84th Academy Awards / Oscars thread (2012)

Supporting actress
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

I thought she was over hyped in this movie essentially playing a fat slob that takes a dump in a sink at a bridal salon. Funny? maybe....Oscar winning actress....please.

 

No way in hell does he deserve an Oscar for that film. The Academy is getting crazier every year.

 

Yeah, I don't really get that nomination either. The movie was good enough, and she did a fine job in it. But an Oscar-worthy performance? I don't think so.

 

Perhaps not, but he did steal the show.

 

Albert Brooks in Drive is an example of an actor playing outside his usual role that steals the show.

 

Has anyone here attended the ceremony?

 

I feel pretty safe handing the Oscar for Best Cinematography to Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life.

 

Did I say he deserved an Oscar? No, I said it wasn't a travesty that he got nominated. He was good, and funny, and serious, in that role. Good for him.

And I haven't seen all of the movies, mostly because if doesn't feature Transformers, 3-D, vampires, or Harry Potter, it usually doesn't come to my town, but Brad Pitt blew me away in Moneyball, and I hope he wins.

 

I understand that this is not Serious Analysis, but, on the movie poster for The Help, there was Stone, Davis, Spencer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, and they were all co-leads, in my opinion. The Help was the definition of an ensemble cast. I don't think the Lead Actress/Supporting Actress distinction really holds up here, in a movie that's all about people coming together and overcoming distinctions, even if the distinctions in the movie were more serious than the Lead Actress/Supporting Actress distinction.

Again, I see Spencer as just as much of a lead as Davis was. Oh well, I'm not a member of the Academy.

 

All the 2012 Oscar Nominations and Snubs from the Zimbio website:

http://www.zimbio.com/2012+Oscar+Nominees/articles/LHOuRGMKaPo/Best+Supporting+Actress

 

I'd be very, very surprised if The Artist doesn't win for Guillaume Schiffman. If I voted, I think I'd vote for Bob Richardson for Hugo.

Interesting coverage on what films will benefit, and what celebs were snubbed by the Oscars in this article on The Wrap:

Oscar Nominations Analysis: Contradictory, and Good for 'The Artist'

 

Really? I thought Kung Fu Panda 2 was very good & Rango was excellent. Critics seemed to like both of them.

 

I regard Stone as the lead because her character motivates the entire story. Sure, others are important, but without Skeeter, there's no book, there's no conflict, there's no nuttin'.

In Reggie Jackson parlance, Skeeter is the straw that stirs the drink!

Not saying she's a dominant lead character, but I do think she's the lead...

 

Agreed.

Jonah did a great job but no way near the acting quality of Brooks in Drive.

Brooks was robbed, beaten and left for dead. The Academy should be ashamed.

Slowly over time, the Academy has turned into a political monster akin to the Grammy committee.

 

Today's Thing I Find Amusing:

When I first saw Jonah Hill (in "Superbad"), I thought he was just a Seth Rogen wannabe.

When I first saw Jesse Eisenberg (in "Adventureland"), I thought he was just a Michael Cera wannabe.

Hill and Eisenberg have now been nominated for Oscars - Rogen and Cera haven't!

 

If anyone involved with Bridesmaids wins anything it'll be ridiculous. That was one of the most overrated movies of recent years - it gets written up like it's the funniest movie of the century and a major breakthrough for Women In Comedy, but it's really just a standard romcom with some toilet humour thrown in. Whoopee. I thought it was OK, but if it'd starred Jennifer Aniston it wouldn't be getting the notices it has.

I think a lot of voters just got really thrown that they guy could do well in a straight role. I mean, this is a guy who got his start barely six years ago, in a 30-second appearance buying a pair of novelty platform boots in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

 

Tintin can't be nominated. It is mocap:

Rule Seven: Special Rules for the Best Animated Feature Film Award

1. DEFINITION An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.

 

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in Bridesmaids too. I'm a fan of a lot of the people who were involved (Judd Apatow, Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig), and it got such tremendous reviews. But really, it turned out to just be a sort of long, sort of funny, standard comedy. And this is coming from someone who thinks the 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad are two of the best comedies of the last ten years, so I appreciate toilet humour.

 

I'm pretty sure the Academy ruled that The Adventures of Tintin was one of the 18 eligible films for Best Animated Feature...

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/in-cont...-best-animated-feature-film-tintin-among-them

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Thanks for the info!
Both "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Happy Feet 2" used motion capture technology. Either the Academy ignored their own rules, or the film makers submitted the films as hand animated but told the public differently at the same time.
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule07.html
(See 1 DEFINITION)

My opinion is that mocap films SHOULD qualify because there has never been a single film that use mocap without a huge amount of fixing and re animating. By the time the films were done, a lot of them had very little mocap left. Some ended up with none- The Incredible Hulk; Paul etc...

 

I think the, "by itself," language gives them wiggle room to interpret and to judge films without a hard, fast rule.

My understanding is that this language was added to prevent live action films that have been given a simple motion-capture "glaze" from being nominated. The examples I always hear are Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, both films most people do not consider animated features.

How something like Avatar compares to The Adventures of Tintin, I don't know. I haven't seen the newer film yet, but I guess the Academy ruled enough of the animation was unique and added and not simply overlaid onto a motion captured image to allow the film to qualify...

So perhaps the Academy has fallen back on that old, "I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it," saying.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

"by itself" definitely sounds like a get out clause.

 

Yes. Let's go back to handing Oscar gold to skinny, ditzy blondes in Woody Allen comedies, like Mira Sorvino in "Mighty Aphrodite".

 

He might not have phrased it the best, but that clearly wasn't his point.

 

Agree, couldn't have said it better myself.