Monday, February 25, 2013

Oscar Shutout

damn
The 85th Academy Awards aired last night. I had to work and missed the entire broadcast. Looks like I didn't miss much however, since all my favorites lost in every category. That's right folks, I know how pick em'.

Here's the rundown:

Argo is a damn fine movie, I even said so HERE, but I don't think it was Best Picture worthy. Same deal with Jennifer Lawrence. She's great in Silver Linings Playbook...but Jessica Chastain and Naomi Watts are friggin phenomenal in Zero Dark Thirty and The Impossible. Daniel Day Lewis will always be my homeboy, but Joaquin Phoenix's performance in The Master is, well it's just as uncanny and fearless as Daniel Day Lewis was in There Will Be Blood. Phoenix out DDL's DDL in this case.

Speaking of The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman was ROBBED. Flat out robbed. Christoph Waltz is Tarantino's new go to guy, and he was great as Hans Landa 2.0 in Django Unchained but he doesn't come close to Hoffman's firebrand performance. Since we're on the subject of Tarantino, he needs to be stopped. I love the bastard and really enjoyed his latest film, but he's just getting out of hand. Winning Best Original Screenplay will only reinforce his bad habits, meaning we'll be stuck with more of his overtly long, bloated and campy films for the foreseeable future.

I wish Helen Hunt, or Amy Adams would have walked away with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Anne Hathaway really stole the show with her five minute performance (or so I'm told).  Notice I didn't pick anyone for Best Director. Since Paul Thomas Anderson and Kathryn Bigelow were snubbed in the category I really didn't have a favorite. I'm cool with Ang Lee (he gave me Jennifer Connelly in Hulk, I'm forever thankful), so I can't hate on him.

TLDR:None of my horses came in. Bummer.


*NOTE*
Here's a list of great films that either lost or were snubbed for Best Picture altogether:

King Kong
Modern Times

Citizen Kane
The Wizard of Oz
Rebel Without a Cause

Psycho
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Bonnie and Clyde
2001: A Space Odyssey
Easy Rider
Taxi Driver
Network
Star Wars
Apocalypse Now
Raging Bull
E.T.
Glory
Full Metal Jacket
Goodfellas
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption
LA Confidential
The Truman Show
American History X
The Thin Red Line
Saving Private Ryan
Requiem For a Dream
City of God
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
Brokeback Mountain
Zodiac
There Will Be Blood
The Social Network
Fear not Zero Dark Thirty, you're in great company.

9 comments:

  1. That's some hell of an incredible list man, Zodiac and There Will Be Blood being snubbed completely is actually baffling to me, as are so many of the wonderful films in this list, some seriously good films this year.

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  2. The fact you can list so many great movies, and there are some gems in there, just proves the awards mean squat, and rarely go to those who people feel truly deserve them.

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  3. I was most shocked with Jennifer Lawrence's win.. but I agree with pretty much everything you've got here. Whatever, it's just some silly awards with a lot of Hollywood bias.

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  4. The awards are garbage, the fact that the shawshank redemption didn't win proves that 100 times over, all rigged.

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  5. We all know the stonecutters rigged it

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  6. I was reallty rooting for Silver Linings Playbook to win Best Picture. Great Oscar recap sir!!

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  7. I would add Terminator II: Judgment Day to that list of snubbed films. I love the JP reaction gif. Also, I agree with your take on Quentin. I would appreciate seeing him move into a producer / financier role and allowing new talent to take the reigns.

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  8. Yea, I ended up watching Argo on Saturday before the Oscars. It was a good movie, but i'm not sure if it should have won best picture. I can't really say though because I hadn't seen any of the other nominees.

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  9. I didn't think Argo was going to win. It had some notable historical inaccuracies.

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