Moviesucktastic: Academy Award

Showing posts with label Academy Award. Show all posts

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Moviesucktastic #59: 2012 Oscar Nominations Show

As happens every year, Bad Movie Month (January) leads into the supposedly Good Movie Month of February with Oscar Season, and The Movie Guys take advantage of this seasonal event by using this episode of Moviesucktastic to take their initial look at the newly released Academy of Motion Picture's list of Oscar Nominees!

Joey and Scott take a few moments at the beginning of the show to talk about Scott's new job, his recent trip to California, his eager consumption of cow throat glands and his long term issues with ear wax buildup, before diving into the past weekend's Top Ten Box Office list. As usual, the Top Ten segment wraps up with the Finger List, and Scott trashing a widely respected film (this week's title to incur Scott's hatred: Schindler's List).

Schindler's List - Best Romantic Comedy Ever

After a brief moment spent lamenting the recent trend towards 3D in films (yes, again), and a quick verbal assault on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Joey and Scott spend the second half of the show taking a closer look at the Nominees for the 2012 Academy Awards. As well as the usual bitching and moaning about the Academy, their recent Ten Best Picture decision (Nine this year, just to be annoying), and hammering out the details of this year's live video podcast of the Moviesucktastic Oscar coverage, Joey and Scott touch on the films filling the roster of the top main categories. Tune in and get the inside scoop on who is going to win, who is going to lose, and how lame Ben Stiller is going to be this year. The time to prepare for this year's Oscar Awards show is rapidly dwindling!

Trailer for Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever

This episode of Moviesucktastic is available on iTunes and Zune, or on Podcast Pickle, Podcast Pup and Pod Feed. If you are on the go, you can stream it on the fly directly onto your smart phone using the sweet-ass Stitcher App. And, as always, you can also download or listen to the show streaming at Moviesucktastic.com.

And while you're at it, be sure to drop us a voice mail on the Moviesucktastic Hotline, 908-514-4470. Call in with your Oscar predictions and shame us!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Film Critic Dictionary - "Breaking New Ground"

Image via WikipediaI'm done with movie reviews that feel the need to state/complain that a film "doesn't break new ground." How many films have you ever seen that actually "break new ground?" For that matter, when was the last time an Oscar-winning film was truly and unequivocally "ground breaking?" What ground is there even left to break? Critics who feel the need to state that no "new ground" has been "broken" are just grasping for a way to either knock a film they didn't like but can't effectively trash, or apologize for a positive review of a film that isn't quite up to art-house film-snob standards. You want to "break new ground?" Try reviewing a film on its own merits without trying to size up its overall importance when measured against the history of cinematic expression. A film isn't any less effective or entertaining just because it doesn't transcend modern cinematic principles or push the envelope on narrative structures. Let's leave this arrogant phrase on the heap with "Popcorn Movie" and "Guilty Pleasure."

Friday, February 18, 2011

Spring Cleaning!

As spring approaches, warmer weather rapidly approaches, and with it cooler website designs. That's right, Joey (the more technically advanced and level headed of the Movie Guys) has revamped the Moviesucktastic website. Not only is it way more snazzier than before (You can't deny the snazzy of that!), but he's also installed a brand-new podcast player with expanded room for future episodes. Is he cool or what? Head on over and take a look at all the shiny newness and let us know what you think. And don't forget, our live Oscar show is coming up next weekend (just like last year's, only with the inclusion of alcohol), so start your Oscar pools now!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Guillermo del Toro Drops Hobbits

Guillermo del Toro noted that John Howe's illu...

Image via Wikipedia

While there is no doubt that MGM's current financial difficulties are a leading reason for the delays, you have to wonder if the recent track records of Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro are also responsible for giving the studio heads reason to pause the massive production of the two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit.

Not nearly enough people hated Jackson's King Kong remake as much as I did, but his adaptation of The Lovely Bones failed to gain any real audience acclaim, even among fans of the book, and was one of the less successful Oscar nominated films of the past year. Guillermo, on the other hand, continues to please art-house theater crowds, yet continually fails to bring in major receipts or reviews on his wide-release box office fair.

Add all of this to the tepid turnout for the latest batch of CGI epics to hit the theaters this year, and it is looking more and more likely that MGM just doesn't trust Jackson and del Toro to deliver any major box office cash on the backs of J.R.R Tolkien's Hobbits.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Raymond Chandler on the Oscars

Image by marctonysmith via Flickr

As blunt and eloquent as ever, Raymond Chandler, who was a harsh and outspoken critic of Hollywood, weighed in on the Academy Awards after attending the awards ceremony for the first and last time in 1941:

If you can get past those awful idiot faces on the bleachers outside the theater without a sense of the collapse of human intelligence, and if you can go out into the night and see half the police force of Los Angeles gathered to protect the golden ones from the mob in the free seats, but not from the awful moaning sound they give out, like destiny whistling through a hollow shell; if you can do these things and still feel the next morning that the picture business is worth the attention of one single, intelligent, artistic mind, then in the picture business you certainly belong because this sort of vulgarity, the very vulgarity from which the Oscars are made, is the inevitable price that Hollywood exacts from each of its serfs.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Oscar Watch Review: An Education

Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man...

Image via Wikipedia

Film: An Education
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress, Adapted Screenplay

The Oscars just wouldn't feel right if there wasn't at least one obnoxious period-piece British romance to pander to the tastes of the more "sophisticated" members of the Academy. Surprisingly, even with the number of Best Picture nominees bloated to an inexcusable Ten this year, there's only one real qualifier among the chosen. Even more unusual, it takes place in a different decade instead of a different century. For the Academy's consideration: An Education.

An Education follows the delightfully un-torrid affair of sixteen-year-old Jenny, a witty and intelligent daughter of a stuffy middle-class family with a bright scholastic future waiting for her at Oxford. All of that takes a backseat the moment she gets a ride from an older man who introduces her to an extravagant lifestyle and seeks to steal her away from her parents, school, and oh-so-bright future.

All of this is way to obviously good to be true, so the minute these two meet the entire film becomes a rather drawn-out exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop. Cinematic tours of sixties-era England and France punctuate countless scenes that are drearily low on charm and sexual tension, two things you would expect a storyline like this to stock up on. By the time the big reveal of David's horrible secret (which is almost as dull and underwhelming as his previously revealed "secrets"), all you can do is wonder how long they're going to take to wrap up Jenny's end of the story.

It doesn't take long, and that's probably one of the most frustrating things about the film. This is a story about a young teenage girl who is seduced by an older man, lured away from her home, sexually propositioned, pulled out of her scholastic career, and left to pull the pieces back together after the whole thing falls apart. Not only does she manage to do so, but she does it with such a minimum amount of time and effort wasted that by the time the credits role there appear to have been no consequences whatsoever. Coming-of-age stories usually involve major life-changes, positive or negative, that alter not only the evolving character's world view, but their present and future as well. By the time An Education neatly wraps itself up, the only thing that seems to have changed in Jenny's life is her answer to the "Are you a virgin" question. Middle-school crushes end more dramatically and devastatingly than this. Being lied to by a man trying to get in your pants isn't an education, it's a undeniable fact of life.

It doesn't help that the characters in the film don't sell you on any of it. Jenny is played up as such a smart, intelligent, and resourceful young woman, it's hard to feel sorry for her when she willfully ignores glaring reality after glaring reality just so she can go to concerts and feel grown-up running of to Paris. It seems more important for the deceitful David to be boyishly charming that his cons feel more like childish pranks than criminal deceptions; sort of like Mamet's House of Games starring the Little Rascals. And let's not forget Jenny's proper English father, the strict disciplinarian with far-reaching plans for his daughter's future, who switches from "Oxford or Death" to "Drop Out and Marry the Older Man" so fast it almost gives you whiplash.

None of this blame deserves to be heaped on the performers. Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina all turn in wonderful performances, and they can't be blamed for the fact that the shallow characters they play change emotions and perceptions not when they should, but when it is convenient for the script. All of these actors manage to make you feel more for these characters more than they should, and almost make their illogical actions seem human. This is especially true for Molina as Jenny's Father, a character that makes the split personality of Doctor Octopus seem like a rational internal debate.

Most credit An Education to being based on the memoirs of Lynn Barber, when the truth is more along the lines that both the Nick Hornby screenplay and Barber's memoirs are based on a previously published article by Barber, which almost reads like a synopsis for the film. This leaves us with another overly-dry and forcibly-witty Hornby screenplay based on a memoir expanded from an article whose autobiographical validity has been questioned by some critics, and which broaches the topic of the seduction and deflowering of a young girl with the cool distance of a self-aggrandizing socialite (The sex was lousy and it was all daddy's fault). To this end, you can't really begrudge Hornby his Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, as he did remain faithful to the source material. But when it comes to Best Picture, you have to ask yourself if the source material was worth all of that effort in the first place.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Oscar Watch Review: Avatar

Image via Wikipedia

Film: Avatar
Nominations: Art direction, Cinematography, Directing, Film editing, Original score, Best picture, Sound editing, Sound mixing, Visual effects

In our goal to give somewhat fair (we're not going to pretend to be completely unbiased here) and fully-informed coverage of the Academy Awards this March, Joey and I are determined to not only view every film up for a major award, but to review them as well.

With this in mind, it would seem a bit unfair not to mention Avatar with the others as we review them. However, our opinions have been broadcast quite clear; we have talked about the film in ad nauseum on the MovieSucktastic Podcast, and have covered it in numerous blog posts.

So, just consider this a quick recap:

Avatar is, without a doubt, the most popular film of the year, and most likely one of the most popular films of the decade. A mega-budget sci-fi fantasy space epic that takes place on a completely CGI-rendered alien planet, Avatar is filled with some of the most impressive displays of computer animation and 3D film-making to date. It is truly a stunning visual spectacle to behold.

It is also a film that features a shallow, thin, and decidedly unoriginal plot. Pointed out by many critics to be nothing more than a literal copy of Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and even Ferngully (which has seen a rocketing increase in sales and rentals due to the unfavorable comparisons), Avatar has received so much deserved criticism regarding the screenplay that director James Cameron has had to come out and publicly respond to accusations of blatant plagiarism. It is an overly simplistic plot that is more suitable for its cartoon feature predecessors, and barely manages to hold together the overly-long 162 minutes special effects extravaganza, especially considering that the PG-13 film was geared towards children and family audiences.

Avatar deserves most of its Oscar nominations. The sound, score, direction, editing and visual effects are all noteworthy for what they achieved. But primarily, all of this is driven by a film's story, the vehicle that drives everything that takes place on screen. As a whole, the excellence of what takes place on the screen in Avatar is weakened and diminished by the inadequate and generally lazy screenplay. The fact that this shallow spectacle has actually garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Picture is nothing more than an insult to all of the other films, past and present, that bothered to lend as much attention to the craft of the storytelling as they did for the visual effects utilized to enhance it.

The truly sad part of it is, Avatar might not have gotten its Best Picture nomination if the Academy hadn't bloated the size of the category to ten nominations The previously sufficient five slots wouldn't have left them enough room to also nominate District 9, so they wouldn't look like complete idiots for passing over a film that managed impressive special effects and a great screenplay (which it has also been nominated for, by the way) at a fraction of Avatar's ridiculous budget.

It is also my theory that the only reason they didn't try to nominate Avatar for screenplay isn't because it was a weak script, but because it would be hard to rationalize whether it belonged in the Original or Adapted category.

There, I think I'm done now.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Is this really the Best Picture? Past and Present Oscar Winners.

Growing up, I would always make sure to tune into the Oscars every year. No matter how late it would go I'd watch it. As I became older, I started to get a bit jaded with the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, I still tuned in. But my appetite for it has waned over the years. The Academy has this knack for awarding mediocrity like no other.

For example, take the 63rd Academy Awards for 1990. Say what you will, Dances With Wolves was NOT the best picture that year. Was it a bad film? Absolutely not. But the winner that year should have been Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, a cinematic

masterpiece that was completely overlooked. Dances was your typical historical epic, and we all know how much Hollywood loves epics. Maybe if Goodfellas was named "Wiseguy" after the book it might have been a better contender, but they chose not to stick with it because of the well known TV show of the same name. It was also Costner’s directorial debut. Hollywood loves stuff like that. Scoresese loses, we all move on.

I thought the same thing at the 67th Academy Awards for 1994, when Forrest Gump won

. While the special effects were groundbreaking at the time, they are completely dated today

. The special effects are one of the biggest reasons it won. It was innovative, revolutionary and had done something we had never seen before. Unfortunately, it just doesn't hold up today. It does have a solid plot and is a good film, but we all know that Pulp Fiction was the clear cut winner that year. Quentin Tarantino lost to a gimmick, an undeniable fact in hindsight.

In 1997, when the 69th Academy Awards were underway, you could just smell that

The English Patient was going to win. It had everything the Academy looks for; it was a period piece

, it had top notch actors and amazing set design, and the costumes had the authentic look and feel of the time period. Unfortunately, it was also boring as shit. The film that should have won that year was without a doubt Fargo. It was funny, dramatic, touching and sad. It also had a wood chipper scene that probably cost it the Oscar. Should it have won? Yes. Did it? Of course not.

One of my favorite films is one that got snubbed

badly in the 71st Academy Awards for 1998. That film was Saving Private Ryan. The very passable

Shakespeare In Love won the Best Picture that year. Ryan had everything a Best Picture should have; plot, acting, drama, and directing (which Spielberg won for). Shakespeare in Love was a period piece, which in itself seems enough to garner a nomination. It also was one of the most average films to be nominated that year. Dame Judy Dench also won for Best Supporting Actress for what I believe was only 7 minutes of screen time. Everyone else nominated that in that category that year had every right to be angry. I know I would have been if I were up for Best Supporting Actress.

The 74th and 75th Academy Awards can almost be forgiven for giving the Best Picture award to

A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Chicago (2002). It's a well know fact that the Academy was NOT going to Give the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy a very deserved Best Picture for three straight years. Instead they gave it to the two best runner ups those years and heavily awarded The Return Of The King in 2003. As much as it would have been deserved, Hollywood probably would have been shunned for it. I don't agree, but I understand.

This brings me to this year, and the 82nd Academy Awards for 2009. Never have I seen so many uninspiring movies nominated for best picture by the books. This is not to say that there were not a few surprises in there,

namely UP and District 9. But for the most part, it is a very unimpressive year. This brings me back to the Academy rewarding mediocrity, which brings us back to this year’s probable winner, Avatar.

Avatar is not necessarily a bad film, but it sure as hell isn't Best Picture material. Now I won't sit here and tell you you're wrong for loving this film (I have Scott for that). What I will say is that it is an average film at best, with a weak plot that barely supports the hefty runtime and generous serving of 3-D CGI. When it comes time to vote, I really hope that the Academy is smarter than it has been in the past. There are so many better films to consider. Hopefully they don't fall into the hype of how it's the "Most Popular" or made the "Most Money" or "Best 3-D". We're talking about Best Picture here, people! If Avatar is the best we can come up with for Best Picture than we are truly in trouble. Tarantino, whose “ Inglourious Basterds” was a far better film, will be snubbed yet again, and by yet another big-budget film with an expensive and over-produced gimmick.

Here's my prediction, and I REALLY hope I’m wrong. I think the Academy will award Tarantino with Best Director so they can feel justified for giving

Avatar Best Picture. This is something that has happened in the past and hopefully will not happen this year. All of the things that Avatar does well are nothing more than what the technical awards should handle. Then again, I think it would be damn funny if District 9 were to win Best Special Effects. It would be nice if innovation and skill won out over mega-budget extravaganzas for a change. I was more impressed with D9's effects than I was at Avatar's overgrown Smurfs, and it only cost $30 million in comparison to Avatar’s bloated $400+ million dollar budget. Also, why is Avatar nominated for Best Cinematography? Where is logic behind that? Were they filming on location in Pandora instead of in front of a green screen? I think not.

Will this years awards be as dried out and lackluster as I’m thinking? We'll find out March 7th, 2010. Let's hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

Monday, January 18, 2010

District 9 vs. Avatar

Image via Wikipedia

At the risk of boring with yet another Avatar themed blog post, attention and kudos must be granted in equally sizable amounts to Tiffany Vogt, columnist for Airlock Alpha, for her recent article "Avatar vs. District 9 – In a deeply divisive race, an argument as to why “District 9” deserves the Oscar for Best Picture more than “Avatar” (part 1)." Tiffany takes a comparison made in recent Moviesucktastic podcasts and guides her readers through the argument with great precision and attention to detail:

Posing this very controversial argument, I want to share why “District 9” is more Oscar-worthy than the mega-hit “Avatar.” Surely, the virtually unknown sci-fi film that was one of the few films to cross over the $200 million mark this past summer deserves a little attention – and as the Producers Guild’s nomination for Best Picture has proven, it is a worthy contender to watch out for during this award season.

Check out her full article over at The TV Watchtower and hear yet another rational voice speak out against the blind idolatry that Avatar has been inspiring in so many delusional souls.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Welcome to Blu-Ray Hell: 1/12 Releases

Cover of Cliffhanger (Collector's Edition)

For those of you eager to see what cinematic travesties the studios would like you to experience in all of their wonderful widescreen high definition glory, you need look no further than the following January 12 releases:

Cliffhanger (1993), Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow - The big-budget action-adventure box-office failure that Stallone will never live down, featuring John Lithgow as the bad guy sporting a greasy hairpiece that he will never live down. Then again, it isn't half as bad as Oscar. While everyone has their own favorite Cliffhanger moment, mine would have to be the Stallone Impale-Bad-Guy-On-Stalactite-Weightlifting-Move. Extra points for still managing to squeeze numerous bare-armed flexing moments into a film in a frigid arctic setting.

Last Action Hero (1993), Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham - The big-budget action-adventure box-office failure that Schwarzenegger never truly got enough flack for, although it is easy to see how it could be eclipsed by Cliffhanger, which was released in the same year. Then again, it isn't half as bad as Junior. There's nothing better than an action film that spends most of its time reminding its audience how stupid action films are, and by association, they are.

Fame (2009), Kay Panabaker - Not as much a remake of the original 1980 film of the same name as it is a bizarre attempt at making a slightly more adult High School Musical. For those who like to see Academy Award winning musicals updated to include self-conscious references to YouTube and Reality Talent Television Shows, this is your dream come true. This also happens to be the "Extended Dance Edition", so this should hopefully hold you over until the 3D Step Up sequel comes out in the theaters this year. And no, I'm not kidding about that. Now if we can only get a modernized update of A Chorus Line with Simon Cowell as the producer. Oh, and in 3D.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Oscars Eliminate Presentations and Awards in order to "Broaden Options"

I'm sure we weren't the first ones to do it, and we certainly weren't the only ones, but the minute the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announce the doubling of the Best Picture

Image via Wikipedia

category, we quickly predicted that other awards and presentations would soon be cut to make room for all of those Best Pictures in the televised award ceremony.

Well, the news came out today, and we heartily say "I told you so!"

The Academy announced that the rules would be changed involving the selection of Best Song so that, if the board decides that there aren't any exceptional songs that year, the category can actually be dropped. This means that if only two or three really great songs are released in films in a given year, the board can arbitrarily decide not to honor any of them. How much do you want to bet that the first Ten Best Pictures ceremony sees the first inaction of this rule. Any takers?

The other big announcement, and even a bigger blow, is that the 'testimonial' awards won't be performed live during the ceremony, but instead be awarded during an non-televised black tie event prior to the main event. Among these are the Honorary Oscars for Career Excellence, also known as the We-Screwed-Up awards that they always end up giving to exceptional actors and directors who aren't recognized for their brilliance until they are either dead or retired. This half-assed way of apologizing for ignoring major talent until after the fact has always been a bit suspect, but now that they aren't even including it in the big show, its even more of an insult as well.

More cheesiness from the Academy as it occurs...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Oscars DOUBLING Number Of Best-Picture Nominees To 10

Image via Wikipedia

I swear, the left side of my body went numb when I saw this.

What is the rational behind this? The Oscars' televised award show wasn't long enough? Did somebody decide to make sure that no one on the East Coast would get to bed until three in the morning on Oscar night?

The big excuse behind this decision appears to be that by broadening the Nominee list to ten, the Acadamy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be able to ensure that more great works of cinematic artistry will get the exposure they deserve. This, of course, is a big steaming pile of crap.

The Academy has never had a problem with fitting in films for acknowledgment. Their problem has always been their inability to select really great films for what has become perceived as an honor, an Oscar Nomination. Too many good movies for just five Best Picture nominations? Some of the recent winners haven't even been Oscar worthy. Gladiator wins best picture? Titanic sweeps, SWEEPS the Oscars? You can like these films, but you really can't defend the praise that was senselessly heaped upon them as supposed works of genius.

Now for the real reason why this idea has been shot through: Studio Advertising. Five more Best

Image via Wikipedia

Picture nominations a year means five more big-budget Hollywood investments that the studios can slap a "Oscar Nominee" label on, guaranteeing them extended box office runs and higher DVD sales. Anybody who doesn't think that the Oscars are nothing more than an annual advertising drive for the film industry probably thought Gladiator truly was the Best Picture that year. And don't give me the Slumdog Millionaire argument, either. They do that once every for or five years so they have proof that they aren't in the pockets of the major production companies.

So, who is going to lose out to this Best Picture expansion? The little guys. Oh, they'll still get nominations, but whoever produces the Oscars this year is going to have to trim some award presentations down if the want to keep the whole dog and pony show under seventeen hours. They sure as hell aren't going to trim the extravagant dance numbers and musical presentations. Where else are these big name performers going to display their talents? Besides their own movies, Broadway shows and music videos, of course.

Nope, there will be cuts, and they will effect people who might never get a chance to experience this kind of limelight again. Best Short Foreign Film? Best Wardrobe Design? Maybe they'll just
combine Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hell, they could probably do away with the Screenplay category altogether. Or just lose Editing. So many of those Oscar presentations just give appreciation and respect to the people behind the scenes, the professional craftsmen without whom the films would never get finished.

I think that's my real problem with this decision. The Academy isn't doubling the nominations for all of the categories, just Best Picture. Their excuse is that there are just too many good films out there. The implication is that they need more space to show their regard fro the films, but not for the people behind the scenes that lay the foundation and framework for the films. Of course, I shouldn't blame them for this myopic view; they're just looking at the Big Picture. Too bad the Big Picture seems to be less and less about the people who make it.

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