Monday, February 25, 2013

IF I'M GOING TO MAKE A FAKE MOVIE, IT'S GOING TO BE A FAKE HIT:  Six different films win in the six major categories, and tonight's awards ceremony was otherwise distinguished by the high quality of the live singing performances and horrid misogyny of its host's attempts at humor.

As I wrote in October, I thought Argo was some pretty damn fun filmmaking, but flawed as history. I'm glad we're in an era, though, that Best Picture is allowed to go to a movie that's fun, or funny, and we're leagues away from the 1980s-1990s era of Best Picture too often going to Most Important Picture. True, the wins for The Artist and Argo may just be a different way for Hollywood to hail itself ... but that may be unavoidable. Now I've just got this urge to see Life of Pi while it's still on the big screen in 3D...

51 comments:

  1. Ditto re: Life of Pi. Turns out it's playing in the theater a few hundred feet from where I live at 8pm tomorrow. Hmmm.

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  2. Marsha1:05 AM

    Please report back. I avoided seeing it because I loved the book so much (it's one of those books that had such an impact on me that I can recall exactly when and where I was when I read it) and because the reviews were so meh. The reviews were so mediocre that I was shocked that Ang Lee won.

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  3. Randy1:10 AM

    Re Life of Pi: General consensus is that a person's opinion of the movie correlates with that person's opinion of the book.

    Re Argo wins: absolutely unsurprising, but disappointing nonetheless. I wonder how the awards season would have gone if Affleck hadn't been snubbed in the nominations - I can't help but think that his snub worked in the movie's favor. (Sorry, Lincoln, Spielberg, and Kushner.)



    Re Kushner: THAT was the only loss that really bummed me out. That screenplay was MILES better than Argo's. Oh well.

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  4. Maret Orliss1:25 AM

    I had to watch on a delay because of work. Overall I enjoyed the show but had some real problems wit MacFarlane as host. This was a year of lots of great movies and I liked that a lot of them were rewarded, though I wish ZDT had gotten more.

    Most pressing issue for me: what were the best and worst dresses so I can go online and see any that I missed during the ceremony?

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  5. Check the Cut for great photos of the dresses, but Iiked JLaw, Stacey Keibler, and Octavia Spencer the best. Jane Fonda also looked good, as did Naomi Watts. Worst? Melissa McCarthy, by a mile. I already wrote a blog post about it. I had THOUGHTS.

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  7. The reviews were meh? I never got that impression at all. I watched it Saturday in 3D, and I'm so glad I did. Watching it on TV will never being to equal seeing Pi on the big screen.

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  8. "begin to equal"

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  9. Duvall8:58 AM

    Unless the opening scene was ad-libbed I can't feel too bad about Lincoln's screenplay losing.

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  10. I liked, but did not love, the book, and admired, but did not love, the film. In particular, I thought the actor playing Young Pi was something of a boring blank slate (though this may be required by how the story works), but it looks gorgeous and you can't deny the technical achievement.

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  11. One thing that probably worked in Argo's favor is that the adaptation was more difficult and the multiple story threads going on in different locations (though one can properly argue that the right place to honor that is in the directing/editing categories). Lincoln had a bunch of grand dialogue and speeches, but ultimately, a pretty linear story.

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  12. I don't think I've ever wanted to actually punch an Oscar host before.


    The one interesting thing about the nominee clips? That Helen Hunt clip from Sessions is about the first thing (besides, of course, John Hawke in general) that's made me want to go see the movie.


    Besides, the history in Lincoln is pretty much as flawed, in it's own way, as in Argo. Still a quite well done movie though.


    http://www.thenation.com/blog/171461/trouble-steven-spielbergs-lincoln#



    http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2012/11/historians-respond-to-spielbergs-lincoln.html

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  13. The Sessions is a hard movie to sell with network TV ads, because of its content. It's not pornographic or prurient, but yeah, Helen Hunt is naked for easily half the film.

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  14. Here was my issue with Life of Pi - I didn't love the framing device. And I really, really hated the dialogue given to the "novelist." Especially the part where he essentially said, "So, the symbolism to your story [the movie we just saw] is this and this and this? Which makes you this?" (Thises to avoid spoilers, if you're not familiar with the story.) I'm choosing to believe that was some dumbass studio notes and not the screenwriter's or Ang Lee's choice.

    Also, I saw Life of Pi in 2D and I can't but imagine it was even more stunning in 3D. There were a couple of surprising moments that made me scream in 2D. In 3D I might've wet my pants.

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  15. I don't know - if Kushner didn't write THE END after the Lincoln walking down the hallway to head to Ford's Theater scene, then he's on my shit list along with Spielberg.

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  16. Adam B.10:16 AM

    So: the Necrology included MCA, but missed Alex Karras, Andy Griffith, Gore Vidal, Larry Hagman, and Richard Dawson.


    And yes, The Onion needs to say something about that tweet.

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  17. There were so many problems with the show last night. In addition to being crass, most of the jokes simply weren't funny. Ditto for the supposed banter. Daniel Day-Lewis's short little acceptance speech was miles funnier than anything done by the host or the scripted banter. [In related news, while I still have not forgiven him for There Will Be Blood, I watched Lincoln with pleasure and with zero desire to slap him in the face. I feel like we've reached a turning point in our cinematic relationship.]


    The pacing was terrible, and the things that they chose to highlight and to ignore were utterly bizarre. A theme quickly developed in our household: Husband: "Oh, they had time for [fill in the blank], but not to show anything for the special effects categories?"

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  18. Nigel from Cameroon10:51 AM

    Now see... I kind of like MacFarlane. I mean as much as I like any host in that role--it's pretty much a no-win situation...but certainly he was more clever than someone Billy Crystal, yes? I thought the 'Boobs' thing was ironic. And all the actresses played along.

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  19. The sins of Kushner's screenplay were much, much more minor than the sins of Terrio's. Lincoln was 2.5 hours of extraordinary dialogue with a clumsy and unnecessary final three minutes, while Terrio's had about 30 minutes of nudge-nudge wink-wink Hollywood jokes AND that utterly preposterous sequence at the airport. (I know we disagree on that one, Watts, but I remain adamant about how ridiculous that was.)

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  20. This may sound like a weird criticism, but I thought the dialogue was almost TOO extraordinary. I was very aware I was listening to something that had been scripted as opposed to being able to imagine I was hearing actual people talk to one another.

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  21. Not all. Three, IIRC. And one of those was playing along because she hasn't done nudity.

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  22. Naturalism is overrated. :)

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  23. I guess I can take high-falutin' dialogue better in a novel or on the stage than in film.

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  24. Nigel from Cameroon11:26 AM

    Eh...okay, but many, many, many, many actresses show the boobs. As pointed out by the song. Still think it was clever.

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  25. Marsha11:29 AM

    I really liked The Sessions. Hawkes is incredible, Helen Hunt is much better than she usually is, the story is fascinating, and there are several really interesting and well-fleshed out minor characters. It's stayed with me, which is a big deal for someone with a swiss-cheese memory like mine.

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  26. The premise wasn't unclever, but MacFarlane should've checked his references - four of the actresses/movies/scenes he mentioned were rape scenes. As in, he got to see their boobs because they were being raped at the time.

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  27. All reaction shots were pre-filmed. Everyone played along.

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  28. I know it may seem controversial, but I liked the hosting better than I've liked any hosting since Johnny Carson and Bob Hope. Seth is way talented. I guess I'm just not that easily offended, and I think he's funny, even when being sophomoric (Blame Canada not so different in kind from Boobs song....)

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  29. Adam B.11:37 AM

    And men are rarely asked to do the same. Jamie Foxx this year, Ewan McGregor on occasion ...

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  30. In the category of surprisingly pro-MacFarlane people, the winner is Charles Murray, right? https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/306078858241798144

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  31. Everyone that was asked beforehand played along. We have no idea how the people he mentioned who were sitting in the theater while it played reacted to hearing their names because we were ONLY watching the prerecorded reactions.

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  32. And Jamie Foxx was not a prurient showing, but a nudity under duress. (Also, I wondered if they'd used a prosthetic for that scene to appease the MPAA, like Boogie Nights did.)

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  33. The Oscar show served to prove to me that I will never watch Amour, no matter how brilliant it is. I just can't take it.

    Loved Daniel Day Lewis' speech. His humor contrasts so well with his "I stay in character the whole time, I'm such a serious ah-ctor" image.

    I get the "music in movies" theme. But I wish they'd cut the useless performances from Chicago and Dreamgirls (as much as I love hearing JHud sing that song) and focused more on THIS year's movies. I love when they illuminate the technical awards - showing how sound mixing is layered, or showing costume sketches turn into actual costumes - and missed that. And I would have liked more to the Bond presentation - like some of the former Bond actors on stage. I liked that each acting nominee got an actual clip, though.

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  34. isaac_spaceman11:53 AM

    You can look at twitter feeds from Hollywood people and figure out instantly who is trying to get work from MacFarlane (e.g. Rainn Wilson) and who isn't (e.g. Joel McHale).

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  35. isaac_spaceman11:55 AM

    Is that why they used a prosthetic in Boogie Nights? I always assumed it was for a different reason.

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  36. Even had Wahlberg been up to the task (and I have no idea if he is or isn't) by showing a prosthetic, and not an actual penis belonging to a real human man, they were able to get an R, not an NC-17.

    I'm not finding a citation for it, but I'm fairly sure I learned that watching "This Movie Is Not Yet Rated."

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  37. Not that surprising.

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  38. The song could have been about the double standard. It was not (seemed to delight in that).

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  39. Tom & Lorenzo's blog.

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  40. Nigel from Cameronn1:39 PM

    Is a prosthetic so different than body doubles (commonly used) and even CGI (becoming more commonly used)?

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  41. Watts1:41 PM

    To my mind, if you're going to see a realistic prosthetic, you might as well see the real thing. But I have logic and reason, unlike the MPAA.

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  42. I have heard Wahlberg say (words that made me think) that while he may be up to the task, he is no Dirk Diggler, and that there have been some disappointing encounters as a result of women who weren't able to separate him from his character and had dashed expectations.

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  43. Right, based on what we know, no problem.

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  44. Whether you enjoy this or any other Seth Macfarlane thing depends on how funny it is to watch Seth Macfarlane make himself laugh. If you laugh, it's only ever incidental.

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  45. Nigel from Cameroon2:25 PM

    "Zero Dark Thirty" was a story about "every woman's innate ability to never ever let anything go." My personal favorite.

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  46. Adam B.2:50 PM

    Do we know that they knew what they were reacting to?

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  47. I HAAAAATED the novelist. Hated the character, hated the actor, it would have made me hate the framing device and maybe even the entire movie if Irrfan Khan hadn't cancelled out that suckitude with equal awesomeness.

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  48. Watts3:16 PM

    Oh. Oh. We are on VERY opposite ends of this argument, then.

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  49. Adlai3:34 PM

    That's the joke that made me swear aloud in disgust. Not funny, and 100 years old. On the other hand, I guess it's good to see the writers from the Lockhorns getting work?

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  50. isaac_spaceman9:24 PM

    Just picturing Chastain and Bin Laden as the Lockhorns. It's taking me to a dark place.

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  51. I respect MacFarlane for finding a formula for great success in a far-from-perfect world, and loathe each and every thing he has created (at least so far as I am aware) as symptoms and manifestations of that world's defects. He's the smiling face of the worst in all of us.

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