Posts Tagged ‘Oscars’
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Yeah! Ha, ha, ha! Take THAT People’s Choice Awards! I hope you packed a lunch because I just took you to school!
Okay, so… maybe The People’s Choice Awards really isn’t that big of a deal. Still, it beats having to talk about another Saw movie for the fifth year in a row!
This strip is a continuation of Tom’s insistence of a Best Actor nod for Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in Iron Man from Wednesday’s comic. I didn’t really envision more than one strip when I wrote the first one until my friend Joe asked me if there was going to be a longer storyline.
I mean, I guess I could see where the punchline for Wednesday’s comic kind of set things, but I’m seriously just flying by the seat of my pants, here. I could probably do another strip on Monday. It depends what you guys think. Do you guys want to see where this goes or do you want me to do a strip about Zach and Miri Make A Porno? Halloween is next week. Should I do a Halloween strip instead? Send me an e-mail and tell me what you think!
Nothing much to talk about this weekend, movie-wise. Saw V is going dominate and that’s that. *YAWN* Personally, I’m kind of interested in seeing Pride and Glory. I know I shouldn’t be, though. It looks like such typical tough guy police corruption boilerplate. Like Joe said during The Triple Feature on Monday, it looks like We Own The Night: Part 2. Nevermind this movie has been on the shelf for 8 months after being completed. That’s typical a bad sign.
But still, I’m almost always interested in what either Ed Norton or Colin Farrell do and I think a pairing of the two actors is long overdue. Farrell experienced some over-exposure a few years back and I guess it led him to treatment for his alcoholism. I’m interested to see how that has affected his acting and intensity. Plus, it’s directed by Gavin O’Connor, which I’m sure means nothing to you. But he also directed the Kurt Russell Olympic hockey movie Miracle a few years back and I thought he did a really great job with that movie. It’s one of those films I quietly appreciate because I’m not typically interested in sports movies. What can I say? That one got to me.
At any rate, I might try to sneak out and see it this weekend if I’ve got nothing else going on.
That’s all for today. Thanks for checking the site and I hope you have a great weekend! See you here on Monday!
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Yesterday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it would be widening the field of nominees for Best Picture from 5 to 10.
When I first heard the news I though, “Hmm, that’s interesting.” But the more I think about it, the more upset I become.
This isn’t the first time the Academy has nominated 10 films for Best Picture. In fact, it was par for the course when the awards show was created back in the 1930s and was a practice they continued well into the 1940s.
But the big difference these days is that there are FAR fewer studios producing movies and a much smaller number of films being released each year. Also, the Oscar’s weren’t broadcast until 1953. So what’s the real reason behind widening the field to 10?
Follow the money.
If you ask me, this is all one huge money-making scheme. 10 films get nominated and now 10 films are “must see” in the theater. If you don’t catch them in the theater, now studios can slap the “Oscar nominated” title on the DVD and claim their film is an avatar of quality. If you don’t catch it on DVD, maybe you’ll watch the Oscar broadcast because – hey – something is new and different! Nevermind all of the entertainment media that will now be forced to write about, speculate, categorize, rank and rate 10 Best Picture nominees.
Remember the Oscars last year when they didn’t have a host and instead had actors come up and give little speeches to the nominees about how great they are. Remember that Zac Efron was one of those presenters?
Yeah… this 10 nominations thing is just another gimmick, but on a much larger scale.
My question is, if they’re going to nominate 10 films for Best Picture, then why not 10 nominees for Best Director? How many films have won Best Picture without their directors winning in their categories? Why not 10 Best Actors, Best Actresses?
Some of you probably think that 10 Best Picture nominations is a good thing. Would Wall-E or The Dark Night have been nominated last year under this structure? Will this open the door to more independent movies being recognized by the Academy and a larger audience? Perhaps.
But if they’re going to widen the field this far, then the Academy needs to get ride of “ghettoized” categories like “Best Foreign Language Film,” “Best Animated Feature Film” and “Best Documentary Feature.” All of them are ridiculous categories to begin with and treats their genre’s like second class citizens. Any of the films nominated in those categories can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with films from other genres.
Well, except Bolt. Seriously, what were they thinking nominating that last year?
What the Academy fails to realize – especially when they attempt these naked gimmicks to boost their ratings – is that movie goers haven’t lost interest in because they’ve become bored with the tradition. If anything, that’s THE REASON they huddle around their television each year.
No. People have become disenfranchised from the Oscar’s because their choices reflect no sincerity, originality or taste. That, coupled with the fact that a Best Picture nomination has become a political campaign among the studios to jockey for a position at the end of the year that will increase their odds of the Academy (and their narrow memories) to nominate their films.
The Reader, for example, was sent to theaters in limited release on December 10 to meet the Oscar deadline but wasn’t released wide until January 9. By then, reviews were ancient, no one was talking about it and demand for the film was nil. It barely reached middle America except in a few art houses. How are we supposed to get excited for a film like this when there is no opportunity to see it?
If this change results in sincere diversity among the Best Picture nominees, then I will happily eat crow. If Up is nominated alongside The Hurt Locker, no one will be more pleased than me.
But I see no reason for the Academy’s decision to remotely change how Hollywood does business. The studios have a formula and they’re sticking to it. The rest of us are just along for the ride.
What is your reaction to the Academy’s announcement? Are you excited for the change of pace or do you thing the Academy has an ulterior motivation. Do 10 Best Picture nominations dilute the value of the Oscars or is the trophy bragging rights and not an indicator of true quality?
Leave your comments below! Let’s get a dialogue going!
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Tom and Cami probably should have thrown that television out the window a decade ago. 2010 and they’re still using rabbit ears? Get with the program!
I will admit that today’s comic would have had more impact if it were paired with the Oscar recap that I penned on Monday. But you guys know the circumstances of why THAT didn’t happen.
That said, I couldn’t let the idea of this comic go. I still wanted to go forward with it rather than not leave a record within the comic’s continuity that the 82nd Annual Academy Awards had happened.
Although, looking at the media landscape 3 days later, it almost feels like it didn’t. I continue to be amazed by how fast the media and our culture synthesize and process these events. By now, Sunday night’s broadcast is old, old, OLD news. I’m not seeing anyone talk about them now.
Maybe it’s the media. Maybe it’s the culture. Maybe it’s just that there wasn’t anything that memorable about the broadcast. Except that’s not true when you consider that crazy lady with the bozo haircut that interrupted Best Documentary Short winner Roger Ross Williams.
People had their fun with it, I guess. The late night hosts ran a couple parodies that I saw. But they’re not talking about it any more. I don’t know. How could you expect them too and have them still be relevant?
Certainly something no one is talking about 3 days later is Katheryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director. Considering she’s the first woman to be recognized with the honor, you’d think it would be a bigger deal.
Remember when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won Best Actor and Best Actress? It seems like we were talking about that for a while before the sturm and drang subsided. Maybe Bigelow doesn’t want to make as big a deal about it. Maybe she’s limiting her accessibility. Or maybe it’s just not that big of a deal. It probably shouldn’t be. More women should be nominated. More women should win. Heck, more women should be out there directing! Calling attention to the “First Female Director To Win An Oscar” probably makes the idea of the honor less commonplace than it should be.
All I know is that being sidelined with a migraine this week has thrown me off-pace from what I REALLY want to talk about – The new Iron Man 2 trailer.
Believe me – Come Friday, I will have A LOT to say about it. Be sure to be here for that!
Until then, danke schoen.
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I don’t know how you guys were raised, but when you have a television telling you things you don’t want to hear, you toss it out the window.
When you have a friend telling you things you don’t want to hear, well, same goes…
I really wish I could have talked about the new Iron Man 2 trailer sooner. I think after my extended run of Iron Man comics in 2008, people have come to associate me with the franchise very closely. People expect that I will have something to say about it. And, well, I do.
But first, here’s the trailer in all it’s glory (in the unlikely event that you haven’t seen it yet.)
Okay, first thoughts? SUITCASE ARMOR?!?!? YESSSSSS!!!
Seriously, folks, if you’re not a fan of Iron Man, you don’t know what a big deal that is. For years, Tony Stark was known to travel with a briefcase that contained the boots, gauntlets and helmet of his armor. He wore a chest piece under his clothes and his arms and legs would then be covered by a pliable mesh that would then harden when the armor was sealed.
It was totally impractical and goofy considering A.) You’d never be able to fit a helmet, two gauntlet and two boots into a standard-sized briefcase and B.) Wouldn’t people see the ridges of the chest piece sticking out through Stark’s shirt? But you went with it because, you know, it was a comic book.
The producers of the movie took a somewhat silly concept and made it alarmingly practical. Instead of the armor being inside the briefcase (or, in this instance, suitcase) they made the SUITCASE ITSELF the armor?! Friggin’ brilliant. Why someone at Marvel didn’t figure that one out years ago is beyond me. You gotta think there are some old school Iron Man scribes slapping their foreheads over that one! I can’t wait to see this new armor in action.
I know that geeking out over the suitcase armor seems like a very specific thing to concentrate on. But to me, it’s indicative of the care and affection the producers have for the character. They didn’t need to throw in the suitcase armor. If they wanted to throw a shout-out to the geeks, they could have thrown in the Stealth Armor or maybe the torso of a Hulkbuster Stark is working on in his garage. Whatever.
But to include the suitcase armor, give it prominence in an action sequence AND make it practical? That’s special. And, giving it the red and silver color scheme of the Silver Centurion armor was a nice touch, too.
As for the rest of the trailer, I think it’s expertly cut together and certainly generates a lot of excitement. But I’m concerned that it establishes too much of a narrative flow. Watching it, I kind of got the sense I knew how the story was going to shake out. I hope they can squeeze in a few more surprises, but I’m starting to become concerned that I might have to enter “lock-down mode” a little early. Iron Man 2 doesn’t come out until May 7. That’s going to be a long time to wait!
Of course, I have all of the new Iron Man 2 merchandise to keep me company until then. I have a problem, people. How bad is it? I saw a circular for Toys R’ Us in the newspaper on Sunday that said new Iron Man 2 toys were on sale and I went over my lunch hour on Tuesday to pick up a bunch of new figures. I’ll have to take a picture. They’re pretty sweet. In fact, I should take a picture of my office sometime. It’s littered with Iron Man figures. Probably 50 or more. It’s sick.
I KNOW you guys have an opinion about the new trailer. So let’s open up the conversation in the comments area below. Tell me what you think of the Iron Man 2 trailer. Fire away!
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