Oscar Gold
Feb. 5th, 2010 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI posted the other day on Tor.com about the Oscars hating on genre films. This year, I've seen a surprising number of the films nominated already, mostly due to the fact that a) there are more films nominated and b) the extra films nominated were almost assuredly nominated solely as a ploy to get normal people to watch the damn Oscars. So out of the list of ten, you can guess which ones I've seen. Go ahead, guess!
Nah, I'm just fucking with you. I'll tell you. I've seen Up, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, and Avatar. Of the ones I've seen, I'd say District 9 was the best of the bunch. Up managed to make me cry in the first five minutes and yet I felt kind of blah about it afterward. (It's definitely not the Pixar movie I'd have said deserved a nomination for Best Picture.) Avatar is only the prettiest picture. If it won, I'd pretty much give up on life. Because wtf?
Inglourious Basterds is definitely enjoyable, but I had sort of the same problem with it as I did with Up: while I was watching it, I was transported, but the second you leave, it falls flat. This is Tarantino's masterwork, far as I'm concerned. I like Kill Bill and Grindhouse better, but this is the best movie he's done. But it's still fairly hollow at parts. I explained my issue to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
feiran when we saw it as being that although Every. Single. Conversation. was dead fascinating while you were involved in it, hardly any of them contributed a thing to the overall story. In fact, at least two conversations set up characters/events that led absolutely nowhere. And because they were written by Tarantino, who likes to hear himself talk through his characters, they go on forever. Were they fun to listen to? Sure. Useful? Er...
(Side note: Christoph Waltz WILL win for that movie. He was the person who went through the most conversations with any sense of purpose, and it was the purpose of a very cheerful man-eating shark. He was amazing. The rest of the movie is entertaining, nothing more.)
District 9 would be the best of the bunch, if only for having the balls to make the lead patently unlikeable and yet still sympathetic. Wikus van der Merwe was a loser and a bigot and a jerk. He reacted reflexively to his situation and not always heroically. And yet? He was able to recognize at times when things were so very wrong that even he, a nobody, had to do something. Yet even then, it came from a position of self-preservation. And that's okay with me. I like the idea of a character still being really flawed, even ultimately selfish, and still being heroic. That's a hard line to walk. Compare the protagonist-joins-the-natives narrative of this movie to Avatar's and you see just how novel parts of this movie were. (Yes, there was some heavy-handed allegory. Get over it.)
Of the films I haven't seen, I think neither Precious nor The Blind Side have any chance of winning best picture. The pretentious full name of Precious alone is enough to make me roll my eyes. I lump these two movies together because both are about elevating poor black people. Being that I'm a liberal with a more complex understanding about race relations than ever Hollywood will have, you can guess how I feel about the basic plot of The Blind Side. Precious is more difficult. The black community response has been sharply divided, between people who see the film and think it reflects reality and that that is good and those who think it reflects a part of reality that then upholds stereotypes about poor black people and that's bad. I'm worried that that second group is right. If The Blind Side won't win because it's a fairy tale (that happens to be based on a true story), Precious won't win because it's the other side of the fairy tale--the Brothers Grimm version.
A Serious Man had zero name recognition for me, which goes to show how well it has been promoted. I suppose the Coen Brothers had Miramax boosting it behind the scenes. Too dark horse and they already got an Oscar for one of their shitty movies recently. Pass.
This leaves the heavies: Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, and An Education. Realistically, the contest is between the first two. An Education was lauded more for performance than anything else, and it might win for that. Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker, though, have had critics singing their praises start to finish. My money's on The Hurt Locker. It was the best-reviewed movie and it's just won so much already.
I will update my predictions as I get to see more movies. But I'm pretty sure I know what the score is on Best Picture. The acting categories for the women are, as ever, up for grabs. (Okay, maybe that's not true. Sandra Bullock has a lot of momentum going, I just refuse to acknowledge that.) For the men, Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz will win.
Nah, I'm just fucking with you. I'll tell you. I've seen Up, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, and Avatar. Of the ones I've seen, I'd say District 9 was the best of the bunch. Up managed to make me cry in the first five minutes and yet I felt kind of blah about it afterward. (It's definitely not the Pixar movie I'd have said deserved a nomination for Best Picture.) Avatar is only the prettiest picture. If it won, I'd pretty much give up on life. Because wtf?
Inglourious Basterds is definitely enjoyable, but I had sort of the same problem with it as I did with Up: while I was watching it, I was transported, but the second you leave, it falls flat. This is Tarantino's masterwork, far as I'm concerned. I like Kill Bill and Grindhouse better, but this is the best movie he's done. But it's still fairly hollow at parts. I explained my issue to
feiran when we saw it as being that although Every. Single. Conversation. was dead fascinating while you were involved in it, hardly any of them contributed a thing to the overall story. In fact, at least two conversations set up characters/events that led absolutely nowhere. And because they were written by Tarantino, who likes to hear himself talk through his characters, they go on forever. Were they fun to listen to? Sure. Useful? Er...(Side note: Christoph Waltz WILL win for that movie. He was the person who went through the most conversations with any sense of purpose, and it was the purpose of a very cheerful man-eating shark. He was amazing. The rest of the movie is entertaining, nothing more.)
District 9 would be the best of the bunch, if only for having the balls to make the lead patently unlikeable and yet still sympathetic. Wikus van der Merwe was a loser and a bigot and a jerk. He reacted reflexively to his situation and not always heroically. And yet? He was able to recognize at times when things were so very wrong that even he, a nobody, had to do something. Yet even then, it came from a position of self-preservation. And that's okay with me. I like the idea of a character still being really flawed, even ultimately selfish, and still being heroic. That's a hard line to walk. Compare the protagonist-joins-the-natives narrative of this movie to Avatar's and you see just how novel parts of this movie were. (Yes, there was some heavy-handed allegory. Get over it.)
Of the films I haven't seen, I think neither Precious nor The Blind Side have any chance of winning best picture. The pretentious full name of Precious alone is enough to make me roll my eyes. I lump these two movies together because both are about elevating poor black people. Being that I'm a liberal with a more complex understanding about race relations than ever Hollywood will have, you can guess how I feel about the basic plot of The Blind Side. Precious is more difficult. The black community response has been sharply divided, between people who see the film and think it reflects reality and that that is good and those who think it reflects a part of reality that then upholds stereotypes about poor black people and that's bad. I'm worried that that second group is right. If The Blind Side won't win because it's a fairy tale (that happens to be based on a true story), Precious won't win because it's the other side of the fairy tale--the Brothers Grimm version.
A Serious Man had zero name recognition for me, which goes to show how well it has been promoted. I suppose the Coen Brothers had Miramax boosting it behind the scenes. Too dark horse and they already got an Oscar for one of their shitty movies recently. Pass.
This leaves the heavies: Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, and An Education. Realistically, the contest is between the first two. An Education was lauded more for performance than anything else, and it might win for that. Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker, though, have had critics singing their praises start to finish. My money's on The Hurt Locker. It was the best-reviewed movie and it's just won so much already.
I will update my predictions as I get to see more movies. But I'm pretty sure I know what the score is on Best Picture. The acting categories for the women are, as ever, up for grabs. (Okay, maybe that's not true. Sandra Bullock has a lot of momentum going, I just refuse to acknowledge that.) For the men, Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz will win.
