I haven’t talked to her about it years. Solly.
[nitpick]
Stempel wasn’t being fed answers; Charles van Doren was.
Stempel was the victim of the scam, not the perpetrator.
[/nitpick]
Stempel was also being fed answers, and threw his last game on a ‘Best Picture’ question.
Not necessarily. Actors who belong to the Academy are a small subset of SAG members. They are also on average an older group, and a more artistically conservative group, than SAG members as a whole.
Gee, it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned I went to college with John Turturro…
Well said. I might as well go on the record here and predict this will be the lowest-rated Oscars in history. I love movies and will eventually see all the Best Picture nominees, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that mainstream audiences really aren’t all that interested in gay cowboys and George Clooney’s take on the McCarthy controversy. Hell, if Clooney was interested in corruption at CBS, why not make a movie about Dan Rather hawking phony National Guard memos in an effort to influence a presidential election? At least that would be based on recent events. It reminds of Quiz Show, now that we mention it: Redford seemed to think that a cheating scandal during '50s TV game shows was an Important Topic and addressed the Loss of Innocence in America. Turns out nobody gave rat’s ass.
I did see Crashand found it to be laughably bad.
Well, I guess the Academy can cross you off their list of projected viewers. Still, the show must go on.
I suspect Clooney was at least as interested, if not more so, in the courage of Edward R. Murrow than corruption at CBS.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11077661/site/newsweek/
A great rountable interview with the Directors of Capote, Munich, Brokeback, Crash and GN&GL.
Gotta love that Clooney.
Brokeback Mountain has been one of the highest grossing movies of the last two months – for a while it was #1 at the box office. Brokeback has done well in virtually every U.S. market it has opened.
It was nominated for Best Achievement in Cinematography.
Hey, I’m hoping it’s a good movie and I’m looking forward to seeing it. But I think for most Americans ***Brokeback Mountain ** * is, and will always be, a late-night talk-show punchline. And nobody I know is expressing the least interest in seeing it.
Wish I’d seen that! The Fox News website has only a story headlined, “Oscar Snubs Johnny Cash Movie.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183273,00.html
I am not convinced this is because it is a gay cowboy as much as because it is a love story. I mean aside from Titanic, weepy dramas are not known for wide viewership and big box office.
:dubious: You don’t really believe that.
So your response to the facts is “La la la, my limited personal experience trumps reality”? Is it your contention that the FIFTY ONE MILLION DOLLARS Americans have spent just going to see this movie all comes from “unordinary” Americans?
To put that figure in perspective, here are movies that did not make as much in 2005: Aeon Flux, Doom, Constant Gardener, Brothers Grimm, Pride and Prejudice, Fever Pitch, Because of Winn-Dixie, Munich, Must Love Dogs, The Skeleton Key, and The Fog. That’s just a few, of course, but surely you believe that “average” Americans would be interested in at least half of those movies?
He was great, as he always is, but there wasn’t anything memorable about it, really.
Roy was good and everything, but “the highlight of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is sort of logically equivalent to “the nicest thing about a kick in the balls” or “the friendliest thing Charles Manson ever did.”
Here is the Boxoffice Rankings. I think you might be surprised at some of the numbers. Compare the boxoffice for Brokeback with all of the other nominees. And considering it is playing in far, far fewer theaters than most big films, that says a lot.
As much as I would like BBM to sweep, I am still a little leery about the Academy voters - I think their average age is about 106 years old, so who knows what they will do. PSH has already won the Golden Globe for Capote and he has won lots of other awards this year- this could be good news, but has also been known to backlash as Academy voters sometimes think, “He has won enough already, and we have heard his acceptance speech several times” and often tend to pick someone else. Of course, same backlash could hit BBM for the awards it has already won.
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the line-up, though I never watch the awards show. I would rather read about it online or the next day in the papers.
I’m a bit surprised that Cinderella Man and Walk the Line did not make it into the list of Best Picture nominees, but I can live with the others.
I have not yet seen Crash or Munich but have seen many of the others.