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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
 Posted - 02/26/2008 : 9:33:49 PM
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If the Coen brothers made an upbeat, family friendly movie equal to No Country for Old Men in its artistry, would the same critics still be cheering for it to win Best Picture?
When you developed the reputation for quality the Coens have, quite possibly.
I think everyone keeps making the mistake saying the Academy voters gravitate towards dark movies simply because they're dark. Everyone knows (or should know) the Academy has a major bias in favor of serious movies. That's why comedies get shut out. That's why Chariots of Fire beats Raiders of the Lost Ark and Gandhi shutout ET. Heck, the whole reason why they created a special Oscar for animated movies is because many in the Academy were mortified that a movie like Beauty & The Beast got nominated for Best Picture. The Academy members are notorious for thinking the Oscar should only go to an important film, a message movie, an artistic film, something that happens to take itself serious. It just so happens that these days the serious, important, artistic movies they reward tend to be of the tragic or violent variety.
Just watch; something lighter in nature will come along in 2-3 years and win the Oscar and the same people crying foul will forget this whole argument until the next movie that deals with the dark side of human nature win again. Nothing new to this debate other than those that have now tried painting it as part of the whole culture war "us vs. them" nonsense.
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2008 : 9:36:26 PM
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quote:
No Country For Old Men and The Departed won Best Picture, but so did Shakespeare in Love, Forrest Gump, and Return of the King. There's room for everybody at the dinner table.
Well said. Except, again, the implication I took from Albom (and many others out there) is that the No Country's and Departed's shouldn't be allowed at the table. Ironically, there's no shortage of film snobs that would say the same thing about Gump and LOTR.
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gangrene
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
60 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 04:24:29 AM
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| Everyone is getting all upset, but no one seems to be mentioning the true injustice of this year's Oscars - In the Name of the King was not even nominated. |
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 04:57:48 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by gangrene
Everyone is getting all upset, but no one seems to be mentioning the true injustice of this year's Oscars - In the Name of the King was not even nominated.
Alas, much like Roy Scheider's place in the "In Memorium" montage, the film missed the deadline for this year. The person who really got snubbed this year was Jessica Biel. She had to pretend to be in love with Nic Cage in NEXT and with Adam Sandler in I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY. Surely that must have required the best acting of her's or anyone else's career this past year.
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 11:05:23 AM
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We're pretty much done on the Albom score, but back to the Oscar TV ratings for just a sec. There's one more factor that we cannot overlook. Here again is the listing of the top rated Oscar casts from Titanic, sorted by ratings but this time identified according to host.
1997 Billy Crystal
1999 Billy Crystal
1998 Whoopi Goldberg
2003 Billy Crystal
2004 Chris Rock
2000 Steve Martin
2001 Whoopi Goldberg
2006 Ellen DeGeneres
2005 Jon Stewart
2002 Steve Martin
2007 Jon Stewart
Note a pattern here? Now if we were to once again discount the 2003 telecast (for reasons stated previously), we come up with this graphic:
1997 Billy Crystal
1999 Billy Crystal
1998 Whoopi Goldberg
2003 Billy Crystal
2004 Chris Rock
2000 Steve Martin
2001 Whoopi Goldberg
2006 Ellen DeGeneres
2005 Jon Stewart
2007 Jon Stewart
There's our answer. It's all Jon Stewart's fault! |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 11:26:34 AM
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Just be grateful they don't make Robin Williams the host.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 5:33:11 PM
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Foy, on first reading your last post, my first thought was "Jessica Biel is dead?!? Ohmigod no!!!"
I can see where Foy is coming from...I too recoil a little when people imply Oscar should stop nominating less star-spangled and "darker" films in order to boost the broadcast. Movies, or any form of art, that tells you stuff you don't neccessarily want to hear has always been an important part of culture; if anything, I'm happy that the Oscars are getting more willing to acknowledge this. If that means the viewership is down...so be it. Personally, I suspect they could have nominated Transformers, Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean in all categories, and the viewership still would have been down. (The rather pathetic attempt to grab the youth vote by having Jessica Alba and Dwayne Johnson present seems to prove that.) Foy's right--the Oscars are a relic, and nothing's going to change that short of reinventing the whole show.
And Dittmar--the Coens have a particularly rabid fanbase. And with good reason, they're among the best, if not THE best, filmmakers working today. (Yep, I'm part of said fanbase.) If it wasn't for The Ladykillers, I'd say they had a flawless track record. They've been deserving an Oscar for a while now, and I'd be saying the same even if the movie in contention was, say, The Hudsucker Proxy (though admittedly I wouldn't be expecting the Academy to give it to that one--as mentioned, comedies fail.)
Come on, surely we must have some other Coen fans around here...
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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