Oscars 2013

I'm sad that Jack Black didn't get nommed for Bernie, and I think Moonrise Kingdom should have been nommed for Cinematography, or maybe Production Design. Something visual, as I liked the visuals more than the dialogue. And I join the ranks of those who are shocked Affleck isn't on the Director list.

To paraphrase someone on another board, I'm shocked that someone in casting thought he could actually pull it off,

Apparently Robert DeNiro went to bat for him with Russell, so there was definitely some convincing that had to be done. I don't know that I didn't think he could do something like this, but I'm glad he got the chance, and I thrilled SLP is getting so much deserved love. Although, as LOATHE as I am to agree with Sarah from Lainey Gossip about anything, after seeing him give his speech last night on the budget awards, he is totally the dude who cries during sex.

Why older actors resent Oscar-nominated kids. Or, "Why two well-paid previous winners and/or nominees have sour grapes over a nine-year-old."

I suppose I understand their resentment, though. Wallis's nomination is an insult to the fine tradition of nominating actresses who do impressions, and/or make Holocaust movies and other tragedy porn.

I enjoyed the Affleck snub so, so much. While I liked Argo well enough, I think it's so hugely overrated, I'm hopeful people are starting to realize how a trifling nothing it actually is.

On the question of what makes a good director though, I do feel like in cases like Hooper and Russell, people underestimate how much a director has to do with the performances. Saying a film is only great because of its acting and isn't really an illustration of great directing seems contradictory to me. If the acting is effective enough to propel a film to a Best Picture nom, then I'd say the direction the actors received was a huge reason why.

Saying a film is only great because of its acting and isn't really an illustration of great directing seems contradictory to me. If the acting is effective enough to propel a film to a Best Picture nom, then I'd say the direction the actors received was a huge reason why.

Good point. There are very few acting performances that succeed entirely because of the actor and had nothing to do with effective direction. In the case of Lincoln, I'm betting that Spielberg just turned on the camera and let DDL do his thing, but that's a rare exception.

I do feel like in cases like Hooper and Russell, people underestimate how much a director has to do with the performances.

Yeah to me there is more to being a great director than showy camera shots, especially since a ton of stories don't need or require that. To me it's about being an auteur the sense that this person really had a vision from beginning to end. In both SLP and The Fighter I appreciated how much Boston and Philly looked like Boston and Philly, unvarnished/gritty/gray...the authenticity is in every frame, and every word. And that's essential when telling stories steeped in familiar/overly trite narratives: two crazy people saved by love, underdog athlete triumphs while saving brother form addiction.

But when one of the biggest complaints about your movie is how all the music numbers are shot (something I've seen everywhere about Les Mis), that's on the director. You need to be able to handle all the elements--the actors, the camerawork, the editing--because the final product (and how the audience is going to experience those great performances) is affected by all of those things. If a director wants to focus specifically on actors, theatre might be a better medium.

Though speaking of directing actors, I give way more credit to Benh Zeitlin for dealing with a mostly nonprofessional cast and getting such a great performance out of someone so young. That's a much bigger challenge than getting Anne Hathaway--who may not be DDL but ain't no slouch--to act her heart out.

So it appears that the controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty has an AMPAS member openly stating that he will not vote for the film in any category, and Martin Sheen and Ed Asner are jumping on the bandwagon.

I had just come around to thinking that maybe Bigelow's snub was just a luck of the draw, because after all, the Academy didn't nominate Affleck, either. But now I'm right back to thinking that this is some sexist bullshit and this backlash never would have happened with a male director. Someone with better knowledge of Oscar history can answer this for me: has there ever been such a blatant attempt to railroad a movie before, with Academy voters and other performers publicly telling their members NOT to vote for a film in such a widespread way? I don't remember anything like this happening before, but maybe I'm wrong.

It has probably happened before but I don't know for sure. The only real comparison I can think of is the people who refused to clap for Elia Kazan's lifetime achievement Oscar because of his role in the Black List.

I do hope that all the people who complained about Zero Dark Thirty are glad that they provided some cover for the bullshit sexism of AMPAS. Because even with all the controversy a male director would have still ended up in the category. I mean the screenplay was still nominated.

queenofdenile wrote:Someone with better knowledge of Oscar history can answer this for me: has there ever been such a blatant attempt to railroad a movie before, with Academy voters and other performers publicly telling their members NOT to vote for a film in such a widespread way? I don't remember anything like this happening before, but maybe I'm wrong.

It may not be considered "railroading" per se, but I recall that when Brokeback Mountain was up for Best Picture, a number of prominent voters (Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine amongst them) stated in the press that they wouldn't even watch the movie, let alone vote for it.

Going back a few years, there was the Beautiful Mind controversy and The Hurricane controversy. The Black Swan dance double controversy has its own Wikipedia page. You know it's Oscar season when the whisper campaigns get into full swing. Sometimes it's driven by Uncle Harvey rival studios and other times it seems to be a more of a groundswell among members of the Academy.

Thanks, everyone. I knew about the Black Swan controversy and wasn't aware of some of the others. I think many years will have a film or two where smear campaigns are in full swing, but this particular controversy with Zero Dark Thirty (and the earlier one with Brokeback Mountain0 strike me as particularly egregious in flat-out telling people, publicly, not to vote for a certain film, or flat-out stating that they're not voting for it/watching it.

It really gets my goat that this challenging film is getting dragged through the mud and that Bigelow is getting compared to Leni Riefenstahl, for fuck's sake.

Arabella wrote: You know it's Oscar season when the whisper campaigns get into full swing. Sometimes it's driven by Uncle Harvey rival studios and other times it seems to be a more of a groundswell among members of the Academy.

At least sometimes the whisper campaigns don't work--Slumdog Millionaire still won in just about all the major categories despite the rumors that they'd exploited their child actors.

But yeah, this is gross. Torture onscreen is wrong, but heaven forbid we have a conversation about the amount of gun violence in movies and whether or not THAT is okay.

(I strongly suspect that Django Unchained would be getting even more controversy if it weren't directed and written by a white dude.)

queenofdenile wrote:
It really gets my goat that this challenging film is getting dragged through the mud and that Bigelow is getting compared to Leni Riefenstahl, for fuck's sake.

I wondering what Riefenstahl's version of Point Break would be like.

Anyway, it's not like torture on screen, much less viewed positively is anything new.

The thing that confuses me is that I don't think torture is shown to be particularly effective in the film. The waterboarding doesn't break the prisoner, mindfucking him does. It also shows the damage torture does to the torturer in that Jason Clarke's character has to quit and go back to D.C. because he can't take it any more.

I'm really not sure that's why she was snubbed though. I think the preferential ballot system allowed directors with small, but passionate support to sneak in over Bigelow, Affleck, Tarantino. If she'd been snubbed for Hooper, I'd be side-eyeing it more. But Haneke and Zeitlin, I can imagine were pushed forward by a lot of number 1 votes.

I do agree Haneke got in because of some really passionate voting--especially since the folks voting for him probably were well aware he hasn't usually made the sort of film that the rest of the Academy would like.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a violent war movie that glamorizes war or violence LESS than Zero Dark Thirty does. There's nothing torture porn-y about the scene at all. We are meant to think that it's a horrible thing to do to another human being. Anyone who thinks that waterboarding doesn't "count" as torture aren't going to feel that way after seeing this, I'd wager. But because we don't have an onscreen character speechifying to Chastain/Clarke (or to the audience) about how wrong and horrible it is, people are assuming it's pro-torture. It almost seems like a deliberate effort to ignore any subtlety or nuance in storytelling.

And I'm also certain that if she hadn't shown torture onscreen at all, these same people would be accusing her of whitewashing history.

I'm really not sure that's why she was snubbed though. I think the preferential ballot system allowed directors with small, but passionate support to sneak in over Bigelow, Affleck, Tarantino. If she'd been snubbed for Hooper, I'd be side-eyeing it more. But Haneke and Zeitlin, I can imagine were pushed forward by a lot of number 1 votes.

I think that's probably the case, too. Everyone underestimated the love people would have for Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour. But now that we have people openly stating "Don't vote for this," in public, it's always going to be a question mark, for me, anyway.

The controversy over the depiction of torture that seems to amount to a very knee jerk reaction of 'don't depict things I don't like' (since I don't see anyone saying that the depiction of torture was as a good thing and I haven't seen the movie) and makes me want to kick people. This strikes me as most similar to Academy people refusing to see/nominate Brokeback Mountain for depicting gayness. Even though Brokeback was about the complexity of being gay and closeted and the human emotions of all involved surrounding/including the gay couple. The is just a different wing having a tantrum over 'something I don't like' in a movie'.

The Academy's politics are this weird 1960's idea of liberal, they like their political films to have a "message", (Which ZDT obviously wasn't intereste in preaching) and no they don't like subtlety or complexity, unless it's foreign.

I will say though, to be fair about the Bigelow snub, it is extremely, extremely rare for a recent best director winner to get nominated for their next movie. I mean, a lot of the time you could argue it was because the movie didn't deserve it, or the director wanted to follow it up with something really outside the box, but statistically, we tend not to see encore nominations for the category. I mean, a really good example is Jonathan Demme, who's Silence of the Lambs won all of the things, and the next year made Philadelphia, which the Academy liked very much, but Demme was on the bad end of one of those splits.

Heck, Bigelow or no Bigelow I'd vote for Ang Lee this year.

Is Argo the frontrunner now? I think Ben getting snubbed for Best Director may end up helping the movie itself get more support for Best Picture.

I'm still putting my money on Lincoln. The last movie to win Best Picture without getting a Best Director nomination was Driving Miss Daisy in 1990, and it's only happened three times in total.

The Globes are not a great predictor, though I bet it's a little boost. I still would bet on Lincoln, as well.

ETA: Although, Argo also won the CCA (and Ben won as director), which is a great predictor. Huh. Well, hopefully we'll have some suspense!

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I feel like most times recently the Globes Drama winner loses the Oscar.

I'm going to be really annoyed if Argo consolation prizes its way to the Oscar. I just don't see any way it stands up next to Lincoln, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, or SLP.

I hope Lincoln doesn't win. It was good, but there was nothing extraordinary about it, imo.