The Awards 2010
 

Razzies have been announced:

http://razzies.com/history/31stNoms.asp

No surprises with Eclipse, Last Airbender and Sex in the City 2...

Oscar nominations are tomorrow morning... already.. Jeez.

No mention of the Golden Globes (January 16)? People's Choice (January 5)?

I assume that Bornieo is trying to keep things to awards with some rigor and standards.

I know that the Razzies are more about trying to pick on big names as opposed to truly picking the worst of the movies but the pounding on Twilight really isn't justified. It isn't a great movie but it isn't an awful one either. And it is exactly what the book was so it is what it was trying to be.

Though Taylor Lautner definitely has an acting deficiency.

My heart's with The King's Speech. Which should be nominated, but will probably lose to Social Network. (Which I did like, but not as much.)

I loved The King's Speech but must admit that as time passes my memory is drawn more and more to just how misplaced Timothy Spall's Churchill was.

But they're both fine movies which take whatever liberties are necessary with actual events to make a good movie (and I'm ok with that).

Full list of Oscar Nominees

Now I need to go make a list of movies to see...

Of the grownup movies, I've seen "The Kids Are All Right" and "Inception." I have, however, intensely studied the nominated family films. I guess I've got work to do.

On the snub list, I would add Gael Garcia Bernal for his role as the jerky boyfriend in "Letters to Juliet," the snub of whom proves as always that comedy is undervalued.

Dogtooth? Really? wow.

Toy Story 3 for Best Picture. Interesting.

If I'm not mistaken, Toy Story 3 is the first picture nominated for plain "Best" since Beauty and the Beast, and the very first since the "Best Animated" category was introduced. That's rad.

Personally, I think The Incredibles was worthy of a plain "Best" nom, but it's nice to see the membership rejects automatically putting animated films in that gulag.

I still have trouble with 10-pictures being nominated. It feels like pandering in an effort to get more viewers.

Nope, iSm. Up was nominated last year.

Excepting the shorts, docs, and foreigns (of which I've seen only Dogtooth)... and the minor tech awards... we only need to catch up on the following:

Winter's Bone
The Fighter
The Illusionist
Biutiful
Rabbit Hole
Blue Valentine
Another Year

We have Winter's Bone on DVD already - just haven't watched it yet. We'll catch The Fighter and The Illusionist with our ArcLight points (I knew we were saving them for a reason!) and then we'll rely on the mercy of our screener-collecting friends. I'm looking at you, mp and iSm.

I forgot that Up was nominated last year. How cool.

The only nominated film my bro-in-law got via screener this year was The Rabbit Hole. Bunch of others, but no noms. (Oh, The Social Network, but I'm just gonna rent the DVD when it comes out next week instead of borrowing the screener).

Of the screeners I did get, I was most pleasantly surprised by The Hereafter, which was far better than I'd heard - though with a structure I can understand didn't go over well with mainstream audiences.

I'm also kinda ashamed to say I really liked the Ridley Scott / Russell Crowe / Cate Blanchett version of Robin Hood. Oh, and I Love You, Phillip Morris was a hoot.


Let's see, of the noms, I'm going to have to find time to see The Fighter, The King's Speech, Winter's Bone, Blue Valentine, and Biutiful.

Oh, plus 2 films I've never even heard of - Animal Kingdom and Unstoppable if I want to be uber-inclusive of everything theatrical in English.


Edited to add: Oh, I see The Hereafter was nommed for visual effects. So technically, I saw 2 nommed films via screener this season.

The Social Network is out on DVD already. I got it last week at Costco.

Oh, thanks.

Just saw Kings Speech tonight.

Some good nominations. I'm still not a fan of the 10 best pictures but there are some good films rep'd. Toy Story 3 deserved it more that UP IMHO. I'm sure it's a shoe-in for Best Animated. I'm sorry Nolan got snubbed. Didn't think the direction in Kings Speech was anything special and was kind of annoyed during the hallway/stairs scene where they use a fish-eyed lens or whatever they call it.

To bad THe Ghost Writer was released so early in the year. Was hoping for that...

Yep, I think The Ghost Writer was my favorite movie this year. But, heh, Inception was from last summer ... I think it's the "earliest" nominated film of the bunch. Besides, I bet there's some sort of political taboo in nominating a Roman Polanski film. Too bad. Wonderful script and great performances to recognize, quite apart from the great directing skills and the fantasticness of the picture as a whole. Oh well. It's just the Oscars.

Doubt there's a political taboo about Polanski - he was nominated for Tess and won for The Pianist (both since he fled the US).

As far as Inception goes - I've noticed that even though I was excited to talk about the movie and conjecture on its meaning when it was first released, I have no real desire to watch it again. I wonder if that means anything...

(Meanwhile, I just watched a super-cool thriller that didn't even get a US theatrical release. It's a movie that I want to watch again immediately. I ordered the UK blu-ray and should have it in days. There will be an unofficial movie night (and a brief break from Oscar viewing) soon.)

Yeah, but Polanski had a flair-up in the news this year. I think that may have worked against him. Of course, the fact that it was released sometime before Christmas 2010 makes it typically ineligible for a 2010 Oscar. :p

Inception is a big exception to this rule. I, too, really don't care to see it again. It didn't hold up so well on the 2nd viewing. But there was no other film this year that inspired so much conjecture and conversation and philosophical flights of fancy, at least for me. So I continue to hold it in very high regard.


I admire Tron for being one of those films where, apparently, you either like it or hate it - even though I'm on the hate-it side. I expected the story to be stupid, but not nearly as stupid and unforgivably DULL as it was. And to my surprise, the costumes were meh (so inferior to the first film) and the much vaunted score by Daft Punk was typical and boring when it wasn't in their better mode of electronica (which it wasn't for most of the film). So while I went in with low expectations, the movie -er - exceeded them on the downside.

BUT - I love the Tron disc I got for Christmas - so I'll give points to the merchandise offshoots. Oh, and the lightcycle race was rad.

I liked How To Train Your Dragon more than Toy Story 3.
I know, blasphemy but the truth.

I didn't even like How To Train Your Dragon as much as I liked Kung Fu Panda. Not that I disliked it, but it was nothing special, imo.

Oh, I REALLY liked How to Train Your Dragon. I'd almost say it was better than TS3, because the latter was a bit long on the heart-string pulling and was a sequel where concern for the characters has been in-bred in humans for decades - an unfair advantage when said movie is going to expose them to such harrowing ordeals.

But I'm a sucker for emotion. And the final 15 minutes or so of Toy Story 3 hit so many of them that I think it should win Best Picture, and not just Best Animated Picture. I think a fair result would be TS3 for BP, and How to Train Your Dragon for BAP. ;)

If there's a category for Best Claw Joke At A Harrowing Moment, TS3 gets my vote.

If there's a category for Ending Most Obviously Contrived To Make A Sequel Easy Even Though It Spoils A More Emotional Ending, TS3 gets my vote.

I'm not at all sure what you mean by your last comment. That was the steel hatch closing shut forever on Toy Story, and a more emotional ending?? What planet are you on, sir?

I guess a more emotional ending would be the toys melting in the furnace.

I guess. Nah, that was as emotional as it could get, too. Seriously, I felt more for those toys and their stoic yet loving way of facing imminent disaster than I did for any of those supposedly real and real-life characters in that stupid Cameron Titanic movie. Pixar for the win.

The actual ending where I cried my eyes out was a super-duper tremendo BONUS. Pixar For President!!

Quote fodder quote fodder!

It would have been. And a more honest one. Short of that, as I've said before, the proper ending would have been for the toys to all be separated like the Jews at the end of Fiddler and be dispersed among many children, not all given to the one child in the movie who, other than Andy, apparently knew how to play correctly and thus deserved them.

What a terrible shame that, in the end, this is a children's movie and it had the happiest of endings.

Yeah, Toy Story should really have been a total downer that made children slash their own wrists on their way out the theater.


Sheeesh with a capital Shhhh.

Well, the happiest of endings would have Peter Pan flying in to make Andy and his dog young again and reunite his parents. Then, he'd disappear in a cloud of Pixie dust saying, "Bye, kids. There's an old yellow dog out there whose rabies I need to cure."

Seriously, to have the toys dispersed among a bunch of kids, each delighted to get one nice toy, would be by far the happier and more humane ending.

Now, if Toy Story 3 had been made by Spielberg, the toys would emerge at the dump from a line of crowded garbage trucks to stare at the belching chimney in the distance. Then, you'd cut to Andy and all the other college kids home from break saying, "Hey, ma, where are my toys?" And ma would reply, "Your toys, are they gone? I hadn't really noticed. I probably gave them away." And Andy would think about that for a minute, think about saying something, decide against it, and then go enjoy his break.

It did make me think that there were tons of toys at that dump with missing limbs, parts wandering around forever. And, even after they're melted, who's to say that they won't be conscious when they get made into something else or get put in a landfill.

Strangler, you are missing the entire point of the series that the Toys are not inanimate pieces of plastic. They are friends who want to stay together. So your proposed ending would have been happy for some random kid characters whom the audience doesn't know from Adam, while devastating the toy characters whom generations of people have come to love. Nice.

I think you underestimate the toys' strength of character.

In case anyone's intersted, tickets just went on sale for several different Oscar week events at the Academy.

The prices range from Free to $5.

The shorts (animated and live action) are hosted by Kenneth Branagh.

:eek:

And...the shorts are sold out. :(

The Animated Feature symposium is still available, though I'd be less likely to pull off the weeknight thing for that.

I think this is the first time I've ever seen all the Best Picture nominees by the time the nominations were announced (and 18 of the 20 acting nominations).

I'll be making unusually informed picks this year.

Still need to see (from the non-ghetto categories):
Biutiful - Best Actor
Animal Kingdom - Best Supporting Actress
The Illusionist - Feature Animation
I Am Love - Costume Design
The Tempest - Costume Design
Barney's Version - Makeup
The Way Back - Makeup
Country Strong - Original Song
Another Year - Original Screenplay

From the ghetto categories:
Gasland - Feature Documentary
Inside Job - Feature Documentary
Waste Land - Feature Documentary
All 10 shorts
All 5 foreign picture noms

Does this mean the shorts will not be released on a DVD to be projected fuzzily at a crappy local theater, and that our wonderful swanking tradition must die?

Friday the 25th at The Egyptian.

Actually, they're playing a lot of different places this season!

I'll start a thread for the swanking.

We didn't buy the Academy shorts program tickets because we knew it would be playing per our tradition. We did get tickets for the feature animation panel, though!

Can you Outguess Ebert for $100,000?

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...CARS/110129985

Interesting picks!