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Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:54 am
by danfrank
The first time I was really invested in the Oscars was at age 11. That year I was outraged--OUTRAGED!!!--that The Poseidon Adventure wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. I learned early on that the Oscars could be disillusioning, so it's always a nice surprise when something I really like wins.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:54 pm
by criddic3
Wierd that people would post their favorite Oscar memories on a thread about the New York Film Critics, but I thought I'd chime in.
When the 1995 Oscars were going, I was the Entertainment Editor on my high school paper. My idea that year was to have an Oscar Contest, which was approved with a small prize of $25 to the winner. I remember it fondly, because my mom helped me out with printing up the ballots (on dark pink paper) and then the actual show was more exciting because I was spending the time checking off submitted entries.
I started to visit my Grandmother regularly to watch the show around 1998, and soon after began writing up special packets for the group of family members that joined in the party. Every year since, we have Chinese food and fill out the ballot I include.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:58 pm
by Sabin
Without drafting up a series of quotes detailing how this began, essentially Damien said that Darren Aronofsky is a clown for saying what he said to Armond White in that fashion and starting things off. I told him that if Ethan Hawke said the same thing, he'd reverse his opinion. Damien said that Ethan Hawke would never say anything like that except to a Republican, to which I countered that Armond White is a Republican. And Damien said that he was gay too. Basically my assertion is that Damien's loathing of Darren Aronofsky outweighs his of Armond White, which supersedes that which was said, that he would cheers him for finally telling Armond White off.
Regardless, this is apparently White's last year as chairman so it'll be a cross between moot and canonic within the Armond White Personal Hall of Fame. #TRUTHBOMB
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:35 pm
by rolotomasi99
Sabin wrote:But because he's a gay Republican, that means that Ethan Hawke can still say the same things to him that Darren Aronofsky is saying, right?
I do not mean to be dense, but what does that sentence mean? What does being a gay Republican have to do with Ethan Hawke?
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:13 pm
by Sabin
But because he's a gay Republican, that means that Ethan Hawke can still say the same things to him that Darren Aronofsky is saying, right? I'm just trying to get on the same page here.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:10 pm
by Damien
Sabin wrote:(Damien @ Jan. 12 2011,1:46)
But Ethan would never say such a thing. The only people I've ever heard him criticize in public are Republicans.
Armond White is a Republican. And he's Baptist or something.
He's also gay.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:46 pm
by rolotomasi99
Deal with it Flipp! 
The first Oscar ceremony I watched from beginning to end was when TITANIC won everything. I was a 14 year old gay boy who had just discovered the gay Superbowl as it has been referred to. I knew about the Oscars, but I had never had any interest to watch it. Honestly, for a long time I thought there was only one award. When I was little my mom would go over to some friend's house and watch it. When she got back, I would always ask her who won "the Oscar." She had to remind me several times there were several Oscars handed out each year.
I was happy with TITANIC winning though even at 14 I loved LA CONFIDENTIAL. The next year was the first time I started following other awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes. I had seen all of the Best Picture nominees except THE THIN RED LINE. I enjoyed SAVING PRIVATE, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, and ELIZABETH. I was not a fan of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, but that night made me truly hate it. I did not particularly care who took Best Picture, but I was furious when Ian McKellan lost to that clown. My favorite film of the year was GODS AND MONSTERS, so I was happy when it at least won for its screenplay. Then I was angry again when Gwyneth Paltrow beat Fernanda Montenegro. However, despite my disappointments, I was fully sucked into the Oscar race.
The 1999 Oscar race was when I first discovered OscarGuy’s site. I was against the juggernaut of AMERICAN BEAUTY and disagreed with every one of its wins. I was rooting for THE INSIDER for Best Picture, but I loved finding there were folks I could complain about it with.
The two Oscars races I was the most emotionally involved in were when BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN lost and THE HURT LOCKER won. I think this year is going to be a boring as SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE sucking all the life out of the evening. I am hoping for THE KING’S SPEECH to win Best Picture not because I think it is a superior film to THE SOCIAL NETWORK (they are about equal), but just because it would be hilarious to read the reactions the next day.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:43 pm
by flipp525
Oh god, is this what this thread has devolved into? Me and my favorite Oscar moments? Wake me up when we start talking about something interesting again.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:27 pm
by mlrg
I've been following oscar ceremonies live on TV since "The Silence of the Lambs" won and I was 13 at the time. It was the first time is was broadcasted live on TV in Portugal (where I live) and I was awake all night long. The two previous years I followed the ceremony live through a local radio station, so this year will be 22nd live ceremony for me.
For me, the worst oscar moment I can remember is Barbra Streisand opening the envelope in 2003 and awarding best song to Eminem. U2 is my all-time favourite band and I'm a huge huge fan. U2 winning an Oscar would be an amazing combination... It still feels like a punch in the stomach every time I think about that moment... (on the other hand, during that same ceremony occurred my favourite oscar moment: Adrien Brody winning best actor).
My favourite oscar ceremony is the year Schindler's List won. It was really a good and emotional oscar show (spielberg, newman, kerr, hanks's speech, paquin...)
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:55 am
by Sabin
I will say the moment I became disenchanted was two years later when L.A. Confidential lost everything to Titanic. It wasn't just that Hanson's film was so clearly the superior film, but that nobody I knew in high school was even willing to go out and see it. Years later, they would all ask why I hadn't recommended it, and I felt better about leaving Arizona.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:51 am
by The Original BJ
Mister Tee wrote:Anyone have a similar trajectory?
In 1997, Titanic was a phenomenon unlike any I'd ever seen. To be in junior high when this film was released...well, you could show up at the movie theater showing Titanic and run into swarms of your friends, many of whom had seen it umpteen times already. And that song! I didn't know anyone who wasn't completely obsessed with that song and the music video at that time. I even found a copy of the script online and put it in a binder, which I pored over constantly.
This was the first year I watched the Oscars, and I wanted to see Titanic win EVERYTHING. I was even sad Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart lost.
Today, I don't feel the same way, but the Titanic sweep (probably coupled with the Beauty/Swank victories two years later) gave me the feeling that Oscar existed to award my favorite movies. Almost immediately thereafter, I came to quite the sad realization that every Oscar night wouldn't just be a validation of my tastes.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:40 am
by OscarGuy
Yes and no. I was pulled into Oscar fandom by the Driving Miss Daisy win of 1989. But I don't regret anything about liking Miss Daisy.
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:31 am
by Mister Tee
Sabin wrote:. I really hoped and prayed that Braveheart would win Best Picture and it did! I think I paid very close attention to that Oscar race before I knew what various precursors were and meant.
I wonder if this is how some of us become attached to the Oscars -- seeing our opinion validated by this group choice, even though we're too young to fully understand what's going on, and so young that the opinion later becomes one about which we're vaguely embarrassed.
To add my own "this was my taste when I was young" story: though I first saw the Oscars of '62, and enjoyed, over a few years, watching movies I'd seen win prizes (The Miracle Worker, Mary Poppins, even The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in a minor category), I didn't truly fall head over heels for the event until the '65 race, when not only did my favorite movie win, my rooting interest in a very tight best actor race, Lee Marvin, emerged triumphant. I wouldn't care to defend either of those choices today, but, at the age of 14, their victories gave me such joy it has been what's kept me coming back through lo these many (too often disappointing) outcomes.
Anyone have a similar trajectory?
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:20 am
by Sabin
(Uri @ Jan. 12 2011,6:05
(Sabin @ Jan. 11 2011,9:29)
And Braveheart used to be my favorite movie.
Though I don't want to be nitpicking (who am I kidding, now I'm both nitpicking and being hypocrite), but as far as I remember, Babe was your favorite film of '95, so I'm a little bit confused right now.
Nah, it's cool.
(shameless piece of personal history)
The first movie I saw as what I would call a burgeoning cinephile was Braveheart. It's spring of 1995 and my father took me to see it on the now gone Ciné Capri theater on Camelback and 24th. A multiplex would soon be erected on the opposite corner of the street that killed a little piece of history. Braveheart was the biggest, most amazing spectacle I had ever seen and shortly after began list-making obsessively re: all the movies I had seen that year. By the year's end, I had not seen Babe and my top ten looked like this:
1. Braveheart
2. Toy Story
3. The American President
4. Nixon
5. Apollo 13
I would later watch Babe on a plane in the summer or spring of 1996, but before that I found it inconceivable that a talking pig movie could possibly usurp Braveheart for the rightly mantle of Best Picture. I really hoped and prayed that Braveheart would win Best Picture and it did! I think I paid very close attention to that Oscar race before I knew what various precursors were and meant.
A couple years later I saw Braveheart again and I still liked it but I remember finding it rather dully shot, long, and obvious. At that point I could vocalize some of those nagging feelings you get while watching a film. One of them was having known that the film is as fiction as any that's ever won Best Picture, why have Mel Gibson sleep with the Princess later on in the film? It only invalidates slightly his undying love for his wife! I mean, if we're going to go down that route, we need to stick to it. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip.
Right about now, this would be my top ten and I know that it's a cheat:
1. Before Sunrise AND Wild Grass
2. Toy Story
3. Se7en
4. Dead Man Walking
5. Babe
(...with Crumb, Exotica, Leaving Las Vegas, Safe essentially warranting spots 4. and down)
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:22 am
by rolotomasi99
Damien wrote:Okri wrote:“Surely, Kushner, whose great play, Angels in America, showed how spiritual and social connections transformed lust and envy to family, friends, and country, has a moral responsibility to explain why The Social Network is good."
This is priceless.
I wish Kushner had. I've read a couple dozen reviews of the movie and many many blog posts about the film, and I still have seen no convincing argument as to why this is supposedly such a good film.
It is a strong screenplay supported by some strong performances and topped off with some competent directing. The critics' love for it is similar to their love of UP IN THE AIR last year. When even movies critics stop champion challenging cinema and instead praise middle of the road fare like this, we are all doomed. I only wish Armond White was not the person leading the charge against THE SOCIAL NETWORK.