Oscars 2024: The Zone of BARBENHEIMER (LIVE)

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Glad Nolan won but Oppenheimer is far from his best film….

Probably not but it's certainly up there.  Or at least much less of a gap than with Scorsese and Departed as Nictarion mentioned.

I didn't watch the ceremony, but good on Jonathan Glazer having the gumption to say what he did.  OTOH, Al Pacino demonstrated why octogenerians should probably not be in charge of most anything.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Well done. You did better than most. 

Have to say I am very pleased I missed on Best Animated, as The Boy and the Heron was my preferred choice. I liked American Fiction well enough as a film, especially the performances, but I felt it got kind of muddled after the first half hour. 

Really pleased for Stone, and looking at clips she seemed quite shocked. But this (and the Boy and the Heron win, plus Poor Things in Makeup) tells me that people need to bump up the weight of the international section of the Academy when prognosticating.

Edited March 11 by Ran

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I didn't watch the ceremony, but good on Jonathan Glazer having the gumption to say what he did.  OTOH, Al Pacino demonstrated why octogenerians should probably not be in charge of most anything.

The Octogenarians are all preserving that fine Oscar tradition of being simultaneously shitfaced and tripping balls during the ceremony.

Just watch some of those Oscar clips from the '70's. Fuck me, if they had high-def TV's back then, you'd practically see white powder and alcohol pumping out of their pores. 

Edited March 11 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The Octogenarians are all preserving that fine Oscar tradition of being simultaneously shitfaced and tripping balls during the ceremony.

Sir Ben Kingsley is 80 and did perfectly well. Pacino did the same thing at the Game Awards in 2022, he just doesn't rehearse and doesn't care, and age has made it worse.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The Octogenarians are all preserving that fine Oscar tradition of being simultaneously shitfaced and tripping balls during the ceremony.

Wish that was the case!  Pacino didn't seem fucked up in the clip I saw, just slow.  Definitely coulda used at least a gummer.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

46 minutes ago, Ran said:

Sir Ben Kingsley is 80 and did perfectly well.

Meth. Massive meth head that Sir Ben Kingsley. Eloquent as hell but he'll field strip your car if you give him half a chance. 

43 minutes ago, DMC said:

Wish that was the case!  Pacino didn't seem fucked up in the clip I saw, just slow.  Definitely coulda used at least a gummer.

Benzodiazepine and Mountain Dew highballs. Pacino likes to fucking party. 

Edited March 11 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Mountain Dew highballs.

Ew.

[Ran]

Oh, as to Best Visual Effects, hats off to the Godzilla Minus One team managing what they did, but I still think The Creator is a much better exemplar of how Western studios can make visually-impressive films on more limited budgets. A big part of the reason Godzilla-1  managed to do what it did on a $15 million budget is the fact that the workers are paid much less on average (per Glass Door, the average VFX animator earns $82,600 in the US... and just $23,700 in Japan) while working more hours.

I imagine some VFX artists out there are probably seeing the Godzilla win rather sourly, showing that as far as the industry is concerned the already-cheap-for-its-amazing-visuals The Creator was still "too expensive" because Western VFX artists expect too much money.

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

Oh, as to Best Visual Effects, hats off to the Godzilla Minus One team managing what they did, but I still think The Creator is a much better exemplar of how Western studios can make visually-impressive films on more limited budgets. A big part of the reason Godzilla-1  managed to do what it did on a $15 million budget is the fact that the workers are paid much less on average (per Glass Door, the average VFX animator earns $82,600 in the US... and just $23,700 in Japan) while working more hours.

I imagine some VFX artists out there are probably seeing the Godzilla win rather sourly, showing that as far as the industry is concerned the already-cheap-for-its-amazing-visuals The Creator was still "too expensive" because Western VFX artists expect too much money.

Watched Gareth Edwards on Corridor Crew talking about how he created the effects for previous movies like Monsters, and the amount of work he was doing just out of his bedroom was extraordinary. Creating lighting effects in his bathtub and using basic After Effects plugins on a major movie. That is a guy that just understands VFX. 

[Relic]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Wish that was the case!  Pacino didn't seem fucked up in the clip I saw, just slow.  Definitely coulda used at least a gummer.

Leave the great Al Pacino out of your political statements. The man is presenting a fucking dumb award, not deciding whether to nuke china or not. The absolute gall. ::shakes head and storms out of thread

[Ran]

17 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Watched Gareth Edwards on Corridor Crew talking about how he created the effects for previous movies like Monsters, and the amount of work he was doing just out of his bedroom was extraordinary. Creating lighting effects in his bathtub and using basic After Effects plugins on a major movie. That is a guy that just understands VFX. 

Yep, he's pretty talented. His work on the Attila docu-drama he did blew me away when I first came across it, and I wrote a whole long essay about how D&D should hire him to oversee VFX. We would have had the Battle of the Green Fork if they had. But he went on to directing, which was of course much better, and deserved. And Monsters is pretty damned good when you hear him talk about how it was all pretty much improvised with just loose story beats planned out that Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able then fleshed out.

The awesome thing about The Creator is that a number of VFX artists who worked on it have remarked on Reddit and elsewhere that it was one of the best gigs they ever had, that the VFX supervisor (Jay Cooper) and Edwards were in complete accord and knew where to focus energy and budget, and that they never felt like they were overworked or forced to work more hours than they wanted. Directors who come out of the VFX world just have a huge leg up. I know the Godzilla Minus One director acted as VFX supervisor as well, which was one way they really made things more efficient... but you know that 30 person team worked 80, 90, 100 hours a week at points to get it done.

Very curious to see Edwards' Jurassic World film. Worried a bit that it appears to have a locked-in release date, so he's got a deadline breathing down his neck, but if anyone can swing it, he can, especially working from a David Koepp script (scripting is his downfall).

Edited March 11 by Ran

[Veltigar]

Very pleased to see that Emma Stone won her Best Actress Award. She deserved it as her performance in Poor Things really was out of this world.

For the rest, no big surprises, although as always I feel like the Academy made a lot of boring choices. The poorest choices this year in my opinion were:

1. Robert Downey Jr. for Supporting Actor. I think both Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling gave better performances this year. Off the two, I would probably have given the slight edge to Ryan Gosling, who stole the Barbie movie out from underneath Margot Robbie, which is quite an achievement.
2. Billy Eilish for best song, which I thought was odd, because it wasn't memorable at all. If I think of any original song from Barbie, it's just Ken, so I would have given that nod too to Ryan Gosling
3. Best VFX should have gone to the Creator, on that I definitely agree with @Ran
4. I'd given Best Picture, Best Director and Best cinematography to Poor Things (in that order of preference) over Oppenheimer. Heck, Glazer for Best Director would also have been better come to think of it.

Edited March 11 by Veltigar

[Ran]

BEELLLLAAAA!!!

*rips out tuft of hair*

Edited March 11 by Ran

[Mladen]

Infused myself with some coffee and now I have a break... Time to recapitulate

So, 17/23. Not great, not terrible. Allowed myself into thinking too much about Academy and how they vote and opted for Spiderverse instead of "The Boy and the Heron". Expected to see some spreading the wealth in Costume, Production and MakeUp and POOR THINGS just swept like they did in BAFTA. And the one that really stings is Sound when I went with OPPENHEIMER instead of rightful winner and probably the most inspiring choice of the night - THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Last mistake was Gladstone over Stone, but that was a tossup.

So... OPPENHEIMER did a bare minimum. This is not exactly a sweep, given they won 7 Oscars out of 13 nominations. POOR THINGS was obviously second, given Actress + tech combo. OPPENHEIMER didn't win anything it wasn't supposed to win, like Screenplay and Sound, which really shows that even that love had its limits. 

ANATOMY OF A FALL won big - Original Screenplay. Justine Triet certainly took her vengeance on French Oscar committee - she has won trifecta (movie, directing, screenplay) at European Film Awards, Cesar Awards and won in screenplay categories at both BAFTA and Oscars. This will be one of the greatest embarrassments of French Oscar committee for quite some time.

Inspiring wins for Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Heron" and Sound for "The Zone of Interest". Probably international bloc had a huge impact here and I am thrilled about it. Despite being wrong in my prediction

It really seems that Academy spread the wealth rater nicely this year, unlike the last year. Eight out of ten nominated movies went with at least one award, with PAST LIVES and MAESTRO going home empty-handed. Huge departure from last year when EEAAO went 6/8 above-the-line and Women Talking winning Adaoted Screenplay. This year, we had 5 movies winning in eight above-the-line categories. Honestly, this year's set of winners - far superior than last year's. 

And now acting categories... No surprises with Randolph, Downey and Murphy. Not a hater of RDJ, but I think it's good we'll finally stop seeing him for some time. As for Best Lead Actress, can't say Emma was undeserving but this really reinstate the idea that POC actress needs a Second Coming of Christ to win an Oscar in this category. And please spare me the speech of meritocracy as I can easily name 10 white women who undeservedly won, including Emma (her first Oscar). And that is just in the last 15 years. Undoubtedly, Emma is worthy winner, she was absolutely brilliant. And yes, she was rather courageous in doing Bella, so one can't complain here. And I am not, just being sad for Lily, who really had absolutely amazing performance. Never mind me, just licking my wounds... Even I know Emma is more than deserving winner. 

As for ceremony, my god was Kimmel awful. Some of the bits were funny - like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton and Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling. Not sure about John Cena. And "I'm Just Ken" was absolutely smashing. That was probably one of the best Oscar performances in recent history. 

Scorsese went 0 out of 10 for the third time. Truly unbelievable. Another one bites the dust  

And forgot... In terms of relevance for Oscar predicting, BAFTA returned with a vengeance. After going 0 out of 8 in above-the-line categories, this year the overlap between BAFTA and Oscars is almost 100%. I think they only differ in Visual Effects - BAFTA giving it to POOR THINGS, Oscars to GODZILLA MINUS ONE. BAFTA matters people. Never doubt the Brits. 

Edited March 11 by Mladen

[Ran]

14 minutes ago, Mladen said:

the idea that POC actress needs a Second Coming of Christ to win an Oscar in this category

Who won last year, I wonder? Nothing Christ-like about it. To win, you need to carry your movie, and when you are in less than a third of a film, much of it as a passive figure, you've got a big obstacle to arguing that you are carrying the movie.

Who were the undisputed leads of these films: Black Swan? The Iron Lady? Blue Jasmine? Still Alice? Three Billboards? Judy? Nomadland? The Eyes of Tammy Faye? Everything Everywhere All At Once? Poor Things? The women, often the titular characters, were the leads. Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence was undoubtedly equal to Bradley Cooper -- but was Gladstone equal to  DiCaprio? Nope. And she was barely ahead of De Niro in screentime!

Above and beyond that, as you allude, Scorsese is repeatedly overlooked -- the Academy takes him for granted. Being the best actress in a Scorsese film is basically already entering with a strong handicap, not counting everything else against you. And then there's the argument from some that there was some category fraud, that she should have gone for Supporting Actress instead... though frankly Da'vine Joy Randolph simply had a meatier role and a better performance, so I wouldn't have expected Gladstone to win there, either. 

Edited March 11 by Ran

[Veltigar]

17 minutes ago, Mladen said:

And now acting categories... No surprises with Randolph, Downey and Murphy. Not a hater of RDJ, but I think it's good we'll finally stop seeing him for some time. As for Best Lead Actress, can't say Emma was undeserving but this really reinstate the idea that POC actress needs a Second Coming of Christ to win an Oscar in this category. And please spare me the speech of meritocracy as I can easily name 10 white women who undeservedly won, including Emma (her first Oscar). And that is just in the last 15 years. Undoubtedly, Emma is worthy winner, she was absolutely brilliant. And yes, she was rather courageous in doing Bella, so one can't complain here. And I am not, just being sad for Lily, who really had absolutely amazing performance. Never mind me, just licking my wounds... Even I know Emma is more than deserving winner. 

That's the trouble with these things always, you cannot compensate one "undeserved" win with another in my opinion. It just creates a domino effect. Think of all the creatives who got an award just because they never previously earned one (in this year's Oscars, you had Christopher Nolan and RDJ in that category) and had a passable entry in the competition.

These wins screw other people out of awards that will then at one point will have to screw other people out of awards for their career Oscar. For example Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling have both been nominated several times and are quite popular, chances are they'll shank someone in the coming years who might have been a more deserving winner.

And it then gets even more complicated when someone who previously got a career oscar gives an outstanding performance. I can't comment on the fact that Stone was an undeserved winner on her first turn (I haven't seen many of the other films that had female leads nominated in the year of La La Land), but this year I thought she gave far and away the best performance out of all nominated thespians (including the male performers I might add, if this was a unified category, she would have smoked Cillian Murphy on merit).

So it's a shame for Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon and Native American representation in general, but at least she didn't lose to an RDJ-in-Oppenheimer-type of performance. She was genuinely outmatched by the best performance by a leading actress in recent memory in my opinion.

Edited March 11 by Veltigar

[Mladen]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

Who won last year, I wonder? Nothing Christ-like about it. To win, you need to carry your movie, and when you are in less than a third of a film, much of it as a passive figure, you've got a big obstacle to arguing that you are carrying the movie.

Well, EEAAO is a Second Coming in terms of awards, as it is the most-awarded movie in history. 

I will argue that Lily is a heart and soul of Killers of the Flower Moon. She may not be in it for the most part, but her scenes, her narrative makes such impression that this movie feels undoubtedly hers. But, that's just my impression of it.

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

Above and beyond that, as you allude, Scorsese is repeatedly overlooked -- the Academy takes him for granted. Being the best actress in a Scorsese film is basically already entering with a strong handicap, not counting everything else against you. And then there's the argument from some that there was some category fraud, that she should have gone for Supporting Actress instead... though frankly Da'vine Joy Randolph simply had a meatier role and a better performance, so I wouldn't have expected Gladstone to win there, either. 

I mean, throughout his career, Scorsese directed five Oscar-winning performances. Three male, two female. Yes, he makes male-centric movies, but he also knows how to direct a female actor into an Oscar winning role. 

Lily had multiple handicaps, that is undeniable. For the reasons I stated, I don't think she belonged in Supporting Category. When we talk about category fraud, it is moving from more difficult to less difficult field. Like Alicia Vikander did in 2015. You can't claim Lily/the production committed category fraud because she entered the race from a disadvantaged position.

7 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

That's the trouble with these things always, you cannot compensate one "undeserved" win with another in my opinion. It just creates a domino effect. Think of all the creatives who got an award just because they never previously earned one (in this year's Oscars, you had Christopher Nolan and RDJ in that category) and had a passable entry in the competition.

That is true. However, I wouldn't call either Emma, Lily or even Sandra undeserving, each being absolutely brilliant in their respective movies. The meritocracy argument is a code word for  "that's my favorite performance". And these things are profoundly subjective so we can't speak in exact terms here.

Career Oscar narratives is the oldest trick in the game. That's how we god Julianne Moore over Rosamund Pike in 2014, Laura Dern, Jamie Lee Curtis and yes... Robert Downey Jr. 

11 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

These wins screw other people out of awards that will then at one point will have to screw other people out of awards for their career Oscar. For example Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling have both been nominated several times and are quite popular, chances are they'll shank someone in the coming years who might have been a more deserving winner.

This year was disastrous in Supporting acting categories. I can easily make two lineups with completely different actors and actresses that would be superior to the ones we got. The one that hurts me the most is Charles Melton, as he managed to be in a movie with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, doing all that ACTING, and he managed to steal the show. For me, the best Supporting performance of the year.

13 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I can't comment on the fact that Stone was an undeserved winner on her first turn (I haven't seen many of the other films that had female leads nominated in the year of La La Land), but this year I thought she gave far and away the best performance out of all nominated thespians (including the male performers I might add, if this was a unified category, she would have smoked Cillian Murphy on merit).

She was against Isabelle Huppert in "Elle" and Natalie Portman in "Jackie". Not mentioning not-nominated Amy Adams for "Arrival".

Yeah, there is no doubt that one can make "she was the best" across the field, even if we expand it to make performers. Cillian won because he carried our such difficult movie and turned it into a glorious success. But Emma did something far riskier, far unconventional... This was potentially career-ending performance, and she nailed i, beyond any doubt. I am really not saying she is undeserving. Not at all. 

17 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

So it's a shame for Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon and Native American representation in general, but I can place it because at least she didn't lose to an RDJ-in-Oppenheimer-type of performance.

True... I mean, I am just sad a bit today... Will be fine tomorrow  But, yeah... At least Lily didn't lose to something like JLC or RDJ.

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Leave the great Al Pacino out of your political statements. The man is presenting a fucking dumb award, not deciding whether to nuke china or not. The absolute gall. ::shakes head and storms out of thread

I’ve loved Al Pacino since I was about ten years old.  Was just commenting on what I saw from the internets.  

[Relic]

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

I’ve loved Al Pacino since I was about ten years old.  Was just commenting on what I saw from the internets.  

I fear the day he dies. I might actually cry. Al can drool all over my lunch if he wants to. 

[Poobah]

By the time I was half way through Poor Things I was convinced that Emma Stone aught to walk away with an Oscar for her performance; her performance was so absolutely outstanding in such a myriad of ways that I would have found it deeply hard to believe anyone gave a better or braver one. I haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon (and don't have access to a platform it's available on) but honestly based on what y'all have said here if Lilly was only in an hour of this three hour movie I kinda feel like the real injustice was putting her in the best actress rather than best supporting actress category. 

Edited March 11 by Poobah