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Brian C wrote:

mfunk9786 wrote:I'm not disappointed, but I'm just sad that more people didn't realize just how great Black Swan and 127 Hours were.

On the one hand, I agree with you about Black Swan. But on the right hand, 127 Hours kind of pissed me off. "Celebrate life! Lose an arm!"

I know I wanted to be an amputee after that film.

It was like the Daniel Day-Lewis speech when he arrives at Little Boston expanded to awards show length.

Brian C wrote:

mfunk9786 wrote:I'm not disappointed, but I'm just sad that more people didn't realize just how great Black Swan and 127 Hours were.

On the one hand, I agree with you about Black Swan. But on the right hand, 127 Hours kind of pissed me off. "Celebrate life! Lose an arm!"

There was oh so much more to it than that.

*CG* wrote:

domino harvey wrote:

*CG* wrote:The 80th Academy Awards was the only one this past decade worth looking back on, though PTA should of won director.

That year was such a tease, because it was the greatest group of nominees in my lifetime and it implanted this false hope that things would get better

+1 Prob the last, best group of films there will be for a long time.

you're hanging your hats on Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country and There Will Be Blood? thank God there weren't 10 nominees that year

mfunk9786 wrote:There was oh so much more to it than that.

Yes, like, if you're facing a bad situation, you might have totally generic flashbacks about your folks and some girl you liked once.

tavernier,
Eastern Promises, Jesse James, etc. Not just counting the Best Pic award. Plus if they went 10 that year, it would of been better (adding E.P. and Ass.of JJ).


DDL winning over Clooney, Depp, Tommy Lee and Viggo was great. Marion winning was a wonderful thing. PTA should of won director, but that Oscars was the best of that decade by far.

We're all getting nasty after that parade of disappointments, time to duck out

tavernier wrote:you're hanging your hats on Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country and There Will Be Blood? thank God there weren't 10 nominees that year

Comparatively it was great, 4/5 is better than most other years, plus a Cronenberg movie was nominated, won?

tavernier wrote:you're hanging your hats on Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country and There Will Be Blood? thank God there weren't 10 nominees that year

I consider There Will Be Blood, No Country, and Michael Clayton to be genuinely great films. I'd agree it was the best Oscar class in recent memory. If they'd rounded out the five with Jesse James and Zodiac, it would have been damn near perfect. Of course they could have gone to ten with 4 Months, Margot at the Wedding, I'm Not There, Ratatouille, and Eastern Promises.

No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Into the Wild, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly would of been a great 10.

Zodiac and I'm Not There too. My 10 would replace Juno and Atonement with Zodiac and I'm Not There.

I'll give you Jesse, Zodiac, and maybe Clayton...the rest I've pretty much forgotten

Forgetting There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men seems certifiably insane to me.

I mean most of them aren't great, but I would rather watch Gone Baby Gone than Crash again. Or Eastern Promises would win every other year this past decade IMO.

mfunk9786 wrote:Forgetting There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men seems certifiably insane to me.

Yeah, wtf

Just to make it official:

Best Picture
"The King's Speech"

Best director
Tom Hooper, "The King's Speech"

Actor in a Leading Role
Colin Firth in "The King's Speech"

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in "The Fighter"

Actress in a Leading Role
Natalie Portman in "Black Swan"

Actress in a Supporting Role
Melissa Leo in "The Fighter"

Animated Feature Film
"Toy Story 3"

Art Direction
"Alice in Wonderland"

Cinematography
"Inception," Wally Pfister

Costume Design
"Alice in Wonderland," Colleen Atwood

Documentary (Feature)
"Inside Job," Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

Documentary (Short Subject)
"Strangers No More"

Film Editing
"The Social Network"

Foreign Language Film
"In a Better World," Denmark

Makeup
"The Wolfman," Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Original Score
"The Social Network," Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Original Song
"We Belong Together" from "Toy Story 3," Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Short Film (Animated)
"The Lost Thing," Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

Short Film (Live Action)
"God of Love," Luke Matheny

Sound Editing
"Inception," Richard King

Sound Mixing
"Inception," Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick

Visual Effects
"Inception," Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

Adapted Screenplay
"The Social Network," Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin

Original Screenplay
"The King's Speech," Screenplay by David Seidler

I expect Bela Tarr and Terry Malick to battle it out next year at the Oscars.

Did Malick show up in '99? There's no way, right?

Tom Hagen wrote:Did Malick show up in '99? There's no way, right?

I think he and Banksy are more likely smoking pot by a pond in Austin.

I still like how Mike Leigh didn't show up as if he knew he had no chance. His films and his way of thinking really have no place in the world of the Academy Awards. I wonder why he was nominated in the first place? (Not an insult toward Another Year, by the way, that was perhaps my favorite film of last year)

They always give him a token Screenplay nomination as if to throw us cinephiles a bone.

I am still completely incredulous as to how they could nominate Secrets and Lies (which is personally my favorite film of the past three decades besides The Decalogue collection) only to have it lose to The English Patient.

Indeed, I'm always curious how the nominees who are obvious losers and clearly above the whole pageant feel about attending. What moves a David Lynch or a Julian Schnabel to even bother to show up and sit through hours of self-absorption?

Also, for posters who have been at this longer than me: did major names like Bergman, Costa-Gavras, or Kieslowśki ever attended the ceremony?

I'm kind of depressed at correctly guessing the Bier film win for Best Foreign Language (though I note it had also won its category in the Golden Globes as well), though it has in a strange way made me more interested in seeing Biutiful now - if it were too edgy for the Oscars then it must be worth at least a rental!

And I suppose it goes to show that the Weinsteins might not be able to keep a company together these days but you still don't mess with their pushing of a middle brow film featuring an optional monarch/disability subplot to Oscar success! (Can I pretend Colin Firth won for A Single Man instead?)

Highway 61 wrote:Also, for posters who have been at this longer than me: did major names like Bergman, Costa-Gavras, or Kieslowśki ever attended the ceremony?

Kieślowski didn't. I don't know about the others off the top of my head - but Luis Buñuel turned up to receive the Oscar for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

However, this seems to have been under protest - he wore a silly silver wig and mirrored shades to the ceremony (evidence) and caused a mini-scandal when he announced in advance that he was bound to win because he'd paid the necessary bribes. He was almost certainly deliberately trying to scupper the film's chances, but I suspect the voting ballots were already in by that stage.

I swear, Randy Newman farts out anything and he wins an Oscar. "Right foot, Left foot, Right foot, Left foot."

oldsheperd wrote:I swear, Randy Newman farts out anything and he wins an Oscar. "Right foot, Left foot, Right foot, Left foot."

True, his film songs are almost always throwaways, but the man's brilliant. The material he saves for himself is among the most heartbreaking and hilarious work of the past 40 years. Plus, I love to see him at the podium trying to reconcile his general misanthropy with the glitz of the Oscars.