Academy Awards - 2009 Film Year

[And That]

Amongst the Best Picture Nominees, I saw Up, District 9 and The Hurt Locker... I guess I thought The Hurt Locker was the 3rd best of those 3 movies. The slow-motion shots of whatever were kind of tacky, IMO. Oh well.

[TooLiveBrew]

Anvil! was good, but in no way worthy of a best picture nomination imho. And Observe and Report... best picture nomination? I didn't even think it was a good comedy.

[PeaveyFury]

A 3+ hour broadcast where all of the awards went as expected is going to become problematic for the Oscars, I'd think. I don't know how you fix that, but I can't imagine that people are going to keep staying up until midnight/11:00/whenever to watch what we already know year after year.

[Flood Pants]

Amongst the Best Picture Nominees, I saw Up, District 9 and The Hurt Locker... I guess I thought The Hurt Locker was the 3rd best of those 3 movies.

I haven't seen the Hurt Locker, but that's pretty much how I feel about District 9 and Up compared to any of the other nominees. They were the most genuinely though-provoking, creative, and moving films I've seen this year.

[Buckylovesbeer]

I really enjoyed The Hurt Locker. I guess that puts me in the minority here.......But besides the visuals, I have read (or seen) very little that makes me believe that Avatar was a good movie.

 

I love Jeff Bridges and am glad to see him win, after all, he is "The Dude!"

 

Inglorious Bastards was funny to me, and I am glad the guy who played the SS trooper won best supporting actor, because he was very good in that movie. But the movie itself......pretty weird. Brad Pitt played a role that nobody will soon forget, no matter what your opinion of the movie was.

 

I really want to see The Cove......it looks quite sad but very interesting.

[homer]

The Hurt Locker is awesome. Well deserved victory. Although I also thought Up was terrific and also really enjoyed District 9 and Avatar.

 

In my opinion, the right film won.

 

 

And Observe and Report????? Should that have been in blue?

[RobertR]

I've no problem with The Hurt Locker winning, and I've seen 7 of the 10 nominees, still needing to see Precious, An Education, and The Blind Side. There were a couple of movies that fired my imagination more after seeing them than The Hurt Locker, and I still have to see Moon, but overall I was fine with most of the choices. Although I knew The Hurt Locker had it in the bag when it pulled in those Sound wins. I've heard the foreign language film winner is really good, so that goes into my queue. I'm going to have to see Logorama as well.

 

And, fwiw, I think that it has to be an exceptionally bad year when you can't find 10 good Best Picture nominees. I don't think 2009 was the best year of the last decade, that would probably go to 2007 for me, maybe 2004, but it wasn't the worst either. 2000 and 2005 were pretty weak. Now, whether the Academy will actually nominate the best 10 is always debatable, but I thought this year was a pretty good mix of nominees.

 

I'm not necessarily sure I like the current voting setup though. There's very little chance that a polarizing film can win under the current setup. So, expect safe concensus picks from here on out.

 

As for the ceremony, didn't like the opening number, and Martin and Baldwin were hit and miss, basically doing vaudeville schtick. The show seemed lacking in energy. The horror montage didn't do much for me, although I'm happy to see Evil Dead 2 made it to the Oscars. I was sort of surprised that John Hughes got pulled out for special attention. Nothing really memorable about the speeches, but only the Costume Winner struck me as bad. And what the heck was up with that Best Score presentation?

 

OTOH, I really liked Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. as presenters, especially the little touch of Tina shaking her head as Downey blathered on. Ben Stiller's schtick worked for me too. And I liked the Paranormal Activity spoof.

 

Edit: Some other things. You could tell Tarantino was excited to handle the Foreign Language Film presentation. There was some genuine enthusiasm there. And, although the individual tributes for the Best Actor and Actress nominees is a nice idea, the execution of it leaves a lot to be desired. Lots of rambling with very little point. It either needs to be scripted to an appropriate length or eliminated entirely.

 

Robert

[RyDogg66]

I couldnt believe the speech by the Costume Design Winner. I about fell out of my chair. The only nominees for best picture I saw were Basterds, An Education, Up and A Serious Man. I thought A Serious Man was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Ever. I loved an Education and Basterds was what a best picture winner should look like. That said I am glad Avatar did not win.

 

I think Sandra Bullock is ok, but I was pulling for Streep in the best picture category. She really made Julie/Julia an enjoyable film and did a great job becoming Julia Childs. With all the talk of her losing 13 times I thought there might be a revived push for her to win another award - which I think she deserves, I mean she hasnt won one since, what 1982?

 

I guess In a little put off by the predictability this year, but at least I thought the winners (Waltz, Bridges, Mo'Nique) were well deserved.

 

All in all I enjoyed the evening though.

[Mass Haas]

Sean Penn's presentation speech (link as to the why) was a blithering mess, I'd expect nothing more from him.

 

This was also a bizarre Kanye moment -- talk about awkward.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yeah that woman was crazy. What an egomaniacal turd.

[bjkrautk]

The horror montage didn't do much for me, although I'm happy to see Evil Dead 2 made it to the Oscars.

I was actually in the process of saying "There needs to be an Evil Dead clip" as the clip aired. Big smile on my face from that one.

 

My main highlight, however, was watching the non-acting awards with 2+ people presenting. Since they only got 45 seconds, the 2nd person to speak would invariably get cut away from if the first person started stammering. Special props go to the guy doing the 'wrap it up' thing with his hand. The second he leaned in to the mic, they cut away.

 

How long until the Awards keep a crawl going on the lower screen recapping award winners & the technical Oscars?

 

What did everyone else think about the presentation of Best Picture? Compared to the (overblown) congratulations to the best actor / actress....they didn't even recap the names of the nominees. Granted, they sprinkle in the descriptions of the nominees throughout the show, but it seemed like they cut things short with Hanks just to have the winner announced before 12 Eastern. I'd rather they just move the start time up than play timer-nazi with the winners, and pushing the actual gratitude to a glorified webcam.

 

Anyone know why RDJ was wearing sunglasses during the bit with Tina Fey? Just struck me as odd.

[RyDogg66]

It was the only thing he could find to match his hideous bow-tie?

[Gobias Industries]

I hated Mo'nique's speech. Thanking the academy for not playing politics was basically a slap in the face to the other nominated actresses. Also, Costume designer lady came across as the most arrogant person to ever grace the stage.

 

I thought Baldwin and Martin were very good.

[TooLiveBrew]

I find Mo'nique incredibly obnoxious. I was really hoping she wouldn't win.

[chadomac]

Crazy Heart was "The Wrestler" with a different profession. Maggie G = Marissa Tomei. Jeff Bridges = Mickey Rourke. Same movie. Nothing to get that worked up about. If you're going to rip off a movie idea you could at least wait 5+ years til the ADD-ridden American public have forgotten about the old movie.

 

And you could tell by the way the costume designer chick walked up that she thought she was really something special. What a knob.

 

I was really pulling for the girl from An Education to get Best Actress even though I knew she didn't have a chance. Although I liked the Blind Side, I don't think Sandra Bullock deserved an Oscar for it.

 

And I had seen all of the Best Picture nominees except Precious (I didn't feel like being depressed when my girlfriend watched it), and I personally thought District 9 and Inglorious Basterds were a cut above the rest. I heard a lot of hype about almost all of the movies that were nominated in this category - and both D9 and IG still managed to be better than I expected them to be. Inglorious Basterds was very fun and satisfying, but I think District 9 was the best done and most interesting/thought provoking film of the year. At least Avatar didn't win, but I just thought the Hurt Locker was good... but not THAT good.

[Katuluu]

2005 was a banner year Robert, especially for documentaries. I think I had 5 in my top 10 that year. Plus any year that has one of the Up series released is a good year no matter what. I'd agree that 2000 was pretty bad, and even up until about 2004 the decade looked fairly unremarkable.

 

I stand by Observe and Report. It's a brilliant film that actually pushed the boundaries of what a mainstream comedy can and should be. From its Travis Bickle styled protagonist, to an homage to Oldboy's hammer fight, to consistently forcing its audience to view ludicrous characters as delusional at best, borderline sociopathic at worst, its a film that represents raw unrestrained comedy at its finest. Heck, it makes Eastbound and Down look tame by comparison, which is a heck of a feat.

 

I actually kind of like the Costume Designer's speech. Its not often you hear someone admit they win because they do what the Academy likes, no because they are the best at what they do. Also not sure why people are ragging on Mo'nique's speech when Sandra Bullock openly admitted to campaigning in hers. Its the Oscars, politics are par for the course.

 

And the interpretive break dancing might have been the single worst thing ever broadcast. Ever.

[RobertR]

2005 was a banner year Robert, especially for documentaries. I think I had 5 in my top 10 that year. Plus any year that has one of the Up series released is a good year no matter what. I'd agree that 2000 was pretty bad, and even up until about 2004 the decade looked fairly unremarkable.

Yeah, if you include Documentaries, and you should, then 2005 stacks up much better. I'll stand by it being a weak year for fictional features though. I'd agree that the second half of the decade, including 2009, was much stronger than the first half.

 

I take more issue with House of the Devil than I do with Observe and Report, btw.

 

Robert