"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Oscars’

Oscar nominations

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

fyc-manoftaichi

The Oscar nominations are announced Thursday morning at ridiculously early o’clock a.m. This will be a good place to discuss nominations, snubs, how much you don’t care about the Oscars, etc.

Most of the contenders are obvious, but I really don’t have a feel for what’s gonna end up winning. AMERICAN HUSTLE seems like a possibility for best picture but a poor choice. 12 YEARS A SLAVE might get it but I still have a hard time imagining a majority of the old white voters being okay with such a non-uplifting look at slavery. WOLF OF WALL STREET would be deserving but seems to have upset and confused alot of normal people. Interest in GRAVITY feels like it’s peaked. But then again I saw ARGO on opening day thinking it was the one to beat for the Oscars and then when it was over thought well, obviously that’s not gonna happen. So I’m not good at this.

Anyway, there are two long shots that would make me very happy if they happen tomorrow morning: 1) James Franco, supporting actor for SPRING BREAKERS, 2) THE GRANDMASTER, best foreign language. (It is Hong Kong’s official entry, and since it’s released by the Weinstein Company it is possible.)

Oscars 2013

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

tn_oscarclintOn this, the 10th 20th anniversary of the correct movie winning best picture, we celebrate by having that smarmy millionaire dick from the Comedy Central Roasts and the Fox cartoons sing fake-edgy show tunes and make Hitler jokes, but hopefully it’ll still be fun. I’m kinda bummed that ARGO seems to be headed for best picture, but way worse movies have won before. I’ll be rooting for LINCOLN as the one that has a chance to win (ZERO DARK THIRTY is too misunderstood and DJANGO UNCHAINED is too awesome). Remember, if LINCOLN or DJANGO does not win it proves that Hollywood is pro-slavery.

I’ll be rooting for Honest Abe, who I think is a shoo-in, but I can be bad as these things. I’ll be rooting for Catwoman, even though I got a thing for Li’l Mystique and she might take it. I’d like PARANORMAN to pull off an upset, but I doubt it, so I’ll take WRECK-IT RALPH.

I’ll be kinda mad if LINCOLN doesn’t get best adapted, for many reasons, some mentioned in the link below. I’ll be rooting for ZERO DARK THIRTY in original, but would also be thrilled if Tarantino or Anderson somehow got it. And if they cut to Bruce in the audience.

I definitely want Kathryn Bigelow for director. Oh wait. Okay, Spielberg.

I do not recommend drinking games but if you do them I suggest drinking for McFarlane making a Hitler reference, for cutting to Chris Tucker after another black person speaks on stage, for jokes about ZERO DARK THIRTY and torture, and references to the N-word being used alot in DJANGO UNCHAINED. Or Jamie Foxx’s balls being shown.

Anyway everybody have fun and please share your thoughts below. This is recommended for participants only and not “I don’t watch the Oscars because such-and-such” sticks-in-the-mud.

UPDATE: How I did on my predictions (SPOILER: poorly)

Over on this Fanhattan thing me and some other writers wrote about who we thought would win in some of the categories and why. I would’ve changed some of my predictions if I’d written them more recently, but wouldn’t have done that much better (except I would’ve caught up with everybody and called ARGO for best picture. Back then it seemed like a ridiculous notion to me).

Here are the posts and whether I was right or not.

Best Actor/Actress

Actor: Right. Actress: Wrong.

Best Supporting Actor/Actress

Supporting Actor: Wrong. Did not see that coming at all. Supporting Actress: Right.

Best screenplay

Original: Wrong. Total surprise. Adapted: Wrong. Total outrage.

Best director

Totally wrong.

I can’t seem to find the posts for best animated feature or best picture, but I believe I called WRECK-IT RALPH and LINCOLN.

Total: 2 out of 9. Sorry America.

 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and other best picture nominees

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

tn_extremelyloudI don’t see as many movies as critics who get paid, so I’m allowed to take pride in seeing all the best picture nominees again this year. Most of them I had already seen when the nominations came out, but I had to see this EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE to finish off the check list.

This is the one nobody expected to get nominated. It got pretty bad reviews and didn’t make up for that by being a big hit or anything. I think it was Mr. Beaks who pointed out that it might be the first ever best picture nominee that was certified Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. I honestly wonder if it will be the cause of a rule change next year. There must be some kind of mathematical fluke that caused this to happen, and they better clear that up before YOGI BEAR 2 or something gets a nomination. I don’t know what caused this or who those women were who shrieked with glee when it was named at the nomination announcements. I blame them for this. I think they were up to something. (read the rest of this shit…)

The King’s Speech and Oscars and shit

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

tn_kingsspeechThe 2011 Oscars are on in a couple hours. I know it’s supposed to be cool for movie fans to say they don’t care about the Oscars because it’s all meaningless and etc., but FREDDY VS. JASON was meaningless too and I still wanted to see who would win. Of course that one was ambiguous, I say Freddy won because of the wink but Jason got to do that cool strut holding the severed head. So I’m calling a best director/best picture split tonight.

I mean there’s nothing wrong with it. We all understand the inherent flaws of an award show, but you can still enjoy them, just like you enjoy seeing everybody’s stupid lists of the top 10 of the year or all time best explosions or whatever so you can get mad at what they left off or agree with some unexpected choices they made or whatever. It’s part of being too into movies, don’t get all uppity about it.

This year I was kinda feeling like I didn’t have a bird in this cockfight, because I didn’t even think I had a favorite theatrically released movie this year, but then I remembered that I did and I just didn’t want to admit it because it was about ballet.

I crammed and watched WINTER’S BONE and 127’S HOURS this weekend, so I’d seen 9 of the 10 best picture nominees. I knew it was gonna be a bummer to watch the only one I hadn’t seen be the winner so I went and saw KING’S SPEECH too. (read the rest of this shit…)

2004 Oscar nominations

Tuesday, January 25th, 2005

Alot of us movie fans, we got this problem called “the Oscars.” Every year we’re pissed off by who they neglect or who they give it to. Akiva Goldsman?! Bitch, are you for real? But then we get involved in it anyway, rooting for the ones we like, against the ones we hate, fuming over how bad those assholes in the academy fucked up this year.

We say we don’t care about the Oscars, because they’re always wrong. Then we spend half an hour complaining about how wrong they are. Because of how much we don’t care. So here’s my thoughts on this year’s nominations.

This year though especially, I think somebody needs to have a talk with that academy, because they seem to be confused about a few things. I mean for example did you know that a fictional movie about a camel counts as a documentary? (THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL was nominated for best documentary feature.) Listen up academicians, if you’re gonna bump CONTROL ROOM that’s your prerogative, but at least bump it for a fuckin documentary if the category’s supposed to be documentary. Or if it doesn’t have to be a documentary, why not just throw anything in there? How bout PUNISHER? That was a pretty good documentary I thought. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern Reviews MILLION DOLLAR BABY! And Steven Seagal Is Nowhere In Sight!!

Thursday, January 6th, 2005

Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…

You know why I don’t pay attention to Oscar talk? Because it reduces an entire quarter of every year to a horse race. People don’t talk about the merits of movies. They talk about whether or not they’ve “got what it takes to win.” They pit films against each other. People start digging trenches and getting nasty about their team. And inevitably, the films that mean the most to me from a given year aren’t the ones that have the giant campaigns or the marketing muscle. So instead of getting all worked up and expending dozens of column inches to explain to you why someone else’s opinion is wrong, I’ll just stick to my own personal opinions of a film’s merits for the two hours I’m in a theater, and fuck the Oscars.

While I wasn’t knocked out by Clint Eastwood’s latest, I think it’s a nice little film, sincere and unadorned for the most part. When I got in this review from Vern, who is a raving Clint Eastwood fanatic, I figured it would be nice to run it as the film starts its expansion from limited release on Friday. Check this out:

Boys,

Just to prove that I don’t ONLY watch straight to video Steven Seagal movies (just mostly), I thought I’d send you my review of the latest from Clint Eastwood, America’s Badass Laureate. I know MILLION DOLLAR BABY is already playing in a few hotshot Oscar qualification type cities but I was lucky to see it before its official release here. In my parts this is early. (read the rest of this shit…)