Oscars | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Waltz With Bashir

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Darren

Waltz With Bashir garnered quite a bit of attention on its release – winning all sorts of awards and even receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film (though it didn’t get a nomination for Best Animated Film – because, didn’t you know, animation is for kids?). An animated film from Israel, it’s a very interesting look at the Lebanese War, and what we tend to remember and – more importantly – what we tend to forget in hindsight.

Tanks for the memories...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animated, best foreign film, film, israel, lebanon, Movie, non-review review, Oscars, review, waltz with bashir | Leave a comment »

Is an Inglourious Oscar on the Way? Or Just a Basterdly Disappointment?

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Darren

As anyone who visits the site will know, Inglourious Basterds was my film of last year. I just dug it – the post-modern aspects of it, the juxtaposition of Tarantino’s style with the historic backdrop, the ending. And I’m more than delighted to think that Christophe Waltz will earn an Oscar statuette for his work, making it three years on the trot of amazing Supporting Actor turns. But will the film itself score one of the big nominations? Of that, I’m not quite so sure.

That's one way of convincing Academy members...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 81st academy awards, academy, AMPAS, best picture, best picture 2010, best picture race, inglourious basterds, Movies, oscar nominations, oscar nominees, oscar race, Oscars, oscars 2010, quentin tarantino, weinstein company | 4 Comments »

Can an Indie be too popular for the Oscars?

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Darren

We are well and truly in Oscar season, in case you didn’t pick up on the Toronto International Film Festival as the kick-off of events (in fairness, it’s been going on longer than that – Oscar season is like Christmas advertising, it gets earlier every year. It’s fun the way that (even at this stage) every minor bump in the road for any picture is seen as potentially the end of its run. I’m not an Oscar-ologist, so I will concede I’m outside my field of expertise. It’s stunning that the perceived snubbing of perceived Oscar-lock Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (heck of a title, there) at the Gotham Awards. It’s got a lot of film critics and Oscar-watchers pondering if the mainstream support that stars like new Academy member Tyler Perry and Oscar-nominee Oprah Winfrey may have actually harmed it. Are AMPAS such snobs that a showing of support from Oprah can ground a film’s chances?

Cruising for a bruising at Oscar season?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: AMPAS, awards snub, best picture, best picture 2010, gotham critics, gotham film awards, oprah, oprah winfrey, Oscars, oscars 2010, precious, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Push, snub, tyler perry | Leave a comment »

More Thoughts on the Best Picture/Best Director Voting Divergence

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Darren

I read an interesting article over at The LA Times which suggested that we may be able to spot how radically the new voting rules have changed the way that the Academy awards people and films.

Going for gold...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: academy awards, alfred hitchcock, AMPAS, best director, best picture, driving miss daisy, hitchcock, LA Times, Oscars, plurality, stv, voting | Leave a comment »

Nazi-ploitation! Or How We Treat Nazi Germany in Modern Cinema…

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Darren

I moaned last week about the loss of the two-dimensional evil Nazi. Brushed aside in a tide of political correctness or extreme sensitivity. I think it’s time to talk about what Hollywood has presented us with in its stead. I think it’s interesting to discuss the general trend in the presentation of the Third Reich that we’ve seen emerge in the past year or so.

Tom Cruise played a vision-impaired conflicted German during the Third Reich... Where's his Oscar?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: good, good film, history, hollywood history, moral ambiguity, Oscars, schindler's list, shades of gray, sophie's choice, the boy in the striped pyjamas, the reader, the third reich, tom cruise, valkyrie, viggo mortensen | 1 Comment »

Science Fiction by any other name…

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Darren

I’m genuinely excited about The Road, the adaptation of the novel from Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy. despite a shakey production history, it looks like the Weinstein might be able to mount a successful Oscar campaign for this science-fiction tale. Oops. I shouldn’t have mentioned that hyphenated word. Pretend you didn’t hear it – maybe the Academy hasn’t heard it either. In fact, given the way that people talk about the book and the film, you’d be lucky to hear that ‘tag’ even within the same paragraph. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

A nice father-son day out...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, charlize theron, classification, cormac mccarthy, critics, films, genre, labels, Movies, novel, oscar campaigns, Oscars, prejudice, sci-fi, science fiction, snobbishness, tags, the road, viggo mortensen | Leave a comment »

Pleasing All of the People Some of the Time – Oscar Voting for Dummies…

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Darren

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

John Lydgate

The above quote is frequently attributed to Abraham Lincoln (though Lincoln actually substituted ‘fool’ for ‘please’, in a bit of West Wing-style trivia for you, say what you will of “Honest Abe”), and applies to many things in life. Since this is a movie blog, and the Oscars changed the practice of counting votes for the Best Picture, today it applies to the practice of counting votes for the Best Picture. The Academy used to adopt both approaches – favouring all in the selection of nominees, but only some (as little as 18%) in its selection of winners – but now it looks like the academy is shifting towards adjusting the selection of winners to allow all (well, a lot more than before) members some say in the matter.

Anyway, we’ve put together a little maths guide to how the new system will work in practice.

If I have three Oscar statuettes, and Meryll Streep moves in with her thirteen Oscar statuettes, how inferior am I going to feel?

If I have one Oscar statuettes, and Jack Nicholson stands next to mewith his three Oscar statuettes, how inferior am I going to feel?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: academy, AMPAS, awards, best picture, cinema, democracy, elections, examples, film, maths, Movies, Oscars, plurality, single transferable vote, stv, voting, voting for dummies | Leave a comment »

Awards Season Forecast…

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Darren

It’s summer time! That means blockbusters, comic book movies! It’s comic con time! That means more blockbuster and more comic book movie gossip! It seems that everything from the Tron viral campaign to the impending release of the Alice in Wonderland teaser is generating a lot of buzz. And quite right, too. We do live in the era of the geek. However, once we get into autumn proper, there are more prestigious films approaching. Looks like the studios are sticking to the tried-and-true “cram as many Oscar contenders as you can into the least amount of time” method, and there’s a huge schlock of films coming out. Here are just some of the main ones I’m looking forward to during awards season.

Starring Morgan Freeman? Check. Directed by Clint Eastwood? Check. Story of an iconic figure? Check. Story of triumph over adversity/prejudice? Check. Set in the past? Check. Oscar Gold? Check.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2010 academy awards, 2010 oscar nominees, academy awards, amelia, avatar, Clint Eastwood, Daniel Day-Lewis, ewan mcgregor, film, hilary swank, invictus, james cameron, Leonardo diCaprio, martin scorcese, matt damon, moon, Morgan Freeman, Movies, Nine, oscar nominees, Oscars, peter jackson, pierce brosnan, precious, rob marshall, scorcese, Shutter Island, star trek, stephen soderberg, the ghost, the hurt locker, the informant, the lovely bones, the road, up | Leave a comment »

Looking Back at This Year’s Best Picture Race

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren

I’ve finally gotten to see all the five Best Picture nominees for the 81st Academy Awards. I’m honestly disappointed it took me so long, but that’s what happens when a flood of prestige movies hit the cinemas over three weeks in January and the Academy doesn’t even pick the good ones. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the contenders, in retrospect. The previous year’s awards featured a fantastic line-up – Juno, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood – that hit just about every demographic and represented the awards at their best. This year, we got a closed shop.

The statuettes are actually quite creepy when you get to looking at them...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2009 oscars, 81st academy awards, academy awards, AMPAS, best picture, films, frost/nixon, milk, Movies, Oscars, slumdog millionaire, the curious case of benjamin button, The Dark Knight, the reader | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Milk

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren

Finally got to sit down and watch Milk, despite it being on my DVD shelf for just over a month now. Tonnes of Oscar nominations and two wins, so it’s got a lot of hype to live up to. Was I satisfied with the latest effort from director Gus Van Sant? Was I ever.