thneed
Landed Gentry
Posts: 816
Jun 19, 2006 0:42:40 GMT -4
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Post by thneed on Jan 17, 2015 18:27:32 GMT -4
I think Cooper is like Amy Adams. The Academy (which has to be the most intellectually-lazy group of people in the world) gets in the habit of nominating someone. Plus, he's one of the relatively few actors that can pull big box office in blockbusters and be respected in Serious Important Dramas (TM). But I don't think he'll win.
Keaton (an old guard with a great career who made billions for Hollywood getting a career nomination for a serious work) is to me, more likely. Those are usually the types that win (Firth, Bullock, Roberts, McConnaughey, Sorkin). Add Julianne Moore to that, who's a total lock. To me the only other possibility for Best Actor is Benedict Cumberbatch (because the idiots in Hollywood will confuse him with Alan Turing - they loooove giving Oscars to people who play real people). I wonder if he isn't too associated with youth culture/television for the geriatric voters to take him seriously, though. Especially as his movie didn't have a big cultural impact. Either way, everyone in that category is thanking God Oleyowo was shut out.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 24, 2024 17:30:25 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2015 19:50:20 GMT -4
I think Cooper is like Amy Adams. The Academy (which has to be the most intellectually-lazy group of people in the world) gets in the habit of nominating someone. Plus, he's one of the relatively few actors that can pull big box office in blockbusters and be respected in Serious Important Dramas (TM). But I don't think he'll win. Keaton (an old guard with a great career who made billions for Hollywood getting a career nomination for a serious work) is to me, more likely. Those are usually the types that win (Firth, Bullock, Roberts, McConnaughey, Sorkin). Add Julianne Moore to that, who's a total lock. To me the only other possibility for Best Actor is Benedict Cumberbatch (because the idiots in Hollywood will confuse him with Alan Turing - they loooove giving Oscars to people who play real people). I wonder if he isn't too associated with youth culture/television for the geriatric voters to take him seriously, though. Especially as his movie didn't have a big cultural impact. Either way, everyone in that category is thanking God Oleyowo was shut out. Funnily enough, Julianne Moore was one of those that got nominated out of habit for a while. She racked up four nominations from 1997 to 2002 (which is the year she got two in the same year.) Then, nothing for twelve years. It may be that now the Academy has decided she's paid her dues.
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BinkyBetsy
Blueblood
Posts: 1,376
Mar 6, 2005 18:55:35 GMT -4
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Post by BinkyBetsy on Jan 17, 2015 21:05:51 GMT -4
If Eddie Redmayne wins, we must be going back to the old tradition of Poor Afflicted Sonuvabitch = Best Actor. Afflicted meaning, disability, illness, grave injury. Last year it was Matthew McConaughey for playing an AIDS victim. Before that...Daniel Day-Lewis, Jean Dujardin: not afflicted. Colin Firth: okay, speech impediment, but nothing on the order of Raymond Babbit or Christy Brown. Then a long run: Jeff Bridges, Sean Penn, Day-Lewis again, Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman: not afflicted. Jamie Foxx won for playing a legendary musician who happened to be blind, but he was, so it qualifies. Penn again, Adrien Brody, Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Roberto Benigni. And that brings us to the 1990s casualty list! Jack Nicholson, severe OCD. Geoffrey Rush, nervous breakdown (? I think there's no official diagnosis for David Helfgott). Nicolas Cage, alcoholic to the point where I'd call it a chronic illness. Tom Hanks, whatever Forrest Gump was supposed to be. Hanks again, AIDS victim. Al Pacino, blind. Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, and that's when I started to notice the pattern. Best Actor 1990 could just as fairly have been Robert DeNiro for Awakenings, but at the time, I figured he couldn't get it because of Dustin Hoffman (autistic) the year before, and Daniel Day-Lewis (cerebral palsy) the year before that. And before that, I think you have to go back to Jon Voight in 1978. Which makes me wonder...perhaps it was a fairly new concept to make films about people who were not 100% physically or intellectually, and that's why such performances were rewarded?
We'll see. Even if Redmayne wins, I'm not sure it proves anything. It was just reallyreally noticeable in the '90s. I remember Billy Crystal hosting in '97 (for the '96 awards), and listing the Best Actor nominees as "a burned guy, a paralyzed guy, a retarded guy, a mentally-ill guy, and an agent. Four of them are curable!"
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Post by Atreides on Jan 18, 2015 0:58:43 GMT -4
Big opening weekend aside, I don't see Bradley Cooper getting it. American Sniper skews more right-wing and the whisper campaign has already started about what the real Chris Kyle was like. Michael Keaton's narrative is perfect for the Oscar: a respected veteran who's been great in a ton of movies, then spent a long time under the radar, and is now back in a movie that's all about actors and acting.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 24, 2024 17:30:25 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 11:37:05 GMT -4
Box office is also a poor predictor for award winners. If the movie that made the most money won the big awards, then Avatar would've won Best Picture instead of The Hurt Locker and Kate Winslet would've won for Titanic instead of having to wait so many years for The Reader to come along.
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thneed
Landed Gentry
Posts: 816
Jun 19, 2006 0:42:40 GMT -4
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Post by thneed on Jan 18, 2015 14:03:40 GMT -4
Kate Winslet... THERE'S a prime example of "nominated a million times and it's her turn". (Second only to the career nomination in terms of how likely it is someone will win one of these things). So ingrained they even wrote a special showcase role for Peter O'Toole for the express purpose of getting the Oscar they felt he deserved by virtue of being nominated so many times. (And then he loses it because someone gave a better performance). I can't wait to see the movie that finally gets Amy Adams her AA. She'll probably have to gain or lose weight and play a real person who suffered horribly.
And I know she doesn't have to or anything, but I wish Meryl Streep would stop submitting herself. It's not her fault Hollywood doesn't make good roles for women and doesn't recognize the few that do come along, but for years she'd get nominated because there are SO FEW women in prestige dramas that they had to have her fill out the category, especially in non-Oscary (and often not even good) movies. I mean, The Bridges of Madison County? Music of the Heart? Julie & Julia? Come on.
I'm trying to guess what the big winning movie is going to be. Either Birdman or Boyhood is my guess. Imitation Game got more nominations than Boyhood, but is it just me or did the latter permeate the culture more?
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Deleted
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Sept 24, 2024 17:30:25 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 14:26:20 GMT -4
And I know she doesn't have to or anything, but I wish Meryl Streep would stop submitting herself. It's not her fault Hollywood doesn't make good roles for women and doesn't recognize the few that do come along, but for years she'd get nominated because there are SO FEW women in prestige dramas that they had to have her fill out the category, especially in non-Oscary (and often not even good) movies. I mean, The Bridges of Madison County? Music of the Heart? Julie & Julia? Come on. I'm trying to guess what the big winning movie is going to be. Either Birdman or Boyhood is my guess. Imitation Game got more nominations than Boyhood, but is it just me or did the latter permeate the culture more? I agree. I love Meryl, but come the fuck on. She already had the most acting nominations ever and has won three freaking times, enough is enough. I normally try to see all the nominated acting performances every year (I even suffered through the pretentious twaddle that is Blue Jasmine last year) but I just can't make myself care about Into the Woods. So I'll be skipping that one. I'm waiting to see how the SAG and the other guild awards go before I make my final predictions. And I think Boyhood definitely made more of an impact that The Imitation Game, I'm pretty sure the latter only got more nominations because it came out more recently. Boyhood came out in July so the fact that it got six is amazing.
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Post by narm on Jan 18, 2015 23:52:08 GMT -4
I think that I'm going to just skip the Oscars this year. I know I'm not even a drop in the bucket as far as viewership goes, but the more I read about the lack of non-white nominees, I'm kinda turned off. Selma was a great movie, and it will stay with me for a long time. I love Bradley Cooper, but will likely never see that sniper movie, and there is NO way I'm watching Julianne Moore's (although I adore her, too) so I'm out, basically.
I read a brief interview by Spike Lee on The Daily Beast regarding the Oscars this year, and I just agree with him.
This may be an Unpopular Opinion, but did anyone read Michael Moore's response/critique to American Sniper? Let me preface this by saying, I'm very supportive of our troops and do not ever mean to disrespect their incredible jobs and sacrifices- but Moore is goddamned right.
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thneed
Landed Gentry
Posts: 816
Jun 19, 2006 0:42:40 GMT -4
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Post by thneed on Jan 19, 2015 14:24:57 GMT -4
If Eddie Redmayne wins, we must be going back to the old tradition of Poor Afflicted Sonuvabitch = Best Actor. Afflicted meaning, disability, illness, grave injury. My sense is, if Redmayne were to win, it would be because he did two things the Academy can't get enough of: physically transforming his body (Portman, Hathaway, Leto, McConaughey) and playing a real person. He went extreme for this. He lost 40 lbs, studied with doctors how people with ALS move at every stage of the disease, and all sorts of stuff like that that if he were to publicize it, would result in a lot of positive attention. Also, Hawking has endorsed the movie and said the portrayals were how he remembered it. Unlike the other biographical movies this year (Imitation Game and Selma), where there's all sorts of fighting in the press about how accurate several characters were - that usually kills any chances. It doesn't matter, though, as Theory of Everything got no traction in the culture and was incredibly dull. And Redmayne is up against a bunch of names. I agree. I love Meryl, but come the fuck on. She already had the most acting nominations ever and has won three freaking times, enough is enough. I don't think she has to step down to give someone else a chance. No one demanded that of Jack Nicholson when he won his third Oscar for a complete piece of shit. If she deserved all those Oscars/noms, then that would be one thing. To me she's more a symbol of Hollywood not making decent roles for women or recognizing the ones that do come along. And mostly having women play love interests of wives. I just wish something would happen to force Hollywood out of its complacency on this. I'm completely stumped for who's going to win Best Supporting Actress. I think Patricia Arquette would have it on lock except she's going to star in the ridiculously-named populist garbage CSI: Cyber. And remember how (it's widely believed) Eddie Murphy lost for Dreamgirls because his next movie was this thing where he plays a woman and wears a fat suit? Same deal. Anti-TV snobbery has come a long way but not far enough that people starring in CSI spinoffs get Oscars. That leaves Laura Dern for a movie no one saw and two ingenues. I feel sort of like Emma Stone hasn't been around long enough and Keira Knightley is in that weird middle space where she's neither a big blockbuster type but not seen as a serious artist either. Keira Knightley maybe, by default. Or Emma Stone if Birdman is the big winner.
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Post by scarlet on Jan 19, 2015 14:31:21 GMT -4
I'm completely stumped for who's going to win Best Supporting Actress. I think Patricia Arquette would have it on lock except she's going to star in the ridiculously-named populist garbage CSI: Cyber. And remember how (it's widely believed) Eddie Murphy lost for Dreamgirls because his next movie was this thing where he plays a woman and wears a fat suit? Same deal. Anti-TV snobbery has come a long way but not far enough that people starring in CSI spinoffs get Oscars. That leaves Laura Dern for a movie no one saw and two ingenues. I feel sort of like Emma Stone hasn't been around long enough and Keira Knightley is in that weird middle space where she's neither a big blockbuster type but not seen as a serious artist either. Keira Knightley maybe, by default. Or Emma Stone if Birdman is the big winner. Actually, Wild has made more than Birdman and at over $33M box office I wouldn't say no one has seen it. Still think PA is the one to beat, cheesy tv show or not.
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