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[pigeon]

So I haven't seen Lincoln but I've heard it follows that kind of principle and with a bad/stupid ending, the first trailer didn't help alleviate those concerns either so I just haven't been interested in seeing it. Also heard that slavery's violence is white washed compared to something like Django, but maybe the movie isn't about showing slavery just talking about it. Any truth to this?

The ending to Lincoln is terrible. Really bad. But on the other hand, lots of very good movies have terrible endings. Watch the ending to Psycho sometime! The advantage of the Lincoln ending, at least, is that it's short.

There is absolutely a problem with Lincoln in that it's political Dances With Wolves -- white man with agency saves black people without agency -- but putting that aside for the moment, Spielberg's portrayal is a big step forward from the Lost Cause-style bullshit that's so common with the Civil War. Slavery is wrong, Southerners are dicks, the Civil War was a just and necessary war, "if every drop of blood drawn by the lash was repaid with another drawn by the sword," etc. That's pretty refreshing, considering.

I actually think Spielberg is becoming a better director over time, which is a pretty tall order. Lincoln is way, way better than the shit show that was Saving Private Ryan.

 

[jtb]

The ending to Lincoln is terrible. Really bad. But on the other hand, lots of very good movies have terrible endings. Watch the ending to Psycho sometime! The advantage of the Lincoln ending, at least, is that it's short.

There is absolutely a problem with Lincoln in that it's political Dances With Wolves -- white man with agency saves black people without agency -- but putting that aside for the moment, Spielberg's portrayal is a big step forward from the Lost Cause-style bullshit that's so common with the Civil War. Slavery is wrong, Southerners are dicks, the Civil War was a just and necessary war, "if every drop of blood drawn by the lash was repaid with another drawn by the sword," etc. That's pretty refreshing, considering.

I actually think Spielberg is becoming a better director over time, which is a pretty tall order. Lincoln is way, way better than the shit show that was Saving Private Ryan.

Agreed on just about all of this. Especially on the Saving Private Ryan hate!

I'll just add that Lincoln's ending is terrible for far different reasons than the War of the Worlds ending; there are so many great moments that Spielberg could've ended the film so much more gracefully but he was just a little too sentimental to give up on telling Lincoln's story when it really should've ended (after the passage of the 14th amendment). On the other hand, the War of the Worlds ending retroactively makes the 2nd half of the movie terrible and was sentimental for no good reason, and basically contradicted the entire tone of the movie up until that point and the pretty cold ending found in the book.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Lincoln hasn't opened here yet. Will you motherfuckers pipe down for four score?

 

[TheKaeptain]

Shakespeare in Love deserved that Oscar and we all know it.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Shakespeare in Love deserved that Oscar and we all know it.

You bout to cross some mafuckin lines.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Shakespeare in Love deserved that Oscar and we all know it.

Come on man.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Shakespeare in Love deserved that Oscar and we all know it.

No it didn't. It really really didn't.

 

[Discotheque]

The only two movies I'm watching since then are Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. And while the latter is good I think TRL is so much better. Like a damn masterpiece.

Shakespeare In Love didn't deserve shit. It's like a King's Speech. And that will soon be forgotten too.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

The only two movies I'm watching since then are Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. And while the latter is good I think TRL is so much better. Like a damn masterpiece.

Shakespeare In Love didn't deserve shit. It's like a King's Speech. And that will soon be forgotten too.

Even King's Speech is way better than Shakespeare In Love.

 

[Black_Stride]

Samuel L Jackson,Leonardo Dicaprio and Christoph Waltz should all be nominated...Django should get between 10-12 noms total

I ctrl+F Leonardo hoping he'd be on the list.....Leo in Django honestly deserves at the very least a nom.....fuck the movie might not have been perfect but his performance was fucking stella.

 

[Discotheque]

It's not the first time a war masterpiece got beaten by a merely decent drama film (Kramer vs Kramer beating out Apocalypse Now lol ok)

 

[lazybones18]

Got out of my screening of ZDT about an hour ago.....yeah, Bigelow was robbed

Now I haven't seen Amour yet so I can't comment on Emmanuelle Riva's performance but as of right now, Chastain better fucking win Best Actress.

 

[Akahige]

The only two movies I'm watching since then are Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. And while the latter is good I think TRL is so much better. Like a damn masterpiece.

Shakespeare In Love didn't deserve shit. It's like a King's Speech. And that will soon be forgotten too.

My man

 

[shintoki]

Did somebody say Munich wank fest? Because I'm here with lube.

Going in dry, no time for lube.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Shakespeare in Love/Crash/Kings Speech/American Beauty Quadruple Feature! We'll call it "A Night of Amnesia" because whatever we watch will just slide right off our brains the minute it's finished, like it never actually happened. It's like a dream of false profundity that evaporated the minute we regained consciousness.

 

[TheKaeptain]

Crash is really popular though. More so than most winners.

 

[jtb]

I have no problems with American Beauty's win. Mendes is a great director, Ball's script is heavy handed but... eh, it's still pretty funny, and Spacey is excellent.

For what it's worth, I don't really mind Shakespeare in Love's win either because I'm glad it got Tom Stoppard an Oscar.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

American Beauty's great. I love it.

 

[GremlinFool]

Shakespeare in Love/Crash/Kings Speech/American Beauty Quadruple Feature! We'll call it "A Night of Amnesia" because whatever we watch will just slide right off our brains the minute it's finished, like it never actually happened. It's like a dream of false profundity that evaporated the minute we regained consciousness.

American Beauty absolutely deserved to win.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Spielberg has so many snub cards saved up, I wonder if they'll be cashed in this year.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Crash is really popular though. More so than most winners.

No it's not.

And so far as American Beauty goes - it's released in maybe one of the single best years in film OF ALL TIME, and the movie the academy picks for Best Picture wouldn't, in hindsight, crack the top fucking TEN.

It's a perfectly amiable movie. But it was a bad call, Ripley. A bad call.

Spielberg has so many snub cards saved up, I wonder if they'll be cashed in this year.

That's what I'm calling for this year. He gets picture/director, Kushner gets screenplay, Day-Lewis gets actor. And then Spielberg is done until they give him the Thalberg when he's old and retired.

 

[TheKaeptain]

Spielberg has so many snub cards saved up, I wonder if they'll be cashed in this year.

Sculli, how many times do I have to say this, America's most famous director made a great movie about America's most beloved and iconic President. That's setting up the biggest self-pat on the back the Academy will ever achieve. No way they will ever miss that chance.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

No it's not.

And so far as American Beauty goes - it's released in maybe one of the single best years in film OF ALL TIME, and the movie the academy picks for Best Picture wouldn't, in hindsight, crack the top fucking TEN.

It's a perfectly amiable movie. But it was a bad call, Ripley. A bad call.

It was one of the Best.

Best years of all time... (it was great though)

 

[jtb]

No it's not.

And so far as American Beauty goes - maybe one of the single best years in film OF ALL TIME, and the movie the academy picks for Best Picture wouldn't, in hindsight, crack the top fucking TEN.

It's a perfectly amiable movie. But it was a bad call, Ripley. A bad call.

Eh you gotta judge it against its fellow nominees and they're all pretty terrible. Never seen the Cider House Rules but the Sixth Sense? The Green Mile? No thank you. The Insider is a fucking great movie though, as is Being John Malkovich. You can't really hold that against American Beauty for being the least shitty of the picks though. Plus, the academy was never going to nominate something like Eyes Wide Shut, Fight Club or Magnolia for anything serious.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Sculli, how many times do I have to say this, America's most famous director made a great movie about America's most beloved and iconic President. That's setting up the biggest self-pat on the back the Academy will ever achieve. No way they will ever miss that chance.

And how many times must I point out that Spielberg is infamous for being snubbed. The Academy fucking loves snubbing Spielberg because they hate being viewed as bowing down before the statue of mainstream fair.

I'm not saying it won't happen. With everything Lincoln has going for it right now, it SHOULD be an absolute lock. Yet if it didn't happen I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[TheKaeptain]

And how many times must I point out that Spielberg is infamous for being snubbed. The Academy fucking loves snubbing Spielberg because they hate being viewed as bowing down before the statue of mainstream fair.

I'm not saying it won't happen. With everything Lincoln has going for it right now, it SHOULD be an absolute lock. Yet if it didn't happen I wouldn't be surprised.

They're going to snub DDL this year. Watch.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Eh you gotta judge it against its fellow nominees and they're all pretty terrible. Never seen the Cider House Rules but the Sixth Sense? The Green Mile? No thank you. The Insider is a fucking great movie though, as is Being John Malkovich. You can't really hold that against American Beauty for being the least shitty of the picks though. Plus, the academy was never going to nominate something like Eyes Wide Shut, Fight Club or Magnolia for anything serious.

Pretty much. Out of the nominees it was a good choice. Those other movies you mentioned were great too, they deserved nominations over some of the actual nominees. A great year (we got The Matrix too).

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Eh you gotta judge it against its fellow nominees and they're all pretty terrible. Never seen the Cider House Rules but the Sixth Sense? The Green Mile? No thank you. The Insider is a fucking great movie though, as is Being John Malkovich. You can't really hold that against American Beauty for being the least shitty of the picks though. Plus, the academy was never going to nominate something like Eyes Wide Shut, Fight Club or Magnolia for anything serious.

Insider/Malkovich were more deserving. Granted, no way the Academy gives the prize to Malkovich. So yeah, The Insider should have taken it. Instead, the best episode of Thirtysomething ever written wins Best Picture...

...and is almost completely forgotten by everyone within a year.

I'm not saying it's a BAD movie. None of the four I mentioned are bad movies in the slightest. They're well-meaning bubblegum. That shit loses its flavor quickly.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Gotta disagree, Fatboy. I don't think as many people forgot American Beauty as you'd like to believe. It isn't nearly as deserving of the ire that the other winners listed above are.

I still think it's pretty fantastic myself.

I liked The Insider. For me, it's his best next to Collateral. But then I'm not a huge fan of Mann.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Insider/Malkovich were more deserving. Granted, no way the Academy gives the prize to Malkovich. So yeah, The Insider should have taken it. Instead, the best episode of Thirtysomething ever written wins Best Picture...

...and is almost completely forgotten by everyone within a year.

I'm not saying it's a BAD movie. None of the four I mentioned are bad movies in the slightest. They're well-meaning bubblegum. That shit loses its flavor quickly.

Who cares if a movie is forgotten by general masses though? As long as it's not forgotten by movie aficionados (Crash and the like), it should be fine.

Many people haven't heard of many truly great movies and that doesn't make them any less great (not talking about America Beauty).

 

[BowieZ]

Best Picture doesn't necessarily mean forever memorable, or memorable by more people.

Otherwise American Pie, The Phantom Menace, The Mummy, The Matrix, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me would be the nominees.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Who cares if a movie is forgotten by general masses though? As long as it's not forgotten by movie aficionados (Crash and the like), it should be fine.

Many people haven't heard of many truly great movies and that doesn't make them any less great (not talking about America Beauty).

I'm speaking precisely of movie aficionados. It's forgotten (and not all that highly regarded) by more than a few of them.

Again - I'm not saying it's a bad film. I'm saying it's one of the weaker Best Picture winners in the last 20 years.

I don't think as many people forgot American Beauty as you'd like to believe.

I would argue the opposite: I don't think as many people remember it anywhere near as fondly as you'd like to believe.

However, I'm outnumbered in this specific thread on this sub-forum at 11pm on a Thursday 3-1, so I'll cede the point

 

[rekameohs]

King's Speech was awesome. Fuck yall

 

[GremlinFool]

I'm speaking precisely of movie aficionados. It's forgotten (and not all that highly regarded) by more than a few of them.

Again - I'm not saying it's a bad film. I'm saying it's one of the weaker Best Picture winners in the last 20 years.

Can you substantiate this somehow? Are you tapping into the avant-garde zeitgeist of movie criticism that's evading everyone? Back this shit up.

What I'm looking is that in 2008, Empire polled 10,000 readers and a slew of professional critics/filmmakers and deemed that American Beauty was the 96th best movie of all time. I think it's about time that you gracefully bow out of this ludicrous argument you've picked from thin air.

(It suffices to say that American Beauty was also a ravishing success amongst the general public, reaping tons of money from the box office and ascending to #53 on IMDB's top 250).

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

I'm speaking precisely of movie aficionados. It's forgotten (and not all that highly regarded) by more than a few of them.

Again - I'm not saying it's a bad film. I'm saying it's one of the weaker Best Picture winners in the last 20 years.

There are so many worst BP winners than American Beauty, it's not even funny

I would argue the opposite: I don't think as many people remember it anywhere near as fondly as you'd like to believe.

However, I'm outnumbered in this specific thread on this sub-forum at 11pm on a Thursday 3-1, so I'll cede the point

Ingmar Bergman loved it! Maybe not a point though. lol

 

[lazybones18]

King's Speech was awesome. Fuck yall

It was awesome. Just not as awesome as The Social Network

Spoiler

Would have given BP to Toy Story 3 >_>

 

[rekameohs]

Spoiler

Would have given BP to Toy Story 3 >_>

Would've been my choice, too.

 

[jtb]

You could make the point that the Academy has made the "wrong" choice for the majority of the past Best Picture winners of the past 20 years.

Dances With Wolves, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Titanic (lol), Shakespeare In Love, Chicago, Crash, the recent Hurt Locker/Kings Speech/Artist trifecta of boring. I'll take American Beauty over those. Academy has shit taste.

edit: and am I the only person who didn't particularly like Toy Story 3? Dull rehash of the first two movies and shameless in its sentimentality in a way the first two never were.

 

[qindarka]

Spoiler

Would have given BP to Toy Story 3 >_>

No way did it deserve BP or even a nomination.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

You could make the point that the Academy has made the "wrong" choice for the majority of the Best Picture winners since always.

Fixed.

Citizen Kane, 2001, and the other 1000 movies. Never forget!

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Titanic wasn't undeserving. LA Confidential may kill it on a narrative level, but Titanic revitalized the Hollywood epic for the first time in forty years.

Record 14 noms and 12 wins was always going to be hard to deny it a win.

 

[jtb]

Titanic wasn't undeserving. LA Confidential may kill it on a narrative level, but Titanic revitalized the Hollywood epic for the first time in forty years.

Record 14 noms and 12 wins was always going to be hard to deny it a win.

I agree that Titanic should've won, I'm just saying you could make the argument

 

[qindarka]

Sometimes I think that we are too insistent that the Academy's selections correlate directly with our own preferences.

I'm guilty too, been bashing on Pixar so much in this thread.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

I agree that Titanic should've won, I'm just saying you could make the argument

I saw your 'lol'!

 

[rekameohs]

Fixed.

Citizen Kane, 2001, and the other 1000 movies. Never forget!

Spielberg pretty much says that winning isn't that big of a deal.

Spoiler

Course, it's probably just because he's a sore loser!

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

Spielberg pretty much says that winning isn't that big of a deal.

Spoiler

Course, it's probably just because he's a sore loser!

I know it isn't, just saying

 

[Fjordson]

I'll have to watch Amour now since it got nominated for everything. That's pretty rare, although more likely since it fits the voters' age just like Artist was with their old timey sensibilities. Still, Haneke getting more love so whatever.

Congrats to Quvenzhane Wallis for getting nominated for Lead Actress (she's 9!). They fixed their previous mistake of putting a lead actress into supporting with True Grit.

Boo for Matthew McConaughey not being nominated for Killer Joe, my favorite performance.

No one wants Lincoln to win anything, is the movie that boring?

I was surprised by how good Lincoln was, definitely not boring. It totally side stepped what you'd expect with a big biopic like this. It's actually really tight and focused around the 13th Amendment. The story covered like 2-3 months at most.

Great performances as well from DDL and others. I loved Tommy Lee Jones and James Spader.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Can you substantiate this somehow? Are you tapping into the avant-garde zeitgeist of movie criticism that's evading everyone? Back this shit up.

Why's it gotta be "avant-garde?" What the fuck would that even mean in this context? Are you just stringing syllables together in attempt to mock me for an opinion you find ridiculous on its face?

You could ask Sculli the same question as to whether he can substantiate that more people still regard the film with some measure of lasting, long-term respect. It'd probably be just as hard, since we're both (I'd imagine) basing this idea off the multitudes of conversations we've had, on-and-offline, with film fans who are passionate enough about movies to actually GIVE a shit about who won best picture in what year and what the legacies of those movies might be.

Can you substantiate the idea that this shit can be substantiated in a thread that's entirely about people trying to predict or make sense of a group of thousands of voters as if they're a hive-mind whose decisions can be anticipated and understood?

We're all bullshitting to some degree or another.

ANYWAY:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the-5-worst-best-picture-oscar-line-ups-of-all-time

http://movies.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/worst-best-picture-winners.htm

http://blog.moviefone.com/oscars-academy-awards/worst-best-picture-winners/

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/CB-Top-5-Worst-Oscar-Winners-7918.html

That was a quick google search for "Worst Best Picture Winners" - those four were in the top 10 returns, all of which have "American Beauty" in their list.

Moviefone is especially avant-garde.

 

[Draconian]

They're going to snub DDL this year. Watch.

DDL is as close to a lock as you're going to get now. He's been dominating the awards up to this point, and the amount of love Lincoln's gotten in the nominations reaffirms that he's practically assured the win.

 

[jtb]

Rocky over All the President's Men, Network, AND Taxi Driver has to be the greatest collective Oscar snub of all time.

ANYWAY:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the-5-worst-best-picture-oscar-line-ups-of-all-time

http://movies.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/worst-best-picture-winners.htm

http://blog.moviefone.com/oscars-academy-awards/worst-best-picture-winners/

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/CB-Top-5-Worst-Oscar-Winners-7918.html

That was a quick google search for "Worst Best Picture Winners" - those four were in the top 10 returns, all of which have "American Beauty" in their list.

Moviefone is especially avant-garde.

one of the lists doesn't have it. And I couldn't really take seriously the one that said biopics should never win best picture and Annie Hall was not a worthy Best Picture winner. Grow up, nerds!