Fatwater Fewl, could you explain what the “pop culture reference humor” was that bugged you?
Nope, I am Tangent only for the SDMB. (This is the only board I’m a member of and I’ve only been here for a few months.) 
The Motion Picture Academy already ruled on this decades ago: voice performances can be nominated in the regular acting categories (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress).
“Not listening! Not listening!”
What bit of pop-culture was he referencing?
If he’d said “my bad” or “talk to the hand” I’d recognise it.
Should he be nominated? Yes
Should he win? Ah, the nomination is the honor. Winning is politix and popularity.
However, I have a few problems with the performance as it is. But I must say I blame the problems on the character as it is concieved and directed.
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Internal dialog spoken out loud. It’s a convention used in drama a lot but it always irks me to some extent. With this character we got a lot of it. All of the vocalizing of internal conflict for the benefit of the audience took me out of the moment. A really good performance gives you the meaning without the need to project every meaning vocally. (Yes, I know he’s “crazy” and “crazy” people talk to themselves. And, yes, I know this is probably the only way to get the information across.)
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What I like to call “CGI jitter”. Human actors frequently remain still on camera, one sign of a bad film actor is unnecessarry movement (especially in the eyes). However, GCI animators insist on having their characters moving constantly, jittering and twitching and blinking, get’s in the way of the performance. STOP IT! (Again, not the fault of the actor, but it does make me tend to think the performance is less than perfect.)
Just my .02
Well, whether it’s deserved or not, I agree with those who say it ain’t gonna happen. Reasons abound, but these come to mind immediately (all capitals are deliberate):
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Films that are Art with a capital “A” are preferred by the people who run these shows. To be Art, it must deal with real people in Real (either contemporary or historic) situations. A film that deals in fantasy (LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars), by definition, is not Real. At most, a fantasy film can get a nomination (or even nominations), but it cannot win except in technical categories, because the Academy and other award shows will prefer Art. Maybe down the line, they’ll give the Thalberg (also known as the “Oops, we forgot to give you an Oscar for all the stuff you did that changed the face of filmmaking.”) Note that Steven Spielberg, arguably one of the most influential moviemakers of the last twenty years, only started getting Oscar recognition when he stopped making those silly alien and archaelogist movies and started making Artistic films about the Holocaust and World War II. (Not to diminish the quality of those films, but IIRC, Spielberg got the Thalberg before “Schindler’s List”, which I think supports my point.)
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We hate subtitles. We may nominate films that have them, and maybe, maybe, even the actors in them, but we will never give them “Best Picture.”
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Artistic films are not excessively bizarre or strange.
And, the most important for these purposes:
- Humans act. Cartoons don’t. Gollum, however well-realized, is a basically a cartoon. A very well-realized cartoon, but a cartoon nonetheless.
At least the Oscars have to nominate different films every year, which means there is some novelty from year to year. The Emmys, by contrast, nominate the same five shows basically every year and never watch anything that’s not on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, or HBO.
I’m pretty sure that “Not listening! Not listening!” is a reference to Jar Jar Binks in ‘The Phantom Menace’.
Well, it’s not just that he was crazy – he had been all alone for hundreds of years; he had to talk to someone.
I don’t think it is.
Anyway, Gollum does briefly look exactly like “The Scream” by Munsch.
Hey, lots of perfectly sane people talk to themselves too. I know I do, and I’m perfectly sane. Aren’t I? (Of course you are, my precioussss!)
I’d say no unless you are giving it to him simply for his role as the voice over.
I saw this flick for the first time this week, so I’d had a chance to hear the buzz about the guy.
He was excellent. His voices hit exactly the right marks.
But what impressed me most of all about the Gollum was his facial expressions. They complimented his lines perfectly. It was an incredible overall performance. Certainly worthy of oscar quality. But I think the animators get as much credit for the role as Serkis. Gollum’s body language was what closed the deal for me. It was excellent. And while Serkis may have been the template, I don’t see Jackson and the CGI guys sitting back at the editing room and not improving on his physical acting when necessary.
In fact in a interview I saw on TV (maybe CNN HN), one of them
said that the CGI team deserved the oscar for best supporting actor…then they quickly said Serkis deserved it as well.
I think that it is time for a new category to go along with Best Animated Film. It should be Best Animated Performance (Gender Neutral). It should be shared by the voice actor AND the CGI Technician(s). Animation is a much more respectful genre than it was 10 years ago.
But I would vote no because from what I can see from my seat in the theater, I can’t say whether Serkis deserves a statue or the FX Team deserves the statue (they’ll get one for FX for certain).
And for the record, I think the Oscars do a decent job of awarding the right kind of films.
Mistakes happen…
…aghumShakespeareinloveoversavingprivateryan…ugh),
but overall they are a quality set of awards.
Serkis it is then. Let the campaigning begin!!!
Not to hijack, but Leo is a bit more then “just a teen idol.” He was great in “Catch Me if You Can,” and while I haven’t seen “Gangs of New York,” i doubt Scorcese casts actors in his movies just for teen appeal. Remember that Elijah Wood was once “just a teen idol.”
That said, I think Gollum deserves a nomination (can’t see if he desreves to win without seeing the other canidates). The performance as incredible. I’d like to see him go against William Dafoe (though Spider-Man won’t get any nominations) just to see both great schiznophrenic bits fight…
Well, this is part of my problem. They have a clearly defined idea of what the “right kind of film” is, and will snub most films that don’t fall into that category, no matter how well-made. Films in foreign languages. Off-beat films. (I still can’t believe that “Being John Malkovich” didn’t get a Best Picture nomination). Films that perhaps cut a bit too close to the bone. (cough Truman Show cough). And movies from the sci-fi or fantasy genre. (Horror/ thriller was in that list as well, although the sweep of “Silence of the Lambs” suggests that the chinks may be appearing in that armor.)
I’m not saying that every Spider-Man, Star Wars or Harry Potter deserves a nomination or award. But there is a blind spot when it comes to movies from the sci-fi/ fantasy genre. (Also animation.) At most, like FOTR, they can hope for a nomination. It will be a breakthrough day if a film from this genre ever wins.
The Emmy awards, IMHO, are even worse. They nominate the same five shows every year, changing only when one of the shows is cancelled. And they don’t really acknowledge the existence of those dreary WB and UPN networks. The Academy at least has to choose five different films each year.
To add to what jeevmon said above, seems to me like the only kind of Oscar a fantasy/science fiction movie can get is the technical ones. Look at FOTR’s winnings last year: Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup, Best Original Score. The actors don’t matter, the only things fantasy movies are good for is looking pretty. Which is a shame because the acting in Lord of the Rings is a long sight better than most other movies that have been made in the last few years.
For the record, those are artistic awards, not technical awards. The Academy’s technical awards are given out at a separate, earlier ceremony that is not televised.
I knew I was using the wrong term, but I couldn’t think of the right term. Merci, Walloon.
Does anyone remember when Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” was nominated for Best Picture? And “Babe” was too in whatever year that was. So it isn’t really all that far-fetched that one day we will be able to once again look forward to the Academy Awards.
BTW, I, too, would very much like to see a category for Best Voiced Animation (or whatever they may call it). These people that voice these animated characters are not just standing at a mic in some studio. They are gesticulating and ACTING as they record their voices and it’s high time the “Academy” (said with a sarcastic , snobby voice) recognizes these actors for the work that they do.
Naturally-- but filmmaking is by its nature a collaborative art. Tom Hanks performance in Philadelphia was “mediated and tweaked” by makeup artists- but the award went to him for his contribution.
The apparent wasting, sunken eyes, and Kaposi’s sarcomas added a lot to the impact of the performance, but the acting still would have been effecting if Hanks appeared fat & sassy. Conversely, the best makeup in the world wouldn’t have helped a bit if they’d cast a Keanu Reeves in that role.
Yes, the character of Gollum does things that Serkis couldn’t do in reality. Should the use of a stunt double for certain scenes scratch an actor’s chances of an AA nomination? Technology often adds an element of illusion to an actor’s performance. Sure, Serkis couldn’t scrabble down a cliff that way-- but it’s his scrabbling movements which are translated into the models movements, and recontextualized. Fred Astaire couldn’t really dance up the walls and on the ceiling-- he was helped along by a technological trick. The impressive technology supporting him wouldn’t have been very effective if he was a lousy dancer, though.
Sure, Serkis’s facial expressions and body language are mediated through new technology, but they’re still his, even if he himself is never visible on screen.
As a mental exercise, consider Waking Life. It, too, involves actors’ performances which have been heavily tweaked by animation software. Depending on who’s using the software, the results can look either like each frame has been simply traced over, or fantastically hallucinatory. The actors’ performances come through, though, and their facial expressions, vocalizing, and body language are all intact. Unfortunately for Waking Life, they’re also, for the most part, completely wooden and unengaging. It’s still an interesting movie, but it would have been a phenomenon if the actors (and perhaps the dialog) were of a higher standard. They come across as a weak link in a collaborative effort.
People respond to body language and facial expressions, natch. I use 3D Studio, and I’ve long resigned myself to the bleak reality that, while I’m a decent model-maker, I’m a crap animator. If I wanted to create realistic facial expressions that conveyed emotions, I’d pretty much have to borrow from a real, live, person – preferably a gifted actor who understands how to use their body to elicit specific emotional responses. The degree to which the rendered animation engages the viewers emotion is entirely dependant on the person who supplies the human element-- regardless of how wicked-cool the model looks.
In short, all film acting is mediated and tweaked. Make-up, costume, lighting, set-dressing, sound engineering, music, and sometimes even special effects, all contribute to the emotional effect that an actor’s perfomance will have on the audience.
No-one would be raving about how fantastic Gollum was if Peter Jackson had arranged to have Ahmed Best drive the character. He (or his casting director, anyway,) made the right decision, and enlisted a real actor. It paid off in spades.