Oscar nominations

[Starr Polish]

I agree, Moulin Rouge is an AMAZING movie, and Baz should have been nominated for best director.

If LOTR doesn't win Best Picture, that's who I'm rooting for I just saw it for only my second time yesterday, since we got it on Pay Per view and I am ill...::sigh:: I'm such a sap.

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

I was just thinking, because I tend to think up wierd things like this, if LotR:FotR does not win best picture, which nominated movie is your second choice? (I am assuming you of course have LotR as your first choice!) Also, if it doesn't win best picture, which would you least like to win over it?
Me:
My second choice would be Black Hawk Down. NOT because Orlando Bloom is in it! (okay, maybe a little. because he is a good actor.) But I can't really say this fairly, those are the only two I've seen.
Least favorite: (again, I can't really talk, but oh well) A Beautiful Mind. Mainly because it seems right now to be the top contender. Also, The Literary Guild just sorta dissed LotR. In an advertisement, they said, "Oscar Fever: read the books behind the movies," and they showed A Beautiful Mind and Black Hawk Down, but not LotR. Okay, I'm being really stupid and petty. But forgive me, I'm bored. . .

[Ben]

My second choice would be Black Hawk Down. NOT because Orlando Bloom is in it! (okay, maybe a little. because he is a good actor.) But I can't really say this fairly, those are the only two I've seen.

Well, it would be extremely hard for BHD to win, primarily because it's not nominated .

The nominees for Best Picture are: LotR, A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and Moulin Rouge.

[Liviaine]

After LotR, I'd like Moulin Rouge to win because I love musicals. I agree with Eruviel Greenleaf about A Beautiful Mind.

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

Originally posted by bmilder


Well, it would be extremely hard for BHD to win, primarily because it's not nominated .

The nominees for Best Picture are: LotR, A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and Moulin Rouge.

Really? Oh, I knew that! Okay, what happened to me? I think I lost my mind temporarily. . .I don't know why I though that Oh! Because of that literary guild advertisement. That must be it. eek.

Hmm, I dunno what my second choice would be, then.

[Comic Book Guy]

Moulin Rogue! and In the Bedroom have a longer chance at winning, their repective directors haven't been nominated in the Directors Catagory.

[bropous]

Actually all the hype on the Oscars is precisely what turns me off to them every year. Only reason I give a flip this year and the next two is because Lord of the Rings is involved.

As for whom I would prefer to win Best Picture instead of FotR, I have no dog in that fight. I wouldn't touch Moulin Rouge with a ninety-foot pole, because it's a steenkin' musical, nor Beautiful Mind because it is so dang overplayed. Gosford Park maybe, because I have a touch of Anglophile in me, and I don' know nothin' 'bout In the Bedroom, graffitti on bathroom walls notwithstanding.

The Oscars never really speak for true film quality, anyways. It's a huge popularity contest with the most incestuous and insular polling group one could imagine. New Line Pictures' fifteen-page spread in variety is a prime example of trying to win over votes and not allowing the artwork to stand on its own.

Again, I state that LotR doesn't praise the underside of life, so it has limited chnce of garnering a "Best Picture" Oscar. I breathlessly await the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised.

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

Originally posted by bropous

The Oscars never really speak for true film quality, anyways. It's a huge popularity contest with the most incestuous and insular polling group one could imagine. New Line Pictures' fifteen-page spread in variety is a prime example of trying to win over votes and not allowing the artwork to stand on its own.

Too true. So why do I care every year who wins? Good question, I don't know.

[Arathorn]

I don't know about you guys but I just watch 'em so I won't get left out of the conversation. Whether I join in or not, at least I won't get too bored.

[bropous]

Well, pulled out that ninety-foot pole and ordered "Moulin Rouge" on pay-per-view. What a miserable dog of a film. It's not even good enough for "Mystery Science Theater 3000". As painful to watch as "Manos: The Hands of Fate".

First, putting "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Material girl" in a 1890s setting triggered waves of revulsion. Bozos who put this film together couldn't even write original music. Lame with a capital "L".

Plus, everything was so gold-leaf and red velvet baroque that one's eyes were simply overtired after the first five minutes. Slash goes best set director. Everything was totally over-choreographed (best choreography out the window; the fight scenes in LotR should win for that). The whole bloody thing was so steenkin' over-the-top that, the hopes of getting my money's worth rapidly eroding, I cut my losses and bailed. Then I threw up.

Again, the Academy have NEVER impressed me with their choices. I have a strong feeling that this year my distaste for the Oscars will simply be reinforced.

"A Beautiful Mind" ain't even the same story as the book. One may kvetch and spew bile against overreaching Arwen or dropping Glorfindel or Bombadil, but to make "Mind" more palatable, the follwing sides of the main character were left out intentionally, and other aspect added from wholecloth:

"...Nash’s wife actually left him...he fathered an illegitimate son...he [was] busted once for coming on to a man in a men’s room in Malibu, the Cold War paranoid fantasies that loom so large in the film are inventions of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman...."
[http://www.msnbc.com/news/723644.asp] Now, I don't care about these aspects, but if Ron "Land of the Giants" Howard sanitized the character of Nash in the film just to make it more palatable to Academy members, then he certainly doesn't own a best director nod. Besides, the Nash guy was scathingly anti-Jewish, and since so many members of the academy are of Hebraic descent......"Revisio, Ergo Est".

So, the film is not even true to the book, Russell Crowe is nothing but a boozing, boorish bozo, Opie Taylor is an overrated clymer whose "movies" rival Speilberg's for monuments to self-aggrandizement and preachy social engineering, and some black groups are assailing the Academy members throwing up the old tired shibboleth of "racism" if the three black actors don't win. Whole thing is a "confederacy of dunces", and therefore, OUR film, "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring", is most likely gonna get snubbed next Sunday.

I would LOVE to be proven wrong. Only time will tell.

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

*applause*

Well said, Bropous. I, too, hope you are wrong on how LotR will most likely get snubbed next week, but, unfortunately, you are probably right. Now I have to go see those other movies so I will know LotR is up against. . .

[StrawberryIcecream]

You thought Moulin Rouge was rubbish?

Yeah, it wasn't nearly good as LotR:FotR but still, it was a brilliant film! All of my friends like it (half of which are registered on here) and I dont know why you think its so awful!

Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor were amazing together!

[Ërendil]

i agree with bropous- i thought that moulin rouge was rubbish as well. But then again it isn't my type of film

[mirrille]

I was very disappointed with Moulin Rouge when I saw it.
I love movie musicals, and I wanted Moulin Rouge to be good so that people would see there is still money in making musicals and we would get to see more of them. But when I watch a musical, I like to hear good songs and see some good dancing. None of the songs were new, as far as I could tell. But the biggest disappointment was that the camera cuts were so fast that in a dance number (or the whole film, for that matter), you could never see the whole dancer's body, so you couldn't appreciate the dancing, naturally obviating the need for well-choreographed numbers. Just move the camera around instead of the dancers! Sure. It looks like a music video, but for a film so long, I literally came out with a headache. The pacing was terrible. That's my biggest complaint.
Having said that, the costumes were pretty. And the "Roxanne" number was interesting. The cuts were still too fast there though.

[IronParrot]

"Well, pulled out that ninety-foot pole and ordered "Moulin Rouge" on pay-per-view. What a miserable dog of a film. It's not even good enough for "Mystery Science Theater 3000". As painful to watch as "Manos: The Hands of Fate"."

BURN HIM! BURN THE WITCH!

Ahem. Almost lost my cool there.

[IronParrot]

"First, putting "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Material girl" in a 1890s setting triggered waves of revulsion. Bozos who put this film together couldn't even write original music. Lame with a capital "L"."

Need I remind you that such cinematic musical classics as Singin' In The Rain and An American In Paris were also based on pre-existing songs? Need I remind you that the former, while set in the late 1920s, included songs that were written in the '30s and '40s? Need I point out that Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera and Evita were all written with anachronistic harmonies?

"Plus, everything was so gold-leaf and red velvet baroque that one's eyes were simply overtired after the first five minutes. Slash goes best set director. Everything was totally over-choreographed (best choreography out the window; the fight scenes in LotR should win for that). The whole bloody thing was so steenkin' over-the-top that, the hopes of getting my money's worth rapidly eroding, I cut my losses and bailed. Then I threw up."

So now we've established that you have a weak stomach for original visual dynamism and hyperkinetic rhythmic editing. But that's enough about you...

"None of the songs were new, as far as I could tell."

See above. And don't forget about "Come What May".

"But the biggest disappointment was that the camera cuts were so fast that in a dance number (or the whole film, for that matter), you could never see the whole dancer's body, so you couldn't appreciate the dancing, naturally obviating the need for well-choreographed numbers. Just move the camera around instead of the dancers!"

So it wasn't what you expected it to be - a Gene Kelly dance spectacular with numbers like that Broadway Melody bit. But was that ever the point? It's a tapestry of the Bohemian values of truth, beauty, freedom and love. The rush, the dynamism, and the mood is of paramount importance, and the visual style complements that.

"The pacing was terrible."

Please demonstrate how seamless transitions between contrasting emotions in quick succession (one of Luhrmann's trademarks, almost) evenly spread over two hours is considered terrible... is it too fast or too slow?

Wait a minute, am I going off topic here?

Anyway, I'd just like to put in a quick word about what the nominees for Best Picture should have been this year, but obviously weren't. My final five, in order of preference:

The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge!
Memento
Amélie
A.I. Artificial Intelligence

[bropous]

Ah, but, O Ferrous One, I hated "Caterwaulin' in the Rain" and "An American in Plaster of Paris" too. Musicals usually make me violently ill. So, in the interests of full disclosure, admittedly, I had a grudge against "Moulin Rouge" going in.

As for Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Yawn, The Phantom of the Opera and Evita , there may have been "anachronistic harmonies" but at least Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Weber worte the bloody stuff for the musical/opera. [BTW, JCS and Evita are rare exceptions to my anti-musical/anti-opera bent]. The music may not have matched the scenery, but using "Material Girl" for a french anorexic courtesan of the turn of the wrong century is far worse.

As for my "weak stomach for original visual dynamism and hyperkinetic rhythmic editing", to each his/her own. I thought it was a film clad in pimp's clothing, garish and tatty, tacky and too shi-shi. Overdone, overworked, overrated and overdecorated. Whole thing might very well trigger epileptic fits more effectively than video games. Certainly does trigger nausea in some test subject groups....

But as far as "Bohemian values" [wow, a phrasing as effective as Ipecac], the only bohemian values were "get it all for yourself and up all others", "enjoy now", and "hedonism is the only virtue, restraint the only vice". It may be nice to paint some Bohemian nirvanistic ideology, but in reality is as workable as 1960s hippie communes. Ain't many of 'em worked. Bohemian hedonistic socialism in practice. Peace, man.


Glad you liked the movie, IP. We just don't agree on this one, bro.

[Comic Book Guy]

I believe it's fair to say Moulin Rouge! is a love/hate thing, it's to do with personal taste I suppose.

[bropous]

I would certainly agree on the love/hate thing, Graphic Novel Dude. Sorta like Alan Scott over Kyle Jordan, no?

[mirrille]

Ahhh! Gene Kelly is a dancing GOD!

Moulin Rouge: I meant pacing in terms of presentation and organization. The problem is that it wasn't seamless.
it was cutcutcutcut.
The whole thing feels like being in transition to something else but never appreciating the actual moment there.
It makes you dizzy in a bad way.

I heard it described as a <insert foreign word referring to a shishkebab/yakitori-like food>, which is a cute way to put it. Chunks of different things strung together on a stick.
I tried to like it. I really did.
Come to think of it, yakitori is yummy. But i guess you wouldn't try to shove the whole thing down your throat at once. Pieces of the movie were ok. but the thing as a whole didn't work for me.

I never saw A Beautiful Mind, but what i'm hearing about the butchering of the person's real experience is making me very reluctant to do so. Plus that it's not a math movie like I originally thought.
I want to see Amelie though.
Come to think of it, I haven't seen that many movies this year. When are the Oscars again?