82nd Academy Awards Nominations

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Post by Zahveed »

Damien wrote:NOTHING for (500) Days of Summer? Fuck you, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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Post by rolotomasi99 »

Sabin wrote:I'm going to tangent for a moment:
Nominated Movies I Haven't Seen: The Blind Side.
Nominated Movies I Hate: Precious.
Nominated Movies I Merely Don't Like: An Education
Nominated Movies I Like: Avatar, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Up in the Air.
Movies I Loved: A Serious Man

I'll take this.
I did not like the change to 10 nominees for Best Picture when it was first announced. For all the good that could come of it there was also the potential bad as well.

Overall, THE BLINDSIDE is the only nominee I actually think is horrible. 9 out of 10 is not too bad. However, I would have been perfectly happy with the top five Best Picture nominees as well.

The worst part to me about the 10 nominees is the fact that it cheapens the prestige of being nominated. Even someone like me who follows the nomination process the entire year will have trouble recalling all 10 nominees through out the year. It also does not help to say, "Well, A SERIOUS MAN was nominated for Best Picture" since most people will just say "Lots of movies were nominated for Best Picture." Now Best Picture seems no different than another critic's top ten list, when really it should be seen as so much more.

All that being said, I do like the idea that this could potentially be the biggest Oscar audience in decades. Especially if THE HURT LOCKER ends up winning Best Picture. All the fanboys will be tuning in to see if AVATAR, DISTRICT 9, or INGLORIOUS BASTERDS wins Best Picture, and the Red Staters will be tuning in to see Bullock win and THE BLINDSIDE win Best Picture. That will be good for THE HURT LOCKER if even just half the people watching decide to check the movie out on DVD because of all the awards it could win that night.

So, all-in-all I would say I do not like the 10 nominees rule, but it will all be worth it if it helps THE HURT LOCKER gets more people to check it out.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

For Your Consideration: The 10 Biggest Surprises of the Oscar Nominations
by Peter Knegt
Indiewire


This morning’s Oscar nominations were a generally predictable bunch. With “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” expectedly leading the pack, there were no “The Reader”-esque shockers a la last year, and all but one of the acting nominations had been crystal clear going in. But there were sprinkles of surprise throughout… Perhaps most notably, “Avatar” and “Locker” were much closer in total noms than most expected. Here’s indieWIRE‘s ten biggest surprises:

1. “The Hurt Locker” ties “Avatar” for most nominations.

With the surprising (and deserved) inclusion of a best original score nod, Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” will head into Oscar night on equal footing with James Cameron’s “Avatar” (which suggests we are in for quite the showdown - between ex-spouses, to boot). Each recevied nine nominations.

2. Julianne Moore snubbed in best supporting actress.

While nearly all of the acting nominations were incredibly predictable (both the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards predicted 19 of 20 nominees), best supporting actress offered the only surprise in its snub of “A Single Man”‘s Julianne Moore.

In her place came….

3. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes the cut for “Crazy Heart.”

With essentially no precursors to her name, Maggie Gyllenhaal scored her very first Oscar nomination for her role opposite Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart.”

4. “The Messenger” and “In The Loop” get screenplay nods; “(500) Days of Summer” doesn’t.

Nearly half of the ten screenplay nominees debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, including “Precious” and “An Education,” which both also received best picture nods. But, while those two nominations were expected, surprises came in the form of Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman’s script for “The Messenger,” and Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche’s for “In The Loop.” “The Messenger” knocked out an expected Sundance nominee in “500 Days of Summer,” which had scored multiple precursor nominations.

5. “The Blind Side” for best picture.

While not shocking, “The Blind Side”‘s inclusion in the best picture category is definitely the biggest surprise of the Academy’s top ten. Producer’s Guild nominees “Invictus” and “Star Trek” were left out in the Sandra Bullock-starrer’s wake and its inclusion bodes well for Bullock’s best actress bid. Her biggest competitor - Meryl Streep - was her film’s lone nominee. The last time a best actress winner came from a single nominated film? 16 years ago, when Jessica Lange won for “Blue Sky.”

6. “The Secret of Kells” for best animated feature.

Definitely the most obscure nomination, “Kells” - an Irish film directed by Tomm Moore that won the audience award at the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival - beat out hefty $100 million grossers like “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” and “Ice Age 3.”

7. The foreign language film category doesn’t do anything stupid.

Films that didn’t make it to the previously announced shortlist aside, the foreign-language film category features an uncharacteristically deserving bunch, with a Cannes rematch between Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet” and Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” likely. Both are from Sony Pictures Classics, which also received a third nomination in the category with Argentina’s “El Secreto de Sus Ojos”.

8. “Loin de Paname” for best original song.

At the expense of “Avatar”‘s horrid ballad “I See You,” the Academy made an excellent decision honoring Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas’s “Loin de Paname,” from “Paris 36” instead.

9. “Which Way Home” and “The Most Dangerous Man in America” for best documentary feature.

Relatively unknown docs from Rebecca Cammista (“Home”) and Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith (“America”) made the cut at the expense of more high-profile docs that had made the shortlist: “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Every Little Step,” and “Valentino The Last Emperor.”


10. A woman and an openly gay African-American get best director nominations. An animated film and two sci-fi films get best picture nominations. Half the best picture nominees gross over $100 million, three of them gross under $13 million.

Alright, so these aren’t surprises. But they’re definitely something. All in all, as expected as these nominations were, they represent one of the most diverse batches of nominations the Academy has (ever?) offered. Here’s to this no longer being the exception to the rule.




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Post by ITALIANO »

Sabin wrote:It's just sometimes they're more motivated by bad art (The Reader) than good commerce (WALL-E). Ten nominations last year, and we might be talking about Best Picture nominee Mamma Mia!
Believe me, The Reader or Slumdog Millionaire don't have anything to do with art, good or bad.
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Post by rolotomasi99 »

Mister Tee wrote:On a completely different note: if my math and memory are correct, this is the sixth time in the past decade that the supporting actress field has included two nominees from the same film. This almost never happens in the other categories anymore, given the "one lead/one supporting" latter-day campaign strategies, and even among supporting men I think the Bugsy pair were the last double. Why the disaprity? Is it a matter of there being such limited opportunities for women that any film that gets attention will receive nods for whatever female contributions there are? Have there been comparable male performances that might have been nominated alongside cast-mates but didn't because the overall field was broader?
That is an interesting point.

Off the top of my head, the only film this decade that came close to having multiple nominees in the supporting acting category was MILK, which could have had James Franco join Josh Brolin.

I guess it is just the nature of the way films are written these days. Either there is one really strong lead which cements the film and everyone else is considered supporting. In the few cases where there are two strong leads -- THE HOURS, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, FROST/NIXON, THE DEPARTED, GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE CONSTANT GARDENER, CHICAGO, etc. -- the studios force the lesser lead into supporting or the Academy refuses to nominate a film for more than one actor in leading.

The thing about few multiple supporting actors nominees is interesting. I guess men are just less likely to play supporting, and even less likely to share the screen with equally strong male supporting performances.
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Post by Sabin »

I think much of the entertainment media is rallying behind this "let's make the Oscars more for popular films" crusade out of self-preservation.

Thank you. It's a year-by-year thing, but mostly they've always been commercially minded! How have they not been? It's just sometimes they're more motivated by bad art (The Reader) than good commerce (WALL-E). Ten nominations last year, and we might be talking about Best Picture nominee Mamma Mia!

On the other hand, I'm incredibly pleased to see A Serious Man nominated. I don't love (500) Days of Summer, but its script is miles ahead of the one for The Messenger and its inclusion in the Best Picture race would be push forward one of the few romantic comedies since Chasing Amy or Eternal Sunshine or Before Sunrise that actually meant anything to people of my generation. The Proposal, It's Complicated, and The Ugly Truth racked up the dough, but (500) Days of Summer is a film that will be remembered. And that's kind of a shame.


I'm going to tangent for a moment:
Nominated Movies I Haven't Seen: The Blind Side.
Nominated Movies I Hate: Precious.
Nominated Movies I Merely Don't Like: An Education
Nominated Movies I Like: Avatar, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Up in the Air.
Movies I Loved: A Serious Man

I'll take this.




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Post by Mister Tee »

I think much of the entertainment media is rallying behind this "let's make the Oscars more for popular films" crusade out of self-preservation. Just as our national press is becoming ever more tabloid in a desperate attempt to halt its circulation declines, shows like Entertainment Tonight -- and the whole broad entertainment-industrial complex -- need to promote the few big name stars they have to keep audiences tuning in. Watch tonight: you'll be lucky to even hear the names Jeremy Renner or Carey Mulligan; it'll be Sandra!! George!! And if the Avatar/Blind Side/Up contingent weren't so prominently featured in the nominations, I swear they might actually lead their shows with the latest on Tiger Woods rather than the Oscars.

On a completely different note: if my math and memory are correct, this is the sixth time in the past decade that the supporting actress field has included two nominees from the same film. This almost never happens in the other categories anymore, given the "one lead/one supporting" latter-day campaign strategies, and even among supporting men I think the Bugsy pair were the last double. Why the disaprity? Is it a matter of there being such limited opportunities for women that any film that gets attention will receive nods for whatever female contributions there are? Have there been comparable male performances that might have been nominated alongside cast-mates but didn't because the overall field was broader?
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Post by Sabin »

At the close of the decade, we add one more nomination to Peter Jackson's Decade Tally of now 36 Nominations. 14 for The Fellowship of the Ring, 6 for The Two Towers, 11 for The Return of the King, 4 for King Kong, and 1 for The Lovely Bones. Congratulations to Peter Jackson!

Clint Eastwood adds two to his tally of 23 (1 for Space Cowboys, 6 for Mystic River, 7 for Million Dollar Baby, 4 for Letters from Iwo Jima, 2 for Flags of Our Fathers, 3 for Changeling, and now 2 for Invictus) for 25 nominations.

That's still behind Martin Scorsese's three film tally of 26. Ten for Gangs of New York, eleven for The Aviator, and five for The Departed.

Next is Rob Marshall with 23. 13 for Chicago, 6 for Memoirs of a Geisha, and 4 for Nine. And then Ron Howard with 19 (3 for The Grinch, 8 for A Beautiful Mind, 3 for Cinderella Man, and 5 for Frost/Nixon), 18 for Ang Lee (10 for Crouching Tiger and 8 for Brokeback Mountain) and Ridley Scott (12 for Gladiator, 4 for Black Hawk Down, and 2 for American Gangster), 17 for Horrible Director Stephen Daldry (3 for Billy Elliot, 9 for The Hours, and 5 for The Reader), and 13 for The Brothers Coen (2 for O' Brother, 1 for The Man Who Wasn't There, 8 for No Country for Old Men, and 2 for A Serious Man) and Steven Spielberg (2 for A.I., 1 for Minoirty Report, 2 for Catch Me if You Can, 3 for War of the Worlds, and 5 for Munich).
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Post by dws1982 »

One of the nice surprises of the nominations for me was that Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert are nominated in the Best Documentary Short category. I don't know anything about the film they're nominated for this year (The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant), but in light of this recognition, I'd like to recommend their previous film, A Lion in the House. If you plan on doing a decade-end list, fit it in before you finalize your list. It'll definitely be at or near the top of mine.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Bullock is a darling of the media, true, and she's been for many years now. And they love it when one of their darlings suddenly is taken seriously - they see it as a prove that they were right from the start. And the fact that the movie was so successful, of course, helps.

But there's something more, something deeper, about this movie and the undeniable love it's getting. I honestly didn't expect it, though the way it was obviously defended by some on this board should have made me think. I can't even easily dismiss it as just another "American thing" - thank God, many Americans here show me that it's more complex than that. Anyway, it's there and it will have its effect.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Mister Tee wrote: I view it more narrowly: a film I love (A Serious Man) got a nomination it never would have normally, but that has to be balanced against a film that makes my skin crawl (Blind Side) achieving the same. All tolled, I don't think it's a good trade-off.
This is a question I'd like to post to the board, with this 10-wide Oscar Best Picture race, does a nomination for a blah film like The Blind Side a fair price to pay for a Best Picture nomination for a film that you love that wouldn't be nominated in a 5-wide race?
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Post by Greg »

The Original BJ wrote:The media has such a jones for The Blind Side it's not even funny. If the nightmare of a Bullock win comes true, I place a lot of blame on the press, who all but declared her the Best Actress frontrunner even before the Globes.
I think a lot of this has to do with how much weight the media places on the box office. Like it or not, box office is the big determining factor on what gets made. I checked; and, for all the films released in 2009 that were neither genre films (sci-fi, action, fantasy, or animated) nor slapstick comedy, The Blind Side has made the most money domestically at $238 million. Angels & Demons is second at $133 million. For whatever reasons, The Blind Side's ticket sales blew away all other films this year that did not heavily relay on special effects, stunt work, or animation.
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Post by rain Bard »

Uri wrote:Am I the only one here who think it's actually a really good film? (And a rare case when I'd consider nominating a film without nominating any of the people who made it).

I'm on record in another thread as thinking it's really good. I submitted it as #10 on my year-end best list on this site.




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Post by dws1982 »

The Original BJ wrote:Where are the critics making any noise about how appalling this choice would be?
Are you talking about the critics who mostly gave Bullock and the film positive reviews? Don't worry, though. Now that it has a Best Picture and Best Actress nomination, Armond White will probably declare it "now overrated" in his review of Dear John.
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Post by The Original BJ »

Okri wrote:
ITALIANO wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:The reflex is to say the Blind Side best picture nod nudges Bullock over Streep, and it may be the case. But maybe not. I'd say many of the folk who'd vote for Bullock would also be inclined to vote The Blind Side for best picture. Whereas, I'd vote for Streep, but wouldn't in a million years consider voting for Julie and Julia itself.
You are right - but I heard the applause, too.
Yeah, the whoops for Bullock and The BLind Side were more irritating than the nominatiosn themselves
The media has such a jones for The Blind Side it's not even funny. If the nightmare of a Bullock win comes true, I place a lot of blame on the press, who all but declared her the Best Actress frontrunner even before the Globes.

Where are the critics making any noise about how appalling this choice would be? God forbid they take aim at a big star in a huge hit.
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