Oscars 2015

Jon Langford in Revenge of the Mekons

xp

Beautiful shot.

Enough of a rooting interest for the Boyhood categories and Citizenfour that I'll probably watch a little more of the show than usual. Very disappointed that Yo La Tengo's 40 seconds in Boyhood doesn't qualify anywhere--Best Wim Wenders Imitation or something.

http://graphics.latimes.com/oscar-nominees-2015/

Observers were quick to point out that the 87th Academy Award nominees lack racial diversity. All the finalists in the best actor and supporting actor categories are white. “Birdman” director Alejandro Inarritu is the only non-white nominee in the best director category.

The lack of diversity prompted the hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter. An L.A. Times study in 2012 revealed that 94% of Oscar voters who choose the nominees were white and 77% male. Blacks represented 2% of the academy while Latinos were even fewer.

As was widely expected, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced a slate of Best Picture nominees on Thursday morning that have gone largely unseen by general moviegoers so far.

Ahead of nominations, the eight movies nominated for Best Picture had earned a combined $203.1 million. That's the lowest total since the Academy expanded the field beyond five nominees—and by a large margin, too. The previous low was 2011, when the movies had earned a combined $519 million ahead of nominations.

The highest-grossing Best Picture nominee this year is The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is writer/director Wes Anderson's biggest movie ever with $59.1 million. Budapest opened back in March—a few weeks after last year's Oscar ceremony—and is already available to watch on HBO. Therefore, don't expect any kind of serious theatrical re-release here.

At least now everyone can see the expansion experiment was a total failure.

Cranky old Bob Lefsetz was ranting that the Oscars are out of touch with real people like him who uh, just watch Breaking Bad and stuff and don't go to the movies.

ignoring Interstellar, Lego, Guardians, Gone Girl.. yeah i'd say that was out of touch. i guess they've been through this a few times before; the late 60s, the mid 80s etc. i recall hearing that the nod/s for Beverly Hills Cop in 84 were a sop to more populist movies. obviously the massively out of touch late 60s era is documented in that Pictures At A Revolution book. for it to be *news* everywhere, that the Oscars are now so bland and uniform really does 'The Academy' no favours.

ignoring Interstellar, Lego, Guardians, Gone Girl.. yeah i'd say that was out of touch.

Maybe you'd like them to nominate the box-office chart so they'd be even more like the fucking Grammys.

Interstellar was shit btw, tech nominations are more than enough for that geekwank.

15 nominations btwn Budapest and Boyhood is about as "in touch" as they get from my POV

can we plz throw "populist" in the goddamn garbage can re film, music etc

that shit is populAR

The lack of anything egregiously Blind Side-esque in the best picture noms is kinda heartening.

Maybe you'd like them to nominate the box-office chart so they'd be even more like the fucking Grammys.

The Lego Movie and Gone Girl were critical hits, bub.

yeah not enough for me to see em tho

Let a little populism into your life, Morbs.

It would be nice for them to recognise that making a Marvel blockbuster as witty and imaginative as GotG is harder than making a solid biopic of a troubled Brit scientist but that will never happen.

Unusually good year for big box-office movies. At least half of these got great reviews:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014

yeah Re-Model, Stranger by the Lake was also eligible, so talk to the hand.

http://www.oscars.org/sites/default/files/2014_reminder_list.pdf

Someone should add up the total cost of, say, those top 20 movies. And then we can all barf together as one.

Carell, Cooper, Cumberbatch, Keaton, Redmayne

vs.

Fiennes, Gyllenhaal, Oyelowo, Spall

You could put literally anyone in the latter group -- Wahlberg in Transformers, McConaughey in Interstellar, Sorbo in God's Not Dead -- to bring it up to five and it would still be unquestionably the better group.

― Vulvacura (Eric H.), Thursday, January 15, 2015 4:35 PM

even punch up with Eisenberg in Night Moves

The lack of anything egregiously Blind Side-esque in the best picture noms is kinda heartening.

Sez you.

that Mr. Peabody & Sherman gross proves that brats and their parents will watch anything

Just for the sake of argument, here's my subjective list of the 2014 movies that made over $50M that based on critical/popular reception would not be incredibly outlandish to consider as best picture nominees:

4	The LEGO Movie	WB	$257,760,692	3,890	$69,050,279	3,775	2/7	9/4
15	Interstellar	Par.	$185,136,958	3,561	$47,510,360	3,561	11/5	-
17	Gone Girl	Fox	$167,210,252	3,284	$37,513,109	3,014	10/3	-
25	Into the Woods	BV	$107,130,087	2,833	$31,051,923	2,440	12/25	-
53	The Grand Budapest Hotel	FoxS	$59,100,318	1,467	$811,166	4	3/7	8/

In other words, the Academy basically did just about all they could this year frankly.

On which chart is The Judge

that Mr. Peabody & Sherman gross proves that brats and their parents will watch anything

You're half right. Unfortunately, they don't let you leave little kids alone at the movies; it's a bigger scam than 3D. Fortunately, my kids had no interest in seeing this, though that has no bearing on their brattiness.

if anything i thought parents wd drag the kids to that under the delusion it wd be like the early '60s toons.

http://www.oscars.org/about/join-academy

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/02/oscar-voters-meet-the-academys-youngest-members.html

if anything i thought parents wd drag the kids to that under the delusion it wd be like the early '60s toons.

That's the thing that I found really weird about the Peabody & Sherman movie -- not even the parents of today's kids grew up with Rocky & Bullwinkle. I mean, I saw it once in a while the Bozo Show, but it wasn't a cherished childhood memory.

You're gonna love the upcoming Kukla, Fran & Ollie CGI snarkfest.

If they made an "iPad: The Movie," it would top the box office for months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLnoLmCqT30

The Force Majeure director reaction video has to be a stunt, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTWqLmnjt0

i have not seen the movie but as i gather it's kind of a black comedy this could be a gag on their part

then again, europeans (and most directors really) Take Their Shit Very Seriously

wait so how bad is that Sherman & Peabody movie they are showing it as a $1 night movie at my kid's elementary school on Friday night

fwiw I have never understood why those original R&B cartoons were considered good/funny

oh u r lucky i don't FP

kinda bewildered by the idea that the "parents of today's kids" didn't grow up w/ rocky and bullwinkle because it was always on when i was a kid on at least one channel, it's like the law&order of kids' shows. maybe that's not the case anymore but it sure was in the late 80s/early 90s.

Born 1975. Did not grow up watching R&B, though I was at least aware of it. But no, not even the barest tinge of nostalgia when that Peabody movie came out. At least no more than when this popped up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-pqvOPnNEk

And this was 20 years ago!

kinda bewildered by the idea that the "parents of today's kids" didn't grow up w/ rocky and bullwinkle because it was always on when i was a kid on at least one channel, it's like the law&order of kids' shows. maybe that's not the case anymore but it sure was in the late 80s/early 90s.

Morbs:

http://thesciencedog.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/strawman-full.jpg

that wasnt me

Born in 1969 and I watched R&B like a motherfucker when I was a kid. I have them on DVD and everything.

Rocky And Bullwinkle was on kids Tv a fair bit in the 80s in the UK iirc.

i want Shakey to clarify if he didnt think the Bullwinkle cartoons were funny, or just the Peabody ones, so we know how much of a tar base we need for the feathers.

The failure of the R&B movie (in ... 2000?) pretty much represented the tail end of nostalgia for the series. Imo. The shows are of course brilliant, but alas I can say first hand that they are too slow and, well, old for kids. Kids still dig the manac anarchy of the Marx Bros. and Muppet Show, though.

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7008648/honest-titles-for-2015s-oscar-nominated-movies

literally never saw R&B in reruns growing up, had to actively seek them out to find out why other stuff referenced them so much. and my mom always spoke highly of it.

Another reason to be thankful for Channel 52 (Corona, CA) in the early 70s.

the animation is crappy and all the referential stuff falls flat without its context. JiC otm in that Marx Bros and Muppet Show (and I would add old Warner Bros and Fleischer cartoon shorts and tons of Disney shorts obviously) still appeal/don't seem as stuck in a particular era. When I got around to watching Laugh-In I didn't find much of that funny either (Nixon cameo aside). Comedy ages in weird ways...