Oscars 2015

Is it me or there was more focus on singing than the film themselves? We hardly saw any clips or long homage montage or anything.

Eric, maybe the Academy needs to expand the other major categories to 8-9 nominees for the major awards in heavy years?

(regarding Selma)

I'm not arguing against them not liking the movies they don't nomination. Fine, whatever. Just don't effing pretend to love movies you clearly didn't like, AMPAS, just because you're embarrassed when everyone pointed out your incurable insularity.

nomination nominate

Arquette promptly took some shine off her onstage comments backstage by stringing together some thoughts in a clumsy way. A shame. We still have this gif tho.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/5b5d50376ec092f6d318aea3c85535dd/tumblr_nk7eysuwpJ1qiavcao1_400.gif

The moment J.Lo notices she's on camera.

I've quite enjoyed this awards season, in which I include the surprisingly good SNL thing, though not as much as I would have if something I cared about won something anyone noticed

I didn't watch this in the previous 2 years, and now I remember why. Long and boring. If I were in charge, I'd cut out the production awards (design, makeup, costumes), the sound awards that nobody understands the difference between, all of the "old movies are so great!" montages (thankfully only present this year in the opening song and in the sound of gaga bit, both of which sucked), and actually kick those bores off when they start listing their dogs. If the show were under 2 hours it might be bearable.

I was OK with the dancers this year -- they only appeared during the songs, and they weren't the focus.

the gaga thing was almost incomprehensible to me; they think people want this?

i'm not surprised redmayne won - everyone knows the academy loves to reward stories of illness and disability blah blah - but it's still kind of annoying cuz he's being rewarded for a striking performance in a tedious, underwritten, insight-free movie.

he does an amazing job of charting hawking's physical decline but i learned virtually nothing at all about the man, his work, or his thoughts or feelings. he's just like a chill bro who likes a beer and thinking about things i guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

birdman was great fuiud
Keaton robbed obv fuiud

Birdman is nothing if not one big piss take,

OK, I don't even know what this means. You really don't think the script is not Innaritu & Co's defiant justification for THEIR brand of "arty" Hollywood horseshit sentimentality?

My friend's review of Birdman: "It's not that good! It's Michael Keaton."

all of the "old movies are so great!" montages

suck it

O'Hehir postmortem:

Harris floundered and struggled against a stale script and its leaden gags. He repeatedly fumbled names, appeared to go blank for several seconds while eye-locked with a seat-filler, and evidently paid no attention to what was happening when he wasn’t talking. He made a crack about a dress worn by the director of a short film about two seconds after the woman had finished talking about her son’s suicide, and stepped on director Laura Poitras’ powerful acceptance speech for the documentary “Citizenfour” with a weirdly reactionary joke about Edward Snowden and “treason.”

,,,That third-rate David Blaine thing with the sealed predictions in a box, and Harris’ forced attempts to get some shtick going with Octavia Spencer? Jesus Christ. It just would not stop. (I appreciated that when Harris tried to drag Robert Duvall into it, Duvall gave him nothing.) But seriously, people, and I know this is heresy of a high order: Seth MacFarlane was funnier! At least he had the courage to make an ass of himself!

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/23/oscars_2015_nuggets_of_electric_political_theater_amid_oceans_of_lame/

apparently there is upset that Joan Rivers was absent from in memoriam.

BITCH WAS NOT A MOVIE ACTRESS

the first wave of the thinkpiece flood!

Also apparently not a member of the Academy xpost

Also saw a lot of whining about Harold Ramis not being included, even though he died before last year's Oscars and was presumably (can't remember) included in that one.

They're always liberal with that "RIP" thing, they could have made space for Joan.

Also, the Oscars' disability fetish has gotten beyond offensive, IMO, to people who actually have to live with a disability.

The first person with a serious disability who acts in a role that features no disability will get all the Oscars.

Bill Murray gave Harold a shoutout on stage last year. Maybe he was a "too soon" 2014, like PSH, though I guess the latter slipped in the montage last year.

They're always liberal with that "RIP" thing, they could have made space for Joan.

They are not. No Andy Griffith a few years ago, and he actually gave one great film performance.

No Andy Griffith a few years ago, and he actually gave one great film performance.

"Matlock" was a TV show though.

Big Thinkpiece #2:

As for the big winner: Voters were obviously mad about Birdman, and everyone who was rooting for something else is … you know, mad about Birdman. It is possible to admire the exquisite craft and technical facility with which the movie was made, to be amused and charmed by its droll, darkly comic take on narcissism, artistic aspiration, and the fight of a creative individual to make a mark, and still feel a slight twinge of … This again? Another movie about showbiz and its lovable nutcases? There are stretches in which the Oscars seem to go into hibernation; think of the 1980s, when Chariots of Fire and Gandhi and Amadeus and Out of Africa and The Last Emperor won and it was hard to discern how much curiosity, or much of anything other than a desire to retreat from the world and the country into a kind of pictorial/historical splendor, the Academy had. In retrospect, I think those movies won not because Academy voters didn’t care about what was going on in America, but because they didn’t know what was going on with American movies. The 1980s — post–Raging Bull, pre–indie boom that began with 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape — were a decade of uncertainty and trepidation about what American films were supposed to be, other than blockbusters.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/decoding-the-2015-oscars-the-birdman-win-and-what-it-tells-us-about-hollywood/

think of the 1980s, when Chariots of Fire and Gandhi and Amadeus and Out of Africa and The Last Emperor won and it was hard to discern how much curiosity

Wow, I'm having really painful, depressing flashbacks.

apparently there is upset that Joan Rivers was absent from in memoriam.

BITCH WAS NOT A MOVIE ACTRESS

Ahem:

http://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/char_68993.jpg

http://beautyblitz.com/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/gallery-images/Muppets-Take-Manhattan-final.jpg

"Matlock" was a TV show though.

is this humor our are you ragging on a face in the crowd? in any case, the andy griffith show far surpasses matlock in terms of pinnacles of griffith's career: television phase.

also

No Andy Griffith a few years ago, and he actually gave one great film performance.

unless it's what you were alluding to above, you must never have seen no time for sergeants

v impressed w/ the movies that babysat you on cable, OL

Joan Rivers also had a brief role in that batshit Burt Lancaster adaptation of John Cheever's "The Swimmer."

yes, a movie that Classy Red Carpet Joan would stick her fingers down her throat and go EGGGHHH EGGGHHH at.

jesus, you're really on fire with miserablism the past few days, like more so than usual

i do what i can.

Garcia Marquez seemed like an odd inclusion.

xpost

Oh it doesn't matter either way to me. Just wanted to bring up that movie because it has a scene featuring Lancaster in swim trunks sprinting alongside a horse

I enjoyed the apathetic tone of some of NPH's intros. "The talented Scarlett Johansson." "Two people who absolutely deserve to be here."

and you'll never hear "The talented ___" about an actor

Couldn't help but notice that the "Two people who absolutely deserve to be here" followed immediately on the heels of Terrence Howard's performance.

think of the 1980s,

Anyone else notice that a lot of the orchestral commercial queues were from the '80s, stuff like "Flashdance" and "Eye of the Tiger?"

know your early-middle-aged target audience

Yeah, I did notice some pretty specifically Gen X cult film touchstones in the NPH opening song (like Clue and Back to the Future).

where the 30th anniv tribute to The Goonies went, i can't imagine

andy greenwald, reviewing the show as a telecast (not much talk about what should or shouldn't have won) with the daggers:

By mid-show, even Harris knew he was bombing, but he appeared powerless to do anything about it. His puns atrophied. His skit partners sold him out. The simple act of throwing to commercial took on the airless tenor of a proof-of-life video.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/american-snoozer-the-dull-earnest-predictability-of-the-87th-academy-awards/

where the 30th anniv tribute to The Goonies went, i can't imagine

Could have sworn the opening song showed a brief Goonies clip, too!

Yep, Goonies at 2:29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h48wcCnP9A8#t=149

Looking forward to Blue Ivy's rendition of "Goonies R Good Enough" during the 2040 telecast.

Or whatever will have replaced the telecast several times over by the year 2040.

in two years the 50th anniv of The Graduate will demand a Disneybot's soiling of "Mrs Robinson"

Paul Simon medley.

Well, we already know Ass wins eight Oscars in 2505.

Ass The Movie?

BTW, isn't "Everything is Awesome" the Lego Movie's brainwashing anthem?