Academy Award Nominations

Originally posted by botankus
Beauty and the Beast and Babe (slightly animated) were both nominated for Best Picture.

So really, Wall-E is that good? I haven't seen it, but I swear, the last 20 animated/cartoon/Pixar movies I've seen were so formulaic, I want to vomit all over the screen. I'm like, "I've seen this before--but with a bear as the main character instead of a robot (or a cow, or a horse, or a toy, etc...)!!!!"

Anyway, I finally saw Frost/Nixon, which I thought I would hate, but I really really liked.

And I really liked Slumdog. Cinematography was VERY good, and the story was good too! Good direction from Danny Boyle, no doubt.

I would give Milk best picture over Slumdog in a heartbeat....but unfortunately i'm pretty sure that's not how it will pan out, but I won't be upset at all with the inevitable Slumdog win

Boyle looks like he might win the Best Directing Oscar, he won the Director's Guild one and the winner of that nearly always go on to win the Oscar for it too. I think I read 6 out of the whole lot of winners of the DG haven't gone on to win the Oscar, so it's a good bet he will.

i wonder what do the Oscars' do or use to qualify a best picture nominee and/or winner into that catagory? And best actor/actress/director..

Shitty show. About the only interesting thing was Rourke not winning (because he clearly should have) and Penn using the stage to be an obnoxious douche bag about prop 8.

Originally posted by BackFire
Shitty show. About the only interesting thing was Rourke not winning (because he clearly should have) and Penn using the stage to be an obnoxious douche bag about prop 8.

Same here. Rourke was far better than Penn this year.

Am I the only one who is tired of Sean Penn? I don't think he's as good an actor as they try to make us believe. I've seen lots of his movies, and I swear he plays Sean Penn in every role (except I Am Sam, another crappy role he was nominated for). When he's on screen, I just don't believe him.

He tends to overact.

Originally posted by celestialdemon
Same here. Rourke was far better than Penn this year.

Am I the only one who is tired of Sean Penn? I don't think he's as good an actor as they try to make us believe. I've seen lots of his movies, and I swear he plays Sean Penn in every role (except I Am Sam, another crappy role he was nominated for). When he's on screen, I just don't believe him.

I totally agree. I don't think he is a bad actor but i only see him playing two characters, good guy Sean Penn and bad guy Sean Penn and there isn't much difference between the two. The most diverse performance i've seen him play was in, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I'm not saying he was undeserving of a nomination but i definitely think Rourke had the better performance.

as far as the Academy Awards go i think it was relatively enjoyable this year. I liked Hugh Jackman but just like every other year there was no reason to watch the damn thing. Two hours of watching actors crying and kissing each others asses is never entertaining.

I really need to see Milk just so I can justifiably say that Mickey Rourke should've won. Right now, I'm upset that he didn't because man, he delivered a great performance.

Overall, the Oscars sucked, as I expected. Hugh Jackman was a charismatic host though and that was what I found most enjoyable. Too many great films got snubbed (mostly The Wrestler and The Dark Knight, but they got snubbed in multiple categories).

And I just want to sum up the ridiculousness of the Oscars by asking why Bruce Springsteen's song "The Wrestler" didn't even get nominated for best original song? I mean, it seems like that would've been the most definite song to get nominated, but it didn't even get considered. Wtf.

imo, its criminal that clint eastwood wasn't even considered for gran torino...

*grumbles*

Eh, Clint wasn't that great. I mean, he wasn't bad but he was pretty much a parody of the stereotypical racist old man for most of the movie. I couldn't keep track of how many times he slowly raised his scowling face and let out a deep, throaty growl.

Originally posted by SnakeEyes
Eh, Clint wasn't that great. I mean, he wasn't bad but he was pretty much a parody of the stereotypical racist old man for most of the movie. I couldn't keep track of how many times he slowly raised his scowling face and let out a deep, throaty growl.

i actually heavily disagree. just because it's an often done role doesn't mean for one minute that he wasn't great at it, imo. and not all the growl's were identical 😛

Mickey Rourke was robbed and I am pissed because as a Wrestler fan I at least thought it made it somewhat okay for the Wrestler not to be nominated for Best Picture because I was sure Rourke was a shoe in for best actor. But that movie completely got snubbed now and that is irritating.

I think the whole movie was robbed. It should have won best picture this year and it wasn't even nominated.

But Rourke not winning was just a shame. I've yet to hear anyone actually genuinely say that Penn deserved to win. All I heard was "Rourke should win" or "Penn will win because the academy doesn't like Rourke - he'll lose because of politics". Looks to be the case.

Dudes, dudes, dudes...

There's always the people's choice awards. 😄

I have found the Academy awards to be chronically out of touch. I discovered this when Moulin Rouge won two awards and nominated for a plethora of more. Best art direction-set decoration...when there were two other movies that were more worthy- Harry Potter (first film) and Lord of the Rings (first film).

I was like...lol...wtf? Are they serious? And they were. 😐

Then I inspected more about this Academy Awards and asked questions. Apparantly, the Academy goes off the beaten path quite often. It's pretty obvious that The Dark Knight was the best film for last year, by far. 😐

i'm embarrassed to say i often agree with the academy's choices (at least more than other people do) but not this year. i was really disappointed by the nominations. as far as i'm concerned the films that were snubbed were

WALL E: best picture, best director
the Dark KNight: best adapted screenplay, best director
Revolutionary road: best actor (leonardo dicaprio), best actress(kate winslet)
The wrestler: best picture
Waltz with Bashir: best animated feature
Man on Wire: best picture (was never going to happen)
Gran Torino: Best Actor, best song
the Visitor: best original screenplay

any of the dozen plus films that were better than frost/nixon, Curious case, and the reader(in this case 20 plus films) got snubbed for best picture and best director

revolutionary road could have been nominated for every category that the Reader was nominated plus best actor. while not necessarily deserving, it is far more deserving than the empty pretentiousness of the Reader

Originally posted by Rapscallion
WALL E: best picture, best director

Though I don't agree, I can see this. I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Wall-E took home best picture.

Originally posted by Rapscallion
the Dark KNight: best adapted screenplay, best director

Yes, I could see this.

And, yes, I agree that there were quite a few films left out of the nominations.

IMO WALL-E should have won best picture

I am happy that Heath won for supporting actor, and WALL-E won for animated movie

I am also disappointed that Rourke didn't win and Sean Penn did. Also disappointed with the Animated Short win too.

I didn't watch it because it was not on any channels here, and if it was I probably wouldn't have watched it, just got the results on the news.

Originally posted by Ultimate Wil
IMO WALL-E should have won best picture

I disagree completely. I mean, sure, Wall-e is a good film and I enjoyed it, but every time I hear "best animated movie ever" or "best picture material", I cringe.

Wall-e dares to be intelligent. That's fine. It's also a pseudo-silent movie. These things are revolutionary for a mainstream family film, but really, that's all it is. A less mainstream animated movie (like Hayao Miyazaki's flicks) can carry the same qualities, while delivering the same degree of intellectualism in a more subtle way.

While watching Wall-e, I felt that it's messages were dumbed down and revealed to the audience in order to entice children along with adults. For example, in the opening, one of the destroyed commercial buildings has dirty money on the floor. Could you possibly conceive any less subtle symbolism? The same applies for the obese guys later on. "They over-indulged in material wealth and in a culture that glorifies leisure... so, in order to symbolize that, we'll make them REALLY FAT!".

Overall, Wall-e is a smart film, but it's general message is relatively simplistic and delivered in an unrefined manner. It's hardly best picture material, IMO.