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Not pleased with Birdman walking off triumphant, but then I don't think Boyhood/Grand Budapest were that great either. Luzbeki's work was phenomenal though.

As much as I saw of the ceremony was Pawel Pawlikowski's speech, which was brilliant.

captveg wrote:

Ribs wrote:Birdman the first BP winner not to be shot on film

That would be Slumdog Millionaire

Portions of Slumdog were shot on 35mm. Birdman is the first entirely digital BP winner.

ordinaryperson wrote:"Birdman" is an odd Best Picture winner in terms of dialogue and what it's about. But it fits in the "won over more critically acclaimed film" category. What do think would have happened if "Selma" "Crash"-ed Best Picture?

I don't think that is necessarily true to the extent you'd like to believe. Using Metacritic as a level of critical acclaim and consensus, Boyhood is for a sure an outlier, but Birdman is as good as joint second with three other films. This is a film that would still deserve the descriptor of being met with universal acclaim.

So the Internet Outrage Brigade decided to get offended at Sean Penn's "Green card" joke. In typical fashion, however, they forgot to check with the alleged victim

Joke or not, the remark struck many online as problematic for an awards ceremony that had been criticized for not having more nominees of color.

Can they just add a "Best Actor/Actress of Color" category already so that I never have to read something like this again? (I guarantee that if there weren't separate male and female acting awards, most of the nominees would be men.)

I got 20 for 24 this year without being bold in any choices - it really was predictable, even in the lowest profile categories. I'm still disappointed that Linklater walked away empty-handed - I guessed that by going through category for category and placing him a close second each time, but even then it seemed pretty wrong that he would not get anything. In general, I thought my prediction that Boyhood would get just two Oscars (including film editing) was kind of dire, but Jesus, just one?

I'm surprised Wes Anderson lost for screenplay since he was consistently cleaning up in that category. The Imitation Game was a slight upset, that would've been my second guess in a very weak category, but I thought Whiplash would pull ahead. (The WGA wasn't a great indicator since they categorized it as an original screenplay.) Inherent Vice would've been a marvelous upset, but again, too many voters hated that movie.

Not sure if Big Hero 6 was the biggest surprise, but it was such a weak category without The Lego Movie, the only American film I saw. I was skeptical about picking a sequel (and in the end maybe that was a liability), but it seemed to get a lot of love and I couldn't imagine Studio Ghibli getting enough support this time around.

Animated Feature, Score, and Editing were the categories with the fewest Gold Derby "experts" predicting the eventual winner (though all three went to my initial guesses without looking at the odds). I suspect the Academy feels like giving a Wes Anderson movie awards for its most apparent virtues (production, costuming, etc) is honoring the film and filmmaker in the most logical way

swo17 wrote:

Joke or not, the remark struck many online as problematic for an awards ceremony that had been criticized for not having more nominees of color.

Can they just add a "Best Actor/Actress of Color" category already so that I never have to read something like this again? (I guarantee that if there weren't separate male and female acting awards, most of the nominees would be men.)

In other news, I've just learnt that "of color" is acceptable terminology in the States. Not sure I see that one catching on over here.

If you'd like to see a journalist find controversy when none exists, go here

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/fe ... scars-2015

As did Boyhood, a film I had a lot of white supremacist reservations about, even though I loved it.

Surprised I even got this far, but definitely stopped reading there

I'm not sure I understand the wording of that sentence--as a white supremacist he loved the film, but still had some reservations? Presumably because it didn't depict enough white supremacists? He may have a point there--all I could think while watching Boyhood was, man, Linklater is sure going out of his way not to depict all of the white supremacists living in Texas.

thirtyframesasecond wrote:If you'd like to see a journalist find controversy when none exists, go here

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/fe ... scars-2015

That, unfortunately, is the Guardian these days. There's at least one of those type of articles per day and, although sometimes amusingly wrong-headed (there's a very-unintentionally-funny article about the racism, sexism and class issues present in Thomas the Tank Engine from a while back) they generally just make me want to smash up my computer.

I guess it wouldn't help to explain to the writer that green card jokes at the Oscars are not only old in Hollywood, but often apply to white Europeans. (Typically the large number of Brits who have won Oscars over the years.)

hearthesilence wrote:Not sure if Big Hero 6 was the biggest surprise, but it was such a weak category without The Lego Movie, the only American film I saw. I was skeptical about picking a sequel (and in the end maybe that was a liability), but it seemed to get a lot of love and I couldn't imagine Studio Ghibli getting enough support this time around.

It certainly didnt help that Kaguyahime was one of the most beautiful and intelligent and sophisticated animated films ever made -- not even remotely the kind of film i'd expect to to win an Oscar.

I know - sad, isn't it? It makes the category consistently disappointing, and the winning films in aggregate are becoming a bland and narrow-minded definition of what a great animated film should be.

If you want to laugh (or cry?) at how voters choose the best animated film, you could take a stroll down to cartoonbrew and read another round of those "brutally honest Oscar voter" interviews...

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/award-season ... 09456.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Voter #5: I only watch the ones that my kid wants to see, so I didn’t see [The] Boxtrolls but I saw Big Hero 6 and I saw [How to Train Your] Dragon [2]. We both connected to Big Hero 6 — I just found it to be more satisfying. The biggest snub for me was Chris Miller and Phil Lord not getting in for [The] Lego [Movie]. When a movie is that successful and culturally hits all the right chords and does that kind of box-office — for that movie not to be in over these two obscure freakin’ Chinese fuckin’ things that nobody ever freakin’ saw [an apparent reference to the Japanese film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, as well as the Irish film Song of the Sea]? That is my biggest bitch. Most people didn’t even know what they were! How does that happen? That, to me, is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
MY VOTE: Big Hero 6

I mean, is this even real? It's like a parody of an Oscar voter.

jojo wrote:I mean, is this even real? It's like a parody of an Oscar voter.

I expect it is "true" even if not "real".

jojo wrote:If you want to laugh (or cry?) at how voters choose the best animated film, you could take a stroll down to cartoonbrew and read another round of those "brutally honest Oscar voter" interviews...

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/award-season ... 09456.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Voter #5: I only watch the ones that my kid wants to see, so I didn’t see [The] Boxtrolls but I saw Big Hero 6 and I saw [How to Train Your] Dragon [2]. We both connected to Big Hero 6 — I just found it to be more satisfying. The biggest snub for me was Chris Miller and Phil Lord not getting in for [The] Lego [Movie]. When a movie is that successful and culturally hits all the right chords and does that kind of box-office — for that movie not to be in over these two obscure freakin’ Chinese fuckin’ things that nobody ever freakin’ saw [an apparent reference to the Japanese film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, as well as the Irish film Song of the Sea]? That is my biggest bitch. Most people didn’t even know what they were! How does that happen? That, to me, is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
MY VOTE: Big Hero 6

I mean, is this even real? It's like a parody of an Oscar voter.

Reading that makes me think; how did "Spirited Away" win in 2003?

Other animated feature contenders in 2003: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Treasure Planet, Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch. As I recall, there was a lot of domestic anger about the pick of Spirited Away -- but Japanese animation was much more of a "fad" then than it is now.

In any event, Miyazaki has always been a lot easier sell in the US than Takahata.

Christ, for an industry painted as the most liberal group in the nation, it's kind of appalling how close-minded some of them are. The first time I ever talked about movies with some veterans who worked in Hollywood, I was stunned how hostile they were to foreign films in general. I wasn't even talking about anything that would threaten their livelihood, just a handful of European classics from the '60s.

How many of you (if any) hold the Oscars in high regard these days? Do you still want to see your favorite director win an Oscar or would you rather see them take awards home from other festivals like Cannes/Venice/BAFTA's etc?

Kellen wrote:How many of you (if any) hold the Oscars in high regard these days? Do you still want to see your favorite director win an Oscar or would you rather see them take awards home from other festivals like Cannes/Venice/BAFTA's etc?

I hold the Oscars in high regard; although I think the Palme d'Or is a better award. I would like to see Wes Anderson (my favorite modern director) win both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture/ Best Director.

When someone deserving wins an Oscar I think it still means something, but I'm no more likely to want to see a film just because it wins one.

I think it's meaningful for smaller, less-seen films to win an Oscar simply because of free publicity, which they can always use more of.