Oscars 2015

NPH hosting.

ALAN TURING ftw

DR MORBIUS complaining

Can Pynchon win an oscar? Oh, and Best Director to the Norwegian! Otherwise, don't care.

Angelina POW movie will win.

see u in Feb.

See you in detrius.

(btw i still have box of Milk Duds in fridge, last of my prizes from last Oscars' bar pool)

we still have a lot of Movie Duds to extract this season

i can't believe it's feb already

leap year

you put milk duds in the fridge?

if it takes me 7+ months to eat a boxful, yes

croup u really dont have to be such a pantswetter xo

Force Majeure for the foreigner win!

5 gay movies for best foreign film. An attainable goal.

campaign for Stranger By the Lake Best Picture nod starts here

looool woulda been eligible last year, no?

anyway never doubt the milquetoast taste of TIFF audiences, The Imitation Game is totally taking this

gonna put some money on Ros Pike i think.

^^Hillbillies only gonna take it away.

http://deadline.com/2014/10/oscars-best-documentary-feature-submissions-1201269055/

Interesting that The Look of Silence is unaccounted for.

anyone seen any of that list?

The Look of Silence is probably gearing up for a run next year? I've seen Ai Weiwei and Manakamana. Will hopefully watch a few more, including Look of Silence and Concerning Violence, over the next few weeks.

I saw a few: Anita, Citizen Koch, Concerning Violence, The Dog, Fed Up, Finding Vivian Maier, Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, The Internet’s Own Boy, Particle Fever, The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, Rich Hill, Watermark, and Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger. (I've got an upcoming ticket for Last Days in Vietnam.) I liked Particle Fever the best, then the Gore Vidal and Nat Hentoff films. This is the first I've read of Mitt, which is indeed about who I was hoping it was about. Got to see that.

Seen/liked Jodorowsky's Dune and Life Itself. Have The Dog on hold at the library. Will look into the Vidal and Hentoff films, and probably some of the others once I read up on what they're about. Watching Mitt Romney for 90+ mins, though? Not gonna happen.

MITT is a Netflix Original it says. looks a bit more toothless compared to, i dunno say The War Room or the Broomfield doc about Sarah Palin or any other on-the-way-to-the-White-House type docs i can think of. but still looks worth seeing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLHxbemvpxY

Wiseman will get ignored again for National Gallery obv while there is such ambitious material as Mitt to deal with

Thought the Prop 8 doc was HBO.

Anyone besides Frederic watched Force Majeure?

I think it opens here in a week.

Gov Awards were handed out to Harry Belafonte, Jean-Claude Carriere, Hayao Miyazaki, and Maureen O’Hara. Watch here:

http://www.oscars.org/governors

Force Majeure was good, despite one of those too cute endings. Dunno if this is the place to mention it.

Miyazaki getting an Oscar reminds me of this academy voter:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/rec.arts.movies.current-films/rE5j9gGLy0A/PDli4VpgdMQJ

feature docu shortlist

"Art and Craft," Purple Parrot Films
"The Case against 8," Day in Court
"Citizen Koch," Elsewhere Films
"CitizenFour," Praxis Films
"Finding Vivian Maier," Ravine Pictures
"The Internet's Own Boy," Luminant Media
"Jodorowsky's Dune," City Film
"Keep On Keepin' On," Absolute Clay Productions
"The Kill Team," f/8 filmworks
"Last Days in Vietnam," Moxie Firecracker Films
"Life Itself," Kartemquin Films and Film Rites
"The Overnighters," Mile End Films West
"The Salt of the Earth," Decia Films
"Tales of the Grim Sleeper," Lafayette Film
"Virunga," Grain Media

I thought The Missing Picture was a runner this year, some of these are pretty shit in comparison.

ya think? I would never watch the Ed Koch thing but it's apparently quite a brownnose job.

among the predictably missing: Manakamana, National Gallery

Thought for sure the Glen Campbell film was in.

The Case Against 8 is very much a TV doc, I thought.

Vivian Maier is a fine subject but this is a standard mediocre vanity doc made by some little uninteresting shit who can't resist telling you just a little bit more about himself.

Jodorowsky's Dune is a celebration of a thunderous, boorish, mediocre arsewipe who made lousy pretentious b-movies and he talks shit about a lousy movie he never made.

visual FX shortlist

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Maleficent
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Transformers: Age of Extinction
X-Men: Days of Future Past

(zilch for Noah and Moses Bale)

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

What kind of Carmen Sandiego movie title is this?

A "last Robin Williams movie" kind?

This is what I call a "late career" FYC project:

http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/08/63/a5c121b34090bf200b502308ef8a/six-dance-lessons-in-six-weeks-poster.jpg

Whatcha lookin at, Cheyenne?

Didn't realise people who aren't involved/associated somehow with "The Industry" still watched the Oscars

Jodorowsky's Dune is a celebration of a thunderous, boorish, mediocre arsewipe who made lousy pretentious b-movies and he talks shit about a lousy movie he never made.

lol wrong

the cinematographer on that Gena Rowlands movie is Vilmos Zsigmond

Rex Reed gave it an effusive whorequote

so Simmons and Arquette have got it locked, it seems. Jake looking more likely for a nod too.

I am still having a hard time picturing Arquette actually winning (esp. if Chastain can start building up a little momentum), but Simmons seems Leto-locked.

9 shortlested for foreign film Oscar:

Argentina, "Wild Tales," Damián Szifrón, director;
Estonia, "Tangerines," Zaza Urushadze, director;
Georgia, "Corn Island," George Ovashvili, director;
Mauritania, "Timbuktu," Abderrahmane Sissako, director;
Netherlands, "Accused," Paula van der Oest, director;
Poland, "Ida," Paweł Pawlikowski, director;
Russia, "Leviathan," Andrey Zvyagintsev, director;
Sweden, "Force Majeure," Ruben Östlund, director;
Venezuela, "The Liberator," Alberto Arvelo, director.

career/talent

Bad Morgellon's: Port of Disease Movie

you think he's squandered his career too obviously? or has he already won an oscar?

both

ok, then how about

michael keaton in the joni mitchell story

Jessica Lange ruled in Blue Sky...lots of unusual factors behind her win tho.

i.e. one of the worst year for actresses in my lifetime. She was terrific, yeah, and I rooted for her. Her only competition was the also due Susan Sarandon.

glenda jackson won a few oscars for films that nobody really seems to have cared much about (then or, especially, now). and simone signoret got what was essentially a career award for "room at the top."

"monster's ball" is kind of one of these (a "searing" performance by reputation in a film nobody especially cared about and few saw), and also occasioned the acceptance speech that made me stop watching the oscar telecast for a decade.

Roger Ebert adored Monster's Ball, right? #1 film of his that year. The guy was orignal, I'll give'em that.

well ppl cared more about Women in Love than A Touch of Class.

"one of the worst years for actresses" -- you look hard enough you can find someone as good/better than the shit that's won. Even in studio movies.

well, that's always true, but as always there's a formula for what gets recognized at the oscars.

i think a lot of people caught up w/ monster's ball /after/ the award -- in theaters and esp. on home video (b/c "halle berry titties").

just as more people will probably rent 'still alice' now, although that'll be mitigated by "is this the alzheimer's movie? nah, too depressing." esp since it's not a "triumph over adversity" movie like "theory of everything."

one of the worst years for actresses" -- you look hard enough you can find someone as good/better than the shit that's won. Even in studio movies.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), T

I'm talking about nominated performances. Are you always in lecture mode?

try to be. but you didn't specify, ok then.

I remember my bf at the time thinking that Halle Berry won for Monsters Inc and was like WTF?!

so the reason Julie Christie didn't win for her Alzheimers movie is that she won in '66, right? cuz that one was pretty good.

the sarah polley alzheimer's movie left me completely cold. i thought for all the praise it got it was basically genteel and prettified. i don't know why christie didn't get nominated.

you mean, did get?

(nominated, lost)

oh, see, i don't know these things.

i envy you, Monsieur Neary

Christie was the favorite until the Cotillard train left the station.

in a perfect world jim carrey should have been nominated for playing a retard who triumphs over adversity in "dumb and dumber"

Mimicking real life celebrity would've trumped her anyway, I'd bet.

btw i imagine even fewer people saw the new dardennes than "still alice," but cotillard wasn't really contender this year, was she?

btw is that new dardennes any good? i've been liking their films a little bit less with each one since "the child," and this one comes with some middling reviews. and the premise seems even more contrived than usual.

Second-tier Dardennes -- Eric would say it's all second-tier Dardennes.

Get enough gimlets in me and I'll admit to liking The Son very much.

I thought being a non-fan would've primed me to really like their newest one but I didn't, especially.

are the gimlets for your eyes?

Gimlet goggles.

I liked it enough so that it made my top 25. It's not as good as The Son, but it's cool. The premise might be contrived, but it's still an absolutely brilliant idea.

Get one more gimlet in me and I might admit that the only Dardennes movie that I had an unusually strong negative reaction against was The Child. Most of the rest have hovered around "meh," and wondering why I didn't just spend my time re-watching Bresson.

why didn't you just spend time rewatching Bresson?

To be fair, that question could be asked of us all, at all times.

i watched au hasard balthazar last night if it makes anyone happy.

The movie crushed me so badly the first time that I bought it and have kept it locked in the closet ever since.

A day not spend with L'argent is a day wasted.

I strongly disliked Au Hasard Balthazar when I watched it. Made me ask myself why I didn't just spend my time re-watching Pickpocket.

no donkey

https://apaladewalsh.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/burro.gif

https://apaladewalsh.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/burro.gif

or has he already won an oscar? i don't keep track of these things.

(amateurist)

More Gallons Disease
http://i.imgur.com/D11vqFF.gif

I bought it and have kept it locked in the closet ever since.

the Bressondook

Hating Au Hasard Balthazar is far worse than eating meat.

great suggestion from Variety in a piece about how to 'fix' the Oscar ceremony:

the best solution to spicing up the Oscars is a relatively easy fix: Serve everybody alcohol in their seats. The bar outside the auditorium was busy, and the seatfillers were working overtime, because fewer attendees stayed to watch the show.

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/how-to-fix-the-oscars-in-5-easy-steps-1201440804/

Lupita Nyong'o's Oscar gown has been stolen, and we have a suspect

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/26/2621912600000578-0-image-a-19_1424991094205.jpg

'It was ridiculous, as it would be from any singer who treats that music in semi-operatic style. She had no relationship to what she was singing.'

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/stephen-sondheim-calls-lady-gagas-oscar-performance-travesty/story?id=29695472

It's the way most american idol contestants sing every song. and he's right.

I re-imagine the Best Actor race.

I feel like there could be an Oscars where Love is Strange is a multiple nominee, but 2015 wasn't quite that year.