The nominations for this year's Oscars are out, continuing the Academy's slide past irrelevance and into quaint curiosity. At least I've seen more than one nominated movie this year. Just like last year, only 9 movies were nominated for Best Picture while simultaneously ignoring, say, The Avengers, which only got a single nomination for Best Visual Effects. (Which has been the "Biggest Blockbuster Consolation Prize" for years now anyway.) Lincoln got the most nominations with 12 and I fully expect it to win most of them, despite my personal dislike of the movie. It's 100% an Academy movie. On the bright side, it was a hell of a year for animated movies: a full 5 nominees in Best Animated Feature, with at least 2 of them being arguably better than the Pixar offering. I'm just going to call that category the real Best Picture this year. Assuming Wreck-It Ralph wins.
Can I get a "not sure if serious" for the suggestion that the lack of a Best Picture nod for The Avengers is somehow a snub?
Forget Avengers, I'm saying that Argo got absolutely robbed. I'd have given Affleck the Best Director nod over Spielberg - Lincoln is barely a movie as much as it is a Spielberg show-reel with blatant waves to the Academy. I am happy to see Silver Linings Playbook nominated as often as it is, that movie was great. Not sure why Hobbit got snubbed for Costume Design, as that's 90% of the movie. And the perennial fellating of John Williams continues, I see, with the utterly banal and pedestrian Lincoln score getting the suck-off nomination. The fact that Seth MacFarlane is even recognized as a legitimate human being proves that the awards are a crock.
The Best Director noms are the most bonkers ones this year, I think. Affleck, Tarantino, and Bigelow snubbed, despite the films being nominated for bunches of other things. And those are arguably the three directors whose personal style actually mattered in the making of their films.
The expansion of the Best Picture nominations was a designed primarily as a way of getting greater public interest in the awards by making room for the best of the box office successes. Not because they would win that often, but because a list of films nobody saw wasn't getting people to watch. But this year they have no reason to throw a bone to "lesser" films because Lincoln, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, and Life of Pi all did well at the box office.
I will go on record saying it's better than Lincoln. Apples and oranges in terms of cinematic style, but I know which one I'd happily see again. I'm not saying it would have ever had a chance of winning, but a nod would have been nice since they had that open nomination just, you know, sitting there. Editing my post so not to double up. I actually think Affleck is the biggest snub, which is a think I never thought I'd think. But yeah, making Argo into such a nailbiter, despite being 99% understated dialogue scenes with an outcome people already knew, is an incredible achievement in directing.
Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the hell out of The Avengers. But that if that's the only criteria (and I don't believe box office success should play much, if any, part in this), I might as well complain about Haywire, which I liked far more than The Avengers and consider it a superior film, getting snubbed. Which, to be clear, I am not doing.
I can't believe they played the Jaws theme and cut off the mic just when there was a shout out to Rhythm & Hues and the state of the vfx industry. I wonder if Ang Lee will mention R&H or will he be played off by the Jaws theme too?
This was actually the most enjoyable Oscar ceremony I've seen in years. Didn't think I'd be saying this, but MacFarlane absolutely needs to be asked back. Best moment of the night: Ted's delivery of "Les Mizzerahb" and "Zero Dahk Thirty."
Life of Pi was my favorite of all the nominations (picture, director, soundtrack, cinematography, VFX, adapted screenplay). It got 4 out of those 6 (yeah I know it was nominated for more), and it deserved them all. It's the one movie out of all the best picture nominations that I know I'll watch again, and again, and again. Lincoln was standard Oscar bait formula, and it surprisingly suffered for it (12 noms and 2 wins? SUCK IT). Also, the Academy has decided to finally stop fellating John Williams. This is a monumental year.
I will forever remember 2013 as the year that the Golden Globes were classier than the Oscars. I didn't think Seth MacFarlane had any business being there when they announced he would be there, and my opinion is unchanged after seeing half his performance. Undoubtedly this means that he's a lock for next year. Sigh.
Yeah, I'm actually a little surprised at how positive the reaction is to his hosting. He had a few good gags but most of it fell flat for me, and I thought his intro was awful. It was all about him, not about the movies.
Next year they should have Michelle Obama host and Seth MacFarlane present the award for Best Picture.
Brave wasn't the best animated film of the year. It wasn't even the best animated film of the quarter. (I'd like to have said 'best animated film of June of 2012', but between it and Madagascar 3 I really donno which I liked less, but Pirates was definitely better.)
It seems that, if they would just cut out all the jokes about how long the Oscars are, the Oscars wouldn't run over the allotted time. Ye gods.
Yeah they've been doing this for like twenty years. Which is how long the Oscars ceremony feels! Am I right guys? ZING!
I thought McFarlane was pretty good, one of the better hosts in recent memory. I know that not everyone is a fan of his (I personally am neutral on him,) but I liked the more biting nature of the comedy.
They should have cut out all the dumb jokes and musical numbers and give more time to the winners instead of cutting them off with the Jaws theme. The vfx community is very upset that the Rhythm & Hues guys got drowned out at 45 sec into their 60 second allotted time, just as they were trying to mention the plight of the vfx industry.
If they hadn't pre-announced that they were going to make a protest, they probably wouldn't have been cut off. The Oscars hates controversy, and will do whatever they can to stop it.
Seth MacFarlane punched above his weight class as a live presenter, which is "B-list Roast". The John Wilkes Booth was quality roast material, raunchy and appropriate because he was an actor. I admired the simplicity of the Von Trapp skit as an intro for Christopher Plummer, but it should have been re-written as an introduction of him instead of a number. What sealed it for me as MacFarlane being plainly a bad choice is him making a joke about Clooney dating the 9 year-old girl, saying she had 16 years before she'd be too old for him. 1) Why make a 9 year-old part of a joke? 2) Clooney's dating a 33 year-old. He brought her to the show. She doesn't look at all like a teenager. I did some light Googling because I thought this didn't seem right at all and found some recent ex-girlfriends of his who are currently: 34, 34, 38, 41, and 41. I don't know, maybe when he's in between steady girls he takes home a different waitress every night, but given who he ends up dating, I doubt it. The point is, don't make a joke about Mel Gibson being a stereotypical Hindu and don't make a joke about George Clooney dating 9 year-olds. Jokes lose all their teeth if there's no reality. He dates younger women, but they are in fact grown-up ladies and not college kids and teenagers. 3) 9 year-olds, dude. The other lowlight was Ted. Jokes about jews in Hollywood are seriously tired, and he completely reinforced that impression, and a joke about secret Hollywood orgies existing is half a joke. It being at Jack Nicholson's house is not the other half.
That's pretty weird. My gut reaction is to wonder if he wrote that joke about Woody Allen and was told it was too much.
I liked it. That Clooney one was just weird, for sure, and he definitely crossed the line a few times, but I want hosts crossing the line. A host who steps on some toes is a good reminder of how synthetic everything is while the industry is patting itself on the back. People care way too much about these celebrities' lives, and while I care about people being recognized for really good work, the pageantry and the celebrity worship is irritating. Even a joke in poor taste is a nice break from that. That said, Ricky Gervais did a much better job of this at the Golden Globes.
Maybe it's just me, but there's a difference between "offensive jokes" and "-ist jokes", and Seth's "edgy" jokes were more the latter than the former. I really don't think "oh, but it was edgy!" is an excuse for -ist behavior. *-ist being racist, sexist, etc.
His humor is always based on being mockingly self-aware of the sexism, racism, what-have-you as a shield against criticism. And sometimes it works, and his stuff is really funny. Sometimes it doesn't and he is just being sexist, racist, whatever.
You know what's an even better break from that? Just not watching the Oscars at all. I've been using that technique for years and trust me, it works a lot better than the occasional unfunny joke from the host.
While I'm generally not fond of that regardless, I certainly think it failed last night. "Oh ho, it's okay to do this boob-song joke because we're saying it was terrible! Oh, it was a good thing to get sick to be skinny! I bet that guy would date that nine-year-old! Ha ha!"
Yeah, I agree - and I think a big part of why it didn't work for me is that in this case MacFarlane didn't have a character to stand behind and deliver the material. When jokes like that happen on Family Guy, you might laugh and think "Peter/Lois/whoever is a terrible person, but they're a cartoon so it's kind of funny." When it's just a guy in a tux it lacks that disassociation.
When I am finally made King Of Movies, my first decree will be to have Amy Poehler and Tina Fey host every Oscars for the next twenty years.
Yeah, and it kind of diminishes the effectiveness of having a character voice those things. When that kind of humor works (and in MacFarlane's work, I would say that it works maybe five or ten percent of the time), it's because the joke is at that character's expense, not the person or group that the character is being shitty towards. So what are we supposed to take away from the fact that he delivered some of these jokes himself and others via a character called "future Seth MacFarlane?" That he's just an asshole? That when Peter Griffin says something ignorant, we're actually supposed to be on his side? Or just that he's really so tone deaf and in such a bulletproof position in the business that he feels like he can just do whatever and knows he'll get away with it?
