Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Damien wrote:Six months have passed since I suffered through Indulgence and I remember very little about it. But the problem with the film is not its being confusing as its being incoherent. The film follows no set of rules for its own particular universe and the events shown on screen unfold in an arbitrary maner, as if the editor just put sequences together at random..

flipp525 wrote:

criddic3 wrote:There seems to be two camps on this movie. One says that it's a confusing mess with good photography.

See, this is the criticism I just don't understand. What exactly is confusing about it? The characters even explain to the viewer what is happening as it's happening. My friend and I were discussing what the big deal was with all the people saying it was overly complex. It's not.

flipp525 wrote:See, this is the criticism I just don't understand. What exactly is confusing about it? The characters even explain to the viewer what is happening as it's happening. My friend and I were discussing what the big deal was with all the people saying it was overly complex. It's not.

criddic3 wrote:There seems to be two camps on this movie. One says that it's a confusing mess with good photography.

Damien wrote:Disagree.

As my late friend, film critic Stuart Byron, put it, "The distinction shouldn't be between 'art' films and 'entertainment' films. The distinction should be between good films and bad ones."

And while I didn't see The Last Airbender or Transformers 2, in 52 years of movie-going I have seen enough horrible large studio films to know what they are like.

Sabin wrote:So, I'm going to backpedal: in the subjective, entirely relative world of Oscar prognostication, Christopher Nolan was robbed for The Dark Knight, insofar as the true enthusiasm the film was greeted with contrasted to the relative indifference that met The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader. Because the industry hates a man on the top of his game so quickly, and, although I don't think Nolan is destined for Oscar-dom like famously snubbed auteurs (his style is already becoming suffocating and limited by emotional detachment), his attempts if there ever are any to win an Oscar will be shameless.

Sabin wrote:Oscar voters live to disappoint Oscar fans.

Well no, that was part of the point I was trying to make, and I wouldn't even come close to considering you one of these offenders (someone who said both "love" and "major, major filmmaker" in one paragraph- imagine what these people really think). But you do realize this is a common feeling among basically 1 out of every 2 "Oscar fans" that are not in the vein of a typical member on this particular board.

We know all about Oscar fans, don't we? They're a very impressive, well-balanced, worldly lot of people, aren't they?


(Fucking nerds.)

Oscar fans and voters are so cosmically different, it's a wonder the former hasn't filed a restraining order yet. Oscar voters live to disappoint Oscar fans. They're wheeled out of bed in the morning, wiped, fed mush, and then vote for whatever sounds like a Holocaust film. To wake up in January of 2009 and see the calamity that was that year's nominations was painful. I maintain that Christopher Nolan is a major talent and a very good filmmaker, but he's no artist. I think his greatest strength lies as a collaborative writer and as a producer. Outside of some awesome images in The Dark Knight, it's not like he's a thoughtful visual stylist. Nolan has received some backlash on this board that I actually find preferable to the blind worship he sees elsewhere. The Dark Knight is not a masterpiece and I believe it was around no.7 or 8 on my list that year. The fact that one can make a case that the list of nominees expanding to ten in some form of response to the outcry of The Dark Knight's omission certainly boosts his visibility as an Oscar Casualty. I'm trying to think of the last time a film was so roundly embraced by critics and audiences to that degree and found its auteur entirely shut out. I really think the closest precedent would be if The Fellowship of the Ring failed to get nominations for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay...

So, I'm going to backpedal: in the subjective, entirely relative world of Oscar prognostication, Christopher Nolan was robbed for The Dark Knight, insofar as the true enthusiasm the film was greeted with contrasted to the relative indifference that met The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader. Because the industry hates a man on the top of his game so quickly, and, although I don't think Nolan is destined for Oscar-dom like famously snubbed auteurs (his style is already becoming suffocating and limited by emotional detachment), his attempts if there ever are any to win an Oscar will be shameless.

Sabin wrote:It's not criminal. Not at all. It's barely a misdemeanor. He's not in the same league as a slew of artists who anyone should rationally consider "robbed".

(Sabin @ Feb. 06 2011,12:42)

I love Christopher Nolan. On the basis of Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and the first third of Batman Begins, major, major filmmaking talent, and I don't care what anyone else on this board says otherwise. I have no problem with every Christopher Nolan film getting talked up for Oscars, because his films are doubtlessly going to be more interesting than a Joe Wright, Stephen Daldry, or Tom Hoo/pper film.

Eh...that's all I got.

I'll concede to Memento, but the question is why does everything have to be so criminal with him not being recognized let alone winning? Because he made Memento now over 10 years ago, he's Scorsese even if he simply makes popcorn entertainment/comic book rehashes every couple summers?

"Major, major filmmaking" is about 2 too many positive adjectives? But it begs the ultimate 2010 question to you Sabin, would you vote for King's Speech or Inception if you had a gun to your head?

Sabin wrote:I love Christopher Nolan. On the basis of Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and the first third of Batman Begins, major, major filmmaking talent, and I don't care what anyone else on this board says otherwise. I have no problem with every Christopher Nolan film getting talked up for Oscars, because his films are doubtlessly going to be more interesting than a Joe Wright, Stephen Daldry, or Tom Hoo/pper film.

Hollywood Z wrote:Now, I'll be the first to admit, Inception isn't without it's flaws here and there, but they aren't so glaring as to consider it a bad movie, especially considering the dreck that came out this past summer. The problem with critiquing a movie like Inception the same way you would critique an Ingmar Bergman film is that the movies have two different goals. One is trying to be entertaining and an above average intelligent blockbuster while the other is a more artistic avant garde piece. You can't look at one and use the same criteria to judge the other.

And as far as Best Anything, I would have to argue a strong case for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing (though it was grossly omitted from the nominations), Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.