rachelsinatra wrote:

Julia wrote:
Shakespeare in Love was actually a very well-done movie, imo. A movie doesn't have to deal with big, "important" themes to be a good movie.

I agree, I just don't think it was a great movie. I look for something more in a best picture winner. I watched it and thought "well, that was moderately enjoyable" and never thought about it again. That's just my opinion though

You have to take the Oscars for what they are. If you were to compile a list of greatest films, I doubt many of them would have won the Oscar. Artistic quality is only part of what determines the winner. They'll rarely choose anything that's too daring artistically.

Look at it this way: Which list of people have, collectively, won more Best Director Academy Awards:

List A

Robert Altman
Michelangelo Antonioni
Charlie Chaplin
Frederico Fellini
D. W. Griffith
Howard Hawks
Alfred Hitchcock
Stanley Kubrick
Akira Kurosawa
Sidney Lumet
Sam Peckinpah
Satyajit Ray
Orson Welles

List B

Kevin Costner

Tangerine Dream wrote:

Last night James Cameron rejected accusations of plagiarism adding: "You talkin' to me? Because frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. But go ahead, make my day because I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."

andyx1205 wrote:God damn I'm pissed. The Hurt Locker won the best Director Award (Kathryn Bigelow) and the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

James Cameron deserved the best director award, and his film Avatar deserved the Best Picture award.

What pissed me off even further, was that both times when Hurt Locker won the award, Kathryn Bigelow gave a shout out to all of the men and women in uniforms that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect America. Once was enough, but she had to reiterate it again as if one shout out was not enough. She seems to be a fan of nationalism, while James Cameron is the exact opposite.

Avatar was much better than the Hurt Locker when it came to the picture, director, and theme. Avatar and James Cameron got robbed!


The Hurt Locker was a great action film and I enjoyed it immensely, however it was very inaccurate from the testimonies of Veterans.

"Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America states on his facebook page that the movie is "... not based on a true story, but on a true war...in which I have seen my friends killed...which I witnessed my ranger buddy get both his legs blown off." Rieckhoff went on to say: "...For Hollywood to glorify this crap is a huge slap in the face to every soldier who's been on the front line."

What specifically did you think Avatar had that made it a better film than The Hurt Locker?

Just curious...

andyx1205 wrote:God damn I'm pissed. The Hurt Locker won the best Director Award (Kathryn Bigelow) and the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

James Cameron deserved the best director award, and his film Avatar deserved the Best Picture award.

What pissed me off even further, was that both times when Hurt Locker won the award, Kathryn Bigelow gave a shout out to all of the men and women in uniforms that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect America. Once was enough, but she had to reiterate it again as if one shout out was not enough. She seems to be a fan of nationalism, while James Cameron is the exact opposite.

Not sure why she can't say what she wants.

I'll say it again. Thanks to all the men and women in uniforms who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks a million.

SPOILERS:

The Hurt Locker:

James, who has disarmed at least 800 IEDS, is first depicted as the crazy tough guy. Then, within 30 days, he undergoes an emotional change as he finds a dead kid who has been tortured. He assumes that this kid was Beckam, a young Iraqi that sold DVDs and talked in cool English. He gets upset, so he goes on a mission, alone, to find the killers of Beckam. He ends up in the house of an Iraqi professor, and a few minutes later he runs away as the Iraqi's professor's wife starts yelling at him. Fast forward. He sees Beckam, who is still alive (thus it was another kid that was killed earlier) yet he does not respond.

An Iraqi that has a bomb strapped begs for help. The bomb has a timer on it, yet, James still insists on helping the Iraqi by disarming the bomb and risking his own life in the process, even though he could simply shoot the Iraqi. It's too late and the bomb goes off, but he hurries to safety and is safe. He goes back home, back to civilian life, however he feels that the only thing he still has love for...disarming IEDs. So he goes back to Iraq and joins the Delta Company.

The end.

It was a decent film, but nothing extraordinary!

coito ergo cum laude wrote:

andyx1205 wrote:God damn I'm pissed. The Hurt Locker won the best Director Award (Kathryn Bigelow) and the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

James Cameron deserved the best director award, and his film Avatar deserved the Best Picture award.

What pissed me off even further, was that both times when Hurt Locker won the award, Kathryn Bigelow gave a shout out to all of the men and women in uniforms that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect America. Once was enough, but she had to reiterate it again as if one shout out was not enough. She seems to be a fan of nationalism, while James Cameron is the exact opposite.

Not sure why she can't say what she wants.

I'll say it again. Thanks to all the men and women in uniforms who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks a million.

If you were living during the time of Vietnam, would you say the same about the troops in Vietnam? Or what about when Julius Caesar was invading Gaul. And so on.

Hurt Locker or Dirtbox is the biggest load of rubbish , it tries to show that America are the only country in Iraq dismantling bombs, who do they think they are? The only country that wins all the wars, shame on you America. Anyway the Oscars is just like an agricultural fair, where the fattest cow and the biggest pumpkin get a prize. Hollywood politics

BrandySpears wrote:I am thrilled that THE COVE won Best Documentary. May Japan be embarrassed.

Text DOLPHIN to 44144

[youtube] [snip] [/youtube]

I honestly found this film to be a disappointment, perhaps I bought into the hype a bit too much.

I found the documentary, Earthlings, far more emotive.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... ngs&hl=en#

Worst Oscar ceremony ever, they should have thrown out Steve and Alec and brought in Conan Obrien when things were going south, which was right around the time Neil Patrick Harris went on the stage

Cant believe i stayed up until 7 in the morning to watch it, Tom Hanks was hands down the best presenter

Now that a woman has won Best Director maybe they will go back to giving out awards to more deserving movies in the future, im still pissed off that THL took Tarantinos Best Screenplay and the sound awards from Avatar, such BS

The only two catagories that I was at all interested in this year were best foreign picture and best supporting actor. Christoph Waltz was superb in Inglorious Basterds (IMO, the movie would have been pretty terrible without him in it). I watched all of the foreign film nominations - except for El Secreto de Sus Ojos haha - and thought that they were all quite good.

andyx1205 wrote:

coito ergo cum laude wrote:

andyx1205 wrote:God damn I'm pissed. The Hurt Locker won the best Director Award (Kathryn Bigelow) and the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

James Cameron deserved the best director award, and his film Avatar deserved the Best Picture award.

What pissed me off even further, was that both times when Hurt Locker won the award, Kathryn Bigelow gave a shout out to all of the men and women in uniforms that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect America. Once was enough, but she had to reiterate it again as if one shout out was not enough. She seems to be a fan of nationalism, while James Cameron is the exact opposite.

Not sure why she can't say what she wants.

I'll say it again. Thanks to all the men and women in uniforms who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks a million.

If you were living during the time of Vietnam, would you say the same about the troops in Vietnam? Or what about when Julius Caesar was invading Gaul. And so on.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not Vietnam or Gaul (particularly not Gaul, where Caesar bragged about having killed 1,000,000 Gauls).

I guess the question is over the degree to which soldiers should be considered responsible for the decisions of their political commanders.

A Prophet didn't get the Best Foreign Language Film award which was a bummer. I haven't seen the one which won so I can't say if it's a better picture.
The film I would've wanted to see get Best Picture, Antichrist, wasn't even nominated. Avatar winning would've been an insult. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker but here's what John Pilger had to say about it.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=566

Animavore wrote:A Prophet didn't get the Best Foreign Language Film award which was a bummer. I haven't seen the one which won so I can't say if it's a better picture.
The film I would've wanted to see get Best Picture, Antichrist, wasn't even nominated. Avatar winning would've been an insult. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker but here's what John Pilger had to say about it.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=566

I watched Un Prophete the other day, quite a well done film. Personally, I was rooting for Das Weisse Band.

I'm not sure how exactly the best picture catagory works...are American films the only ones eligible? I'm pretty sure that Antichrist is classified as a Dutch film, so I would think that its best hope would have been to be nominated for best foreign picture.

Animavore wrote:A Prophet didn't get the Best Foreign Language Film award which was a bummer. I haven't seen the one which won so I can't say if it's a better picture.
The film I would've wanted to see get Best Picture, Antichrist, wasn't even nominated. Avatar winning would've been an insult. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker but here's what John Pilger had to say about it.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=566

I don't see the point of criticizing a work of art on the basis of its politics. (Or, more to the point, of what you perceive its politics to be).

I haven't seen Antichrist, and I'm not sure if I have the stomach to. But from what I know about it, there was no way it was getting anywhere near the Oscar. Not that I'm saying that's a good thing.

br0k3nglass wrote: I'm not sure how exactly the best picture catagory works...are American films the only ones eligible?

Any film is eligible to be nominated but, for the reasons that are probably obvious, American films by far predominate. I can recall Il Postino and Life is Beautiful as a couple recent non-English exceptions.

Yeah, I've not seen Antichrist, but even I know there's no way it was getting anywhere near an Oscar. In the same way that Jean-Luc Godard would never get one. The fact that Dogville and Dancer in the Dark seemed to touch a bit of a nerve with the American film establishment wouldn't help either.

Shrunk wrote:I guess the question is over the degree to which soldiers should be considered responsible for the decisions of their political commanders.

Well, they sure were held responsible during the Nuremburg Trials for the Nazis. The Japanese soldiers that water-boarded Americans during World War 2 were also executed,

andyx1205 wrote:

Shrunk wrote:I guess the question is over the degree to which soldiers should be considered responsible for the decisions of their political commanders.

Well, they sure were held responsible during the Nuremburg Trials for the Nazis. The Japanese soldiers that water-boarded Americans during World War 2 were also executed,

But those were for specific crimes. The point at issue here is the support Katherine Bigelow expressed for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think she meant to include, say, the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

IMHO the entire decision to invade Iraq at all was clearly ill-judged, probably immoral, and possibly even illegal. But I don't think the individual soldiers can and should be held responsible for that.

Shrunk wrote:

andyx1205 wrote:

Shrunk wrote:I guess the question is over the degree to which soldiers should be considered responsible for the decisions of their political commanders.

Well, they sure were held responsible during the Nuremburg Trials for the Nazis. The Japanese soldiers that water-boarded Americans during World War 2 were also executed,

But those were for specific crimes. The point at issue here is the support Katherine Bigelow expressed for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think she meant to include, say, the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

IMHO the entire decision to invade Iraq at all was clearly ill-judged, probably immoral, and possibly even illegal. But I don't think the individual soldiers can and should be held responsible for that.

Soldiers should be held responsible.

The "soldiers shouldn't be held responsible" was the defense that the Nazis used, as well as the Japanese soldiers. Didn't work out so well for those who were simply following orders at the concentration camps. My problem comes with "double standards." The elected officials and those in the government that played a role in the decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan in the manner that they did, should be punished. I don't suggest that the soldiers (besides rare cases) should be punished as well, since they were following orders. However, under no circumstances should they be given applause. In the same manner, German soldiers, who participated in a war on the side of the Axis, should not be applauded but rather should be dealt with neutrality. There were rare cases of them that I admired, such as the German Field Marshall Rommel (who disobeyed immoral orders and plotted to kill Hitler), however for most of the Germans that fought under Nazi Germany, I look upon them with neutrality.

There may be rare cases of bravery amongst the soldiers in Iraq & Afghanistan, and for that they should be individually applauded. However, for the majority of them, applauding them would be the same as spitting on the corpses of all those Afghans and Iraqis.

From a historical point of view, or anthropological point of view, one can only show neutrality towards the soldiers fighting in Iraq & Afghanistan.