Oscars 2011


I stopped reading after the first one. What a load of crap. "Oh, Inception's really an art film, but they look at it as a blockbuster so it's not good enough. Solved."

Even if you ignore the countless blockbusters nominated for the award in the last couple decades(which would be silly), the MOST RECENT Oscars gave two of the five director nods to them with Avatar and Inglourious Basterds(another summer release, to boot).

The ridiculous politics that stir this **** up every year are, sadly, just not as simple as art film - action film - indie film - blockbuster. The Academy does seem to have some mysterious inclination against Nolan and this might be the most clear-cut example yet, but it's not because his films make money or come out in July.
 
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I apparently did not think True Grit was nearly as good as the Academy did.

I didn't either. I thought it was really enjoyable, well made, and all and the performances were spot-on, but it's not worthy of a Best Picture nod and would not have gotten one if it hadn't been released in Oscar season with Coens behind it.

The thing with True Grit is that everyone was hoping and expecting it to be the ultimate, definitive Western. Like, everything great about generations of Westerns, collected in a single film, with all the benefits of modern film-making, and the perfect team doing it. The teaser trailer especially made it look like this. But the film itself was just a very faithful, solid adaptation of one old, classic western novel and didn't try to be anything more.

Fair enough for the Coen Bros if that's what they wanted to do, and I know some people who loved that about the film, but I still want to see the ultimate, definitive Western adventure. The Lord of the Rings of Westerns, if someone can pull it off. I would've picked the Coen Bros for it but I'm not as sure anymore.
 
The two main nominees I wanted to see win - Sorkin for Adapted Screenplay and Ross/Reznor for Score - both won so I'm happy about that. The King's Speech won a number of Oscars that I think Fincher or Nolan were more deserving of, but at least it's also a film I really liked so I'm happy about that. The fact that the guy who wrote TKS did so because he was a stammerer himself growing up who was inspired by the king's story, and even wrote to the Queen Mother asking her permission to do the film and respected her request to just not do so within her lifetime(she went on to be 101), got do win an Oscar for it and have it get some of the night's highest honours is an Oscar-worthy story in its own right, so I'm happy about that too.
 
I only saw the first half of the show but it was awful. James Franco and Anne Hathaway weren't funny or interesting at all.

I then came home from class to discover that not only did The King's Speech win (fine, I can accept that) but Tom Hooper won as well. What the ****? Come on!
 
Hathaway picked up as the show went on and was at least giving it her all. Franco looked like he was a split-second from rolling his eyes the whole night and generally like he didn't give a **** about hosting. Meh.

I think Hathaway did a good job (even if not all of the jokes were that funny), but Franco seemed like he was really high or something. He was totally spaced-out during the whole show, totally different than most television appearances I've seen him in (though right before the show started, he was interviewed and the lady asked him a question and he said something and just went on and on in gibberish and then started to laugh to himself, and I thought he was on drugs then).

Kirk Douglas was awesome. Hugh Jackman is really starting to look like the Wolverine from the comics. Christian Bale was crazy awesome as usual.

The most disappointing wins were probably Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. I was hoping that David Fincher or Darren Aronofsky would win Director, and that Inception would win Original Screenplay.
 
I thought Franco was pretty good. Me and my friends were howling after the technical awards. "Congratulations nerds."
 
I only saw the first half of the show but it was awful. James Franco and Anne Hathaway weren't funny or interesting at all.

I then came home from class to discover that not only did The King's Speech win (fine, I can accept that) but Tom Hooper won as well. What the ****? Come on!

Although I would give the directing award to Fincher over Hooper this year, I can't be too pissed off about it because to me, Fincher wasn't the Best Director either. Nolan was. After they snubbed him, it wasn't going to be a just category anyway.

In other news, I thought the line of the night was during Best Makeup. "It was always my dream to be nominated and lose an Oscar to Rick Baker. This is better." So cool, especially since the entire category was created because of Baker's first werewolf movie 30 years ago.
 
I'm pretty okay with most of the winners.

I haven't seen Lost Thing, but it must have been pretty amazing to beat out Night & Day for best animated short.
 
Ricky Gervais put a mock introductory speech for the Oscars on his blog and it's scathingly funny.

I thought the Hollywood Reporter and I were the only ones that read his blog.
 
Mark Kermode does and when I saw his video he mentioned it. So it's you, the HReporter, and Kermode. Not I.
 

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