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) NOT the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Unlike the Grammy's where we got rewarded for watching the music industries love-fest with a harangue about piracy, the only appearance by MPAA President Jack Valenti was him talking about his favourite film during one of the documentary clips at the beginning of the show.
AMPAS is made up not just of studio executives but also of the artists (actors directors cinematographers, makeup, etc.) themselves. If you think that the rantings on SlashDot against the RIAA and MPAA are meant to imply that artists don't deserve recognition or compensation for their work, then you haven't been paying attention. The MPAA and RIAA like to imply that they are standing up for the rights of artists by crushing fair-use rights, when in actuallity they have traditionally fought against artists rights since payments to artists are just another drain on their profits.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Speaking of Shelob... I wonder if they will keep the distinctive split of books 3 and 4 in the two towers.. you know, the whole ent's thing in one book, with no mention of sam & frodo.. and then the next book being JUST sam & frodo w/ the whole minas morgul and shelob thing..
Or do you think that for the sake of the movie they will mix it up a bit, so we see both concurrently?
my precioussss is lost, it is. ...
Nasty Opie takeses it.
Gollum will have his sweet revenge, yes preciousssss, next year preciousss will be mine again
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Well, most of the people in the academy aren't celebrities. My college writing professor is in the academy, for example, and he is anything but a celebrity. He has a co-writing credit on one movie from the mid nineties, and that was enough toget him in. Lots of costume designers, sound editors and the like are also members. It's not all actors and directors.
I think the main problem with a movie like LOTR or SW winning is that people basically vote for what they like, and who they like. Most of the people in the academy probably aren't geeks, so SW and LOTR, while they probably liked them, didn't really grab them. Also, there is a huge impetus to vote for people who "deserve it" after a career... Like Denzel winning for Training Day when he didn't win for Philidelphia, Malcom X or Hurricane.
obviously these critics have never read the trilogy for in the book there is no one central character.
;)
Why do you have to read the books to critique the films? It would seem to be a failing in the movie, if you had to read the source material to understand it. That said, I've never read the books (beyond the Hobbit in elementary school) and I really enjoyed LOTR - thought it was great. Maybe I don't get every little thing, but I was never confused about the story. I never even got up to use the bathroom, and that's the mark of an entertaining movie as far as I'm concerned,especially if it's 3 hours plus.
It's ok for us to be elitist, we are much smarter afterall.
Well, you obviously have just as big an ego as a hollywood celeb, at least.
Once the Fellowship started out, the movie spent most of its time on Aragorn and Gandalf. Sure, they were great Heroes, but when it came down to it, it was the Hobbits who got the work done.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
A movie has a host of criteria to be concerned about, as does a book. But those criteria have very little overlap between movies and books. A book can spend a chapter on Nash's bi-sexuality without losing focus, but for a movie to properly handle it would require too much time and distract from the focus of the movie (Nash's illness and recovery through force of will and the love of his wife.) Even such an integral fact such as Nash's divorce and re-marrage districts from the focus. Picking any one facet, scene, or even sub-plot of a book to judge a movie to set yourself up for disappointment.
Books can ponder the nuances of their story, but movies must have tunnel-vision like focus. That's to be expected, they are different media. If you want long winding passages that have questionable relevance to the final plot, read the book. If you want amazing visual to help with your questionable imagination, watch the movie. And if you want bad graphics and questionable interface, play the game.
-sk
I know I am in the extreme minority here, but, for goodness sake!
While FOTR was cleverly made in certain places, the overall product was middling at best.
I would have liked to see 6 or 10 episodes, perhaps done on television, WITH the light parts included with the dark, (so much beauty cut out, so much sorrow left in!), WITH Tom B included, WITH Elves that didn't fail to score in multiple ways, ("Welcome to Rivendale Mr. Anderson. You have now been knocked out of the story teller's embrace.") --WITH the proper pacing restored!
LOTR is a story about a Journey. --One where you live and grow with the characters to the point where you genuinely love them by the end. In this film, even Sam felt like a stranger to me. What bullshit! This was not a Journey. --I did not get the idea at all in the film that any significant time had passed from beginning to end. This was a massive problem for me! Tolkien understood the importance of pacing in this respect; he understood the importance of the Journey to the point where he was moved to write that wonderful little line, which I will misquote here: "The road begins at your front door.")
The movie felt like a high-speed, over-slick, Cole's-Notes version of the real thing which was trying like mad to adhere to some sort of Advertiser's guidebook about winning the viewer with hypnotically fast images. It felt afterwards as though I'd just eaten a piece of greasy McMeat stuffed in an over-sugared bun. Maybe Jackson was earnest in his attempt, and maybe he made a passable film. But LOTR it was not.
--And I have heard every apologist's excuse for why it 'Had To Be This Way' for reasons of funding, film pacing, blah, fucking blah.
Sorry, but Tolkien would have hated it. This is NOT what he intended. And the worst thing is knowing that it could have been done right with a proper captain at the helm.
Jackson is an uppity kid with a handful of childish horror flicks under his belt. Of COURSE he was going to fall short of the mark in capturing a Master Work which took Tolkien a lifetime to create; Jackson is a grasshopper with a budget. And that's alright. We all must learn, but damn if it isn't a crying shame that he had to cut his teeth on such a culturally significant work.
Best Picture, my ass. The Oscars are basically the embodiment of pure evil, but at least they made the right call, even if it was for the wrong reasons.
-Fantastic Lad
To quote Homer (Simpson not the Greek):
"He didn't give you 'gay', did he? DID HE?!?!"
Does Ian being gay make you like LOTR less than you did before you found out? Personally I just found out last night. I said "Oh. His buddy is pretty young." and was done with it (my wife kept saying it's probably his son, denial I suppose).
His being gay shouldn't affect you at all. If it does, it's your problem, not his.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
She starts out all blubbery, in a "Me? Really?!" sort of way and ends up thanking her lawyer with an almost "Black Power Rulz!" attitude. Sorry, baby, you can't play the race card both ways. About the only redeeming part of her speech was recognition of some greater (and lesser) actresses that have come before her, who, perhaps, were cheated of recognition because of their race.
Generally, "door-opening" by victims of systemic social discrimination has happened because individuals overcame the obstacles they faced, and were so much better than any contemporary competitors, that to deny their achievements would be clear evidence of that very discrimination, otherwise subtle, hidden, and plausibly deniable. It isn't fair to have to work harder to be just as good, certainly, but if you manage it, there can be no doubt as to your achievement. Said undeniable achievement, then, serves to destroy any bogus arguments of inability, or inadquacy. That's "door opening".
By comparison, Berry's win suggests, if anything, that there is no racial discrimination anymore, or worse, that there is grudging "accomodation" given to produce an equity of outcome in spite of an inequity of ability that is "unfair". "See, racism is dead... Berry won an Oscar." Sadly, Berry's win shows only that racism is an embarrasment, not openly admitted, but hardly dead.
You could've hired me.