I said it a few weeks ago and was harshly shot down.
I hate to be blunt about it, but what good is an Academy Award going to do him? The Oscars, as I see it, are as much about the future of Hollywood as they are about its recent past.
Flipp, I agree it's qualitatively the best performance, though I haven't seen Doubt or Revolutionary Road.
Edited By rain Bard on 1232676753
81st Annual Academy Awards Nominations
rain Bard wrote:Anyone wanna go out on a limb with me and say Ledger's Oscar is not the done deal it seemed to be yesterday?
I really hope not. He is so obviously the standout in that category, it's not even funny. It's a monolithic performance that has instantly entered the pantheon of great villain performances (even great performances of any kind). Even The Dark Knight detractors would agree.
Edited By flipp525 on 1232676473
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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HarryGoldfarb
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Following up on what I just wrote, it's worth noting that for the 1997 Oscars, every statuette (outside foreign-language, doc, shorts, special awards) went to a Best Picture nominee.
Could be good news for Kate Winslet, Taraji Henson, Sean Penn (or maybe Langella or Pitt), and Josh Brolin.
Anyone wanna go out on a limb with me and say Ledger's Oscar is not the done deal it seemed to be yesterday?
Edited By rain Bard on 1232676328
Could be good news for Kate Winslet, Taraji Henson, Sean Penn (or maybe Langella or Pitt), and Josh Brolin.
Anyone wanna go out on a limb with me and say Ledger's Oscar is not the done deal it seemed to be yesterday?
Edited By rain Bard on 1232676328
There also seems to be an unusually low amount of real-life people represented in the acting categories. I counted four: Sean Penn (as Harvey Milk), Frank Langella (as Richard Nixon), Josh Brolin (as Dan White) and Angelina Jolie (as Christine Collins).
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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HarryGoldfarb
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Just arriving home from work... how long the day felt knewing the nominees and not being able to comment it with anybody really interested.
Right now, obviously, TCCOBB seems to have the edge. 13 nominations, the not-so expected Taraji's nod... But even more poignant is that I realized, while watching the announcement in youtube, the mention of both Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall...
She's up in her 6th nomination and for her first award, after failing to win for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit and Munich. He's in his fifth nomination and also without an award, having lost for Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense and Seabiscuit...
On the other side... who's Christian Colson? What has he done before? is he part of the "group"? Is he considered an outsider???
I mean, back in 2000, even though Gladiator was considered a crowd pleaser with very few artistic quialities/achievements, failing to be considered as its director finest work, it was, after all, the American film out of the two big nominees... Even after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon started to gain momentum, even after its unexpected 10 nods, its more respected critical reception, the Academy still said "this is our kind of film, our co-production with UK, filled with errors but artistic enough for us, we don't need any foreign so-called better film... and we don't like subtitles... ask Costa-Gravas"
Some other random thoughts:
- I so do love Jai Ho and I'm thrilled to see it here, but three nominees make the category so unimportant. And I think right now O Saya shouldn't be here.
- Hope Amy Adams wins this, if Cruz is not going to do so.
- I'm so depressed without Wall-E in the Best Picture line-up. My favorite film of the year so far. I don't think it is going to be surpassed by Slumdog or Frost/Nixon. The Dark Knight snub was kind of unexpected after its showing in PGA and DGA, but I wasn't on the big fan train either. I can see the logic on it.
Right now, obviously, TCCOBB seems to have the edge. 13 nominations, the not-so expected Taraji's nod... But even more poignant is that I realized, while watching the announcement in youtube, the mention of both Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall...
She's up in her 6th nomination and for her first award, after failing to win for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit and Munich. He's in his fifth nomination and also without an award, having lost for Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense and Seabiscuit...
On the other side... who's Christian Colson? What has he done before? is he part of the "group"? Is he considered an outsider???
I mean, back in 2000, even though Gladiator was considered a crowd pleaser with very few artistic quialities/achievements, failing to be considered as its director finest work, it was, after all, the American film out of the two big nominees... Even after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon started to gain momentum, even after its unexpected 10 nods, its more respected critical reception, the Academy still said "this is our kind of film, our co-production with UK, filled with errors but artistic enough for us, we don't need any foreign so-called better film... and we don't like subtitles... ask Costa-Gravas"
Some other random thoughts:
- I so do love Jai Ho and I'm thrilled to see it here, but three nominees make the category so unimportant. And I think right now O Saya shouldn't be here.
- Hope Amy Adams wins this, if Cruz is not going to do so.
- I'm so depressed without Wall-E in the Best Picture line-up. My favorite film of the year so far. I don't think it is going to be surpassed by Slumdog or Frost/Nixon. The Dark Knight snub was kind of unexpected after its showing in PGA and DGA, but I wasn't on the big fan train either. I can see the logic on it.
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
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Johnny Guitar
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Flipp, it's cool, I'm quite chilled out. OG, I'll side with the comments made by Magilla and Marco here - the actresses you mentioned weren't necessarily in their 20s, but they're all relatively young, and they all project a fair amount of sex appeal. None of those nine actresses is bad- or plain- or unusual-looking in any widely recognized way (i.e., in our celebrity culture). We can debate specifics in terms of personal taste, I admit--personally I think Zellweger is a horrendous actress and quite unsexy, but enough people disagree with me on both counts to make me the exception that proves the rule. (Mutatis mutandis...)
What's more, a lot of these performances are of characters who are "pre-maternal," certainly pre-menopausal (by a mile). And as Uri mentioned, sexuality tends to play a larger part for the actress roles than with the men. It's not that the Academy is alone in its guilt here--it's a problem with all of Hollywood, and beyond. But the bias remains.
As to the imprecision of the "young hot babe factor"--well, you're right, certainly it's imprecise, and some of the actresses aren't quite so young as the others. But nobody mentioned a precise age cut-off, did they? It has more to do with youthful good looks, i.e., more generally, the impression of being possessed of good looks that come with youth and not inherent grace or sexiness (e.g., current Helen Mirren).
What's more, a lot of these performances are of characters who are "pre-maternal," certainly pre-menopausal (by a mile). And as Uri mentioned, sexuality tends to play a larger part for the actress roles than with the men. It's not that the Academy is alone in its guilt here--it's a problem with all of Hollywood, and beyond. But the bias remains.
As to the imprecision of the "young hot babe factor"--well, you're right, certainly it's imprecise, and some of the actresses aren't quite so young as the others. But nobody mentioned a precise age cut-off, did they? It has more to do with youthful good looks, i.e., more generally, the impression of being possessed of good looks that come with youth and not inherent grace or sexiness (e.g., current Helen Mirren).
Uri wrote:Since 1991, of all the characters played by the winners of the best supporting trophy, only two didn't have sex within the time frame of their movies' narrative (Dench and Swinton). Of their respective male winners, only two did – the black guy, obviously, and the white trash one, which is almost the same (well, the characters played by Broadbent and Robins did, but onky when played by other actors). So yes, playing an obviously sexual creature seems to be a factor when it comes to supporting actresses.
When did Zeta-Jones have sex in Chicago (not that she wasn't a sexual creature anyway)? The only thing I can think of is the alluded to favors she's providing Mama Morton.
Also, Anna Paquin obviously isn't giving it up in The Piano. And I don't recall Zellweger's totally non-sexual character partaking in any in Cold Mountain either.
Edited By flipp525 on 1232665989
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Since 1991, of all the characters played by the winners of the best supporting trophy, only two didn't have sex within the time frame of their movies' narrative (Dench and Swinton). Of their respective male winners, only two did – the black guy, obviously, and the white trash one, which is almost the same (well, the characters played by Broadbent and Robins did, but onky when played by other actors). So yes, playing an obviously sexual creature seems to be a factor when it comes to supporting actresses.OscarGuy wrote:That's the last time I try to help someone else out. I was just saying that the "young babe factor" isn't exactly a precise term and is just about as easy to ascertain as being the truth as Italiano's much-harped on concept that there can be no vote splitting. We can't simply say this is why these performances won. Some, sure. But I doubt that Cate Blanchett won because she was some smokin' hot babe. Or that Binoche won because of this babe factor.
But neither here nor there.
And, Italiano, No one thought Marisa Tomei would win an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, so pardon me if I don't ascribe to that particular thought.