Big Magilla wrote:All of those films were popular with audiences, but it was a different era when critical and box-office success were more closely aligned.
Avatar earned positive reviews.
And regardless of what you thought about its flaws, it's still a pretty crowd-pleasing film with truly groundbreaking special effects.
Avatar seems much more akin to spectacle films like The Greatest Show on Earth that had audiences in awe and excited, yet left future critics cold and confused. And this is from someone who enjoyed Avatar for what it was.
But perhaps we need to look again at the films that won the Oscars during the more-than-five line-ups.
1931/32- Grand Hotel
1932/33- Cavalcade
1934- It Happened One Night
1935- Mutiny on the Bounty
1936- The Great Ziegfeld
1937- The Life of Emile Zola
1938- You Can't Take It With You
1939- Gone With the Wind
1940- Rebecca
1941- How Green Was My Valley
1942- Mrs. Miniver
1943- Casablanca
How many of these were extremely popular with audiences?
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
I'll somewhat agree with Matthew just below, that picking Avatar/Cameron at least mixed up the awards season a tiny bit -- another win for Bigelow would have made best director at the Oscars a formality. It would just have been nice if the HFPA had chosen to do that in other categories as well. I'll be overjoyed to see long-time favorite Bridges win a best actor Oscar, but I'd rather he do it with the outcome in doubt. There's a nicer rush when it happens that way. (It's like the difference between winning the way the Jets did yesterday or the Saints did Saturday) Same for Bigelow.
Monday morning refelection: this was an unusually unimaginative, big-money boosting Globes. I know we think of this group as strictly starfuckers/ratings-grabbers, but in years past they've changed thngs up a bit more. Rather than simply follow the pack, they've gone for people like Blanchett in I'm Not There (when Amy Ryan had done a Mo 'Nique with the critics), or the pair from Closer. Even in '05, when they chose ultimate Oscar winners Clooney/Weisz for support, they were the first to cite them, not the latest on a bandwagon. Recent best picture choices included Atonement and Babel, hardly sure-shots. And over on the comedy/musical side, where they sometimes have freebie (i.e., non-Oscar-influencing) choices...well, last year in such situation, they opted for In Bruges, Happy Go Lucky and Vicky Christina Barcelona. This year, it was Sherlock Holmes and The Hangover. And in the possible-influence categories, they followed the BFCA down the line -- never a sign of independence (or taste).
BJ may be right: they may have taken the Academy directive very seriously this year. I really hope Academy voters are more persnickety.
As someone who had no emotional investment in any of the movies up for the big prizes, I actually quite liked Avatar winning. Not because I think that much of the film but only because it injected some life into this most dreary of awards seasons...
anonymous wrote:Also, I feel award shows are in a no-win situation. If they award something too popular, people will bitch. If they award something too high-brow or obscure to "regular people", people will bitch.
But that's what people do. They bitch. Pay them no mind.
How about none of the above?
We're bitching because the choices are bad.
I didn't bitch when E.T. won - I thought it was the Best Picture of its year, but Avatar is not. It's a technical wonder, but the story is simplistic and Cameron's thank-you when he won his Best Director award, in part in the made-up language of the film, was the most stupefyingly awful moment at an awards show since Cameron declared himself "king of the world" when he won his Oscar for Titanic.
It was topped only by the idiotic comments of the writer/producer/director of The Hangover alluding to Harvey Weinstein whose Nine (Nein!) was the only possibly worse choice they could have made.
I was actually enjoying this year's awards season up to now. Yeah, I feel bad that Tilda Swinton isn't in the race for Julia, but I've been happy enough with the alternate winners in her category as well as the winners in the other acting categories.
It's not that my choices of The Hurt Locker and (500) Days of Summer lost the Globes, but that they lost to such drivel in the case of the former and such crap in the case of the latter. Their popularity with the hoi polloi has nothing to do with it.
Avatar and The Hangover - worst one-two punch of film winners in Golden Globe history. On the other hand, great TV winners - Mad Men, Glee and Grey Gardens, though the obnoxious behavior of the producers of the latter was the rudest I've ever seen at an awards show. I can understand breaking the time rule if you have something truly important to say but to stand there waiting for your entire cast to make it the stage, then whip out a list of names, stand there reading it past the cut-off, then have your co-producer come to the mic and recite more names is beyond the pale. It's time to bring back the hook!
Sonic Youth wrote:Reza, you'll be interested to know that Marty gave a Satyajit Ray shout-out in his speech.
Also, Ousmane Sembene.
Consider this the high cultural watermark in the entire history of the Golden Globes, past present and future.
Well it was certainly the ''high cultural watermark'' of THIS show because it appears to have been all downhill after the Scorsese tribute. I'm so glad I missed the Cameron win thanks to the power cut. Although I was horrified to see him at the podium at the end just when the power came back on and I switched on the bloody tv to catch him making his closing remarks over Avatar's Best Picture win.
I fear the Oscars are going to be deathly to watch. I only hope Jeff Bridges wins a ''career'' award which should make it slightly less painful. Even the Best Actress category with either a Meryl Streep or Sandra Bullock victory makes me ill......not that any of the other contendors this year would make me feel better.
I don't have much time for individual threads. This was a pretty good show. I can only imagine how much more engaged I would have been if any of these movies were any kind of great. But they're not, and it's simple as that. It's like 2000 when it was a true coin-flip between Gladiator, Traffic, and Crouching Tiger, but why would you bother losing a quarter on those films? What I hope this means is that we're in for an entertaining show even if the films aren't entirely worth it.
I didn't get half my predictions right this year and I was a little grateful for that. I thought their love of ingenues would carry over to Mulligan, and their star-fucking would hoist Up in the Air on its way to victory. Following the clip from The Hurt Locker, I thought it was Bigelow, Bigelow, Bigelow for the next one...and then James Cameron's name was called and it felt like the acknowledgement of a pop culture juggernaut. And maybe it should be. It's certainly better than several movies to win this in the past decade even if it still isn't all that great. But what I like about this year is that (if there were only five movies nominated) they all represent a swath of movies that connected in different ways not excluding ginormous successes that weren't all that terrible.
Mister Tee wrote:It's reassuring to discover Cameron is still a boor.
There's something almost touching about this hugely successful man always being the worst speaker in the room and being completely bereft of social graces.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Damien wrote:The Scorsese tribute reminded us that this man has never made a completely successful film, although Last Temptation of Christ comes closest.
Pretty confident use of the word "us" there, Damien. :;):
Yes, I was speaking royally. Insert your own queen joke. :p We shall be amused.
Edited By Damien on 1263799153
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Oh, and for the record, I actually am more pumped to watch the Oscars this year than I have been for a long time. Between our new "presumptive" populist frontrunners and the fact that the show's organizers are now clearly intent on turning the entire proceedings into a very long episode of Glee, there's little doubt that these are going to be the tackiest awards since, as you all already said on the other thread, Allan Carr's.
Damien wrote:The Scorsese tribute reminded us that this man has never made a completely successful film, although Last Temptation of Christ comes closest.
Pretty confident use of the word "us" there, Damien. :;):
anonymous wrote:Also, I feel award shows are in a no-win situation. If they award something too popular, people will bitch. If they award something too high-brow or obscure to "regular people", people will bitch.
But that's what people do. They bitch. Pay them no mind.
