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mfunk9786 wrote:Just realizing now that Phantom Thread didn't get a Screenplay nomination which makes the Director thing even weirder!

Reminds me of that preview screening where Vicky Krieps told the audience that she mistook the project for a student film because she just got the script and didn't know who was involved. It wasn't meant to be a criticism of the material (just that the process of landing the job was so casual, she didn't think it would be a big deal), but Anderson quipped "the writing was THAT good!"

I'm just glad the revisions to Animated Film nomination process (which seemed designed to limit GKids and prop up more populist nominees) didn't have too much effect. Though that could be because the mainstream releases this year (Cars 3, Despicable Me 3, Emoji) were pretty weak.

Brian C wrote:I thought The Breadwinner was very good and I'm happy to see it nominated. I liked Coco better, but two worthy films in the Animated category is usually at least one more than normal (I hypocritically say even though I rarely see more than one or two of the nominees)..

They are the only two worthy nominations. The rest wouldn't make the cut in a better year. I absolutely loathed Loving Vincent, a film purely nominated for the amount of work that went into its rotoscoped paintings. Its utterly deficient on a dramatic level.

hearthesilence wrote:

mfunk9786 wrote:Just realizing now that Phantom Thread didn't get a Screenplay nomination which makes the Director thing even weirder!

Reminds me of that preview screening where Vicky Krieps told the audience that she mistook the project for a student film because she just got the script and didn't know who was involved. It wasn't meant to be a criticism of the material (just that the process of landing the job was so casual, she didn't think it would be a big deal), but Anderson quipped "the writing was THAT good!"

Perhaps it was Anderson letting it slip in interviews that "the interruption is staying right here with me" was a DDL ad-lib!

The Narrator Returns wrote:I feel like we're all burying the lede here, which is Academy Award-nominee Sufjan Stevens.

Same here. Glad to see him getting a nom.

mfunk9786 wrote:

davoarid wrote:Oh, and the complete snubbing of Haneke’s “Happy End” was a bit of a WTF. But he got his already so I’ll live.

A lot of people hate this Haneke. I haven't seen it yet so can't speculate further, but if anything was going to topple him from his unexpected perch as Oscar shoo-in, Happy End seems to have been it

Same here in France. It's hard to recall the last Haneke movie that was so hardly disregarded as a whole. He had a very good critical run with his latest movies, until this one.

As for Get Out, the director nom seems a bit undeserved because the direction really isn't the strong point of the movie, but it remains a good movie as a whole, so either as a Best Movie or Best Screenplay, noms feel very much fair. Maybe it's practical for the Academy, I don't know, but the movie still pretty much as deserving as, say, Hell or High Water, Lion or Room.

mfunk9786 wrote:Your bias is showing when you bend over backwards to say that a film you don't consider worthy of award consideration should have been nominated for something in order to exclude Get Out altogether, and it makes the argument incredibly weak. Again, we get it. I'm sorry that there are some diverse nominees in the place of something you would have preferred, but luckily it isn't the McCrutchy awards

I'm sorry I don't think Get Out was worthy of anything beyond just the one Oscar, which, for the record, I think it should win. I do think that the Academy is going overboard to "apologize" to black people--and unfortunately, only black people, not other minorities or nationalities routinely ignored by the Oscar--for the complaints that began a couple of years ago. I'm not sure how my posts have seemingly so offended you, but I apologize if they have.

hearthesilence wrote:

bearcuborg wrote:What stood out to me was Kobe Bryant, given the talk of sexual harassment/abuse. His case, unlike many others who have been named - actuality has horrific evidence/half confession and settlement weeks before trial. But whatever, he bought his wife a really big ring.

I had to do a double-take on that - Kobe Bryant, an Oscar nominee? Now MJ's got to make another movie, and it better not be another Space Jam...

I guess I’m somewhat interested to see this when the Oscar nominated shorts get their theatre run soon.

Something I’ve always wondered-why not a experimental academy award? Maybe an awards officinado knows the answer.

If you want to play that card women got a small apology as well. This year sees the first woman DP nominated and the highest average age for female acting categories in a long time.

Another nomination that would have made me really happy was either my man M Night or Michael Gioulakis (hell, or even Anya-Taylor Joy) for “Split,” which remains my favorite movie of the year. Alas. The Academy are elephants, they will never forget “Lady in the Water.”

And people think Get Out is too much of a genre picture!

McCrutchy wrote:I do think that the Academy is going overboard to "apologize" to black people

All "the Academy" did was expand its membership to skew younger and more diverse. The nominees are still based on thousands of individual ballots, independently tabulated by a neutral third party (still PricewaterhouseCoopers?)

EDIT: To answer my own question, apparently yes.

I think the Academy is going overboard to "apologize" to Christopher Plummer

davoarid wrote:Another nomination that would have made me really happy was either my man M Night or Michael Gioulakis (hell, or even Anya-Taylor Joy) for “Split,” which remains my favorite movie of the year. Alas. The Academy are elephants, they will never forget “Lady in the Water.”

"Lady in the Water" was, and still is, his best film by several lengths.

This thread has gone totally off the rails

I caught this on the Wikipedia entry for this year’s foreign language submissions (where I also learned that the Cambodian entry was directed by one Angelina Jolie!):

Macedonia decided not to submit a film for consideration this year. According to the committee, two films were submitted to their consideration: Golden Five by Goran Trenchovski and When the Day Had No Name by Teona Strugar Mitevska. However, they found that neither of the submitted films fulfilled the aesthetic or narrative criteria to be the Macedonian Oscar nominee.

They have no other details and I’ve never heard of either. Does this mean the Academy just said “sorry your movie looks too crappy for us to even consider it, bye”? Because damn that’s harsh.

davoarid wrote:Another nomination that would have made me really happy was either my man M Night or Michael Gioulakis (hell, or even Anya-Taylor Joy) for “Split,” which remains my favorite movie of the year. Alas. The Academy are elephants, they will never forget “Lady in the Water.”

Just be grateful it got M. Night Shyamalan back on track after decades in the wilderness of his poor decision making. I enjoyed the film but the only awards recognition this could have gotten in a less competitive year is for McAvoy but then even the days when the Academy loved a split personality turn has long passed.

Overall this has been a great year for horror films. My personal favorite was Raw which was top notch all round from directing to performances to cinematography and its score by Jim Williams is better than anything which got nominated in that category.

davoarid wrote:I caught this on the Wikipedia entry for this year’s foreign language submissions (where I also learned that the Cambodian entry was directed by one Angelina Jolie!):

Macedonia decided not to submit a film for consideration this year. According to the committee, two films were submitted to their consideration: Golden Five by Goran Trenchovski and When the Day Had No Name by Teona Strugar Mitevska. However, they found that neither of the submitted films fulfilled the aesthetic or narrative criteria to be the Macedonian Oscar nominee.

They have no other details and I’ve never heard of either. Does this mean the Academy just said “sorry your movie looks too crappy for us to even consider it, bye”? Because damn that’s harsh.

I think it's the submitting nation that makes those decision, which is ... even more harsh?

DarkImbecile wrote:

davoarid wrote:I caught this on the Wikipedia entry for this year’s foreign language submissions (where I also learned that the Cambodian entry was directed by one Angelina Jolie!):

Macedonia decided not to submit a film for consideration this year. According to the committee, two films were submitted to their consideration: Golden Five by Goran Trenchovski and When the Day Had No Name by Teona Strugar Mitevska. However, they found that neither of the submitted films fulfilled the aesthetic or narrative criteria to be the Macedonian Oscar nominee.

They have no other details and I’ve never heard of either. Does this mean the Academy just said “sorry your movie looks too crappy for us to even consider it, bye”? Because damn that’s harsh.

I think it's the submitting nation that makes those decision, which is ... even more harsh?

Here is the translated version of the link on the Wikipedia Page:
None of the submitted films fulfills the aesthetic and narrative criteria to be Macedonian Oscar nominee, from the non-English speaking region, decided the Commission for the election of Macedonian Oscar nominee.

According to the Association of Film Workers, the Commission has decided not to nominate one of the candidates, "When the Day Was Not a Name" by Teona Strugar Mitevska and Goran Trencovski, "The Golden Five" not to represent Macedonia in the Oscar race from a non-English speaking region.

For the record, I liked Boss Baby more than Dunkirk

Results for the four of us who quixotically made predictions:

Name (Big 6)Big 8

domino harvey (28)36
Ribs (26)
DarkImbecile (27)37
lacritfan (29)39

lacritfan, please pm me your full name, social security number, and complete bank account information (including PINs) to claim your prize.

I'm actually really thinking there's a good chance PTA might win Best Director - which is not where I expected my head to be at yesterday.

Ribs wrote:I'm actually really thinking there's a good chance PTA might win Best Director - which is not where I expected my head to be at yesterday.

I dunno about that, but if people start pointing out Oldman's past history loudly enough, I could see DDL pulling off an incredible fourth Best Actor win

Really? I liked Phantom Thread, but it's a strange and opaque movie, without a lot that's easy to get ahold of- given the mood this year, and all else being equal, I would have guessed Lady Bird.

Is Oldman really the favorite? I have yet to meet anyone who actually liked that movie

Everyone though seems to think Oldman does a good job though.

I just feel like the Best Director race has felt like "...probably Nolan?" and it's shifted to "wait, maybe Del Toro?" and just that it doesn't really feel like there's much passion anyway. I know it's probably just the same weird faction of the Directors branch that have gotten Almodovar and Lynch nominated in the past but maybe PTA's stock has been more insurgent in the ten years since his last big Oscar play than most of us thought.

(I, for one, have always kind of thought of the result of the 2007 BP race as a mistake because I figured PTA would never again do a movie to get serious Oscar attention, whereas I can easily imagine the Coens doing something for their next film back in the Oscar-friendly mold. Clearly I was wrong in my assumption!)