Awards Season 2010

[aox]

After seeing excerpts from his latest interview, I am hoping that they ask Charlie Sheen to host next year.

[mfunk9786]

I swear, Randy Newman farts out anything and he wins an Oscar. "Right foot, Left foot, Right foot, Left foot."

To be fair, this was only his second Oscar.

[Tom Hagen]

I pretty certain that Bergman never made it from Faro. He did, however, send Liv to accept the Thalberg on his behalf.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Indeed, I'm always curious how the nominees who are obvious losers and clearly above the whole pageant feel about attending. What moves a David Lynch or a Julian Schnabel to even bother to show up and sit through hours of self-absorption?

I'm pretty sure that Lynch goes to see his peers and socialize.

[mfunk9786]

Not sure where else to post this, but Kris Tapley has done his yearly list of his top 10 shots of 2010. Part two is here.

[Finch]

Not that I really begrudge Pfister his award for Inception but I do feel for Roger Deakins who must be wondering what he has to do to actually win the damn thing. Perhaps the Academy is saving it for a Lifetime Achievement prize?

True Grit in general has to be considered one of the losers of the night: a whopping 10 nominations and won absolutely nothing. Can anyone remember the last time a film garnered so many noms and went home empty-handed?

The two shockers of the night were Hooper claiming the Best Director award (this should have been Fincher's, no question) and Bier winning Best Foreign Picture (but that they are a bit clueless when it comes to that category should be no surprise after last year's utterly dreadful winner).

[Michael]

True Grit in general has to be considered one of the losers of the night: a whopping 10 nominations and won absolutely nothing. Can anyone remember the last time a film garnered so many noms and went home empty-handed? .

The Color Purple did not receive any Oscars. The film currently holds the record along with The Turning Point with 11 Oscar nominations but no wins.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Not that I really begrudge Pfister his award for Inception but I do feel for Roger Deakins who must be wondering what he has to do to actually win the damn thing. Perhaps the Academy is saving it for a Lifetime Achievement prize?

I was thrilled for Pfister, but Deakins certainly deserves the recognition. The Academy isn't holding some anti-Coen grudge, is it?

[aox]

True Grit in general has to be considered one of the losers of the night: a whopping 10 nominations and won absolutely nothing. Can anyone remember the last time a film garnered so many noms and went home empty-handed?

Gangs of New York?

[Professor Wagstaff]

True Grit in general has to be considered one of the losers of the night: a whopping 10 nominations and won absolutely nothing. Can anyone remember the last time a film garnered so many noms and went home empty-handed?

Gangs of New York?

Yes, Gangs was the last big shutout.

[James Mills]

Not that I really begrudge Pfister his award for Inception but I do feel for Roger Deakins who must be wondering what he has to do to actually win the damn thing. Perhaps the Academy is saving it for a Lifetime Achievement prize?

True Grit in general has to be considered one of the losers of the night: a whopping 10 nominations and won absolutely nothing. Can anyone remember the last time a film garnered so many noms and went home empty-handed?

I thought True Grit was Deakins' most mundane effort with the Coens' to date. The entire production design of that film seemed rushed and bland to me, personally.

The two shockers of the night were Hooper claiming the Best Director award (this should have been Fincher's, no question) and Bier winning Best Foreign Picture (but that they are a bit clueless when it comes to that category should be no surprise after last year's utterly dreadful winner).

Absolutely.

[mfunk9786]

Yeah, totally rushed and bland:



He deserved the Oscar for the tracking shot with the horse towards the end of the film alone, quite frankly.

[knives]

I was going to bring up the opening shot too. That is easily the best I've seen from Deakins. Plus the story didn't call for the sort of flash that he showed in No Country or Jesse James.

[flyonthewall2983]

Inception was my favorite movie of 2010, but even I have to say that Roger was robbed. At least Wally made his speech worthwhile by mentioning the news out of Wisconsin and the importance of unions.

[HistoryProf]

I'm not disappointed, but I'm just sad that more people didn't realize just how great Black Swan and 127 Hours were.

Black Swan was one of the worst films I have seen in years that gets any acclaim.

FUN FACT: It wasn't a comedy. So all of those people laughing in the theater was unintentional. That should be red flag number 1.

word.

[MichaelB]

I'm not disappointed, but I'm just sad that more people didn't realize just how great Black Swan and 127 Hours were.

Black Swan was one of the worst films I have seen in years that gets any acclaim.

FUN FACT: It wasn't a comedy. So all of those people laughing in the theater was unintentional. That should be red flag number 1.

In the case of the audience I saw it with, it was mild tittering building up to full-scale belly laughs - the tipping point being Winona Ryder's final appearance.

Which made a pleasant change from Requiem for a Dream, when my girlfriend and I were the only ones laughing. Clearly, more people are beginning to recognise Darren Aronofsky's considerable comedic gifts.

[colinr0380]

Not only that but with Mila Kunis in Black Swan he appears to have a mini-trend going on of giving excellent (and often the most moving) roles to actors better known for their comedy performances. Marlon Wayans in Requiem is another example - who'd have thought the guy later responsible for appearing in many of those awful Scary Movie films, Dungeons and Dragons, Norbit and *shudder* White Chicks could give such a great performance?

[Peter-H]

Inception was my favorite movie of 2010, but even I have to say that Roger was robbed. At least Wally made his speech worthwhile by mentioning the news out of Wisconsin and the importance of unions.

I hope your being sarcastic. "While i'm up here accepting this award why don't I go on a completely unrelated note by sermonizing people with my clueless political ideals. I am always astounded when people in Hollywood think anyone cares about their opinions.

[Kirkinson]

Yeah, who do those stupid Hollywood celebrities like Wally Pfister think they are?

[jbeall]

Why Don't Cannes Films Win Oscars?

[Professor Wagstaff]

Why Don't Cannes Films Win Oscars?

I've never liked Andrew O'Hehir and I can't make much sense of his article. This piece seems like a desperate attempt to join those hating "The King's Speech" and somehow tie it in to his affection for "Uncle Boonmee". He even says in the second paragraph that these films have nothing in common except they both won major awards.

Plus the article's mention that "The Pianist" was the last film to win the Palm D'or and best picture Oscar strikes me as a pretty egregious error. Even if he doesn't know his facts are wrong (as I'm sure everyone on this site can tell him it is), he must be able to get an intern to fact check that. At least then someone would be putting a little work into this article.

[Mr Sausage]

Moved the Royals/ideology/aesthetics discussion here.

[colinr0380]

Looking back on the discussion I would like to add my vote to thinking of 2007 as one of the better Best Picture years of the Oscars. I know there was some sniffing about Atonement, but I really think that was one of the few 'heritage pictures' that fully deserved its nomination, especially since it undermined its heritage aspects at almost every point by emphasising their superficiality/fictionality.

I do think Social Network was robbed this year, particularly for Best Director - though I am really glad Social Network got Best Score as it is truly fantastic. Strangely the over-frantic version of In The Hall Of The Mountain King is my least favourite of all of the pieces. It seems a shame it seemed to get played during the winner's walkup (at least during Social Network's wins at the BAFTAs) - something like the Pieces Form The Whole track would have made for a much jauntier accompaniment to the action of someone going up on stage to collect an award! Two of my particular favourite tracks would have to be the plodding, yet strangely upbeat, On We March (it's my current favourite listening at the moment for the occasions when I'm stuck in cramped, darkened rooms doing Harvey Pekar-esque medical record filing) and the slightly Japanese-sounding Soft Trees Break The Fall.

As for The King's Speech, as much as I liked Tom Hooper's Longford a couple of years ago, I just found Speech too calculated in order to tick all of the boxes for heritage cinema. I know it is also just something that you say when you win an award but all of the comments from the cast and crew when interviewed about how they "never believed this small film would be a success" etc seem rather disingenuous given the built in appeal of the subject matter to large swathes of Royal lovers combined with a triumph over adversity subplot.

It might be interesting to describe the way that the BBC responded to The King's Speech wins. They began on the first day by getting extremely overexcited interviewing anyone vaguely connected with the film (an interview with Helena Bonham Carter on the Breakfast news bulletin that morning was priceless. Not far anything that the actress said but because going to her live interview cut short the sports reporters football roundup. Probably the first time that film has ever won out over sporting news! And the sports reporter sulked quite a bit when they returned to him a couple of minutes later!), and any familiar location (When the BBC's 'arts reporter' Ed Gompertz trailed his upcoming segment live from that location where the speech therapy sessions took place with the line "And this is the room where it all happened...", I assumed at first that he was going to talk about that porno that was filmed there!)

On the day after the elation there were the predicatable stories about "What next for the British Film Industry?", "What will be King's Speech 2?" etc, as the media cottoned onto the way that the film had been funded by the defunct UK Film Council. Which meant a few of the BBC news reports ended with a somewhat disdainful sidelong glance at the BFI now being in charge of funding and whether it could 'fulfil expectations' due to apparently being more intellectually rather than commercially interested in film.