OSCARS 2013

...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

eh – I'm fine with Landau beating Jackson.

Contenders I think were far from injustice (and, in some cases, were totally defensible):

The Dark Knight for Best Picture
Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction loses to Martin Landau in Ed Wood
Al Pacino never winning for The Godfather
Driving Miss Daisy
Martin Scorsese denied until The Departed
John Cazale, never nominated in his tragically way-too-short, but nearly perfect career
Angelina Jolie kissing her brother
Björk's swan dress

are you arguing that Grantland is right to champion these lost causes or that these people and films deserved to lose?

Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction loses to Martin Landau in Ed Wood

only a cause for ppl who love superfly shtick i guess

xp I wouldn't have put them in brackets for the worst things Oscar has ever done, for various reasons.

Like I don't consider The Departed to be radically cut-rate compared to Goodfellas, and I think Al Pacino wasn't the best in his category in either of his at bats.

And Bjork's swan dress was the best thing to ever hit that stage.

and Driving Miss Daisy is good.

Good enough that its win isn't offensive, given Do the Right Thing wasn't up.

sorry, The Departed is tepid

So is Goodfellas.

If that doesn't make posts very much in character, I have no character.

Better to give Marty his Oscar for that one over the previous two nods.

No joke. As far as I'm concerned, both Scorsese and the Academy dodged 2 bullets there.

i don't really understand the constant retrospective defenses of movies that didn't win but turned out to be huge and monumental in the mainstream, like pulp fiction's lack of oscars isn't exactly hurting its reputation with anyone

well i do understand it i guess

sorry, The Aviator is at least as "good" as The Departed

u know what else sucked, neither King Kong nor Duck Soup won in '33 and as a result no one watches them

you're insane. People under 30 watch Duck Soup all the time.

following your line of reason everyone has seen Gentleman's Agreement

you're insane. People under 30 watch Duck Soup all the time.

LOL

damn Alfred, you haven't had a moment like that since ya fell for The Onion.

Alas Eric seems to know too many ppl under 30!

There was like three or four layers of sarcasm going on in the last few posts.