Academy Awards 2015 - Oscar night...

[Mladen]

I disagree about Riva, I thought her performance was pretty nothing, but clearly many disagree and I respect those opinions.

Also, regarding Harvey: she would still have won with a different distributor. SLP was no Shakespeare in Love, Harvey didn't have to buy support that was already there from its first screening at TIFF.

Well, we can disagree about that... Artistic differences :) *singing "Cell Block Tango* :)

The question is whether she would have won... Harvey certainly knows how to push for a win. We would never know, though.

It bothers me. I have a whole list. It's just that she doesn't ever go away, ever. I mean, Slumdog and Hurt Locker [and Crash, Gwyneth Paltrow and Forrest Gump for most people] sort of faded into the background...but JL stayed, and I don't think she's ever going anywhere.

No, she isn't. And truth be told, the new generation of actors is not in any way proving their talent. JLaw is simply the best in rather weird generation of untalented actors. Naturally, she is the best there.

[Veltigar]

Nicely said. This is also a category where Cate Blanchett won last year, a same category where Judi Dench lost in 2007 for brilliant work on Notes on the Scandal. The category that this year had such a deserving winner in Julianne Moore. Let we list the past 15 years winners and vote who would win in that competition? Jennifer would be among the last.

Scarlett Johansson should have won for her brilliant work in Under the Skin. The Academy didn't even nominate her, the hacks. Plus, we also had Marion Cotillard. I have to admit I haven't watched Deux jours, une nuit yet, but everyone celebrates her turn in there.

No, she isn't. And truth be told, the new generation of actors is not in any way proving their talent. JLaw is simply the best in rather weird generation of untalented actors. Naturally, she is the best there.

That's perhaps a bit hard on that generation no? Which other actors in JL age range have already come floating to the surface? I'm drawing a blank here.

It bothers me. I have a whole list. It's just that she doesn't ever go away, ever. I mean, Slumdog and Hurt Locker [and Crash, Gwyneth Paltrow and Forrest Gump for most people] sort of faded into the background...but JL stayed, and I don't think she's ever going anywhere.

Sadly, Paltrow is still there imo. Luckily not as big as she once was, but she still gets some fairly high profile roles. You would not believe how much her presence diminishes my pleasure while watching Iron Man (or any other movies she's present in).

[Kyoshi]

^^I'm starting to like Kristen Stewart. I also liked Shailene Woodley in The Descendants. And Emma Watson [definitely not in Noah].

Now I'm going home to finish Divergent. Such joy.

[lancerman]

I can't get mad over an acting award. And everyone that does should remember that Pacino in Godfather 2 and Nicholson in Chinatown were both nominated in the same year and neither one. And the performance that beat nobody remembers.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Lots of dislike for Boyhood here it seems.

[The Human Abstract]

Boyhood evokes powerful opinions. Everyone I know whose seen it either thinks it was the greatest film of the year or a completely atrocious waste of time. Perhaps the academy was equally divided.

I believe the only films I saw on the list were "Theory of Everything" and "Birdman". Both were amazingly well acted. No way the former was the best, though. It had issues I believe. The most powerful aspects of the story happened at the beginning and then it sort of puttered around. Birdman was all right. It was fun. Really cool what they did. I didn't feel the story was ultimately that great, and I'm a story guy. But if I were really into things like acting and unique cinematography I would geek out over it. If I had a choice to watch a movie again from last year I'd probably pick something akin to a Marvel comics movie, frankly. I am getting less artsy farsty in my old age. If it were truly about entertaining the everyday man, though, I suspect American Sniper would get it.

[Veltigar]

Boyhood evokes powerful opinions. Everyone I know whose seen it either thinks it was the greatest film of the year or a completely atrocious waste of time. Perhaps the academy was equally divided.

I thought Boyhood was a great film, but definitely not the greatest film of the year. There are so far five other movies I would rate higher.

[drawkcabi]

Here's what I think is funny about my opinion on JL.

I hated SLP, I couldn't finish the movie, quit after maybe halfway or 2/3 through, still haven't watched the end and I have no desire to.

I didn't care for The Hunger Games. I watched the entire movie but was bored by it and have no desire to see the other films no matter how much I hear they get better, or the second one at least, or whatever.

But, I think JL is a good actress and potentially a great one. In a movie with a story I cared about I could really see myself liking her.

[The Human Abstract]

I thought Boyhood was a great film, but definitely not the greatest film of the year. There are so far five other movies I would rate higher.

Nope. This does not fit the simplistic blanket statement I just made and must therefore not be true. Sorry. ;)

[Veltigar]

Nope. This does not fit the simplistic blanket statement I just made and must therefore not be true. Sorry. ;)

Woops, I sincerely apologize :P :cheers:

[Tsavong Lah]

This is the first year I watched all 8 best picture nominees. Finished with American Sniper and Boyhood yesterday prior to the ceremony.

Have to say, I kept those two movies until the end because I thought they were the two I was least likely to like. Now, American Sniper, politics aside, was just not a great movie. It hit all the rah-rah American patriot notes, but wasn't actually that good. Boyhood, which I was dreading, I found to be great. I was just so pleased during the whole film. It is very strange to think of the plot of a movie being a boy growing from age 6 to age 18. We are so used to thing #1 happens which causes thing #2, and then a decision point comes and a character does this thing, triggering thing #3, and we have this antagonist and so on. But that's not the only way to tell a story, nor are they the only stories worth telling. I found Boyhood to be quite refreshing. And at the end of it, I had heard some people say they didn't like him as he grew up, which I guess I can agree with, but I saw also what he was going to become after he grew out of teenager/early 20s "all my thoughts are super deep" phase, and I liked it.

My favorite was still Whiplash, but Boyhood surprised me at number 2, and Birdman was 3. I actually agree with the acting awards (though I don't really have an opinion on best actress, having not seen Still Alice or Wild). Theory of Everything wasn't a great movie, but Eddie Redmayne was great. He didn't overplay Hawking, he portrayed him very well. I thought Keaton was good, but was ultimately just playing himself.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Not really. The gimmick of Boyhood was a behind the scenes tactic that ended up superseding the merit of it on the screen. The fact that it was the same kid, did not make the acting any better, it didn't make the screenplay any better. It gave more authenticity to the film, which IS an achievement. Buy I don't necessarily think that a film should be put on a pedestal because it looked more real. Would it really be an entirely different film if you took the exact same screenplay, the exact same director and crew, the same dialogue, and just substituted different actors for the kids and got similar performances? Or would it just look less real? It deserves praise for its ambition. But I think overall the merit of the film lived and died off the fact that it was filmed over 12 years, and not that everything about it was great.

I'll even go a step further. Birdman had a gimmick. It was edited to look like one shot. But that gimmick profoundly impacted the plot of the film, the pacing, the acting, the entire atmosphere of the film. But Birdman lived and died because the entire film thrived as a single work. It was getting praise for the entire film from the acting, the pacing, the cinematography, the directing, and the gimmick which facilitated all of that. But you didn't hear people go "oh wow, Birdman was amazing, that one shot thing was really ambitious" and you didn't see everything that people recognize the film for being about the one shot aspect.

Again, if Boyhood was shot in a few weeks with a different cast, it would be an entirely different movie, so it's pointless to even discuss it on these terms.

And while certainly the fact it was shot in 12 years is a factor, it's far from the only factor making it great. American film, Hollywood one specially, even on their best movies, it's based on external conflict, often forced and/or unrealistic. Even the best movies are based on extraordinary people (or at least strange and unusual) and/or circumstances.

Meanwhile, Boyhood is exactly the opposite: it's about finding greatness in the ordinary moments of ordinary people, focusing on four people that are both their own fully realized characters and representative of millions of others, and being about their journey while at the same time reflecting the world around them organically (and of course here being shot in 12 years helps: for example, the Obama signs thing or the Masons discussion of never having a Star Wars film again would feel like they're being too cute, but they were just representing the moment as they saw in 2008).

Boyhood it's probably the closest thing American cinema has of an Yasujiro Ozu film, with it's elegant simplicity and naturality and it's tenderness for it's characters while recognizing them as a flawed.

But of course, while Tokyo Story (Ozu's best) was elected the greatest film of all time by film directors in the latest Sight and Sound poll (and got 3rd among critics), it certainly didn't come close to win any Oscars and I doubt must people in the Academy or here even heard about it, so couple with the weak distributor and early status as a frontrunner making it a target, in hindsight it's pretty obvious it never had a chance, specially against a movie so loud and self-indulgent as Birdman.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Double post.

[Kyoshi]

Meanwhile, Boyhood is exactly the opposite: it's about finding greatness in the ordinary moments of ordinary people, focusing on four people that are both their own fully realized characters and representative of millions of others, and being about their journey while at the same time reflecting the world around them organically (and of course here being shot in 12 years helps: for example, the Obama signs thing or the Masons discussion of never having a Star Wars film again would feel like they're being too cute, but they were just representing the moment as they saw in 2008).

I have to concede that those moments were really awesome. And they worked because Boyhood was made the way it was.

Completely off topic: anyone try watching Divergent with a Lord of the Rings soundtrack playing in the background? Don't know why I did it but I actually enjoyed it that way.

[3CityApache]

Scarlett Johansson should have won for her brilliant work in Under the Skin. The Academy didn't even nominate her, the hacks.

For the record, Under the Skin is a 2013 movie.

Winterfell, great post, I agree almost completely on the greatness of Boyhood.

[Veltigar]

For the record, Under the Skin is a 2013 movie.

Sure, it is listed as such on IMDB, but it only got a release on five filmfestivals (only one in the US). Any release bigger than that happened in 2014. That makes it a 2014 movie imo.

Plus the reviewers of rogerebert.com, the Guardian, Washington Post all included it in their best of 2014 list.

[Myshkin]

Michael Bay is a preposterously good director.

What is wrong with you?

[Winterfell is Burning]

Todd VanDerWerff makes very well the case as to why Birdman is a terrible winner here (there's also the case FOR it, if you're interested, but, despite it's nowhere near as convincing, in part because the other writer isn't as good):

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8088351/oscars-best-picture-birdman

[lancerman]

Todd VanDerWerff makes very well the case as to why Birdman is a terrible winner here (there's also the case FOR it, if you're interested, but, despite it's nowhere near as convincing, in part because the other writer isn't as good):

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8088351/oscars-best-picture-birdman

See that review, to me, completely missed the point.

The whole deal was that these actors, specifically Keaton, were all self involved and pretentious. The absurdity of that is highlighted in the film. It's an exercise in the absurd and bizarre. Not just in the way these particular people strive for recognition or whatever they deem success to be, but in how they will consume themselves over something that is fruitless to everyone but themselves. The protagonists obsession to obtain artistic achievement so he may find himself worthwhile isn't the heart of the film. That's just the lens through which we view this paradox of self delusion that most people go through to carve out their own inner satisfaction and bring peace to their lives

Everything about Keaton's character's ambition is underlined with a slap in the face of senselessness. His reason for becoming an actor (in addition to his inspiration for the play in question) is a farce, which, naturally, he took to mean more than it did. He gave up the very dream he is searching for because it wasn't in the manner he preferred. Now his life resolves around this goal that doesn't matter to anything or anyone, but to his own satisfaction.

The what doesn't matter. The play doesn't matter. His goals don't matter. The filmmakers are very clear in that. It doesn't matter that this man succeeds or not. All that matters is whether he finds what ever catharsis he thinks is going to come from his labors. Therefore the ending is capable of being both bleak and triumphant. His desperation pushes him to the edge so he can achieve what amounts to nothing at dire costs, but personally it brings him everything. The rest of the characters serve the plot by reflecting various inflections of the same thing back at Riggan.

That's why I think it's interesting that the reviewer calls it a "masturbatory exercise in self delusion". The film itself isn't masturbatory self delusion. However, that's precisely what it IS about. There is no celebration of the actors in this film. No reverence for the art of theater, except in the delusions in the minds of the characters who have made it the beginning and end of their lives. I think that's lost on some of the critics who boil it down to being some self congratulatory story of the impassioned artist. It's mocking him. But not just for the sake of it. It illuminates a truth in the story of everyone looking to conquer, or achieve, or obtain, or win, whatever they find important in their lives and the depths it can unreasonably take people. Even if it is apparent that it's completely ridiculous. Then it goes a step further and shows why, despite all of that absurdity, it still brings a beauty to our lives. Which is why the film is alternately titles "the virtue of ignorance".

[Winterfell is Burning]

Sorry, but i have to disagree. In the end, Riggan does achieve immortality and respect just like he always wanted to, his daughter is there for him, etc. Rather than ridiculed, he's vindicated. I also think it's telling that in an earlier draft, Riggan would have shot the critic rather than just ridiculing her and proving her irrelevancy.

The pretentious digs at superhero movies are all true as well, since Iñarritu has manifested his disdain for them many times (for comparison I'd recommend watching the Clouds of Sils Maria- Oliver Assayas is one of the biggest intellectuals in France, if not the world, but clearly shows respect and understanding and doesn't dismiss it as an art form. A character who tries to dismisses it like Riggan is clearly shown as be outdated, to say the least).

And obviously the Academy has a view of the movie that is more similar to what Vanderwerff's than yours, otherwise they wouldn't have loved it so much.