View Thread : The 76th Annual Oscars


Great Rumbler
This is the first time that I've really watched the oscars very much, mainly because I want to see how many times Return of the King wins an Oscar [it's 3 so far]. Anyway, Billy Crystal is a hilarious host and it's really fun to watch all of the things that go one during the Oscars. I especially liked the intro which had Billy Crystal playing different parts in a bunch of movies that came out this year.

There was one part of the intro that was just so hilarious I had to mention it.

The scene: Billy Crystal is in Return of Kings and he's fighting against the giant elephants. Michael Moore pops in.

Michael Moore: Shame on you, Mr. Crystal! This is the wizard's war not your war! It's a war that is not sanctioned by Congress!! *is squashed by a giant elephant*

That was so funny! :D

alien space marine
ROTK wins 2 oscars so far!

Great Rumbler
Actually, it's 4! :D

Great Rumbler
Now it's 5!!

Great Rumbler
Return of the King has won SEVEN awards so far!!

Great Rumbler
Holy TC Cow!! RotK has now won its 8th Oscar!!!

OB1
I've always hated the Oscars. Such dumb choices most of the time. City of God really should have won that best editing award, but I never expected it would. It should also win the oscar for best director, but I seriously doubt that'll happen. And Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams) really should have been nominated for best director. Pfft.

Oh great, Twilight Samurai didn't win best foreign picture. Gah, what idiots! *sigh* Did those academy voters actually watch the movie? They probably thought "hey it's a samurai movie, action is stupid", even though it's not an action piece. *sigh* Why do I watch the oscars? It's almost as bad as all of those video game awards shows.

Billy Crystal is funny though. :D

Great Rumbler
Japanese stuff didn't do well at all this year. Twilight Samurai lost Best Foreign Movie, Ken Watanabe lost Best Supporting Actor, and no animes were nominated for Best Animated Movie even though several good ones came out.

Great Rumbler
RotK is up to NINE!!

OB1
Now let's see if City of God wins for best adapted screenplay!

*waits*

.... FUCK! Good grief, another Rings win. Gah, another award that should have gone to City of God. Well that or American Splendor for this particular nom.

*sigh*

Now I like the Rings movie and everything, but it really doesn't deserve all of these awards. Visual effects, yeah. Set design, makeup, of course. Music? Sure why not. But it's like these oscar voters just threw up their hands and went "ah who cares, let's give Rings everything!". I'm sure it'll win best director and best picture, too. Bah. Lost in Translation really deserves that best picture award. :(

Cross your fingers for Bill Murray though!

OB1
Holy shit, Sofia Coppola just won for best director! I don't believe it! Wow, that's really great. My first choice was Fernando Meirelles but I'm really happy that she won. And woohoo, she just thanked Wong Kar-Wai! That's so cool! He's this really terrific Hong Kong director who very obviously gave her a lot of inspiration for Lost in Translation. Heh, I was thinking how similar in feel that movie was to Wong Kar-Wai's work while watching it. :D

Great Rumbler
That was Original Screenplay not Best Director.

OB1
Oh crap, you're right.

Shit...

Peter Jackson just won it.

*sigh*

Great Rumbler
Peter Jackson just won Best Director.

That's ten.

Great Rumbler
Oh crap, you're right.

Shit...

Peter Jackson just won it.

*sigh*

Oh come ON! You KNOW Peter Jackson and LotR deserve to be getting these awards!!

OB1
No, because in a lot of those categories there were movies more deserving of winning.

Dark Lord Neo
But for director LOTR deserved it

Great Rumbler
:p

OB1
No, for director Fernando Meirelles definitely deserved it. City of God is one the best films ever made, period. It's especially strong in terms of direction and editing.

OB1
Now let's see if Bill Murray gets that best actor award....

... NO!!!

Man...

OB1
Well Rings won the best picture award, and I think it's fitting since it's kind of an award for the whole trilogy. I guess that's how I should see Peter Jackson's win, since he should have won last year.

Great Rumbler
It was a win for all the nerds out there.

Bill Murray should have won Best Actor.

OB1
Yeah...

Fittisize
Oh great, Twilight Samurai didn't win best foreign picture. Gah, what idiots! *sigh* Did those academy voters actually watch the movie? They probably thought "hey it's a samurai movie, action is stupid",

No...they were probably like, "hey, it's a samurai movie, it's going to be RETARTED."

And of course LotR deserves all those awards...it makes up for last year and the year before, when it was shunned from winning Best Picture. Lord of the Rings deserved Best Picture this year, last year, and the year before.

Laser Link
That's cool that RotK won all that stuff. However, I've never put much stock in these awards shows anyway, because the people who vote or pick NEVER have a clue about anything and always just spout off about the most popular thing. In this case, I'm happy, cause RotK just happened to be the popular thing, but I can understand the frustration OB1 feels.

Dark Jaguar
One note, from nerd to nerd. Those are OLIPHANTS, NOT elephants! :D Plus, they are gigantous and have tusks coming out the BOTTOM of their mouths too! I never thought I'd see one, now I have to tell the Shire folk!

*runs to Shire and sees huge fence and sign*

The Shire... closed?!

alien space marine
They won all 11 oscars that they got nominated for.

OB1
Well the Oscars are all about which movie gets the biggest marketing push from their respective studios, so I'm not surprised at all by who won. It's why the wonderful Millennium Actress wasn't even nominated for best animated feature even though it blows away Nemo in every aspect, and why Twilight Samurai didn't win that Best Foreign picture (Harvey Weinstein of Miramax heavily promoted the picture that won), etc. But oh well, that is how things are.

And really guys, saying that Rings should have won every single nomination when none of you saw all of the other nominated pictures is pretty silly, don't you think? It would be like someone who had only played Prince of Persia in 2003 claiming that it should win every video game award. It is indeed an incredible game, but did it have a deeper story than Kotor or better music than Castlevania? Of course not. That doesn't make it any less of an amazing game, but really, there are more deserving games in certain categories.

No...they were probably like, "hey, it's a samurai movie, it's going to be RETARTED."



Have you ever seen a Samurai movie before? And I don't mean Rurouni Kenshin. ;)

Fittisize
Have you ever seen a Samurai movie before? And I don't mean Rurouni Kenshin.

I have seen samuria movies before, yes. I don't like them.

OB1
Like what? The Last Samurai? Or as I like to call it, Dances with Samurai. :D

Fittisize
On Adrenaline Drive they sometimes play samurai movies...and not only are the storylines and acting retarted (as well as reading subtitles), I generally don't like Japanese-style fighting in movies (with the exception of The Matrix...reprezzent). Actually, scratch that. I don't like movies from Japan.

OB1
You don't like movies from an entire nation? :muddled: It's obvious what you just said is out of pure ignorance, so just this time I think I'll ignore it.

Watch these Samurai dramas and if you still think they suck, well then there's something wrong with you. But I'm pretty confident that they can win you over.

-Twilight Samurai as soon as it comes out in the states
-Seven Samurai (the greatest film of all time IMO, from Japan's greatest director of all time: Akira Kurosawa)
-the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy (called Samurai I, II, and III in the states)
-Throne of Blood (the greatest film adaptation of MacBeth, in a Samurai setting-- also from Akira Kurosawa)
-Ran (another Kurosawa Shakespeare adaptation, this time of King Lear).

And for some great Samurai action I suggest Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro, any Zatoichi movie, Lone Wolf and Cub 1-6, When the Last Sword is Drawn (whenever it gets a release here), and The Hidden Fortress. Most of these movies are in black and white, but if that's not a problem for you then you should enjoy them. If you have good taste. ;)

OB1
BTW the Matrix movies use Hong Kong-style action, not Japanese-style action. And it's subpar HK-style action for that matter. But still better than anything from Hollywood.

Fittisize
You don't like movies from an entire nation? It's obvious what you just said is out of pure ignorance, so just this time I think I'll ignore it.

I dislike samuria movies. I have no idea why people think anime is great (Spirited Away number 41 on imdb.com Top 250??? INSANITY!), um, what other kinds of movies come from Japan?

OB1
Every genre that we have, and then some. They don't just make chambara and anime, yunno.

And do you recall the titles of those Samurai movies you hated so much?

As for that "bad acting" comment, if you listen to any Japanese native speak their language, their tone and mannerisms are very different from ours, so perhaps you are confusing that foreign...ocity with bad acting. A lot old Samurai movies also use a very theatrical-style of acting, somewhat similar to Shakespearian acting.

Fittisize
Gah, I just checked IMDB again, and Seven Samuria is #9!! MADNESS!! (I'm still not going to see it)

OB1
Seven Samurai is considered by most film critics to be one of the (if not THE) greatest movies of all time. It's right up there with Citizen Kane.

But hey if you don't want to watch it that's fine by me. Your loss.

OB1
It's pretty sad that you say call it "MADNESS" when you haven't and don't plan on seeing the movie. Very sad.

Great Rumbler
RotK DID deserve all those awards and here's why:

Wizard of Oz [1940, lost to Rebecca]
2001: A Space Oddysey [1969, not nominated for Best Picture]
Star Wars [1977, lost to Annie Hall]
E.T. [1977, lost to Annie Hall]
Fellowship of the Ring [2001, lost to A Beautiful Mind]
Two Towers [2002, lost to ????]

Return of King [2003, 11 Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture]

Take that, dramas and period peices!!

Dark Jaguar
I'll say this. Anime is a style, not a genre (as OB1 would be quick to point out himself). You can only say you don't like stuff animated, but you can't claim to not like the stories of "anime" as a general thing, because animation is as diverse in stories and plots as anything else. Of course, you wouldn't know that watching CN because they kinda stick with only a couple genres. Still, it's diverse enough to give you a hint of the amount of genres they have over there in anime. It's just a lot cheaper to make animation generally than to go about hollywood style special effects, not to deride the form, but that's pretty much the case.

Just a question, have you seen Spirited Away? If so, did you actually UNDERSTAND the movie? Did you just think "okay so a girl has to save her parents and herself from an evil witch" or did you actually understand the deeper meaning of what was going on?

Fittisize
I uh...haven't seen Spirited Away. :D

Great Rumbler
DJ's right, anime is a style not a genre. It's as varied as live-action American movies.

Dark Jaguar
But LOTR does have drama to it, well, not just that. LOTR is an "epic", kinda covering all genres in a wide arc of artistic awesome. Also, even though it's a totally fictional time in a totally fictional planet even, it IS in A period :D.

Wait, didn't Two Towers and Fellowship win best picture awards? Am I thinking of something else? Oh well, no matter. It's an award show. It's basically actors and directors giving each other awards... and sometimes they have award shows for award shows where people give awards TO award shows! .....get my gun...

OB1
GR: Yeah it's great that a movie in that genre finally took home all of those Oscars, but I still don't agree with the regular Oscar practice of giving movies awards mainly because they should have gotten them in previous years. That's what they did with Ron Howard and A Beautifiul Mind (he should have won the oscar years before for Apollo 13) even though there were more deserving movies.

DJ: Well said, but I highly doubt fittsy saw Spirited Away, let alone understood the whole point the movie.

Edit: Haha, I was right!

Fittisize
Chicago won last year...(Two Towers was better)
A Beautiful Mind the year before...(Fellowship owned that movie!, which I haven't seen)

Dark Jaguar
Well then, you should see it. It's not what lots of people assume anime is, that is to say, someone fighting across the land to meet the final boss eventually. It's a genre that rarely gets the spot light stateside, for anime anyway. To be honest I hate it when people call all anime "action cartoons". Sure there's lots of those, and yes as can be expected from a really overcrowded market there are lots of piles of steaming ... karp. However, in a lot of the best ones they do an excellent job of melding a compelling story with great action sequences, using the action to convey emotion and such. Watch Trigun for instance, and don't let the first episode or two fool you. It improves a LOT, and the later episodes fully justify the first episodes and make them actually important to the story at that. Basically I'm saying the first episodes BECOME great in retrospect.

OB1
Have you seen Millennium Actress yet? Really wonderful movie.

Fittisize
DJ: Well said, but I highly doubt fittsy saw Spirited Away, let alone understood the whole point the movie.

Edit: Haha, I was right!
:D

I like at least a couple animes...all of the ten short movie dealies in The Animatrix...save for 'Beyond'. That was fucked up.

Great Rumbler
I've seen it and yes it is a very good, if sad, movie.

Memories [a collection of 3 animes, one of which is done by the director of Akira] came out on DVD not too long ago and it's pretty good too.

I really want to see Tokyo Godfathers and Steamboy [by the directors of Millenium Actress and Akira respectively], they both look really good.

OB1
Oh yes, I can't wait until those come out.

Millennium Actress is probably one of my all-time favorites. The director of MA was asked "this movie could have easily been a live-action production, so why was it animated", and he replied "because I make animated movies!". Haha... I thought that was pretty funny.

... well I did...

Dark Jaguar
Nope, hadn't even heard of it. Perhaps a synopsis is in order (without too many spoilers mind you). Oh yes, the concept of spoilers is kinda an American thing. In many countries, such as France, they go in knowing the whole story already and are there to see how it's executed. This also was the case with lots of old plays, which is why they had those handouts telling you the whole story beforehand when you go to them. Now, that in mind, I STILL hate spoilers because the difference is that movies made today are written with the idea that you don't know the story in mind.

An example of this culture clash is that in France, no one really liked The 6th Sense. I mean, when you know the entire plot from the start, that movie can't be an enjoyable experience.

Oh one other thing. To clarify even more, anime is actually many different styles, sharing only the fact that they are animated. There isn't just one way to draw cartoons. Anime just means "cartoon made in Japan", and it's pretty much slang outside Japan itself. Many different artists have different styles. There is the classic style that's used most in anime today that most people think of, but there's many others, for instance Dragon Ball (not talking quality of the show itself here, just showing an example of different styles) has a very different style than the "norm". Spirited Away, and other Miyazaki movies, also have a distinct style, sort of an "implied detail" thing rather than explicit detail. Further more, Final Fantasy Tactics, and other games I can think of, take that implied detail style to the extreme, lacking things like noses and eye sockets at times (not saying it's bad, because I really like that style). Basically, I'm being a huge nerd here and deciding to point out that the word "anime" is really a VERY broad term that only means "Japanese cartoon", and has nothing to do with style outside of that.

OB1
Here's a good (pretty much spoiler-free) review of the movie: http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/millactr.shtml

OB1
You should read the review too, GR, even though you've already seen the movie. They talk about the different fictional movies that she plays in, among which is obviously supposed to be Throne of Blood (the Samurai movie she does, and the witch that appears throughout the movie are from Kurosawa's Throne of Blood).

A Black Falcon
I watched the Ocsars... not sure why, I've only watched them once before, but I did.

As for ROTK getting all 11... eh I don't know. I think some movies deserved some of them... ROTK did great in all those categories for sure but others (I have seen Master and Commander and Pirates of the Carribean and both of them certainly were in the same class as ROTK in many of those categories...) probably deserved some wins. ... but it's LOTR so I can't complain too much... :D

Still, seeing some variety would probably have been better. But it certainly deserved Best Picture and Best Director...

OB1
Even though you didn't see the other movies up for those noms. *sigh*

People, people...

A Black Falcon
It's good enough that it doesn't matter and as mentioned it's also redemption for all the slights Fantasy and Sci-Fi have suffered over the years.

OB1
"It's good enough that it doesn't matter" is probably the dumbest thing I've heard since... well since ASM's last post, which was really stupid.

A Black Falcon
It deserves it for the reasons I gave. If you disagree so much which one that was nominated deserved it more?

OB1
For best director, City of God by a long shot. Yeah I know how great it is that a fantasy movie finally won, but City of God is the better movie and its director did an amazing job. It's especially amazing considering how little these Brazilians had to work with. Very low budget, etc.

Dark Jaguar
What's this City of God movie you keep talking about? You say it's Brazillian? It better not suck...

Fittisize
Bwahahaha.....Jim Rome is a funny man. I agree with him on this one:

Lord of the Rings earned a record-tying 11 Oscars last night at the Academy Awards. This is very bad news for those of us who are not losers. This is only going to encourage those freaks out there in their costumes that they have done the right thing. They may never take them off now. Bilbo Baggins and the rest of the hobbits are going to have the greasy gear on for another 12 months in celebrations. I am sure that they went straight from their Lord of the Rings parties to the video store to wait for the thing to come out on DVD.

Look people, it’s a movie. It may have even been a good movie. But it’s a fantasy. You are not a wizard. You are not a sorcerer. You are a dirty loser in a bed sheet who lives at home. You are not going to get the ring. You are going to get a welfare check. This is a new generation of losers. The early 2000’s version of Star Trek geeks. Or Star Wars losers. All of you guys are the same. Every generation finds their movie that they identify with and then they take it too far. They dress up, they develop their own languages, and they ruin it for normal people. Congratulations losers.

Make sure you keep your costume, because when you are all 50 years old and going to conventions with the rest of the no-lifers, you are going to want to make sure you have it ready to go.

Dark Jaguar
That whole thing was VERY insulting. This guy was likely a bully in school who hated nerds then and hates them now. Only now, he thinks he has some sort of justification.

OB1
What's this City of God movie you keep talking about? You say it's Brazillian? It better not suck...

It's one of the best movies I have ever seen, DJ. It most certainly does not suck. It was supposed to be out on dvd last month but was pushed back to june because of all the oscar noms. If you want some reviews...

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2003/01/012401.html

http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=135376&buy=open&Tab=reviews&CID=13#tabs

http://www.filmthreat.com:81/Reviews.asp?Id=3873

http://www.joblo.com/cityofgod.htm

http://www.ukcritic.com/cityofgod.html

OB1
That whole thing was VERY insulting. This guy was likely a bully in school who hated nerds then and hates them now. Only now, he thinks he has some sort of justification.

Yeah what was the point of that article?

Fittisize
Wow...City of God is also #42 in imdb Top 250.

That's amazing. But then again, RotK is #4...

OB1
Well duh, it's the most popular movie in ages.

EdenMaster
Chicago won last year...(Two Towers was better)
A Beautiful Mind the year before...(Fellowship owned that movie!, which I haven't seen)

So then if you haven't seen it, how can you judge? Merely saying "Lord of the Rings should have won because...erm...Lord of the Rings should have won!" doesn't make what you say have much credence. Watch both movies, THEN what you say can actually be considered relevant.

*Constructive Criticism :)*

Fittisize
I saw Chicago. Two Towers was DEFINETLY better than that.

As for FotR vs. A Beautiful Mind...well, FotR is #8 on imdb.com 250. A Beautiful Mind is #242. There ya go. Tens of thousands of voters from the best movie site on the web can't be wrong. :p (yeah yeah, I know I should see it before I pass judgment...but I'm not all that interested in seeing that particular film)

OB1
*claps for EM*

FINALLY someone who understands my point! You need to talk to ABF.

And fittsy, it's pretty common knowledge that most imdb users are idiots. Anybody can vote there. :D

Fittisize
And fittsy, it's pretty common knowledge that most imdb users are idiots. Anybody can vote there.

Yeah but there's so much freaking info for so many movies! And besides, many of the users are pretty intelligient...some of the message board discussions go in pretty deep. When there are 70,000 people voting for a movie, at least 19,000 of them will be stupid. But that goes for all movies, so the top 250 is pretty accurate, I'm guessing.

OB1
The site is great, but just like any big site the posters are on average pretty dumb.

Dark Jaguar
Why does Fitzisize keep judging movies based on their ranking at this site I've never heard of? Guess what Fit? The whole world CAN be wrong. At a time, the entire planet was convinced that objects slowed down because they got tired, not wind resistance, and the ideas of inertia would seem strange and even blasphemous to them.

OB1
Damn that Aristotle!

Dark Jaguar
I mean, "got tired"? Please tell me that was one of his off days! He's supposed to be this great thinker, but all the ideas I hear about attributed to him are silly at best. I mean "things fall because they long to be united with mother earth"? Okay, there's a little something to that, kinda... but that's still WAY off. Well, at any rate I'm still waiting for quantum theory's version of gravity. Oh yeah...

Fittisize
Why does Fitzisize keep judging movies based on their ranking at this site I've never heard of? Guess what Fit? The whole world CAN be wrong. At a time, the entire planet was convinced that objects slowed down because they got tired, not wind resistance, and the ideas of inertia would seem strange and even blasphemous to them.

But these are just movies we are talking about! Not science and physics!! People watch movies, and then vote on what they thought about them. On the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com--every single movie, TV show, actor, actress, crew member that you could possibly imagine. Try and find a movie that you think won't be on that site. It'll be there, as well as a mini-biography and movie chronology for every movie or TV show they have been a part of) tens of thousands of registered users vote for movies they have seen...and about 90% of the time (they got the rating wrong for The Matrix Revolutions) those ratings get it right when I am comparing two movies.

Yeesh, I don't see how that whole world being wrong dealie even relates to movies in the slightest.

OB1
Users often contribute false information to many many movies and they take a while to get fixed. You should see the boards there. They're like a whole bunch of Aristotles! Eh, DJ? High five!

Dark Jaguar
Keplaxian high five of doom! *high fives* *DJ and OB1 instantly die... somehow..*

Anyway... You said "70000 voters can't be wrong", so I pointed out the flaw. You say they are just movies right? Well, exactly. If the entire world can be wrong about something as important as science, then I think it would be rather easy to be way off about something like movies. I don't care how much information they have ABOUT the movies ya know.

Fittisize
If the entire world can be wrong about something as important as science, then I think it would be rather easy to be way off about something like movies.

But movies are so much more simpler than science! Man alive, how can you even compare the two?

Ryan
Have you seen Millennium Actress yet? Really wonderful movie.
I saw it come in at work and I was debating getting it. The premise is pretty cool.

OB1
Rent it at the very least.

Fittisize
Yeah. Change your sig, to.

It's stupid.

OB1
You're stupid!

Dark Jaguar
You're the one who found the common ground in the first place, I merely pointed it out.

OB1
Wha?

A Black Falcon
Aristotle was smart... for 350 BC... the problem was that his theories were accepted without question for over a thousand years, pretty much, not that his theories were wrong. To get a good theory you usually have to work through wrong ones after all.

OB1
Was DJ replying to my post?

Dark Jaguar
No, to Fitisize. I think I was typing my response when you were submitting yours or something...

Anyway, yes that is true ABF. I'll have to actually look into the stuff he thought of. It's just that, even for the time (they had the same brains as we do you know, and all the technology that Galileo used when he came onto the scene), some of that stuff just seemed silly. There's a reason it's Galileo and not Aristotle who is considered the father of modern science.

OB1
Oh ok.

A Black Falcon
If you want Greek philosophers the one we now identify with best is probably Socrates, but he was probably too far from Medieval thought... Aristotle fit better. :) For one thing Aristotle wasn't against empires or kings -- he was one of the tutors of Alexander the Great, I believe...