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randall 
"I like to watch."
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 Posted - 02/25/2008 : 22:47:41
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
No. Change nothing about the Oscars. The great thing about the Oscars is how insane and ridiculous they are. I honestly don't want to see great movies win all the time. I want terrible movies to win every once in a while. The critical canon can establish itself -- keep the Oscars separate from that. Let the Academy Awards give out Best Picture to awful movies like Chariots of Fire or The English Patient. The Oscars aren't about the best movie, they're about the Oscars, and that's the way I like it.
Absolutely. Look at the other four the year ROCKY won.
Or dig Mark Harris's tremendous new book PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION, about the 1967 race among BONNIE & CLYDE, THE GRADUATE, GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, and DR. DOOLITTLE. The Oscars are great precisely because they're so inherently fucked. The Academy is by definition composed of fossils, and always will be as the decades roll on!
And by the way, just as for THE GOLDEN COMPASS, nobody much watched last night. These days, Oscar means something only in your obit or when Letterman introduces you. Notice how few movies bought Oscar time, as opposed to the Super Bowl. Is that etiquette, or is it business? |
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 02/25/2008 : 23:03:51
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
Absolutely. Look at the other four the year ROCKY won.
I have. Rocky is better than at least two of them. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 02/25/2008 : 23:08:16
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
Absolutely. Look at the other four the year ROCKY won.
I have. Rocky is better than at least two of them.
My point exactly! |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 07:46:34
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I feel I should point out that I think Rocky is one of the all-time greatest movies, easily better than the dull-as-dust Bound for Glory and the slightly-overrated All the President's Men. Better than Taxi Driver or Network? Maybe, maybe not. But I think Rocky gets far too much shit in the Oscar pantheon.
I feel I should explain my disdain for what I call the bullshit wins of this year's awards:
Diablo Cody: I honestly don't see how anyone can hear the line "That's one doodle that can't be undid, homeskillet" and not think that the writer should be fucking shot. And despite the best efforts of Ellen Page (who was my pick to win in a weak category), Cody was never really able to find the humanity in her main character. She did manage to find the humanity in the adoptive couple, though, and for that reason, I found the movie salvaged in the late innings and I'm not as hardcore against it as some are. But still, there is so much so very wrong -- the characterization of both Juno and her parents is particularly repellent.
Tilda Swinton: Swinton didn't do a bad job, but she was nothing particularly special in one of the worst movies of the year. She did a good job, but her role really doesn't compare to the amazing work done by Amy Ryan, Cate Blanchett or even Saoirse Ronan.
Marion Cotillard: What was Denis Leary's assessment of Oliver Stone's "The Doors" again? I'm drunk, I'm nobody; I'm drunk, I'm famous; I'm drunk, I'm fucking dead? That pretty well applies to La Vie en Rose. The girl overacts a fucking storm in that movie, a movie which has no right to even exist. In a year that brought us both "I'm Not There" and "Walk Hard," I have no idea why anyone would tolerate such directionless, boilerplate bullshit as La Vie en Rose. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 02/26/2008 07:47:03 |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 11:37:12
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Well, see, that's what makes horse races -- which is all the Oscars are anyway. Everyone has their own opinion, and mine is diametrically opposed to yours on the subjects of ROCKY, BOUND FOR GLORY, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, LA VIE, Diablo Cody, Tilda Swinton and WALK HARD. Doesn't mean we couldn't be friends, just that it would take us a few extra pints after such screenings to express all feelings.
We're jake on THE DOORS. |
Edited by - randall on 02/26/2008 11:37:48 |
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Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 16:03:41
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I can totally understand why everyone in the world pretends to like The English Patient despite what an excruciatingly boring movie it is. After all, it's just like in that Seinfeld episode: it's like a cult, you're simply not allowed to admit how terrible this movie is. You can point out that the emperor has no clothes, but most likely you'll just be outcast by everyone else who's afraid to admit they hate it, too.
But why vote for it in a (supposedly) secret ballot? Isn't that your chance to finally say, "I HATE THIS MOVIE!!!" |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 16:06:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
I can totally understand why everyone in the world pretends to like The English Patient despite what an excruciatingly boring movie it is. After all, it's just like in that Seinfeld episode: it's like a cult, you're simply not allowed to admit how terrible this movie is. You can point out that the emperor has no clothes, but most likely you'll just be outcast by everyone else who's afraid to admit they hate it, too.
But why vote for it in a (supposedly) secret ballot? Isn't that your chance to finally say, "I HATE THIS MOVIE!!!"
Oh, it's definitely one of my hate-to-hate-it trio:
Barry Lyndon
The Piano
The English Patient
Shh, don't tell the movie police 
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 17:49:58
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| I was so disappointed in BARRY LYNDON the first time I saw it. But over the years, I've come around, and now it's hard for me to turn it off once it gets going. Same with EYES WIDE SHUT. The rest of Kubrick's stuff had me at hello. |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 02/26/2008 : 18:43:46
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| Believe it or not, people do genuinely like The English Patient, just like they genuinely like Michael Clayton and Tokyo Story and other movies I find exquisitely boring. I have no idea how anyone could possibly like them, and I too am tempted to tell them they're only pretending to like them, but for some reason they actually do. If there was a secret cult of The English Patient, it evaporated long ago -- there is no longer any cachet in liking The English Patient. And although I maintain that you have to be a total retard to like The English Patient, I do think people are genuine when they say they do. |
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 07:33:54
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Oh, it's definitely one of my hate-to-hate-it trio:
Barry Lyndon
The Piano
The English Patient
Shh, don't tell the movie police
My list of Oscar winning films I truly hate:
Lord of the Rings
The English Patient
Gladiator
(If anyone wants to know why people hate the movie of The English Patient, all they have to do is read the book and they'll get it immediately.)
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 15:02:16
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
Believe it or not, people do genuinely like The English Patient, just like they genuinely like Michael Clayton and Tokyo Story and other movies I find exquisitely boring. I have no idea how anyone could possibly like them, and I too am tempted to tell them they're only pretending to like them, but for some reason they actually do. If there was a secret cult of The English Patient, it evaporated long ago -- there is no longer any cachet in liking The English Patient. And although I maintain that you have to be a total retard to like The English Patient, I do think people are genuine when they say they do.
Geez...WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA? |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 15:04:17
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| I hated Gladiator from the first scene, Chocolady. But unlike English Patient, I thought I was the only one. Now I feel better. |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 15:43:50
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Actually I'm mystified as to why anyone would take the Oscars seriously on an artistic level.
I'd argue you have to go back to 1993 "Schindler's List" to find the last important winner of Best Picture, and 1978 "The Deer Hunter" to find one which really deserves to be on a reasonably short best films list. Plenty of the others are good movies - I'm entirely with MBI about "Rocky" incidentally - and some are just AWFUL, the worst for me being "Lord Of The Rings" which is just a bad joke as Best Picture.
The Oscars is a glitzy commercial event intended to promote major films, especially Hollywood films, and any artistic merit to a film is really secondary and sometimes merely co-incidental. Trying to see it as a flawed attempt to decide genuine artistic merit is entirely missing the point.
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 18:34:43
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I like The English Patient fine. Fiennes's character is rather annoying, but I don't find it horrible.
However, I saw Gladiator when it was released and had no idea what everyone was going on about. It was all right I suppose, with Russell Crowe just being what has turned out to be his normal grating self.
Rocky is a good film. People are just so used to it and its legacy that it's hard for them to be objective. In contrast, I was a bit disappointed by Raging Bull, which I saw for the first time recently. It's not that I necessarily think it's inferior to Rocky, but I think I just expected to be blown away by it. I had seen Taxi Driver for the first time not long beforehand, and found that much more interesting.
La Vie en Rose is great, especially Cotillard, and I cannot relate to anyone thinking otherwise. I am probably helped by not knowing much about Piaf, but what I do know fits with the film. |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/27/2008 18:36:11 |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 02/27/2008 : 22:11:44
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Raging Bull was a pretty good movie. Pretty good, not great. But I don't think Scorsese was really trying to make a great movie. I get the impression that his goal was to give the audience a realistic view of the violence and brutality of boxing, and he succeeded. That doesn't mean he just mailed it in while doing all the other scenes about La Motta flushing his life down the toilet, but those parts simply weren't a priority for him.
Rocky does not give the audience that realistic view. You get the brutality, but the way they're fighting is NOT real boxing. |
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An inherent flaw in the Oscars...?
