f13.net

I AM FUCKING DISGUSTED.

How can a rip-off  of a movie win Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

OH GOOD, YOU TOOK INFERNAL AFFAIRS AND STRETCHED IT OUT AN HOUR, ADDED A COUPLE UNNECESSARY CHARACTERS, MUDDLED UP THE SCREENPLAY AND MANAGED TO MAKE IT LESS INTERESTING.

THANK YOU HOLLYWOOD.

YOU'RE DEAD TO ME.

Seriously. It's as if, every year, the academy goes out of it's way to piss me off.

If you haven't seen Infernal Affairs, and you've seen the Departed, I want you to run, not walk to the nearest movie store. And when you get there, cut off a finger for Not Helping.

Also, Children of Men, not even nominated for best film?

Christ.

I'm going to shoot myself in the foot so I can feel the pain Clive Owen feels right now. Could you even imagine watching Oceans Asia 11 Drug Party winning over anything? Damnit.

Ok, did you even see it? You sound like my brother. He refuses to even watch it.

Remake or not, it's a great movie.


That's all beside the point though. He won it because he's been screwed numerous times. Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People. Have ANY OF YOU even seen Ordinary People? Good Fellas lost to Dances with Wolves... Taxi Driver wasn't even recognized because he was virtually a newcomer at that point. The guy has been punished for all kinds of political bullshit over and over again. So I suppose that it's fitting that he finally WINS because of political bullshit.

But besides, it was still a good flick.

Personally, I thought the Aviator was his best movie in a long time. Kind of iffy whether it should have won last year though (vs Million Dollar Baby).

I own it on Blu-Ray.

I've also owned Infernal Affairs since the year it was released. I imported the 2 disc special edition.

This isn't really one you want to challenge me on.

Ordinary People was damn fine.

Departed, compared to the original, was not.

Just asking. It's not the same film though. Completely different premise/message, and sorry (and this has nothing to do with Scorsese winning), but an all around better cast. Even Markie Mark rocked in this flick.


I'm not challenging you on anything. Just saying that you sounded like my brother.


Fine yes. Still raving about it after 30 years quality? No, no. That's what Raging Bull is.

This Oscar tonight was an apology for Raging Bull and Good Fellas. And it wasn't a bad movie to do it with either.

No, it's not worth raving about after 30 years. I agree. And neither is the Departed. But Infernal Affairs will be part of foreign film classes for YEARS.

And no, the premise/message wasn't supposed to be different. They just couldn't do it near as eloquently as the original. Seriously, damn thing was too long and it still felt like they were trying too hard. DiCaprio phoned it in for half his scenes.

I like Marky Mark. He always entertains.

Departed was merely a "fun" movie.

But hey, no one appreciated A Better Tomorrow either.

OK, fair enough. I don't even want to get in a Departed vs Internal argument. Departed is not better, but I think there's enough of a difference in for it to stand on it's own (and besides, the Oscars weren't about Internal vs Departed anyways).

All that being said, I would think by now that you'd understand the Oscars aren't necessarily even about film merit though. Unfortunately. It's not worth getting worked up over. My favorites have been consistently screwed for years.

The announcer also said Infernal Affairs was a Japanese film. Oops.

It would have been if it wasn't a remake. It basically took everything that made the original one great and turned it upside down up to and including the end. Yeah it had a famous cast and very good acting talent but in a year where we had children of men, babel, the last king of scotland, the queen, notes on a scandal, letters from Iwo Jima and numerous other great achivements it was just a decent flick.


I don't care. If I award movies then the best one should win and not the one of 'the director that was screwed and we want to apologize'. If you need to do that your whole award process is flawed and your award is basically worthless because you have acknowledged that not the best movies win. There have been numerous movies which have been better and didn't get the recognition that they deserved just because jurors on a guilt trip needed to apologize to a director. That is pathetic. Even more so because they actually needed to do that.

The Oscars on the whole are overvalued however, they seldom choose really great films. Best foreign movie for "Das Leben der Anderen", when "Pan's Labyrinth" and "After the Wedding" are nominated? Come on.

I'm continuing my streak of having not seen any of the Best Picture nominees so I can't comment on how deserving or not The Departed was. However, rewarding Scorsese by giving him Best Director is different than rewarding him by giving the film Best Picture.

Um.  Well, yes.

Do you even watch the Oscars ?  ;)

Stray, you've called it "Internal Affairs" like 8 times. I gotta shut that down.

(http://www.hotpress.com/movielounge/images/infernal_affairs_1024.jpg)

No, exactly because of that. The academy award is a popularity contest and not a serious award.

The Oscars are like a political race. The studios spend enormous amounts of money trying to influence of the votes of the Academy members. The most notorious recent example to me was when Miramax "bought" the Best Picture for Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. I mean, I like a nekkid Gwyneth Paltrow but there's no fricking way that movie was better than Saving Private Ryan.

lolololololol (http://www.posterwire.com/wp-content/images/brokeback_titanic.jpg).

Of course it's a popularity contest -- what else would it be when you have awards that are voted on by over 6,500 Academy members?

I don't get it.  What's funny ?

I don't get it either since Brokeback Mountain did not win Best Picture -- Crash did. On the other hand I like Titanic and am glad it won. And it's not like the competition it was up against that year was all that stiff. It was up against As Good as It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, and L.A. Confidential, all of which I saw (which is a rarity), and I thought it was well deserving of the award.

L.A Confidential was a great movie though.

I'm really forgiving. ESPECIALLY of Chick Flicks. But you want a tragic story about love lost and a boat? Watch Legend of 1900. Titanic was dreck.

And I don't know what you're talking about LA Confidential was the best noir movie since, well, noir and up until Sin City. Good Will Hunting is the best Damon and Affleck have done and As Good as It Gets was a fucking masterpiece.

You know why Titanic won? There are 600,000,000 reasons why. And Quality isn't one of them.

Also, I wasn't actually trying to draw any attention to Brokeback. I just thought the poster comparison was kinda funny.

Yes it was.

It's unusual for the best grossing film that's nominated to win.

Take a fucking pill, Schild.  You sound like a fourteen-year old girl in a beret whenever you talk about movies, and it isn't just because you validate yourself by hating everything popular, it's because you're so god damned shrill about it.

I don't even in the slightest hate everything that's popular. I saw Fast and the Furious 4 times the week it was released. And I still love it. Through college, most of my favorite TV shows were on the frickin WB. I just bought the new Barenaked Ladies and Fallout Boy albums.

This has nothing to do with popularity for me. This has to do with not giving credit where credit is due.

If you wanna knock me for something, make sure you get the fucking point.

Which still doesn't make sense since Infernal Affairs wasn't nominated for anything so it's not like The Departed stole any awards away from it or anything. In other words there's a difference between saying that The Departed shouldn't have won cause you thought, say, Babel was better and saying that The Departed shouldn't have won cause it was a poor ripoff of Internal Affairs -- that just means that IA was that much better of a film.

Heh yeah I realized that. My bad. I DO own the movie though. Want a pic? Lol.

Everything I was going to say has already been said by Ironwood and Stray.

It should have been obvious who was going to win as soon as "The Three Amigos" came out on stage. It was a big "We sowwy Marty" party.  It was transparent to me at least and I only caught it because the wife fell asleep with the TV on and I happened to come to bed at that moment.

Would have been a much better/less transparent affair if they had just given him the award last year though. Hell, I've already watched the Aviator close to ten times. It's a damn good film. I like Million Dollar Baby, but I've only seen it once. The truest time for sympathy votes was then.

Then again, Million Dollar Baby was kind of a sympathy vote for Clint as well.

Why? Clint won Best Director for Unforgiven.

Ah shit, you're right.

And he deserved that one, I should say..

Truth be told, not winning the Oscar for years has probably been a Godsend for Scorsese; it kept up the endless "Marty was robbed!" conversations and brought him more cred.  Also, if I were a director I'd probably rather be in the "never won" club than in the Oscar club.  Shit, Kevin Costner has an Oscar.  Hitchcock, Kubrick (Kubrick, people!), Peckinpah, Kurosawa, Leone, Hawks, Griffith, Cassavettes, or Welles have all never won an academy award.

What, you didn't see that full-page ad in Variety?

Welles actually does have an Oscar (for writing Citizen Kane) but I see your point there. Anyone thinking that the Oscars is an arbiter of actual talent or greatness hasn't been paying attention for the last 70 years.

What ?

That's....silly.

That's why I was saying Scorsese won last night. Costner beat him: Dances with Wolves vs Good Fellas.

That shit deserved an apology. 20 years late maybe, but what the hell..

I had a funny Oscar moment during the three stooges giving the award to Marty. They're doing the usual painful Oscar banter.  This was really bad though, as they were selling it worse than Will Smith's kid and the dialogue was just horrid.  My wife said, "Who wrote this shit? Lucas?". 

I was so proud.

Wasn't Dances With Wolves the long boring film with President Roslin fleeing the Cylon Buffalo ?

Although I do not thing Infernal Affairs was 'all that', it was still one of the best Chinese movies that Americans have been able to watch. Most of the stuff we get over here is pure drek.

I sympathise with Schild since I get very pissed off at American remakes getting credit for others' original ideas. Wether its The Ring, or Vanilla Sky, they are all watered down, bombastic and sanitized versions of the original. Even on the off chance that Scorcese's film is somehow better than Infernal Affairs, it should immediately be disqualified for an Oscar on the basis that its not an original screenplay. Any boohooing that Scorcese hasn't gotten enough credit is hilarious considering the popularity of his movies. And since now I know that his movie was based on Infernal Affairs, its not going to make it to my Netflix list. Shame on him.

So by your reasoning, Fistful of Dollars shouldn't even be watched because of Yojimbo?

And before you bundle Departed in the same category as "Vanilla Sky" or whatnot, listen to what you're saying. C'mon man. Remake or not, it's still Scorsese. Not Tom Cruise. It's not even close to that other category of films, or done with the same shallow intentions. At least watch it.

[EDIT] Damn. Not typing well today. It's not my day.

Every single one of those movies was better than Titanic in every possible way except special effects. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Titanic was a shitty shit shit shit romance novel wrapped around an incredible 20-minute CGI scene. It was boring, even with Winslet's boobs. It was crap and Cameron should be ashamed for having let that be his last real fictional film.

Scorsese won because he's never won before. He's an overrated director who has had some good movies, but nothing worth giving him the constant fellatio everyone involved in film does. I haven't even bothered to watch his last 3 flicks because they star DiCaprio, another talentless hack who needs to get the fuck out of movies and off my TV.

Ok, lets put the mouth frothing about Departed behind us for a few minutes. How did you guys feel about the other stuff? I am glad Helen Miren won. I think she is a very good actor. I havent had a chance to see The Queen yet, but I really want to. One, because I enjoy her films, and two because Im english and have a soft spot for the Queen.

I thought cars should have won for animated movie, but maybe thats just cause my best friends son is totally in love with it, and I have watched it in bits and pieces around 70 or 80 times.

Never saw the Queen. I'll just rent it. Used to be a big Prime Suspect fan though (well, I was coaxed into at first, but hey).

By that reasoning,  most Kurosawa and Japanese samurai cinema should be tossed out,  since it was all heavily influenced by the early Westerns.  (And later Westerns turned around and drew on some of the Eastern influences, like Fistful of Dollars and Magnificent Seven.)  It's not a one way street.  

Besides,  unless you're a nut about all things Asian,  there are many subtleties lost in cultural differences that just don't make sense unless you have a very good background in it.  This begs for a culture-specific adaption.

In this case,  The Departed is brillant.  There's a shit ton here about the Irish-American experience and growing up poor ("you can be a cop, or a criminal") that is still basically true in many, many places.  

Scorsese captures American culture and geography/local color better then anyone else.  Even if the plot is drawn from another source,  it doesn't invalidate how the characters and background are drawn and rendered, and how the character motivations are changed or adapted to fit the new milieu.

Alec Baldwin was amazing, and he had like 15 lines.  Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg were both great.  Leo and Jack Nicholson....  were Leo and Jack Nicholson.  Good performances.  Damon was very, very solid.

While I 've enjoyed most of Pixar's films, Cars left me (ahem) flat.   My son's obsessed with it, too, but only because he's 3 and in that 'cars and trucks are awesome' phase.  I can still watch Toy Story and the Incredibles, but Cars bored me about half way through, and has already started to wear on me more than Monsters Inc.  I can't quite place why.  Maybe it's Owen Wilson's whiny voice, or the even more drawn-out sappy sentimentalism that takes about 1:15 worth of movie and stretches it out to 1:56.

The best guy was Ray Winstone imo (French). Flawless Boston thug. And he's British at that. That guy rocks in every movie.

People winning awards based on politics rather than performance... this is new to you guys how, exactly?

Welcome to this thing called "life".  By the way, it's unfair.   

I have no problems with remakes. StarWars was a remake of Hidden Fortress, and I loved it! I just don't think it should be up for an Oscar, is all.

Fair enough. But you said you wouldn't watch it either. Or rent it. Not sure what you meant really, but it's sad. It's a good movie, simply put.

If you can stop being a mangina for a moment stop and think about what you're saying. Many movies have been based on others either partly or almost whole cloth. Not to mention how many screenplays are adaptions of other media, novels spring to mind immediately. If this is the case no movie based on a novel should ever be considered at all, like L.A. Confidential for instance.

Infernal Affairs came out 3 YEARS AGO. Well, 3 years and change. It's a little early for a fucking remake. Infernal and it's sequels are still fresh in my mind. And Departed SUCKED comparatively. You really gotta read the back of Infernal Affairs 2 & 3 re-release to understand how ticked off I am.

Do you go this apeshit when someone messes up your order at the drive thru?

And.

Fast and the Furious?  Seriously?

Just. Ugh.

"I live my life 15 seconds at a time!"
"NAAAAAAAWWWWWWSSS!!!!!!!"

Any movie credibility you had before you said you watch F&F four times in ONE week was thrown out the window.

Whatever dude, I'm sure you have some guilty pleasures and don't sit around contemplating the latest avant garde artfag film.

Don't compare the drivethru to movies. That's just fucking insulting.

One is an art form. The other is shitty food that all tastes the same to begin with. Except Churros. God bless Churros.

And it's a "quarter mile at a time," dick.

Lol

The real question is how you think Reservoir Dogs compares to City on Fire.   :dead_horse:

Oh no you di'nt!

The Departed was a very good   movie with that 'cool factor' (along the lines of Ocean's Eleven and  The Usual Suspects) ,  however I was honestly suprised that it won best picture.  While many of the individual performances were excellent,  I thought Scorsese looked a little sheepish receiving it;
Almost like he realized that the he got it as a 'sorry about last year, and that other year.........".


I am really happy that he finally won best director though, but I am not sure The Departed even merits that.


[EDIT] Helen Mirren was hawt  :heart:

That is nothing new. (http://freeview.celebflix.com/index/h/helen_mirren/helen_mirren02.jpg)  NSFW

And I just got shit the other day for saying I preferred 25-30 year olds over teenagers.... Like that was extreme or something.

Strange world.

Damn. Not sure what movie that is from but I'll never look at her the same again.

It's never too early for a remake like this one for the simple fact that, myself included, most people in America had no idea it was a remake because most people in America care fuck-all for foriegn film. There is hardly anything original in film anymore in the same way that there is hardly anything original in most visual media. It's mostly a series of ideas taken from other movies, books, comics, or history. That's 95% of every movie made. Hell, truly original screenplay is a rarity these days.

And that's pretty much the last you'll hear from me in this thread, because we all knew Schildy was gonna flip out like every year. Now back to preparing for the NCAA Madness.

You can't just come in here, piss on the walls, and run away. Do you your damn duty and stick around! No hit and run stuff.  :-P


The majority of comedies are original screenplays.

The majority of sci-fi films are actually original screenplays, and not adapted from the larger sci fi medium of books.

Majority of....Hell, screw it..


Off the top of my head, I could list plenty of original films, American and otherwise, that were originally written for screen (which I was about to do, but the list got really long and pointless. In short though, the realistic number would be that at least half of everything written is original. You're just not exposed to enough of it, probably identify yourself as an aspiring novelist, and therefore feel obligated to shit on anything else).

Everything is an original screenplay if someone doesn't adapt it directly from a book. My point was the massive amounts of works that those screenplays draw from older ideas, allusions, motifs, blah blah blah. My concept of original is narrow to be sure, but it's my take. It's not really the details of the characters or the plots, but it's the overall concept you see in the movies today and how they all flow from something else. There are completely original ideas in movies today, but I think they are rare and should be celebrated.

True your point that most comedies are original screenplays, but how many of those films are original to you? How many fucking buddy comedies have we seen in the last decade for example, or romantic comedies. They all flow the same predictable way like their predecessors.

It doesn't have to be adapated from a book.

Schild is usually a girl wearing a beret when it comes to non video game art, that is true.

OTOH The Departed was fucking ass.  That ending sucked balls.  That movie suffered from rubber band lag.  It started great out of the gate, then limped to the finish carried by all that star power and some good acting.  Baldwin is the fucking man in that movie.  Then comes the OMG PLOT TWISTZ!!!  Fucking weaksauce.  For the record I watch under five movies a year, so I guarantee you I dont qualify to have any opinion on this topic.  However I know if a movie isn't good, because I enjoy almost every movie I watch as going to the theater is a novel thing for me I dont do often.  A movie that pisses me off is the equivalent of a field trip that sucked so much that 6th graders would rather have been in school.

Short version:
The ending blew, fuck the Oscars anyways you're all twats for watching that shit imo.

Oscar isn't the definitive measure, by any means.  Gulp lists some great, great directors never honored.

That's as much a flaw in doing a "best of the year" format as compared to doing a "best ever" format.  The Nobels do a "best ever that should be recognized" format, if I'm not mistaken, and fall into problems of the other extreme:  Recognizing people for their contributions decades after the fact because they're always behind on who they give awards to,  and need to give some out before the honoree croaks.

Of all the entertainment awards given for best of the year,  the Oscars are ones that retain the most respectability.  The voters,  most of the time,  manage to at least try to give awards based on merit.  Some years they get things wrong (Shakespear in Love, Forrest Gump),  some years are just weak years and the award goes to whoever is least awful (Mulin Rouge, Gladiator), but most of the time they manage to do alright.

Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah.  Woah.  Woah.

Woah.

Woah.



Woah.






Woah.



Lois, this isn't my Batman cup.


I mean...

Let's be clear on this.  I wasn't giving you crap for liking 25-30 year old women.  I was giving you crap for liking Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy.  The conversation just evolved from there.

Liking 25-30 year olds is just a taste.  Liking Uma as Poison Ivy is just tasteless.   :-D


I agree 50% on Gladiator.  I agree that it was given an award it didn't deserve.  However, it's wasn't the least awful of the potential winners.  If I recall correctly, it was up against Traffic, which was alright, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which people flip out over.  Crouching Tiger should've won.  I didn't even like it that much, but people today just spontaneously burst into praise for it, whereas no one brings up Gladiator anymore except to say that it was way, way overrated, and then some douche always has to stand up and try to argue about how awesome it was, using points that would imply that Predator should have been an Oscar-winning movie.

I've never understood people's issue with Gladiator. That movie is so visceral at times it blows me away. I'm not going to argue its Oscar merits, I stopped watching the Oscars in 1989 when Glory lost and I realized, at the ripe old age of 17, that the Oscars were bullshit and had fuck all to do with merit.

I think the issue was that it beat an Asian movie that had a plot most people couldn't figure out, which always angers the artfags. Hell, me just saying this probably blew the beret off some dude watching Yojimbo right now.

I can name a lot of asian art faggy movies that don't make sense.

Infernal Affairs was not one of them.

And it wasn't up against Gladiator either.

Oh shit. I can't follow this conversation anymore.

Yeah, it's late too. I really should have left this thread when I said I was going to, but Stray taunted me. I'll leave yall alone with your grief now.

Yojimbo is hardly art faggy. It's an action movie, with the Japanese star equivalent of Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, and Paul Newman all rolled into one.

Tetsuo would be art faggy.

See, I'd get this thread if it was bitching about how more good foreign movies need to be brought to the U.S. and given the widespread theatrical release and marketing to get the attention they deserve.  Bitching about Oscar winners though?  That's like bitching about an IGN top ten games of the year list or something.  Who gives a fuck?  The only thing that comes out of these awards is that they'll be able to put "Acadamy Award Winner" in front of some more peoples' names during movie trailers.

Dances with Wolves is one of my favorite movies... :cry:

I'm sure you'd get less shit for that than me saying that DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors -- under 40, that is.  :-)

(http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/media/bush-mission-accomplished.jpg)

All right, What The Fuck did Glory lose to ?  It had better be the best fucking film ever.  Glory was a masterpiece.  A Fucking Masterpiece !!


(Oh and I wasn't giving you shit for liking 25-30 year old either, merely saying that blokes are hardwired to go for women with, er, 'breeding attributes'.  You do realise how much different older people look NOW than they did THEN, right ??)

Hell, I'd do the fuck out of Raquel Welch and Carol Vordeman and they ain't exactly spring chickens.

(Success, another thread derailed to be all about my dick.)

Glory was never nominated for Best Picture. For the 1989 awards Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture. The other nominees where Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, and My Left Foot. Denzel Washington did win Best Supporting Actor and Glory won Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

Well, I came in to the thread not giving a fuck about the Oscars and with the view it's a lot of Circle-Jerk Assfaggery.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Glory is one of my favourite films.

Hmm 1989. That's actually a great lineup of flicks. Even Born on the Fourth, where Cruise was at his douchebaggy best. Field of Dreams is the great Costner film (as opposed to Dances with Wolves). My Left Foot is awesome. Surprised that Glory wasn't nominated though.

Glory is one of my favorite films as well. I  have the two disk super special edition which has all kinds of stuff on the second disk which I haven't watched. Yeah, it wasn't nominated though in my memory I thought it was, after talking to my friend who remembers that year I remembered we were all pissed it wasn't nominated. Guess memory warps with time eh? But yeah, I've pretty much boycotted the Oscars for the last 17 years because of it. I watched the 2000 Oscars to see if Gladiator won but lost interest like an hour in and just checked the internet to see the results. Honestly, I still think Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick did their best acting in Glory.

Did y'all hear Eddie Murphy got hissy and stormed out of the theatre (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=eddie+murphy&btnG=Search+News) when he didn't win?   :heartbreak:  Come back, Norbit!

You truly have no taste.

I guess that's a compliment. You're a fucking hick.

At least I don't think Dicrapio is an actor or anything other than a pretty, empty face directors trot out when they need something to drag women into the theaters.

Heh. That's a much better reply than I thought my comment would gather. Good on you, sir!

Also, say what you want about DiCaprio. We're all entitled to an opinion. Just leave my tastes -- in the general sense -- out of it. It's not about me.


Anyhow, the guy's best work was hardly pretty boy material.

This Boy's Life -- He's just a little kid in it. He's great.

Gilbert Grape -- An autistic retard who outshined Depp. Also, it was before he was famous anyhow.

Basketball Diaries -- Another great movie... But he looks like Jim Carroll. That's why he got the part.

A Howard Hughes biopic is not exactly the thing to get teenage girls in theaters either.

Actually, I didn't really like Crouching Tiger.  But I HATED Gladiator.  I saw it with a friend in theaters the night it came out, because we were both reasonably excited for it.  We came out of the theater and agreed that it was long, boring, cliched, and stupid.  We didn't talk about it again until it got nominated for an Oscar, for which we were both shocked, and then when it won... let's put it this way, it wasn't some intentional and elitist act of decrying accessible American films in favor of beret-pandering artsy crap, it was wrought out of pure disdain for the film in question.

But I never got why Crouching Tiger was considered to be so amazing.  I thought the idea was to make it so it DOESN'T look like the actors are on wires.  Still, it was better than Gladiator.

Which is why you cast Dicaprio in it instead of someone who can act. Oh and Martin Scorsese is wet for him or something.

His best role was as the young Arthur Rimbaud in Total Eclipse. Everything after that is just not worth watching, unless you can stand him. And I can't.

The Rimbaud part was cool too, but the movie itself was shite.

And DiCaprio is a pretty decent actor.

Not on my list of favorites, but I definitely take him much more seriously now than in the Romeo and Titanic days.

It's really those two that get people down. Before and after he's fine.

I thought he was decent in Catch Me if You Can, too. 

Beats the hell out of me why we should care who wins an Oscar even it did have anything to do with merit.

It's an industry party driven by PR people who like to build expense accounts, gain free airtime for their product, and get drunk.


I wouldn't give a shit if SOE and EA were to agree that WoW was the best MMOG ever, I fail to understand why it matters what the film industry wants to pimp DVD sales of either.

DiCaprio is a good actor, however the problem lies with the fact that he is often miscast.  He's just too 'boyish' (for lack of a better word) to be taken seriously  in some of the dramatic roles he has taken.   As Haemish points out, Scorsese has some bizarre Leonardo  fetish which ultimately may be partially the reason the best director Oscar has eluded him until now.  Some of his films (Aviator, Gangs, and even the Departed) lose a bit of their dramatic impact because  he is in a leading role imho.


[EDIT]


Even though I hated the movie, I agree, DeCaprio did a great job in 'Catch Me if You Can' because he is a good actor  and his boyishness was perfectly suited for the role.

The first 20 minutes of Gladiator was some of the best film making ever. Unfortunatley the  remaining 2 + hours sucked donkey balls.  Still trying to figure out how it won best picture.

It's nothing new -- Scorsese's one actor relationship, I mean. He did it with DeNiro (DeNiro is the one who supposedly introduced him to Dicaprio). Older directors did it a lot too. Kurosawa and Mifune. Kazan and Brando. Godard and Belmondo.

DeNiro did This Boy's Life with Dicaprio awhile back. He was impressed. Supposedly, he introduced him to Marty, and said he should work with him (which didn't happen until later). Even though he worked with Scorsese so much in the past, he, supposedly, didn't see himself as the most bankable actor for Scorsese's films. He thought the kid had talent, and that it was a better business decision. Scorsese eventually agrees. Now DiCaprio is basically in the position DeNiro was in.

Burton and Depp.
Nolan and Bale are headed that way, too.

Last but not least, John Wayne and John Ford. Something like 20 movies together!

I just think it's something to do with communication, and knowing someone you're working with is on your level. That's the case with any job, I guess -- who doesn't want to work with good friends/like minds? It's not "fetish". Heh.

Tell that to Kate Beckinsale.

The fact that Gwyneth Paltrow won Best Actress for Shakespeare In Love over Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (or, frankly, any number of 16-year-olds who portrayed Juliet in high school productions across our great nation that year) is still mind-boggling to me, even by Oscar standards.

Yeah, that is sad. Blanchett is and was awesome.

But at least Depp can act, and both Nolan and Bale are damn talented. Scorcese and DiCrapio and Burton, not so much.

Scorsese not talented? DiCaprio I can almost *almost* understand where you're coming from. Depending on a few things. Burton I can understand. But Scorsese. You really are nuts. Just absolutely out of your fucking mind, man. He is not only talented, he's a fucking god amongst men.

This is not a matter of opinion.

Wait. I get it. Haemish is actually Vince Gallo in real life. Amirite?

No, I just don't think Scorcese is all that talented a director. He's no hack like Burton, and he's made some decent flicks (GoodFellas and Taxi Driver come to mind), but for the most part I've always felt he was overrated. His best talent has been in picking good scripts and bankable actors.

His actors have never been bankable until Cage and Sharon Stone. Not DeNiro, not Keitel, not Burstyn, not Pesci, not Griffin freakin' Dunne. Not even Day Lewis.


Picking good scripts.

Umm, that's what directors do. He's not a writer. He's a photographer, an editor, a fairly detailed storyboarder, and has always been in the vein of old stage directors - a communicator. But not a scriptwriter.

Besides that, he hasn't even "picked" good scripts as much as you think. He's had a longterm relationship with one particular writer (Paul Schrader).

Calling Goodfellas "decent" is like calling the Grand Canyon a small ditch.

So, it's a pretty good trick to take written words and turn them into a compelling and believable VISUAL scene.  Brag on your writing all you want but most of the details of what makes a story good are in the imagination of the reader, not written on the page.

Scorsese is a genius.

I like Gladiator for what it is: Spectacle.  Russel Crowe won the best actor award because the academy fucked up when he was in The Insider.  Not sure why the movie won, though.  Can't say I care anymore, Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan was pretty much the breaking point for me.

EDIT: Leo DiCaprio is a fantastic actor, he just looks too pretty for some.

Who was it that beat Daniel Day Lewis in '02? Ohh yah, Adrien Brody.  That's when the Oscar's died for me.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I'm with Haemish. I like Scorcese, but I get more excited by a new Eastwood film than one of his. There's always something approaching the dear with Scorcese, something just a bit too flat, a bit too pat. Sorta like Bruce Springsteen. He -tries- for grit, but it comes out a bit too safe, a bit too polished. Don't get me wrong, I think he made good movies, including Goodfellas and Taxi Driver, and he definately is single handedly responsible for DeNiro's career. I think he's also a great chap, more likeable than Eastwood or Kubrick, but he's a bit too joe bloe to be a genius.

Edit for typos that make me look stupid for saying Scorcese isn't a genius :P

Tries for grit? Taxi Driver pretty much inspired an attempted presidential assassination....And more realistic violence in films from the moment forward. A little too much, I might add. It was Notes from the Underground in cinematic form. Doesn't get much grittier than that. And he accomplished that grit by barely having a scene of violence until the very end. Just steam filled New York streets, a mohawk, and a cab driver hating the world. It was so gritty that that imagery has pretty much become a cliche at this point.

On the other hand, he can switch from that to comedy (After Hours, King of Comedy), colorful and highly stylized period pieces (Age of Innocence, Aviator), religious/philosophical interest films (Last Temptation, Kundun), and concerts and music docs (Last Waltz, Bob Dylan doc, the Blues, upcoming Stones doc). So really, most of the time, he doesn't even attempt grit.

[EDIT] I will agree on not getting excited about Scorsese films though. At least I did at one point. He almost lost me completely with Bringing Out the Dead. I thought he was going through menopause or something. Nothing about the pacing in that film was right. And it just came off totally phony (can't really think of a better word). Gangs of New York only blew me away because of the actors really (Day Lewis of course, as well as Gleeson and Reilly). The rest of it kind of left me hanging.

Then he won me over with the Aviator again. And his music docs.

The guy from Jaws?

No, the Pianist.

Saving Private Ryan is typical Spielbergian crap. The first 20 Minutes are pure greatness but after the Invasion of Normandy scene everything else is just cliche and the typical "americans great, rest evil" stupidity. We get it, all french are cowardly weasels that run at the first opportunity all germans are backstabbing bastards that even try to kill you after you have saved their lives and all the americans are heroic avatars of justice that do not run or falter even when facing certain death. That is what I hate about Spielberg, Movies like Schindler's list or the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan clearly show that he can achive great things when he actually tries but more often than not he just falls back to typical hollywood cliche, well executed but nevertheless not award worthy.

Most people I know only think that Saving is great because of the first 20 minutes.

The thin red line was hands down the better war movie.

Careful, your anti-american bias is showing.  It's ok.  I'm biased against americans and I am american  I will say that you're fucking retarded for comparing the thin red line to saving private ryan though.

Scorcese is a great fucking director, and anyone saying otherwise has some sand in their vagina.  There's only a few great directors around, really, and you want to say that Scorcese isn't one of them? Make your own fucking movie then, blowhard.

Likewise, Dicaprio has more than proven himself as a respectable actor since his Titanic days.  If you don't want to make the effort to see an actor mature and develop, its your own damn loss.  He's better than 95 percent of the actors out there in terms of range and talent.  Write him off at your own risk.  I'm sorry his baby face makes you feel gay in your pants.

Well, this thread is done.  What a death spiral.

Rabidly retarded.

Fuck that Ironwood. It matters, damnit.  :lol:

And if it doesn't, nothing else at this site does, and your whole time spent here is a complete waste.

 :-o

No seriously, I hate being reminded that certain subjects or arguments are pointless. Of course they are. And so is everything else. Even politics. Nothing you say matters here. Nothing. Even if you're talking about changing the world, it doesn't matter.

What the fuck are you talking about?

There were no French soldiers in Saving Pivate Ryan, running away or otherwise.  In case you didn't notice, the Germans STARTED WWII and were by overwhelming unanimity considered to be acting pretty evilly at the time.  Besides, letting prisoners go and having them be back in the line was a REAL problem.  The American guy, Upham, was such a coward that he got his buddies killed by his lack of ability to do anything at all.  And yes, in the battles across France there were several instances of brave soldiers making a stand against ridiculous odds and actually making a difference.  Not just Americans but British and Canadians and all the other allies too.  It just so happened that this was an American movie, by Americans and about American soldiers.

You want to watch a movie about the British glider troops that held that bridge for three days after D-Day against half the German Army?  Go make it.

You're a tard and The Thin Red Line sucked in comparison.

No, there is NO subject nor argument that is pointless.  There are merely pointless ways of going about it.

Is it pointless to argue the pointlessness of a subject?

I'd rather hear why Ironwood likes Glory so much.

Not a bad choice at all, I'm not saying that. It's just interesting to me. Do you like that part of American history too, or is just the film itself?

Glory is just a damn fine film.  I saw it for the first time as part of a class in the 8th grade and even as part of school it was amazing.

(btw, feel old yet?)

I was in the 7th grade when it came out, but I know I'm at least 5 years older than you.

I hear a lot of people had problem with the moustaches and beards in Glory. Like they were on crooked half the time.

But I'm in the camp that thinks it's a great film.

I mean the teacher brought it in on a video tape and showed it in class.

Yah, but you're not saying what year you were in the 8th grade. It was probably several years old by then, I guess? :)

And yes, you do make me feel old. I'm pushing 30. I don't like it.

Shaddup you yougin'.

Not speaking for Ironwood but the part of Glory I really like is watching the men bond and the mutual struggle for self respect and the respect of others. That scene towards the end where they march through the lines of union soldiers and the one white guy who had almost gotten into a fist fight with some of them earlier goes "Give them hell 54th!" is the whole movie to me in one line of dialogue. I think Denzel's character is maybe one of the most important in the whole film. He makes Col Shaw see some things he didn't before. He also makes the journey from being very sarcastic and mean and not believing in anything, to being willing to pick up the flag in that last charge and showing he understood honor and what they were really fighting for.

It is no anti american bias, it is anti Spielberg bias. There are a lot anti war and war movies out there where americans are portrayed as heroes and most of them are IN MY OPINION (just to point that out) better than his take on it.

Hell even thin red line was better and I'd consider it an awful film. Well if you'd like to call me retarded because of that then whatever.

Maybe I can't even put it into exact words but take A.I. for example, you can feel exactly where Kubrik had stopped with the movie before his death and where Spielberg has picked up the movie. It is or at least seems to be the moment where a decent movie gradually becomes some sort of happy-ended family valued tear jerker.

I might have gotten some of the details wrong in Private because I'd seen it a few years ago but I always felt kind of manipulated by the way he presents the events following the invasion. I feel that way in a lot of his films. Well you could argue that one is manipulated a lot when going to movies but the really great ones don't need to because they leave you to think for yourself and don't need to reinforce the point for you.

I only like some of his movies, in most of his films I get out of the Cinema and feel like a very competent salesman had just sold me expensive insurance I didn't need without me realizing it. Schindlers List for example, it is a great movie where a rather unknown bit of history is presented in a very good and Oscar-worthy way (and, coming from germany I had to endure a lot of documentations and movies about nazi germany). Even there I always had the feeling that he felt that all of the gruesome things that had actually happened were not enough on their own so he additionally had to drive the point home by reinforcing it. I also though that the last scene at Schindlers grave was unnecessary for the movie and was just added sugar to add a tearjerking effect.

See I just wrote seceral paragraphs about it and I still cannot explain it. I just hate the way he makes movies. Oh and reediting movies to change all of the guns to flashlights isn't exactly great filmmaking either.

Likewise I am a great admirer of Scorcese and he very much deserved an Oscar but they should have given it to him for one of his truly great films and not just as a way to make up with him. That is a slap in the face for him and the other nominees that might have deserved it more if it wasn't "making up with Scorcese" year at the academy. Not to say that the departed was bad just that there were other movies and directors this year which were better.

It is like the way Eastwood lost against Peter Jackson because the Academy felt it had to give him all of the Oscars for his three films combined at one award ceremony just because they somehow forgot to give them to him at the time that the actual movies were made.

That is all in all bad style.

(http://home.arcor.de/dinoandfriends/Dino%20Magazines/Filmplakate/lions.jpg)

Best WWII film. In my humble opinion.

Talk about balanced too. That was made in the 50's and had a sympathetic German character (played by the best actor who ever lived, in my not so humble opinion).

Something isn't working there....

Just have one thing to say....Band of Brothers and Das Boot.

Have you seen it?

Either way, I really like it that much. Though I would admit that many wouldn't even enjoy/qualify it as a WWII film. WWII is the setting and the backdrop, and all characters participate in the war somehow -- but it's more of a psychological study, and about pointing out that everything wasn't so black and white.

I've seen Band and Das Boot too. I think they're both great. Wouldn't consider them the best though. Plus, neither had Brando or Clift.

I still have no clue what you are talking about...

Uh, no. The Thin Red Line was someone trying WAY TOO HARD to be meaningful. It was otherwise a terrible, boring, obtuse movie. It was art fag writ large.

I will agree with you about much of Spielberg's work, just not Saving Private Ryan and Schlinder's List. Those two films make all the rest of his movies look average (and I loved Jurassic Park and the first Indy movie). Ryan and Schlinder's List were classics of cinema and should be studied by cinema lovers everywhere. The rest? Not so much.

Nail, meet head.

Yes to Haemish's take on Thin Red Line.  The amount of meaning is unimportant if it's not entertaining.  Which, if my take was in doubt, the movie wasn't.

It was a thread about the oscars. Forget deathspiral, the thread was an unholy abomination from the start by default.

After thinking on it, I'll add something to contirbute to this morass.

Scorecese to may is a guy who makes movies that have amazing trailers. I seldom get around to watching the actual movie, but I enjoy the trailers. When I do see them, I usually admit that they were really good, but upon thinking about it, I can't think of a Scorcese movie that I have watched a second time.

The Young Lions? Are you not seeing the movie poster I posted?

But you still have not named the movie....

Just realized that (and just edited the above post). Do you have images turned off? :)

Just finished watching The Departed. It was a good flick, though I had the ending pegged after seeing the Wahlberg character in scene a bit…

…Oscar worthy? Not really, but that deal is really about politics and sentiment, not quality…

And if Thin Red Line was edited better it would be far greater than Saving Private Ryan, which is excellent for first 20-30 minutes but descends into formulaic fare…

No - your link never showed up for me. I'm guessing it was cached for you from a direct visit or something. But I had a lot of fun.

The last scene of the Departed saved the movie as far as I'm concerned.

I watched Infernal Affairs last night. I really don't see how the departed can be a worse movie.

Did I hear someone hating on The Pianist?

No idea where the other movie thread went, but I went to see Hot Fuzz last night and it was fucking hilarious.

Did you see Pee-Wee Herman in the next row wearing a raincoat?

No, does he like Simon Pegg ? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/)

Excellent cast.  I like everyone in that film.  Well, except for Ewaa WooWaa (ala Baba Wawa or Jonathan Woss).  Never could stand him but he doesn't appear to have a huge part in it.

It was a great film.  It made me giggle and laugh at a time when I should probably be stabbing prostitutes in back alleys at 3am merely to make myself feel better.

I hear Whitechapel is nice this time of year for that sort of thing.