87th Academy Awards/Oscars (2015) live thread

That's code for "Hollywood is super-liberal".

I'd argue "Sniper" can appeal to both sides of the political spectrum. It can be viewed as a pro-military film, but it also can be seen as one that shows the psychological damage war brings, so that'd appeal to the "doves".

It seems that most are seeing it as a "rah-rah USA USA USA!" movie, but I think that's shortsighted.

I don't think box office discussions appear here to establish merit - I think they're just brought up as an interesting footnote.

Worldwide, the last "Transformers" made a lot more than "Sniper", but "Sniper" was a bigger hit in the US: $331 million vs. $245 million.

"Transformers" made $845 million - ! - overseas vs. $139 million non-US for "Sniper".

I'm actually surprised "Sniper" made that much outside of the US. It doesn't seem like a story that'd appeal much to non-American audiences...

 

The Oscar winners are pretty predictable, not just in light of any political bias, but in other ways as well. This year they kept up the long held tradition of rewarding protrayals of characters with physical or mental ailments or disabilities. Juliane Moore as an alzheimer patient. Eddie Redmayne for Steveh Hawking who suffers from a motor neuron disease. As if pretending to be ill or disabled is 'real' acting. They also like to reward meta-films. 'Birdman' is about a faded Hollywood star/ action hero. They also like to pick realtively low budget box/ and lesser seen films for their 'best piture' category, as if to prove that Hollywood really isn't about money, but art.

I don't think the highest grossing film should automatically win 'best picture', but the box office of 'American Sniper' in comparison to the other nominees show how out of touch the 'Academy' is with the actually paying customers/ general public who go and watch movies. And I still think the 'AS' didn't stand a chance of winning 'best picture' because of a general political bias in Hollywood.

 

I've said for years I'd like to see Nathan Lane host. He's funny as can be, but can also lend a distinguised air to the show.

The guy's probably just not "sexy" enough for the gig, sadly...

 

the show has bigger problems then the host !!!! a show which is more about big tony style production numbers and weak performers spending what little time they have in-between the commercials doing every darn nominated song
instead of spending any time to salute Film , I for one would ratter see the the Governors Ball ! that's where the "Real" stars show up

 

Whoopi was sexy?

 

Every time this thread updates I keep thinking the ceremony is still going on.

 

Apparently the Academy is considering going back to just 5 best picture nominees per year.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-academy-weighing-return-five-779066?Facebook_20150303

 

Good. They've nominated a fair amount of questionable films since allowing more than five (Avatar, The Blind Side, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, War Horse, Les Miserables).

Plus when you have eight, nine, or ten nominees it gets to be a bit silly because you know that so many of them have a basically nonexistent chance of winning.

 

I'm sure they are trying to find a balance between nominating the films they feel deserve it...but also figuring out how to draw in the general public to have an interest in the awards show. I don't really know what their options are at this point. I thought the list of nominees this year was quite good, but for the general moviegoing public the only film they were even familiar with was American Sniper. Thus the ratings for the awards show dropped considerably. It raises a good point that the biggest broadcast they ever had was the year Titanic was up for best picture, that was one of those very few times that the tastes of the general public happened to overlap with the Academy voters. I think it's a lose/lose situation, cater to the desire of the public for whiz-bang-pow action movies and you lose credibility, stick to your guns and your ratings continue to plummet.

 

That was also a really boring year, IMO, because you knew Titanic was going to win every award it was nominated for, which it pretty much did.

This year's best picture nominees were at least all pretty respectable and the awards were widely distributed.

Nothing more boring than when the winners are all a foregone conclusion.

 

Interesting opinion piece on why expanding the number of Best Picture nominees backfired:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-pros...lly-shrinking-the-number-of-oscar-contenders/

 

Well this is just...awkward:

 

That was better than the actual show!

 

That article's actually over a year old, but it IS interesting.

 

Sorry, I meant to note that when I linked to the article and I forgot. I read it back then, and some comments in this thread made me think of it again.