rolotomasi99 wrote:
I know some folks are saying no way Bigelow wins again so soon for such similar material, but I would point you to Oliver Stone as an analogous example. He wins Best Picture and Director for PLATOON, and then three years later wins Director for another film about the same war while Best Picture goes to the feel-good crowd pleaser.
I know you need no reminding, but Bruce Beresford was not nominated for Best Director, while his movie Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture. It was a scenario where the big prize winner could not have matched up with the directing victor. No telling what would have happened had Beresford been included. Oliver Stone's Born on the 4th of July was popular enough that he could still have won, but that would be speculation.
I highly doubt DRIVING MISS DAISY would have won in the Director category even if it had been nominated. It won Best Picture because of its strong performances and crowd pleasing nature. Some speculate the controversy over DO THE RIGHT THING not being nominated for Best Picture and Director may have helped, but we can never know for sure.
From where I stand, Best Picture looks like this:
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
Argo
Silver Linings Playbook
Life Of Pi
I am not sure how many other nominees will be added after that, but these are the six I feel very safe predicting. Now one of these nominees will not receive a corresponding Director nomination. The two most likely candidates are SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and LIFE OF PI. I definitely think Tom Hooper will be nominated, but I also think LES MISERABLES is the type of film that could win Best Picture even if it were not nominated for Best Director. I think CHICAGO could have won Best Picture without a corresponding Best Director nomination.
If ZERO DARK THIRTY is as amazing as we are starting to hear, then I think the Academy is going to want to recognize it. However, awarding a film even darker than THE HURT LOCKER Best Picture may be just too much for them. So they will give Best Picture to LES MISERABLES, but I cannot imagine them giving Hooper another Oscar so soon and for a musical.
"When it comes to the subject of torture, I trust a woman who was married to James Cameron for three years."
-- Amy Poehler in praise of Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow
Mister Tee wrote:Yeah, BJ, as you might imagine, for heteros of a certain age, Magic Mike has been as much a dare as a movie.
I actually went to see Magic Mike with two “heteros” (one my age and one in his late 40's) and they had a frickin’ blast. Heterosexual men who are completely comfortable with their sexuality don’t have a problem with doing stuff that reads "gay". (Because they’re not gay and they know they’re not.)
I would add..."and not afraid of being around people who are." Plenty of guys who know they are not gay never get comfortable "doing stuff that reads 'gay.'" But I know what you mean. If a guy is comfortable with himself and he doesn't have any hang-ups about what others think of them hanging around with gay guys, they can relax. My last job was like that, where everyone was cool about that, though I'm not sure if any of them would have chosen to see Magic Mike in a theater with a group of guys.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Mister Tee wrote:Yeah, BJ, as you might imagine, for heteros of a certain age, Magic Mike has been as much a dare as a movie.
I actually went to see Magic Mike with two “heteros” (one my age and one in his late 40's) and they had a frickin’ blast. Heterosexual men who are completely comfortable with their sexuality don’t have a problem with doing stuff that reads "gay". (Because they’re not gay and they know they’re not.)
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
rolotomasi99 wrote:
I know some folks are saying no way Bigelow wins again so soon for such similar material, but I would point you to Oliver Stone as an analogous example. He wins Best Picture and Director for PLATOON, and then three years later wins Director for another film about the same war while Best Picture goes to the feel-good crowd pleaser.
I know you need no reminding, but Bruce Beresford was not nominated for Best Director, while his movie Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture. It was a scenario where the big prize winner could not have matched up with the directing victor. No telling what would have happened had Beresford been included. Oliver Stone's Born on the 4th of July was popular enough that he could still have won, but that would be speculation.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
anonymous1980 wrote:
(NOTE TO SONIC YOUTH: Les Miz is not Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's by Claude Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil).
Schonberg and Boublil wrote the book, Schonberg the music, Jean-Marc Natel the original French lyrics, Herbert Kretzmer the English adaptation. Boublil later collaborated with Schonberg on both the books and lyrics for Miss Saigon and The Pirate Queen. Schonberg and now 87 year-old Kretzmer ate credited with the Satellite Award nominated new song "Suddenly" written for Hugh Jackman to sing in the film.
Guys, I never said it was written by Lloyd Weber. I said "He had no patience for Andrew Lloyd Weber and his ilk"... and if Les Miz ain't ilk, nothing is.
anonymous1980 wrote:
(NOTE TO SONIC YOUTH: Les Miz is not Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's by Claude Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil).
Schonberg and Boublil wrote the book, Schonberg the music, Jean-Marc Natel the original French lyrics, Herbert Kretzmer the English adaptation. Boublil later collaborated with Schonberg on both the books and lyrics for Miss Saigon and The Pirate Queen. Schonberg and now 87 year-old Kretzmer ate credited with the Satellite Award nominated new song "Suddenly" written for Hugh Jackman to sing in the film.
I have seen Les Miz. It's going to be big and the Oscars are going to take notice. This film is designed for Oscar. Even when they've picked smaller films in the last few years, they've selected quite a few sentimental choices: The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire and The Artist may be smaller, but they were packed with audience- and Oscar-friendly emotion. Les Miserables will pull tears at least four or five times throughout the film and not once does it feel manipulative. At least, I didn't think so.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
rolotomasi99 wrote:I will eat all the humble pie in the world if I am wrong about LES MISERABLES winning Best Picture, but none of the critics awards are going to change my mind about its chances with the Academy crowd. The NYFCA awards do make me feel more confident of my previous prediction that ZERO DARK THIRTY wins Best Director.
I think Les Mis certainly looks like a strong candidate to contend for Best Picture, but an outcome where it loses Best Director is, to me, practically the definition of "not an Oscar steamroll."
Also, I'm with Okri in thinking that Les Mis is a substantially superior musical to The Phantom of the Opera.
Interesting. The bloggers may have been wrong on the outcome but they seem to have come awfully close on the runners-up. It took Sally Field four ballots to best Anne Hathaway.
Now that I've seen the whole report on the voting, I'm surprised to note that Lincoln, despite its seeming juggernaut status after three major prizes, didn't finish in the top three for best film or director. Also, The Master DID -- third for film, second for directing -- so my instincts there weren't wholly without basis. LA has done better by PTAnderson in the past; I'll look to see if he manages at least a directing win there.
I'm with BJ fully: this was not Les Miz's turf, so, while surprise wins would have helped, being ignored here does nothing to hurt its place in the race. But Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty are films that could be right in the Academy's wheelhouse as well; they can't be dismissed the way Chicago's competitors could have. It's strange: I like alot of movies from 2002, but Chicago -- a movie I completely enjoyed -- seems in retrospect less an overwhelming popular choice than the one film inoffensive enough to fill a vacuum created by divisive critics' favorites (Far from Heaven and About Schmidt -- the NY/LA winners); Weinstein projects that got tons of nominations without people especially liking them (The Hours and Gangs of New York); and the middle section of a three-part effort on which voters clearly opted to wait for part three (The Two Towers). Even with that, the one contender that didn't have obvious drawbacks, The Pianist, despite coming in with a low profile, gave the film a hell of a scare. No matter how beloved a musical may be by some segments of the audience/Academy, a well-reviewed/boxoffice hit Lincoln is going to offer solid competition. And Zero Dark Thirty could do the same, if it can prove it won't commercially go the way of The Hurt Locker. It does have the advantage the earlier film didn't have: marketing geared to an Oscar run.
As for comparative ratings on big Brit musicals...like Sonic, I saw Les Miz fairly well into its run, which isn't a fair time to judge any show. (Though I did see Evita on its last Thursday night in NY and thought it held up quite well. Of course, it had the advantage of a Hal Prince staging, which beats out Trevor Nunn any day of the week) Anyway, I have barely any memory of the show -- nor do I have much of Phantom, which I'd seen during its first year. (There, even Prince wasn't enough to make me like the show) I view them as all part of the Cameron Mackintosh McMuffinizing of Broadway.
Part of my projection that Joaquin Phoenix might sweep the critics' prizes was a bit wishful, because I sensed what BJ says: that, if the major groups lined up for Daniel Day-Lewis the way they did for Hoffman in Capote, voting him another Oscar could become compulsory despite general voter resistance to a third Oscar. It seems lazy for the critics to do that in a year where they've extrravagantly praised a number of candidates (where was Hawkes today, by the way? He seemed a critics' likely). It's really not my impression that critical recation to this Day-Lewis performance was on a par with that for the two that won him his Oscars -- in those cases, he was viewed as clearly standing out from the field. And maybe LA and the Society will go different ways and widen the race (NBR I have little faith in). But the possibility of a lazy sweep is there, and I have to ask: why would critics fall so easily for this? Is it that, while they scoff at the Oscars for favoring biographical recreations, they secretly love them themselves? They've certainly voted their fair share in recent times -- including mostly rolling over for Philip Seymour Hoffman in another year of many great male performances.
I really like Rachel Weisz, but I don't find her notably better in The Deep Blue Sea than in, say, The Whistleblower. I really didn't much take to The Deep Blue Sea. It seemed like Davies was trying to arty-up Rattigan's little drawing room tragedy with jangled time/confused chronologies, but didn't find anything any deeper in the material as a result. I do think Precious Doll has a point: that, when a movie opens early in the year and doesn't make a big commercial impression, we can forget how much a performer was praised, and be surprised when he/she turns up in prize voting (Morgan Freeman in Street Smart was a long-ago case like that). But, in my case, I also dropped her from consideration because I just wasn't that impressed by her work.
Yeah, BJ, as you might imagine, for heteros of a certain age, Magic Mike has been as much a dare as a movie. But the Soderbergh angle has always been the one that led me to feel I should see the damn thing, and I no doubt will, now. I think McConnaughey has a very decent shot at a nomination, especially with this prize pointing the way. He seems well enough liked, and it's clear he's making the effort to pick interesting projects, which voters appreciate. Kind of scary: the way the category is shaping up, he'll probably be the youngest nominee by a factor of 20 years or more.
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the Awards Daily freakout over Sally Field winning -- or, more directly, Anne Hathaway losing. They were literally checking their ballots off before the voting took place; no other winner was even imaginable. I see no reason to believe Hathaway won't win the Oscar in the end (though I find it odd how many people keep mentioning how small her part is), but today was a hopeful sign that Oscar bloggers can't will things into being by sheer repetition.
The Original BJ wrote:Big picture-wise, let me respond to rolo's comment that how Les Mis fares in the critics' voting is inconsequential to its Oscar chances. In a vacuum, I don't disagree -- a lack of critics' prizes didn't stop Chicago from becoming the frontrunner once the TV awards kicked in. But I do think that today's big winners (Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln) fit far more in Oscar's wheelhouse than say, something like Far From Heaven ever did. Which is to say, I think critics' prizes to Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln (especially if they repeat at other orgs) will at least put a damper on the Les Mis steamroller some people seem to be predicting.
The other thing I would add is LES MISERABLES is a crowd pleaser, and crowd pleasers usually work their magic in actual crowds. There is something about enjoying musical performances or crying at dramatic moments that works better as a group experience. Also, from what the previews have shown, this is a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen. If the majority of these critics saw it on a DVD screener by themselves, than no wonder it did not work its magic on them.
I am by no means wanting LES MISERABLES to win. Sight unseen, ZERO DARK THIRTY seems like a much more worthy film, as do many others from earlier this year. However, I think LES MISERABLES has what none of the other failed musical films released since CHICAGO were missing. They have the music people will be humming to themselves long after the movie is over, the many big emotional moments that really hook people, and it just looks like a film of substance rather than a story about a freak living under an opera house, or a murderer who forces cannibalism on people, or whiny youth living in New York and thinking they are so awesome, or even the fictionalized backstory of the formation of the Supremes.
I will eat all the humble pie in the world if I am wrong about LES MISERABLES winning Best Picture, but none of the critics awards are going to change my mind about its chances with the Academy crowd. The NYFCA awards do make me feel more confident of my previous prediction that ZERO DARK THIRTY wins Best Director. I know some folks are saying no way Bigelow wins again so soon for such similar material, but I would point you to Oliver Stone as an analogous example. He wins Best Picture and Director for PLATOON, and then three years later wins Director for another film about the same war while Best Picture goes to the feel-good crowd pleaser.
"When it comes to the subject of torture, I trust a woman who was married to James Cameron for three years."
-- Amy Poehler in praise of Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow
