THE OSCARS: Nominations Are Out, Who Should Win?

[jesse_custer]

I doubt Cameron made Avatar for the Oscars, the guy is so effects-obsessed and it's a vision he wanted to realise and he has worked on it for a long time.

That's why I qualified my statement with "If anything." Compared to The Hurt Locker, Avatar has a corny and pandering story that appeals to the voters.

[Walsh06]

I don't care if the globes aren't considered great. The fact that Argo and Ben beat Lincoln was just fantastic.

[Omega Alpha]

This makes no sense.

Pretentious is the most misused adjective in the history of the internet.

[OrpheusTelos]

What is funny is if it did get nominated , and I told one of my friend Dark Knight Rises got a nomination for an Oscar. In his words he said this about the movie... "Its a big pile of epic horse shit !"

I haven't seen it but as he told me...your a Batman fan. Do yourself a favor and not watch it since its less about Batman and being a big pile of shit and stuff that Nolen won't explain.

I wouldn't describe it so harshly. The movie is less about Batman and more about Nolan's interpretation of Bruce Wayne. The way I see it, how much you'll enjoy The Dark Knight Rises tends to be correlated with how much you really enjoyed Bruce Wayne's story in Batman Begins.

As for it getting shut out. Frankly, rightfully so. The Dark Knight rises was a mess plotwise. At most, it should've gotten some technical nominations, but best picture/screenplay definitely not.

I will say, I am dissapointed at Skyfall and Looper got no love.

Looking at the nominees that didn't get a director's nom here are the extra nom's 12-6 split between popular crowd pleasing films and art house style films.

The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
A Serious Man
Up

The Blind Side was pure Oscar-Bait. An inspirational story about a well-to-do woman helping an underprivileged minority, breaking race barriers in the process? About the only thing it didn't have was a mentally challenged character.

[Siddon]

The Blind Side was pure Oscar-Bait. An inspirational story about a well-to-do woman helping an underprivileged minority, breaking race barriers in the process? About the only thing it didn't have was a mentally challenged character.

Name three other movies like that that got Oscar nominations over the last 30 years.

Anyways here are several more categories which I have seen all the nominated films.

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
Hugh Jackman – Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Denzel Washington – Flight

Will and Should win - DDL, I would say Jon Hawkes or Bill Murray should win this year, as Lewis's performance wasn't strong enough in my eyes to earn him his third Oscar. But Cooper is a neophyte, Jackson was underwelming, Flight is divisive, and Phoenix is too much of a wild card to give the award to.

Best Animated Feature

Brave – Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Frankenweenie – Tim Burton
ParaNorman – Sam Fell and Chris Butler
The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Peter Lord
Wreck-It Ralph – Rich Moore

Will win - Brave, which is a shame as it's my least favorite from this batch, but we're all in the "era of the woman" so it's going to win.
Should win - Wreck-It Ralph - more depth and character development than many of the former BP nominations over the last ten years.

Best Documentary – Feature

5 Broken Cameras – Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
The Gatekeepers – Nominees to be determined
How to Survive a Plague – Nominees to be determined
The Invisible War – Nominees to be determined
Searching for Sugar Man – Nominees to be determined

Will and Should win - Searching for the Sugar Man, it's a new style of documentary, finding great lost musical artists. Invisible War might be a dark horse but I have a hard time seeing this one win when Hell and Back Again and Restrepo both got KO'd by vastly inferior films.

Best Original Song
"Before My Time" from Chasing Ice – J. Ralph
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted – Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane
"Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi – Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri
"Skyfall" from Skyfall – Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
"Suddenly" from Les Misérables – Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer, and Alain Boublil

Should win - Skyfall
Will win - Pi's Lullaby, the academy always likes to stick it to musicians and go for the most pretentious of the nominees.

Best Sound Mixing
Argo – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, and Jose Antonio Garcia
Les Misérables – Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, and Simon Hayes
Life of Pi – Ron Bartlett, D. M. Hemphill, and Drew Kunin
Lincoln – Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, and Ronald Judkins
Skyfall – Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell, and Stuart Wilson

Will and Should win - Life of Pi, I think Pi is going to have a big showing in the techinical categories and thankfully his only competition is splitting votes with himself.

Best Production Design
Anna Karenina – Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent, and Simon Bright
Les Misérables – Eve Stewart and Anna Lynch-Robinson
Life of Pi – David Gropman and Anna Pinnock
Lincoln – Rick Carter and Jim Erickson
Will win - Lincoln this might be the only techincal award they win of the night.
Should win - Anna Karenina one of the most beautifully designed productions of the year.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Hitchcock – Howard Berger, Peter Montagna, and Martin Samuel
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, and Tami Lane
Les Misérables – Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Will and should - Les Mis, the Hitch nom has to be a joke and The Hobbit 90% of it was CGI

Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina – Jacqueline Durran
Les Misérables – Paco Delgado
Lincoln – Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror – Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the Huntsman – Colleen Atwood

Should win - Anna Karenina
Will win - Les Mis

My final update will be for the following categories
Best Picture
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actress
Best Original Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Sound Editing
Best Film Editing

[Omega Alpha]

Name three other movies like that that got Oscar nominations over the last 30 years.

You mean, an inspirational story about a poor, sometimes not very bright, black or other minority finds success/survives/makes money/whatever, due to the good will of straight, white people? Well, from the top of my head, I can name Dances With Wolves, The Help, Avatar and Schindler's List; I'm sure there are more, specially if we count movies that only got acting nominations.

[Siddon]

You mean, an inspirational story about a poor, sometimes not very bright, black or other minority finds success/survives/makes money/whatever, due to the good will of straight, white people? Well, from the top of my head, I can name Dances With Wolves, The Help, Avatar and Schindler's List; I'm sure there are more, specially if we count movies that only got acting nominations.

An inspirational story about a well-to-do woman helping an underprivileged minority

Also pretty sure "The Help" works the other way around

[Professor Moriarty]

the Oscars are irrelevant.

[Lancerman]

the Oscars are irrelevant.

Generally their importance has greatly diminished. Fewer people watch than ever and I bet the average guy on the street couldn't tell you which film one Best Picture for that year.

But in regards to actors getting offered roles and some films getting a boost in boxoffice and dvd sales they do matter a bit.

Though ever since Best Picture started going to non mainstream films the public just hasn't cared as much. I think Titanic is as overrated as most people do, however at the end of the day even if it didn't win an Oscar it was the film that everybody gave a damn about that year.

[Kieran_Frost]

Seeing Life of Pi tonight for my birthday. SOOOOOO EXCITED!!! I love Ang Lee's work; and this looks gorgeous!

Best Original Song
"Before My Time" from Chasing Ice – J. Ralph
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted – Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane
"Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi – Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri
"Skyfall" from Skyfall – Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
"Suddenly" from Les Misérables – Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer, and Alain Boublil

Should win - Skyfall
Will win - Pi's Lullaby, the academy always likes to stick it to musicians and go for the most pretentious of the nominees.

I wouldn't say that's completely true. Eminem, Annie Lennox, Elton John and Three 6 Mafia all won Best Song.

[Alex]

the Oscars are irrelevant.

Your avatar made this post fantastic.

[Hardcase678]

Django unchained. Christoph Waltz, Leonardo, Samuel L, and Jamie fox, enough said. Tarantino seriously out did himself with this film.

[Siddon]

Seeing Life of Pi tonight for my birthday. SOOOOOO EXCITED!!! I love Ang Lee's work; and this looks gorgeous!


I wouldn't say that's completely true. Eminem, Annie Lennox, Elton John and Three 6 Mafia all won Best Song.

36Mafia won over Dolly Parton's fantastic song travelin' through

Elton John also lost to the better Elton John that year. Circle of Life > Can you feel the love tonight also Madonna had a great original song that year, I'll Remember from With Honors and that got shut out.

Lose Yourself actually lost to Bono at the GG's

[jesse_custer]

So Three Six Mafia and Elton John are pretentious?

Why can't someone use that word the right fucking way?

[Slam_Bradley]

So Three Six Mafia and Elton John are pretentious?

Why can't someone use that word the right fucking way?

Words can mean whatever we want them too. Stop being so pretentious.