I want to talk about the Oscars! The nominations are being announced tomorrow (I think) so we have one day to claim our nominee predictions. Mine: Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave American Hustle Wolf of Wall St Captain Phillips Inside Llewyn Davis Gravity Philomena Dallas Buyers Club Blue Jasmine Her With the winner being 12 Years a Slave Best Director: Steve McQueen David O'Russell Alfonso Cuaron Paul Greengrass Martin Scorcese or Spike Jonze With McQueen winning Best Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor Leo DiCaprio Matthew McConaughey Joaquin Phoenix Robert Redford or Bruce Dern or Oscar Isaac or Tom Hanks With the winner being Chiwetel Ejiofor Best Actress: Lupita Nyong'o Amy Adams Judi Dench Cate Blanchett Meryl Streep Although I'm hoping one of the girls from Blue is the Warmest Color is a surprise nomination instead of Amy Adams. I don't know who I'd guess for the winner. Best Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender (is he lead or supporting?) Barkhad Abdi Jared Leto Bradley Cooper even though I don't think he should be I can't think of a 5th so I'm going to throw out Will Forte for Nebraska just because With the winner being Jared Leto Best Supporting Actress: The only ones I have for this are Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lawrence Best Original Screenplay: Inside Llewyn Davis Her Dallas Buyers Club Nebraska or Blue Jasmine American Hustle even though it shouldn't be I'm unsure about this one - maybe Her? Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave Wolf of Wall St August: Osage County is Philomena adapted? I can't think of a 5th one With the winner being 12 Years a Slave And even though I don't think people will have that many opinions about these: Best Documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom The Act of Killing Stories We Tell Blackfish With the winner being The Act of Killing Best Costumes: American Hustle Inside Llewyn Davis Great Gatsby With the winner being American Hustle
Paging El Tee to the Oscar phone. Where's El Tee when you need him? 12 Years a Slave was an extremely slow film for me, I don't usually have a problem with those movies but I was checking the time much more than I usually do. That said it'll most likely win.
Hugh Jackman should win best actor for Prisoners and he won't even get nominated. I also would have nominated The Place Beyond The Pines for best picture. And I really hope my girl Amy Adams finally wins. This would be her fifth nomination.
Re: Re: 2014 Oscars Extravaganza Damn I forgot to include that in my earlier post, his performance in that film is beyond great and yet most people have no idea that Prisoners is even a movie. Shame really because it's an excellent flick.
I don't get all the American Hustle hate Ive heard lately. Its a great film, I liked Bale's performance in this ten times better than his Oscar win for his role in The Fighter. If he's up for lead for that I don't see him winning it, he's just won one doing a David O Russell film. I'd like to see Amy Adams win for her role in it. I think Jennifer Lawrence might be nominated, possibly could win since she is all the media ever talks about. Plus Ive not heard anything but glowing reviews for her work in it. As I said in the review thread I was really not impressed. I think Amy Adams played a more complex and compelling character.
Re: Re: 2014 Oscars Extravaganza I made it through 3/4 of American Hustle before turning off, shit movie, Jennifer Lawrence isn't being seriously considered for an Oscar for that film is she.......
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.imdb.com/oscars/nominations/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.imdb.com/oscars/nominations/</a> Looking at the official list and audrey's, they're virtually identical. No surprises. A lot of the same names as usual. Which makes me sad. The whole ceremony is such a self congratulatory handjob. They ignored the 3 hour lesbian epic, Blue Is the Warmest Color. F you, academy guys. You wouldn't know art if it scissored you. Nice to see 10 time loser Roger Deakins get nominated for cinematography again so he can lose... again. I bitched about this last year when he lost for Skyfall, the most visually appealing movie ever. Fassbender finally got his nod, too, after they fucked him for Shame. I'm rooting for Steve Coogan to win something because on his show The Trip he said he would sacrifice the health of one of his kids for an Oscar. Oh, anyone else find it hilarious the movie about music, Inside Llewyn Davis, did not get one mention for its songs? OH, but fucking Bono is up there. Fuck Bono, I hope Bono gets caught with underage brony porn. I hope Bono drowns trying to chug a bucket of horse cum. YEAH YEAH YEAH.
The songs from Inside Llewyn Davis are fantastic. Some of the best movie-written tunes in years. And yes, Fassbender deserved to win the Oscar for shame. That was one of the most awkward, fearless performances ever.
Re: Paging El Tee to the Oscar phone. I'm right here, bitches. Per usual, now that I have a slate of actual nominees I can run down all the acting and writing nominees in the next few weeks. A couple of initial thoughts, though: - The Butler getting snubbed for most of the major awards is delightful. While it wasn't necessarily a bad movie, it was the most fucking pretentious film I've seen in a long time, starting with the fact that it's actual title is LEE DANIEL'S The Butler, the fact that Oprah is no longer the powerhouse brand she used to be, and the fact that Academy voters have more than one film this year they can nominate (slavery and Mandela) to make them feel like they've made a difference. - Amy Adams is the only Best Actress nominee that hasn't already won a previous award. The AMPAS loves Amy Adams...this might be the excuse they need to finally let her in the club. - That said, Jennifer Lawrence was the best thing about American Hustle, and I'm curious to see if there is any back-to-back backlash that would hurt her chances of winning another Oscar. - Two easy-money locks are Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director and U2 for Best Original Song. The former is for merit, the latter is to give a token shallow nod to Nelson Mandela.
I'm sad to see that Knoxville was not nominated for the best actor award. The man plays an old grandpa better than most grandpas. I just hope it wins the make up category.
Well, to be fair, there was only one original song in Inside Llewyn Davis and it was a corny joke song. All the other ones were Dave von Ronk's, the guy that Llewyn Davis was loosely based off of. But I'm surprised and mad that it got so shut out of all of the other categories. Best sound editing? COOL. They put a lot of crappy movies in the Best Picture slot in the past few years to fill out the 10 slots but this year when there was actually a bunch of good options they chose 9 and didn't even give it a nod? I'm glad it got a cinematography nomination, but it should be there for screenplay instead of American Hustle. Hopefully it's enough to get Oscar Isaac there in a tux. It's really the least they can do. I really enjoyed American Hustle, but I don't think it deserves all of these nominations - especially for acting. All of them were being so campy. And that was fun and entertaining, but not Oscar-worthy. That being said, it's an outrage that Bradley Cooper's perm did not get a nomination for best hairstyling.
I'm not one to dole out superlatives easily, but Jennifer Lawrence is easily the most talented actress of this generation. I am constantly amazed that she's only 23 years old (and little bit dumb, frankly.) I thought she was fantastic in American Hustle, though right now I'd be surprised if the Academy gives her second consecutive statue even though this is her third nom in four years. Vegas has her as an even-money favorite, but this category is usually more unpredictable than the Lead categories. Even though Cate Blanchett is the favorite right now for Best Actress, I suspect the needle could move towards Amy Adams once everyone watches their screeners. Or, at least I think so, admittedly I spent most of AH just staring at her tits.
DiCaprio may deserve it this year for the Super-Ludes scene alone. But he's going up against Bale and McConnaughey, who both did crazy weight things for their roles...
McConnaughey will win, he deserves the most among the nominees. The embodiment of his performance rings every bell in the academy. I thought hands down Hugh Jackman should get it for Prisoners. One of the scariest, most believable performances I have ever seen.
Now that I think about it...McConnaughey will get the win. It is his year. This reminds me, I really really need to watch Prisoners
Don't doubt for a moment that his weekly performance on "True Detective" is reinforcing that idea, too. I just read an article theorizing that Cate Blanchett might suffer the indirect wrath of the not-terribly-surprising news that Woody Allen likes to diddle little girls. After watching Blue Jasmine, I think that would be unfortunate, but frankly since she'll likely be nominated multiple times in the future I think it might be a slight worth forgetting. Buy your Amy Adams stock now, is what I'm saying.
So I've caught up on most of the oscar bait movies. - I don't think there was any film in particular that stood out this year. There was a number of good movies, but nothing like a NCFOM, or Slumdog Millionaire. - Gravity and American Hustle are really overrated in my opinion. Especially American Hustle. I mean, it was ok, but I cannot for the life on me see why it's getting nominated in practically every major category. - Hugh Jackman not even getting nominated is the worst snub I can remember. That was far and away the best performance of the year. I couldn't agree more with what other board members have said about his portrayal of the role. So predictions... Best Picture: Will almost definitely go to 12 Years a Slave. In a stronger year this might not win, but the competition really isn't all that great. Best Actor: McCounaghey will probably take it. I would really like to see DiCaprio finally get his oscar, but I just can't help thinking that Wolf of Wall Street is one of the movies the academy isn't going to be fond of. Of course Jackman should have been nominated and won. Best Actress. Blanchett and she deserves it. She almost single handedly made that movie enjoyable. Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto will take it, although I would much rather see it go to Fassbender. I can't remember the last time I hated a character that much. Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyongo I guess? No one in this category jumps out at me. If Jennifer Lawrence is really the favorite that's pretty ridiculous. Best Original Screenplay: Probably goes to American Hustle. I'd rather see Her win. This category is the biggest toss up in my opinion. Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave wins easily. Best Director: This is between McQueen and Cuaron. I think Cuaron wins because while I wasn't a huge fan of Gravity overall, it is more impressive on a technical level.
With the exception of Philomena, which I hope to see before Sunday, I have completed the slate of major Oscar nominated films. Well, that's not entirely true: I haven't seen annoyingly titled August: Osage County either but that's because A) I don't want to, and B) both Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts are consensus favorites to finish in fifth place. Best Supporting Actress: The most amazing thing about Julia Roberts is that this is her fourth Academy Award nomination. The second most amazing thing is that she got her first nomination about 25 years ago (!). The most un-amazing thing about her is that she doesn't have a chance to win this year, especially for a film that didn't get a Best Picture or Best Screenplay nod. June Squibb did appear in a nominated film (Nebraska), but for the life of me I don't know how anyone could consider her monotone delivery one of the best five performances of the year. (Oprah Winfrey must have been pissed when she heard this name called.) I generally like Alexander Payne movies, but Nebraska was a chore to get through and it's hard to win a statue when people fall asleep during your movie. Speaking of tiresome movies, Sally Hawkins landed another Woody Allen acting nomination even though the SAG left her off their ballot. She was very good, though, especially in scenes where Blanchett was chewing up the scenery. Lupita Nyong'o is the most overrated of the three 12 Years acting nominees. The script basically called for her to "look miserable" and scream a lot, which to her credit she did very well: she did win the SAG award in this category. I've already gone on the record explaining my sincere admiration for Jennifer Lawrence's talent. It only helps her case that she's a bona-fide star, a lot of people seemed to like American Hustle (of which she was in arguably the best thing about after Amy Adam's cleavage) meaning she'll get more attention (a good thing) than the other noms, and the Academy has a rare chance to give out deserved back-to-back awards. Plus, there's a very good chance she'll purposely fake another fall just for shits and giggles. Should win: Lawrence, by far. Could win: The list of actresses that have won Oscars for Woody Allen movies is irritatingly long, so don't count out Hawkins. Will win: I'm guessing Lawrence, but I get this category wrong every year, usually because of Woody Allen. Best Supporting Actor: The best thing Barkhad Abdi has going for him is that his name is first on the ballot. It doesn't help that his movie was also the first one to get released all the way back in October, an eternity compared to the rest of these guys. If you were one of the people confused at times by the plot of American Hustle, then it's likely you're going to hang that rock around the neck of Bradley Cooper, who was the one that didn't have to get fat for the movie. Michael Fassbender expertly straddled the line between evil and a cartoonish, and I think in some other year he would actually be the frontrunner. Unfortunately, Jonah Hill had a full three hours to wreak his cocaine-fueled magic through The Wolf of Wall Street, a movie that is generally easier on the soul than 12 Years. However, gender-bending roles - when done well - always invite a little more consideration, and Jared Leto bent about as well as anyone has since The Crying Game. And as always, voters may think that casting a ballot for Leto here is actually a way to show their support for the LGBT community...as if the LGBT community actually needs support from anyone in a town as gay as Hollywood. Should win: Jonah Hill was a genuinely great part of TWOWS, which hopefully has more fans in the AMPAS than detractors. Could win: No one is going to split votes here, so the odds of Abdi/Cooper/Fassbender jumping the line are slim. Will win: Dallas Buyers Club and Matthew McConaughey's star are both peaking at the right time, so expect Leto to follow accordingly. Not a terrible choice, all things considered, but I much rather die of AIDS than have to listen to a Leto speech when you just know Hill would kill it up there. Best Actress: I wonder if Meryl Streep gets to simply tell the AMPAS whether or not she want's to attend the Oscars, and they nominate her accordingly? Regardless, she gets to take it easy this year, and rest assured whoever does win will thank her anyway. I really want to see Judi Dench in Philomena, but with no wins in precursor ceremonies the odds of her getting a first award at the Oscars is almost nil. A lot of critics and voters are saying Sandra Bullock was better in Gravity than she was in The Blind Side, but I wouldn't go that far. Gravity is a pretty uncomplicated film storywise, though I give her credit for having to act mostly solo and without the benefit of an actual movie environment. American Hustle landed a nominated actor in every category, which is pretty impressive considering that hasn't happened since...well, since last year in another David O. Russell film (Silver Linings Playbook). But before that, it hadn't happened all that often. The good thing for Amy Adams is that when a film has a nominee in every category, at least one of them is sure to go home with a statue. Also good? This is her fifth nomination, and she's the only lady here that hasn't won before. The bad news? Two words: Cate Blanchett. She was pretty magnificent in Blue Jasmine, and it looks like she isn't catching any Woody Allen fallout (who like I said earlier has a strong track record of getting his women Oscars). Should win: Cate Blanchett didn't win all those early awards for nothing. Could win: Gravity is a legitimate Best Picture candidate and Best Director favorite, so Bullock will get some healthy consideration for her one-woman show. Will win: I'm going out on a limb here: I think Amy Adams pulls off the upset. She's due, and the Academy can gift her one here without slighting anyone. Best Actor: Bruce Dern looked in Nebraska the same way I felt watching Nebraska: completely baffled. How he and Squibb crashed this party is beyond me. I thought Christian Bale was just okay in AH, a movie that was dominated by female performances, 70s outfits, and bad hair. Leonard DiCaprio was great in TWOWS, but playing a rich white male isn't going to win a rich white male an Oscar. He would need to go Full Retard to beat out this crowd. Chiwetel Ejiofor gave a virtuoso performance in 12 Years a Slave. Unfortunately, there is one sad fact about African-American actors when it comes to Oscars: they only win when they are frontrunners. (And even then, not always.) And if there is one thing for certain, Ejiofor is NOT the frontrunner. That honor belongs to my fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey, who not only starved himself for a role as an AIDS patient but also managed to give an amazing performance as a man who held off dying of AIDS for years simply by sheer willpower and assholeishness. Should win: McConaughey, easily. Could win: Since this is just a two-man race, Ejiofor has the best chance. Will win: "Alright, alright, alright. Just keep on livin'." Best Adapated Screenplay: The boobie prize for non-Best Pictures. I really wish I could weigh in on Philomena here (I reserve the right to edit this post). The two most likely winners are The Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave. The sheer length of the former might work against it (i.e. lots of speeches), while the latter was propelled more by its subject matter than its story. Prediction: The Wolf of Wall Street - written by well-known Terence Winter - is a sure bet to lose Best Picture, making it more likely voters will award it the runner-up prize here. Best Original Screenplay: There is no fucking way Woody Allen is getting an Oscar. Dallas Buyers Club is a favorite to win acting awards, so it's unlikely anyone is going to look at tossing it a vote here. Nebraska was boring as fuck. So it basically comes down to whether the AMPAS wants to reward D.O.R. for AH or Spike Jonze for Her. Russell missed out in this category for SLP last year, but a win for Jonze here seems like an appropriately singular recognition for a talented writer/director (who did win the WGA award). Prediction: David O. Russell gets to take home an Oscar of his own, finally. Best Director: The Directors Guild of America has already spoken here: Alfonso Cuaron will win. Don't cross the DGA. *Best Original Song: I don't normally care too much about this category, except to note that whenever a popular recording artist is nominated they're the prohibitive favorites. This year, that artist is U2 (all four members are nominated, by the way) for a song from the Mandela movie to boot. However, Pharrell Williams is also nominated for a much catchier, less pandering song. Pharrell is having a hell of a year, which doesn't bode well for the washed-up U2. Making things even more interesting is that I've heard (from my four-year old niece, no less) that the Frozen song is the most popular song in America right now. I don't really have a prediction here, but I will be watching to see if people in Hollywood tell Bono and The Edge to go fuck themselves. Best Picture: Despite a slate of nine films, there are really only three contenders: Gravity, American Hustle, and 12 Years a Slave. Gravity is a technical marvel, but remarkably simple in many creative respects. American Hustle mostly feels like it came out less than the sum of its parts, and if it won Best Picture it would probably be a hands down favorite for the BP most people can't tell you the plot of. 12 Years a Slave has the benefit of the always-helpful civil rights element, plus it looks to miss out on every other major category so a vote for BP here makes passing over Ejiofor, Nyong'o, Ridley, and McQueen. Prediction: 12 Years a Slave could become the first film since 1935 to win Best Picture and no other awards. (It is nominated for three technicals: Production Design, Costumes, and Editing.)
So Lupita Nyong'o won instead of Jennifer Lawrence, the Academy hates David O. Russell more than I knew, and they didn't love The Wolf of Wall Street as much I thought. All in all, a pretty good show. Which is ironic, because this was by far the worst hosting job I've seen since Letterman...who compared to this wasn't even that bad. I hope the next time Ellen gets invited to host they let Kate McKinnon do it instead.