One Film to Rule Them All!

Needless to say, I really enjoyed the Oscars this year. I thought Billy Crystal was excellent. Of course I was extremely pleased at how Lord of the Rings did. This makes up for snubbing the first 2 films.

Sean

 

My pug Frodo (my avatar) was quite pleased!

I did want to see Bill Murray win for Lost in Translation, that's my only gripe about tonight's show. Sean Penn was a pleasant surprise though.

Sean

 

I agree, incredible sweep by LOTR!!! I was glad to see Sean Penn win. It was a long time coming, and he was very gracious and humble when he went up to accept his oscar.

 

Probably I'm the only one, who haven't watched the LOTR trilogy!

 

I have tried to watch it several times, and I still cannot remember all those guys' names, maybe because they are not acting very well... I can tell the Hobbits from the rest of the bunch 'cause they are small, although they are not acting very well either. I do appreciate the epic battles, and the sheer CPU power that went into creating these movies... rather impressive.

 

My kids have the DVDs, and I have had a hard time staying tuned in through the whole thing. Then again, I haven't liked the Star Wars films either, except for the first time I saw the first one. After I get over the gee-whiz effects, these flicks seem kind of shallow to me. After all, once the universe has been in danger of being totally annihilated in a final battle of good-versus-evil a couple of dozen times, it no longer fires the imagination.

But I'm glad this pseudo-indie film won; the director, who was interviewed on NPR ("Fresh Air"), seems like someone who's paid his dues over the years. And if you're into this kind of movie, there certainly is a lot of it (what do the three films come to - 10 hours?).

 

I haven't either. But in terms of the acting awards, I felt the most richly deserved Oscar went to Tim Robbins for Mystic River. I wasn't wild about the movie as a whole, and I also thought Sean Penn wasn't streching that much, but Robbins' performance was extraordinary, in my mind. Unfortunately, I didn't see that many of the Oscar-nominated pictures.

 

Why is it that whenever a film or actor does not win someone calls it a "snub"? Isn't it possible that the voters simply preferred a different movie or performance?

snub - to treat with scorn, disdain, etc.

This implies the voters went out of their way to ensure defeat. I really doubt it.

BTW, I'm pleased with the winners.

 

Like several other posts on this thread, I didn't think RETURN OF THE KING deserved a Best Picture statue, or even a nomination. But TITANIC swept a lot of awards the year that mega-blockbuster was eligible, and I suspect a lot of the same Grammy-styled thinking went into the voting this year. The industry would be hard-pressed not to acknowledge a film that keeps people coming to the theatres.

I suspect in twenty years we'll be asking why some smaller film didn't win more awards, much as we often look at some acknowledged classics today (like 1962's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) and wonder how Oscar voters could have overlooked them when they were eligible, in favor of a bigger box office champ.

 

The acting is stilted and campy - I hope it was done to make the virtual creations seem more life like.

In the theater I was at the audience burst out laughing near the end when the little kid playing Sams' daughter goes stumbling outdoors in over-sized rubber hobbit feet.

 

Neither have I.

 

Which is why "Spider-Man", "Harry Potter", "The Grinch", and "Phantom Menace" all won Best Picture Oscars.

I suspect that if "ROTK" HADN'T won, then in 20 years we'd wonder how some little-remembered flick beat a legendary one. Y'know, it's not like the "LOTR" flicks were just some popular phenomenon - they got incredibly great reviews too. As did "Titanic".

Geez, what is this, the backlash thread? Lotsa "LOTR" hate out there this AM!

(And BTW - "Manchurian Candidate" lost to "Lawrence of Arabia". While the former was an excellent film, I don't think a lot of people look at that case as one of some injustice being done - it doesn't get more classic than "LOA".)

 

I thought "Return of the King" was a great film and deserved to win. I think the whole trilogy is something special, and something that I had given up on: a smart, witty, wholehearted epic.

I suspect that those who didn't like the films wouldn't like Tolkien all that much, either.

A few of the "little" films got good notice last night, too: "Lost In Translation" for one, and my man Errol Morris's "Fog of War" for another.

 

No, you are not.

 

Spider Man won Best Picture? When did that happen?

 

I think he was making a funny. None of those won.

 

While the trilogy overall is very enjoyable and masterfully done, must admit, although I knew it would probably win for Best Adapted Screenplay, I didn't feel the writers deserved it for the third installment, really....in fact, I know a few friends who consider their writing to be a travesty, and while I wouldn't go quite that far, the puffing up of the Arwen and Elrond characters--doubtless done because they hired hi-profile actors and felt obligated to use them(funny how this was ignored for a venerable fella like Christopher Lee!)--was not the smartest move they could have made, and just plain unnecessary.

Other than that, though, the film--well, the trilogy--deserved all the awards it won.


ED

 

I have friends who think that too, but they're wrong.

Arwen is obviously of crucial importance to the story, but Tolkien didn't know what to make of her in the main narrative, so she's in the Appendix. Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens merely took what was implicit in Tolkien and made it more explicit and integral. Same with Elrond, I'd argue. Both very sharp and savvy choices.

The choice I had trouble with concerned Faramir, who is far too much like Boromir Lite in the theatrical cut of The Two Towers. The extended edition offered the flashback with his father, and that helped greatly, but even at that I feel that Faramir was perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of the film.

That said, I do think that the terraced, lovely, yearning endings represent the gutsiest and most impressive artistic choice I've seen in many a moon. Jackson is to be commended for not taking us out on a conventional movie high note. In fact, he brings us back to the true ring of power, the round front door of Sam's hobbit house, inside of which we find a family circle. Going back home and raising a family--true heroism, indeed!

 

You are not alone. I must also confess that I have yet to see any of the Star Wars movies... How's that for 'under a rock' and 'out of the loop'?

 

I think TITANIC and RETURN OF THE KING are exactly the sort of well-crafted, uncontroverisal blockbusters that the Motion Picture Academy likes. No harm done; I just don't think RETURN OF THE KING (or TITANIC or BRAVEHEART or GLADIATOR, etc.) merited additional artistic awards beyond its impressive box office receipts. It's not hate as much as resigned apathy. I genuinely don't think RETURN OF THE KING was a great, or even very good, movie.

In twenty years, I believe the LOTR trilogy will look as cheesy as STAR WARS did when that trilogy was re-released to the theatres several years ago. Diehard fans who had grown up loving the films laughed at the wooden acting, inane dialog, and dated special effects, all of which the big screen seemed to exacerbate. Halfway through the first film my revival audience was cracking jokes out loud: Luke's "I'll never get off this planet!" elicited theatre-wide groans.

To maintain my science fiction/fantasy comparison, that was not the case with the revivals of Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER or ALIEN. Despite the years, those superior films maintained their grip on the audience. In my opinion, LOTR is more STAR WARS than ALIEN or BLADE RUNNER (or ROAD WARRIOR or MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE or ED WOOD): that is, an important cultural phenomenon and generational touchstone, but not great cinema.

 

I've heard critics and filmgoers complain about both BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN, too. I suppose everyone's mileage varies.

I do think it's fair to say that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK actually had some weight to it and holds up all these years later. For me, TLOTR at its worst doesn't fall below that level. At its best, it's truly great filmmaking. IMHO!

 

Nope, there's at least two of us.