Award archives...

[James]

Oscar recap: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_oscars

Interesting tidbits:

"With just $12.6 million domestically, "The Hurt Locker" is the lowest-grossing film to win best picture in this modern era of detailed box-office bookkeeping".

""Up" earned the third-straight feature-animation Oscar for Disney's Pixar Animation, which now has won five of the nine awards since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences added the category."

"First-time winners took all four acting prizes"

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BTW - to put that Hurt Locker total in perspective: "Hey Arnold! The Movie" made as much money as our new Best Picture did at the box office!

[American_dog_2008]

Yay, 2 Danish Oscars!

[eddievalient]

Bigelow is a thief. She stole the Oscar that rightfully belongs to Jim Cameron. I don't care how good the movie is, there is no way The Hurt Locker is a greater cinematic acheivement than Avatar. Cameron earned that Oscar fair and square!

In 1977, Star Wars was nominated for best picture, but lost to Annie Hall. To this day, that is still considered the biggest snub in Oscar history. But now we've had an even bigger one. The voters have no taste. At all.

[James]

...In 1977, Star Wars was nominated for best picture, but lost to Annie Hall. To this day, that is still considered the biggest snub in Oscar history. But now we've had an even bigger one. The voters have no taste. At all.

From my favorite comic strip:
http://www.pvponline.com/2003/12/27/sat-dec-27/

[James]

Why Avatar lost: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0 ... 02,00.html

[Whippet Angel]

Eh, I partially agree with that article. While it's true that a good majority of the voters are artistically conservative, that isn't the case with Avatar. Cinematic achievements aside, It wasn't a very good film. Plain and simple. It was a nice nod for them to give it a nomination, but I honestly wasn't expecting it to win. The stunning visuals alone shouldn't excuse the film's MANY flaws.

Does every film that incorporates a major technological breakthrough deserve to be a best picture winner? I don't think so, but that's my opinion.

[eddievalient]

Storywise, Avatar may not have been the best movie of the year (that would be Inglorious Bastards), but it deserved the win for the same reason that Return of the King won (which appears to have been a fluke): because Jim Cameron took an impossible project and made it possible through TEN YEARS of hard work (think about that for a second). If the tools they needed didn't exist, they invented them. Not an easy thing to do. Avatar is a game changer and the art of filmmaking will never be the same again. No other film truly deserved the Oscar more. And you will never convince me otherwise. Interesting article, btw. It just figures that old people are trying to tell us what we ought to like. I don't buy it.

[Macaluso]

Bigelow is a thief. She stole the Oscar that rightfully belongs to Jim Cameron. I don't care how good the movie is, there is no way The Hurt Locker is a greater cinematic acheivement than Avatar. Cameron earned that Oscar fair and square!

Avatar didn't deserve best picture either, but The Hurt Locker was a boring piece of crap and I honestly can't understand WHY it got best picture, let alone some of the other awards it got.

On another note I absolutely LOVED the intro the best animated feature. I can't believe they actually animated those brand new AND got the original voices for them. That made me very happy.

And I'm actually quite surprised by the nomination for "Kells," since most people don't even know what that movie is.

After seeing The Secret of Kells, I'm kind of surprised it was even nominated. It's an OKAY movie, but it is no where near an oscar worthy movie. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs deserved a nomination a lot more, and I was sad to see it completely overlooked. It was surprised the hell out of me by how good it was.

And one other side note, I was absolutely FLOORED to see Logorama in the best animated short catagory. That short is amazing, and I had NO idea it was even nominated.

[Randall]

It just figures that old people are trying to tell us what we ought to like.

No, not actually. They are just telling us what THEY like. Big difference, there.

To tell you the truth, I was shocked that Avatar even got nominated. I liked it a lot, but... Best Picture? No way, man. Being a "great achievement" and being a "great movie" are two different things. If you thought that it was the year's best, that's fine; but many obviously disagree. (If at least the film's villain had been more three-dimensional, that might have been enough to win me over.)

They properly recognized Avatar for its technical achievements with the Oscars it did win. Just because it took a long time to produce it doesn't automatically make it a Best Picture winner.

[Jafar]

I completely agree with Randall here. While I did enjoy watching Avatar in IMAX 3D and all that, I can honestly say, it hasn't been too long and I can remember very little about it. Not a big fan of The Hurt Locker either, but I don't really think Avatar even deserved a nomination in major categories.

[Ben]

I'm just so glad that ANYthing won over Avatar. I would have probably been okay if Cameron had won Director, for the achievement, but his film was nowhere near being a "Best" Picture. But I was glad Bigelow also got Director, as that was an achievement to make that movie in those conditions too, and it paves the way for more women to make their marks. In many ways, there were some important moments this year around.

This also just in: the telecast was the most watched in five years, so it appears that even if opening the Picture noms to ten didn't mean a heap of blockbusters, it did at least bring in more audience interest.

[ShyViolet]

Roger Ebert's live Tweet from the Oscars!

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... /100309968

[estefan]

http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleas ... 00708.html

The most significant change is in the Visual Effects category, which will now feature five nominees rather than three.

Since 1963, when the Special Effects award was discontinued and new separate categories for achievements in visual effects and sound effects were established, the only period during which it was possible to have five visual effects nominees was 1977 through 1979. In only one of those years (1979) were five achievements actually recognized. Between 1980 and 1995, two or three productions could be nominated; since 1996 the rules have dictated there be exactly three nominees.

In the Animated Feature Film category, the rule governing running time for a motion picture to qualify was changed from at least 70 minutes to greater than 40 minutes, which is consistent with the running time requirements for feature films in all other categories. The running time for a motion picture to qualify as an animated, live action or documentary short film has been and continues to be a maximum of 40 minutes. The previous 70-minute threshold for an animated feature had left a gap for films that ran between 40 and 70 minutes, effectively preventing them from being able to qualify as either features or shorts.

Also in the Animated Feature Film category, a sentence regarding motion capture was added to clarify the definition of an animated film. The language now reads: “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”

I really like both of these rule changes and especially like the ruling of motion-capture not being considered animation, because I have been saying for ages that Avatar and The Polar Express should not be considered animated films, though a lot of people claim them to be.

[Ben]

Good rulings all around, me thinks.

Though I've personally wondered why 60 minutes is simply not the short/feature cut-off point in any category.

I mean, anything up to an hour isn't exactly "long" or "feature length" - I'd feel cheated if I went to a theater to see a "film" and it was less than an hour in length. On the flip side, anything over one hour takes a commitment to sit and watch: the difference between, say, dropping in to see something that lasts 48 minutes and can be squeezed into a lunch hour, or hanging around to see something of 65 minutes, is pretty big, considered, and again you'd feel annoyed if you went to see a "short" and the one hour clock passed.

So...that's just my personal gripe...40 minutes is fine as a maximum short limit, but seems awfully short to be accepted as a "feature film" minimum. I guess this means Saludos Amigos (at 43 minutes) finally does count as a feature proper, but then back in the day Walt would have run it in a packed movie program with additional cartoons.

I'm glad about the clarification on mo-cap films, though: while they do use animation techniques and share similarities, they're not through and through animated films (just as hybrid films shouldn't be considered either), and opening up the VFX list to five instead of three kind of provides space for what are really feature-length VFX movies (just as hybrid films continue to be).

So...good rulings all around!

[eddievalient]

So if someone makes a really excellent mo-cap film that's just as good as (or even better than) the other nominees, it "doesn't count"? That doesn't seem right to me at all!