The 82nd Annual Oscars

[MarkGrace]

I still think you are a pablo honey bandwagon hater, though.

Hey now, I don't hate it, I just don't think it's very good!

[falafel]

It wasn't a team sports movie, I never said it was. Who cares if they won a state championship? Who cares if they overcame adversity as a team? It wasn't a movie about a team. Field of Dreams also didn't include anything about any of the things you said, but would anybody debate that it's also a sport movie? Rocky? The Natural? Jerry Maguire? Eight Men Out? Tin Cup? Rudy? I'm not sure where you're going will all this team talk, this wasn't a team-based movie.

And just because the football montages ended doesn't mean the sports story did. There was still a ton of stuff related to his recruitment, eligibility, NCAA infractions, etc. None of that happens without sports, and those were big elements to the second half of the movie. In the credits they even made sure to show you that he was eventually drafted into the NFL, which certainly would have been included in the movie had it not occurred after the movie was already made. The first half of the movie was largely about this kid learning how to play football, and the second was about getting him into college to play football. Either way, sports was driving most of the story if you ask me.



I've already agreed with you that most sports movies deal themes or have stories beyond the scope of the sport itself, so again I'm not sure where you are going this. You could take The Natural, Field of Dreams, Sugar, etc., etc., etc., and turn them into a one sentence issue statement that totally removes the sports element. I don't think that changes anything.

Well, I'm not really going anywhere with it. I guess I usually think of sports movies in a different way than you do. And that's cool.

[jay santos]

I'm ashamed to say I rented Hurt Locker and didn't finish watching it. The opening was good. Good tension, interesting slow pace for a war movie, etc. Then as I recall they repeated that scene a couple more times spliced in with some offline scenes that didn't seem to add anything. An hour into it, it just didn't seem like it was going anywhere and I was getting sleepy. Maybe I should give it another try.

[MarkGrace]

Well, I'm not really going anywhere with it. I guess I usually think of sports movies in a different way than you do. And that's cool.

Well I get what you are saying. Some stories are about sports, and others are just stories with sports in it. As a broad classification, either is a sports movie to me, as I don't think of it in terms of a limited definition. I guess I just don't think every movie has to be built like Hoosiers to be considered a sports movie.

Here's what the writer-director of the movie said about it:

Hancock promises "The Blind Side" will be a different kind of sports movie.

"There's no Big Game. Most sports movies you have the big championship game. But here Michael is playing in a private school league. How many times do you want to see him crush a skinny, 180-pound white boy? He does it once, you get it: He's good. And he's a left tackle; so yes, you want to shoot a play, but the movie is about that position. ... What's important is when he clicks."

A different angle than many sports movies? Sure. But I guess the way I think about sports movies, it fits.

[TripletDaddy]

In what is a pretty cool move, Jack Donaghy blogs on HuffPo about last night's experience. In other news, he apparently wants to be in a Tarantino movie asap. I wonder how much it still eats at him that Kim Basinger won one? And now Sandra Bullock. He has the chops to win one, but it would have to be in some sort of offbeat, Lost in Translation, semi-serious role.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/thoughts-on-hosting-the-2_b_490353.html

A television show like the Oscars is a strange bird. It's not like SNL or Letterman, where performers come out and do their thing and every one goes home. With awards at stake, awards that might actually change the course of the winners' careers, the proceedings possess an unavoidable and unique tension that does not exist elsewhere. At the Tonys and Grammys, musical performance provides a level of entertainment that the other awards can't hope to match. Yet, the Oscars remain the most important awards program for many people, probably because the movies, at their best, make audiences feel things about themselves and life that other media don't bring into focus as completely or effectively. Only books, I would argue, do a better job.
Hosting the show is an odd experience because you're out there, but it isn't about you. Steve Martin and I worked rather hard, along with the writers and producers, to make sure our contribution did not detract from the primary purpose of the evening, honoring the highest achievements in film. We tell some jokes and show some clips, but the night belongs to the great talent in that room.
I had a wonderful time at the Oscars this year, because the reality of just how many remarkably talented people work in the movie business was never more vivid to me than last night. We all have our preferences (I had to be careful to keep mine to myself in advance of the show). We all think that someone should have been nominated that was overlooked. (500 Days of Summer, anyone?) That someone should have won who didn't. Here are some of the things I will remember about last night's Oscars.
- Carey Mulligan at the Vanity Fair party. I talked with her briefly and thought, "This young woman has everything, absolutely everything, to have a great career in the movies."
- Quentin Tarantino's look after the show. A look that said, "I'm gonna dust myself off and win this thing next year." Gracious and restless in the same moment, who's tougher, and more talented, than Tarantino?
-- Christoph Waltz taking in the fact that he had won the Grand Slam (SAG, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar) for what is the year's best performance.

- Lee Daniels before, during and after the show. Daniels made the film that was the hardest to make. Few filmmakers and few casts of actors go as deep as the Precious company did. Had they won everything last night, who could argue? Daniels should know he was among the biggest winners, with or without the Oscar.
- Kathryn Bigelow trembling onstage as she accepted her second Oscar in under two minutes. Bigelow was, no doubt, headed for the press room as the newly crowned Best Director when Hurt Locker won Best Picture and she had to spin around and pick up her other statue. Kathryn Bigelow's award buoyed the evening. History made as the best director of the best picture is a woman making a war film.
- Sandra Bullock sitting in a room just outside the VF party with her husband, spending a moment taking it all in. Sandy has made a lot of movies. And those movies have made a lot of money. I believe, however, that Sandy, whose career began with movies like Demolition Man, had that dream that we all have and had it all along. Money, fame and privilege all fade into the background. Winning the big one would be... oh so nice. That was the wonderful look on Sandy's face last night. That the reality is every bit as fantastic as the dream.
Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees.

[Fiyero]

Did anyone squeeze Scarlett Johanson's breasts this year?

[TripletDaddy]

Did anyone squeeze Scarlett Johanson's breasts this year?

That was golden globes.

The Oscars are a classier affair.

[TripletDaddy]

A trailer for a fictitious academy-award winning movie, replete with most oscar cliches.

[YOUTUBE]nFicqklGuB0[/YOUTUBE]

[MarkGrace]

Reminded me a lot of The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country For Old Men, and The Departed.

[Fiyero]

A trailer for a fictitious academy-award winning movie, replete with most oscar cliches.

[YOUTUBE]nFicqklGuB0[/YOUTUBE]

The theme music that plays from 2:30 to 3:10, I've heard before where did they steal sample it?

[falafel]

A trailer for a fictitious academy-award winning movie, replete with most oscar cliches.

[YOUTUBE]nFicqklGuB0[/YOUTUBE]

Catch Phrase! laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh.

[wuapinmon]

You should check it out, I think you would really enjoy it.

You are correct, sir. I loved it. I love original stories that serve to turn film conventions on their heads (aliens that we don't fear), leave open logical ways for a sequel to happen, use new actors with actual talent, and still have biting social commentary about class struggle, refugees, fear of the Other, and Apartheid.

Awesomeness.

[MarkGrace]

Supposedly Van Sant and S. Coppola have been contacted to direct the last Twilight film. The studio is hoping that with the expanded field of 10 they can get a best picture nom. lol...do away with this experiment already.

[Fiyero]

I wonder if the final Harry Potter will sweep the graphics and editing awards the way Lord of the Rings did.