OSCARS 2013

Not planning on catching Mirror Mirror or The Pirates! either.

is there going to be the theatrical release of nom'd shorts that we've seen in the past few years?

Yep, in theaters this weekend, I think.

On balance, I think the documentaries are probably the strongest and live action the weakest, but it's not a particularly distinguished field this year.

List is far too kind to SLP, Pi and Beasts for sure.

Pi is the one of those three I'm kind of soft on.

My rankings for the three short film categories:

Fresh Guacamole
Death of a Shadow
Adam and Dog
Kings Point
Open Heart
Redemption
Buzkashi Boys
Mondays at Racine
Asad
Inocente
Paperman
Curfew
Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"
Head Over Heels
Henry

"Hollywood's Oscar-bait movies have gotten to be so unwatchable and look so bad that those mid-90s "Tom Hanks wants an Oscar!" films that got served up every year, and that we took for granted at the time, the most mediocre of those movies would be like a revelation compared to what we've been getting lately. Castaway looked like a typical 7/10 at the time but move it to a Pitchfork 8.5 now, which is good enough for my Best New Lonely January Weekend Viewings."

conversation with a friend

i just buy XANGO® at $35/bottle

http://www.xango.com/products/xango-juice

oops wrong thread

probably tastes better than Oscar bait films

XANGO® Unchained

Life of Pi is p. amazing visually and it sounds like the biggest flaws in the plot are straight from the book. I expected to hate it but from the sinking ship to the island is very good.

Bawbra!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-2013-barbra-streisand-perform-416794

Glad to see they've given up on trying to appeal to the young audience, unless they have a completely blinkered understanding of Guilt Trip's performance.

2012's Oscar Nominees

Harvey the Hutt: I shoulda sent out Django discs and had PTA cut The Master.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/harvey_weinstein_says_he_screwed_up_on_the_master_and_django/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/how-zero-dark-thirty-crashed-just-outside-compound/61499/

damn, the Slant predic for foreign film hates seniors more than Haneke does.

...not to mention that Commie Ed Asner.

Always the most competitive category:

Since March 21, 1994, when the first regular obituary segment was dropped into an Academy Awards show, a spot on the yearly scroll of recently deceased movie luminaries has become one of the evening’s most hotly contested honors. And as in most Oscar races it is the focus of sometimes ferocious campaigning.

This time around it is a safe bet that Ernest Borgnine, Charles Durning, Nora Ephron, Tony Scott, Richard Zanuck and Marvin Hamlisch will get their few seconds in a roughly three-minute remembrance.

Beloved figures all. But who fills the next 30 or so spots in the memorial for this year’s show, which takes place on Feb. 24 at the Dolby Theater, is open to debate. And that debate is under way at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where a committee of members whose names are discreetly concealed from other members and the public are measuring celebrity, weighing achievement and trying to ward off entreaties from those who believe a loved one, friend or former client should have a last moment in the limelight....

“Of all the committees, it’s the hardest one to do,” said Tom Sherak, whose three years as president of the Academy ended last year.

“The committee’s names are never mentioned, ever,” Mr. Sherak added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/movies/awardsseason/even-the-oscar-memorial-list-is-a-focus-of-campaigning.html

I remember hearing on anecdotal evidence (of course) how often it used to be for Academy member's wives to fill out their ballots for them. Make their choices and send it in nbd

Shirley Bassey to appear.

I watched the short live action films. Are these always so dire?

Anyone saw The Invisible War? This and Brave are the two films I want to win. As in, i'll be sad if they don' win and the rest I don't care that much.

Also, is there ILM top film 2012 thread?

argo won best director and film at the baftas. i've never seen it and i never will but ugh all the same. lets hope that emmanuelle riva's win for best actress is a foreshadowing of an oscar win.

The Invisible War shook me more than any film I saw in the fourth quarter: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/the-battle-continues-the-invisible-war/

I watched the short live action films. Are these always so dire?

There's almost always at least one or two outright disasters in the mix. Last year's was an above average slate, tho they ended up going for the most boring option. Lately, the smuggest, snarkiest entry tends to be the frontrunner -- i.e. God of Love and The New Tenants, which I'd argue is the possibly the single worst film to win an Oscar since Crash. I'm betting on Curfew this time around.

i don't trust the academy to get the big stuff right, i expect about the same for the categories i know nothing about

I missed this list last year (and apparently The Artist's win happened after the voting): http://www.filmcomment.com/article/extended-trivial-top-20

I'd say most of the winners I've seen from the 50s and 60s were just about as bad as the winners from the last 15 years, but they are 100 percent OTM about #1.

29. No Country for Old Men Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007
30. Out of Africa Sydney Pollack, 1985

o_0

I'm betting on Curfew this time around.

Well at least it was only the second worst one.

Agreed.

every year it seems like there's at least one nominated short that's about the holocaust

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/extended-trivial-top-20

no Gentleman's Agreement? it was the help of 1947.

a couple of those 'worst' choices strike me as straight-up trolling ('all quiet on the western front,' 'midnight cowboy,' 'my fair lady').

i'd forgotten 'tom jones' won in '63: i'm a tony richardson fan but that is a pretty terrible, borderline-unwatchable movie.

top ten mostly OTM but I woulda moved The Greatest Show on Earth into it.

Have never bothered to watch it, but I've little doubt Cavalcade is, indeed, worse than Slumdog and probably the majority of that top 10.

WORST PICTURE

Another take: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the-5-worst-best-picture-oscar-line-ups-of-all-time

bullshit: two forgettable melodramas in "The Heiress" and "A Letter To Three Women,"

kinda hard not to lol at the idea that 'performance,' 'night of the living dead,' 'hour of the wolf,' and 'faces' could conceivably have been nominated in 1968 (as awesome as they all are).

1952 & 1958 are clearly as bad if not worse than 1956, too.

did we ever do a best-of-the-best poll? i assume 'sunrise' would take it, assuming it counts.

Annie Hall or All About Eve would offer competition.

Yeah, those three plus Lawrence of Arabia, Rebecca, Bridge on the River Kwai, The Godfathers I & II and No Country all seem like solid bets for top 10.

Bridge on the River Kwai is the most pedestrian of those in retrospect.

so are bloggers hyping Emanuelle Riva and Ang Lee wins outta boredom? (I can see the first happening in a babe-split vote. Also the AAs are on her 86th birthday.)

Ang Lee more out of the vacuum at the top of that category and the perception that no one loves Lincoln.

Riva is kind of classic wishful thinking among the more guilty-conscience'd Oscar bloggers.

not about this year, but hey

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8942448/tournament-determine-worst-academy-award-moment-modern-history