2004 Oscars

[Evenstar1400]

Personally I'm a little worried about this years oscars. LOTR is up against plenty of really good looking movies. But hopefully LOTR is gonna end up with best picture, considering its the last film in the trilogy.

Your thoughts?

[zinnite]

I don't mean to sound crass, but what other really good films have come out this year? I've seen some previews for some impressive looking films that will come out in the next few months, but I can't remember anything truy stunning coming out this year.

I imagine 'Seabiscuit' will get nominated, but what else was there? (I honestly don't know--I saw very few films this year, and one of them was TTT which doesn't count)

[Black Breathalizer]

ROTK and Peter Jackson are the clear cut Oscar favorites for Best Picture and Best Director.

[Agalayth]

The movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" looks Oscar-worthy, but then again, I haven't seen the reviews in my newspaper yet. But I truly hope that ROTK gets more awards than TTT did.

[Cirdan]

The Matrix Reloaded and PotC were the best movies so far this year and neither were "Best Film" great. The second season is year to come. The Matrix Revolution will be a very strong contender, as far as "big" pictures. We've had the art film "The Piano" and the Hollywood insider "Chicago" the past two years, so it may be the year sof the "most popular".

If it is judged of the trilogy as a whole (denied as a possibility) it then competes with the Matrix. Both second efforts were more uneven than the first, with LotR more fluid in consistency. The Matrix has the advantage of not having the plot known and a more heavyweight cast.

I think RotK will take the box office over Revolution, for sure, despite those factors. Better source material will be the difference.

[Black Breathalizer]

IMHO, the Matrix Reloaded was another "Phantom Menace." The original was wonderful. Too bad the follow up films are going to ruin its legacy.

Considering Matrix Revolutions won't make as much as Matrix Reloaded, it's boxoffice won't even be in ROTK's air space.

[IronParrot]

I don't mean to sound crass, but what other really good films have come out this year? I've seen some previews for some impressive looking films that will come out in the next few months, but I can't remember anything truy stunning coming out this year.

Industry pundits will tell you that studios, out of strategic considerations, never release their Oscar racehorses until late November or December. This was why last year, every Best Picture nominee had a December release (unless you count The Pianist's earlier entry in Cannes, but that's not a wide general release).

The Oscar season is increasingly end-loaded, see. No point in releasing Oscar material in May or June if everybody forgets about it. Just look at what happened to Road to Perdition and Minority Report last year, despite box office dollars and tremendous critical acclaim. There's the odd exception (Gladiator comes to mind, as does Moulin Rouge!) - but this factor is something to take into account. Right now the frontrunner among films that have been released this year is Seabiscuit, which could very well suffer from having been released in July.

Breathalizer is right in that ROTK is clearly regarded by all as the frontrunner. Considering that TTT got nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture (usually unheard of for a sequel, the odd Godfather aside) - and New Line didn't even campaign in trade magazines like Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Something that will work in ROTK's advantage is that the Academy now has much stricter rules about how much studios are supposed to advertise their films for Oscars, i.e. the "For Your Consideration" posters. Because ROTK will go into the race with the most built-in name recognition as well as the "it's finally Peter Jackson's turn" mentality, it is by far and wide the one to beat.

And on a side note: It's an extreme stretch, but I would really like to see Finding Nemo receive a nomination. This is highly unlikely because it has its own category nowadays, but if any film deserves to be the first animated pic since Beauty and the Beast to see a Best Film nomination, it's this one.

On another tangent: I found The Matrix Reloaded to be a much smarter movie than the first one. It was a necessary expansion of the Wachowski universe, and the themes in the saga mature considerably. It's a shame that so many people refuse to go into it with their brains turned on.

(Of course, this is also coming from someone in the minority who liked The Phantom Menace, and has written entire papers in its defense. But to each his own.)

The biggest foreseeable other Oscar contenders, at this point, are Cold Mountain (Jude Law Civil War epic based on a bestselling novel), Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola's film starring Bill Murray, this year's "critic's nominee" so to speak) and Seabiscuit. But the prediction landscape can and will change considerably between now and the December nomination deadline. Some pundits are tagging Master and Commander, others are naming The Last Samurai. We'll see.

[Evenstar1400]

yeah, all those movies were listed in Entertainment magazine. and they all had 1-2 pages for themselves. and i certainly hope that Breathalizer is right about RotK being the frontrunner for Best Picture. if it doesnt win, ill cry. i really will.

by the way the oscars are in february this year... the 28th (i think. )

[azalea]

I have a question, IP: Are all of the pictures you mentioned from different studios? Do studios ever intentionally compete against themselves? IOW, would New Line, for instance, put all of its Oscar eggs in the RotK basket, or would they "play up" another film in hopes of getting an Oscar no matter what? Just curious about how studios view the "Oscar game" they play, as you described (strategy-wise).

[Black Breathalizer]

Originally posted by IronParrot
On another tangent: I found The Matrix Reloaded to be a much smarter movie than the first one. It was a necessary expansion of the Wachowski universe, and the themes in the saga mature considerably. It's a shame that so many people refuse to go into it with their brains turned on.

It takes more than intriguing themes to make an entertaining movie. Matrix Reloaded suffered from poor pacing and overblown, "gee, look at this" computer graphics. Films like the Matrix follow-up or the Star Wars prequels help us all appreciate just how well Peter Jackson's movies work on all levels.

[Evenstar1400]

i completely and entirely agree. matrix is good, but not that good. star wars just sucked.

[hectorberlioz]

Personally, if rotk doesnt win, I am going to be very very mad. lotr has been through 2 best picture noms, the academy is letting suspense hang in the air. if they dissapoint...

[IronParrot]

I have a question, IP: Are all of the pictures you mentioned from different studios? Do studios ever intentionally compete against themselves? IOW, would New Line, for instance, put all of its Oscar eggs in the RotK basket, or would they "play up" another film in hopes of getting an Oscar no matter what? Just curious about how studios view the "Oscar game" they play, as you described (strategy-wise).

It's very common that a studio will under-market one of its potential Oscar contenders in favour of pushing another, yes. This is also because it's only in a few cases - maybe one a year - that a studio will have two entries in the Oscar field, and practically never three (I'm not sure I can even name an example). The most recent example is how Miramax put all its guns behind Chicago when it received huge critical acclaim, while it sort of left Gangs of New York by the wayside. The latter was still nominated, but notice how it was completely shut out at the awards ceremony.

Sometimes studios will campaign very early and make some huge mistakes, and pull a complete turnaround on what film is their "primary candidate". This happens if a film they hype up for critical attention ends up flopping, like The Shipping News did two years ago.

The role of advertising is going to be much less this year than in previous Oscar seasons, though. I see this as a good thing.

My personal belief from the beginning is that FOTR and TTT shouldn't have been nominated, much less considered eligible, for any Oscars at all - and that The Lord of the Rings should be recognized as a single film in 2003. In all aspects except release cycle, LOTR is ONE movie. I think a lot of votes were diverted away from FOTR because Academy voters knew it was a single project that should be recognized at the end.

[IronParrot]

It takes more than intriguing themes to make an entertaining movie. Matrix Reloaded suffered from poor pacing and overblown, "gee, look at this" computer graphics. Films like the Matrix follow-up or the Star Wars prequels help us all appreciate just how well Peter Jackson's movies work on all levels.

While it is true that of the Big Three franchises, LOTR is by a long shot the most artistically and cinematically conscious, I would have to respond briefly to your shortsighted claims.

There is nothing wrong with overblown computer graphics if they are at the service of story.

In the case of The Matrix Reloaded, while it does have end-loaded pacing issues (as did the first) it was far more mature in terms of how the story wrapped around the in-film universe. While the first Matrix film was merely a stylish and groundbreaking action movie that talked a lot about images and reality, it didn't have much going for it in terms of the actual plot once the heroes were established. Think about it: for all of the pizzazz in the last thirty minutes, the whole thing is a rescue mission. It's like if Star Wars ended with the Millennium Falcon's escape from the Death Star. Really, it demonstrated an issue that mars a lot of superhero movies, and it's that the "first mission" story pales in comparison to the tale of the hero's origin. (This kind of flaw was a dent in Spider-Man and just killed X-Men.)

I do admire the first Matrix film, but the second one had a story that actually understood how to deal with machine mentality in a machine world. Even the original Star Wars is admittedly flat if you don't think of it in the context of the developments in The Empire Strikes Back.

As for why the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy is a tour de force of plot construction (despite some cinematic problems in their realization in The Phantom Menace), if I broached that subject I'd be sitting at my keyboard until this time tomorrow morning, so I'll stop while I'm ahead.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by IronParrot
My personal belief from the beginning is that FOTR and TTT shouldn't have been nominated, much less considered eligible, for any Oscars at all - and that The Lord of the Rings should be recognized as a single film in 2003. In all aspects except release cycle, LOTR is ONE movie. I think a lot of votes were diverted away from FOTR because Academy voters knew it was a single project that should be recognized at the end.

I thought this as well but I read recently with regards to the trilogies, namely "The Matrix" and LotR, that the academy rules require a single release to stand on it's owm merit. Of course, since none of the voting is truely objective and completely rules based, I'm sure the overall impression would come into play. It wouldn't be fair, IMO. to say that one part of a trilogy should compete against the other, so that when the last part comes out the crtique could be, "Well, it's been done before".

I do wonder if Tom Cruise's Samurai movie isn't likely to be the Hollywood insider favorite. It has the repeat winner magic and competes in the sword genre.

I still think LotR ought to get BP at least for one installment. There maybe "ring fatigue" by the time the awards are handed out.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by IronParrot
There is nothing wrong with overblown computer graphics if they are at the service of story.
[edit]
I do admire the first Matrix film, but the second one had a story that actually understood how to deal with machine mentality in a machine world. Even the original Star Wars is admittedly flat if you don't think of it in the context of the developments in The Empire Strikes Back.

I'd have to agree. The worse critique of Reloaded was that it wasn't as "ground-breaking" as the first or that it was "too commercial". Both very weak arguements since it is a sequel and the familiar storylines must continue. I do think that, like TTT, it suffered as "the middle one". Revolution has all the potential that RotK has for a spectacular ending.

The Star Wars prequel trilogy has the unique problem of being a prequel trilogy to a trilogy. No real possible major surprises.

The idea that CG for the sake of CG is a stike against a film is nonsense. We go mostly for the eye candy these days. If you want a good story, read a book. All successful films showcase the CG and LotR is no exception.

Except for Morpheus' Knute Rockne speech, Reloaded was extremely cool and the pacing was as good as anything out there.

[IronParrot]

The idea that CG for the sake of CG is a stike against a film is nonsense. We go mostly for the eye candy these days. If you want a good story, read a book.

That I don't agree with at all.

I think it's an extremely negative trend that more and more people nowadays are turning their brains off at the cinema. It means a lot of dumb films out there are making money, which means studios greenlight a lot more of the same kinds of dumb films (the entire teen comedy genre, I'm staring at you).

I liked Reloaded and Attack of the Clones precisely because in addition to using CG (as well as a bevy of traditional techniques like models, puppetry and matte paintings that people completely ignore because they're harder to understand than CG) they were very smart about doing it.

Even with all the creature effects and the like, I think I would find it impossible to get very involved in The Lord of the Rings if it didn't appeal to my more intellectual sensibilities.

It's kind of funny, because everybody talks about Citizen Kane as the most groundbreaking film of all time, and the reasons actually have a lot to do with the special effects and how they were used to construct a completely original narrative.

[Cirdan]

I agree the CG can't stand alone. The difference between The Hulk and League of Extrodinary Gentlermen was beleivable human stories. I really meant showcasing the CG is what it's all about. I would say the CG in Reloaded was cleverly wrapped in a decently supported story. It is still a good (not great) storyline (including all media).

I like to differentiate between films and movies (too much free time). Citizen Kane and 8 1/2 are films. They depend on secondary analysis, unique technique, or extrodinary execution (acting and scene direction). LotR and the Matrix are movies. They seek to push the more base pleasure buttons (hence my "eye candy" term). It is evident from these movies that the script was important, but secondary, to the goal of presenting a marketable impact. There is a sliding scale between art and business.

The Matrix offers a fascinating split reality plot mechanism but it is sometimes abused for the sake of expediency. I need to see Reloaded again to give specific quotes, but there are points when it espouses totally contradictory philosophies as profound, not just pointing them out. This is what makes it a movie script and not a film.

I think we can slide over flaws and weak points in movies more easily because we seeek them out for a specific mix of intellectual complexity and sensory pleasure.

[Black Breathalizer]

How then do you explain the first two lord of the rings 'movies' being nominated for Best Picture Oscars?

Given your description, I would assume only films like A Perfect Mind are worthy of Academy consideration.

[IronParrot]

LotR and the Matrix are movies. They seek to push the more base pleasure buttons (hence my "eye candy" term). It is evident from these movies that the script was important, but secondary, to the goal of presenting a marketable impact.

Agree somewhat regarding The Matrix - strongly disagree regarding LOTR. If you're going to differentiate between "art" and "entertainment" (which is fair enough, as I often enough make that distinction myself) LOTR falls more into the first than it does into the second, simply by virtue of what it has achieved. Remember that Peter Jackson did not make this with commercial aspirations. New Line pumped in its entire fortune out of commercial aspirations. There's a huge difference. LOTR is actually on many levels a big-budget independent arthouse film, simply because of the level of control at the director's level.

On the other hand, I find that the best films I have ever seen are those who exemplify BOTH the values of art and entertainment, and LOTR is undoubtedly one of them.