The Movie Thread

[RGMike]

Seems like a lot of the changes in last night's ceremony were designed to cut time, which I think is just bullshit. But I don't have a problem with an Oscar ceremony lasting nearly 4 hours. Beyond that, yeah, gets a bit extreme.

One thing I noticed last night is that it seemed like everyone got as much time as they wanted for their acceptance speech--or at least they didn't use the orchestra as a means of cutting them off. There may have been a little red light flashing at the edge of the stage telling them they were going long, but if they chose to ignore it--and a few seemingly did--the TV audience had no way to know.

I think 3-1/2 hours is pushing it; but I would've cut that 2nd musical number which i thought was dreadful. Great that they didn't cut any speeches off; it really is silly to cram the "big" categories into the last half-hour and then make the winners rush. (Blame Greer Garson who spoke for 40 minutes back in the day and inspired the time limit)

[RGMike]

One More Thing: dunno if it's a record, but with Cruz's win Woody Allen has now directed someone to a supporting acting Oscar *five* times. He's done it with Dianne Wiest (twice), Michael Caine and Mira Sorvino. Next year? Well, Patricia Clarkson is in his new one and she's surely due.

Speaking of, I saw in the "coming attractions" clips that Hilary Swank is playing Amelia Earhardt -- and every time Swank plays a butch woman she wins an Oscar. You've been warned...

[RGMike]

random Oscar quote from Television Without Pity: " Best Costume Design to The Duchess -- because anyone who can give Keira Knightley cleavage deserves an award"

[mshray]

One More Thing: dunno if it's a record, but with Cruz's win Woody Allen has now directed someone to a supporting acting Oscar *five* times. He's done it with Dianne Wiest (twice), Michael Caine and Mira Sorvino. Next year? Well, Patricia Clarkson is in his new one and she's surely due.

Speaking of, I saw in the "coming attractions" clips that Hilary Swank is playing Amelia Earhardt -- and every time Swank plays a butch woman she wins an Oscar. You've been warned...

Allen is an Oscar machine. 

He has rec'd 21 nominations, including 14(!) for Original Screenplay, which must certainly also be a record, and won twice. He has 6 Best Director nominations & won once (for Annie Hall, which also got Best Picture), and in what must surely be yet another record, his other 5 Directing nominations were for films that weren't nominated for Best Picture.  He has directed 16 actors to nominations (if that's not a record he must be close) and they've won 6 times (12 Supporting noms including the 5 winners you mentioned + 4 Leading Role noms including Diane Keaton's win for Annie Hall).  He has rec'd writing nominations in 4 straight decades & directed an Oscar winning performance in 4 straight decades.

One of these days someone is going to start calling him the best director of all time, if only to start an argument.
(paging Mick LaSalle!) 

[ggould]

Just goes to show...I specifically disliked the acting nominee format and the montages.  I thought this was the worst Oscars show I'd ever seen. 

I'm curious as to why you disliked. It seemed quite classy to me to recognize everyone, not to mention seeing that many winners from the past together at one time. (My gawd -- Eva Marie Saint!) And as Mark pointed out, you could see how thrilled (for example) Anne Hathaway was to be singled out by Ms. Maclaine -- you could read her lips saying "I love you Shirley!"

As noted elsewhere, the camera angles on the memorial bit were awful, and hurt the veiwability of the names.  As far as the big ego trip actor nominations, it was all done at the expense of actually seeing any significant amount of work in the nominated film, which was also my complaint about the best picture process.  The montage watered down and confused the presentation of the nominated film itself.  Oh, and one more thing...the top hat thing with Hugh Jackman was idiotic!

[RGMike]

As far as the big ego trip actor nominations, it was all done at the expense of actually seeing any significant amount of work in the nominated film, which was also my complaint about the best picture process.  The montage watered down and confused the presentation of the nominated film itself.  Oh, and one more thing...the top hat thing with Hugh Jackman was idiotic!

Well, we agree on that musical number; it was horrendous.

You're not alone in complaining about the lack of clips of the nominees; that was a recurring theme on many movie blogs and message boards today. But I think the producers' reasoning was: "there are 3 dozen other awards shows leading up to the Oscars, and there are 24-hour cable channels like E! and TVG etc etc... if you haven't seen multiple clips of the nominees by now, you probably don't care that much about movies anyway and you're not our target audience."

[ggould]

As far as the big ego trip actor nominations, it was all done at the expense of actually seeing any significant amount of work in the nominated film, which was also my complaint about the best picture process.  The montage watered down and confused the presentation of the nominated film itself.  Oh, and one more thing...the top hat thing with Hugh Jackman was idiotic!

Well, we agree on that musical number; it was horrendous.

You're not alone in complaining about the lack of clips of the nominees; that was a recurring theme on many movie blogs and message boards today. But I think the producers' reasoning was: "there are 3 dozen other awards shows leading up to the Oscars, and there are 24-hour cable channels like E! and TVG etc etc... if you haven't seen multiple clips of the nominees by now, you probably don't care that much about movies anyway and you're not our target audience."

Well, I don't think I'm much of a target demographic for anyone anymore!

[princessofcairo]

One of these days someone is going to start calling him the best director of all time, if only to start an argument.

Ugh. And you'd certainly get one from me!

[RGMike]

Allen is an Oscar machine. 

He has 6 Best Director nominations & won once (for Annie Hall, which also got Best Picture), and in what must surely be yet another record, his other 5 Directing nominations were for films that weren't nominated for Best Picture. 

actually, he was nommed for Hannah & her Sisters, which was nommed for best pic. But it is odd that he was nominated for Broadway Danny Rose but not Manhattan, and that Bullets Over Broadway got 7 noms (including director) but not one for Best Pic.  BTW, the most directing noms is 12 (William Wyler).

[RGMike]

post-Oscar trivia. I don't know all the answers... yet. (I think I know #2)


1) SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE… is the first best picture winner to be set exclusively in Asia since the 1980s when there were THREE such films. Name the films

2) DANNY BOYLE…. is the first director winner from the UK for some time. Who was the last Best Director winner to hail from the UK?

3) SEAN PENN…. was the second straight prior winner to take home Best Actor. His closest competition was MICKEY ROURKE, who was previously not nominated (ditto perceived 3rd placer Frank Langella). Despite the perception that the Oscars hand out consolation prizes to overdue actors, only TWO actors in the past fifteen years were prior nominees of an acting award, but had yet to win one. Name them.

4) KATE WINSLET… was considered supporting during the Golden Globes Ceremony, but ultimately won the Best Actress Oscar. This has happened before, but decades earlier. What actress, prior to Winslet, won the Best Actress Oscar despite being nominated for Supporting Actress for the Golden Globes

5) DUSTIN LANCE BLACK ’s screenplay for Milk was considered original because it was not based on any biographical account or the famous documentary film on the subject. What script won an award for Original Screenplay despite being obviously based on famous and successful source material?

[mshray]

#1 - Platoon, Gandhi & The Last Emperor

[RGMike]

#1 - Platoon, Gandhi & The Last Emperor

I believe you are correct!

I think #2 is Anthony Minghella (The English Patient).

[mshray]

#1 - Platoon, Gandhi & The Last Emperor

I believe you are correct!

I think #2 is Anthony Minghella (The English Patient).

I think so too, but not 100% sure he's a Brit.  If not him then I think it goes all the way back to Attenborough for Gandhi.

[RGMike]

#1 - Platoon, Gandhi & The Last Emperor

I believe you are correct!

I think #2 is Anthony Minghella (The English Patient).

I think so too, but not 100% sure he's a Brit.  If not him then I think it goes all the way back to Attenborough for Gandhi.

oops, wait... Sam Mendes is British, and American Beauty was in '99 (only 9 Oscars ago)  The bastard has an Oscar AND he gets to be married to Kate Winslet.

[mshray]

Is #5 referring to Shakespeare In Love?  If not I have no clue.