# Oscar watch-along thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 8, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674 "2010-03-08T00:41:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/261 "2010-03-08T06:58:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Directing may not be a technical award, but in just about any category you care to mention: vision, creativity, inventiveness, attention to detail, scope, and just plain hard work, Cameron probably did outperform Kathryn Bigelow (and everyone else) 50 to 1, or more…and the award is _supposed_ to go to the director who did the best job of directing, not the one who directed the most popular movie by Hollywood political standards. If you put vision, creativity, inventiveness, attention to detail, scope, and hard work into creating a turd sandwich, what you end up with is a spectacular turd sandwich. But no one is going to eat it. Technical skill is only a means to an end. The end is a great film. AFAIC, the best director is the one that did the most to create a great film. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/262 "2010-03-08T07:04:43Z")
RE: the “horror” montage: How can you call it a horror montage when there’s no clips of Vincent Fucking Price? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/263 "2010-03-08T07:05:55Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > The [scientific and technical awards](http://www.oscars.org/awards/scitech/index.html) were given in a separate awards ceremony on February 20. …which is what he \*was \*referring to. They showed a photograph of the winners of the scientific & technical awards. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/264 "2010-03-08T07:09:49Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > And the Best Actress Oscar slips another notch in credibility. Did you see the movie? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/265 "2010-03-08T07:16:06Z")
What was up with that guy who won for the short documentary film (Music for Prudence), who got Kanye-d? I’ve heard rumors that that woman was fired from the project but the filmmakers kept her name on the project and that’s why she was at the Oscars…why was she walking up there, though? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/266 "2010-03-08T07:18:05Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > If anything, old-school art directors, set decorators, make-up artists, and cinematographers are much more threatened by this digital revolution, since it renders decades of on-set experience far less invaluable as before. Exactly. Why would studios and producers pay for sets, costuming, makeup, location shooting, etc. when they can all be created digitally? And what do you suppose will be the effect when actors are no longer required to work for months when, no longer required on set to cool their heels while the production process goes on and acting for only an hour or so a day, they can complete their work in a matter of days…or perhaps only one day in the case of smaller roles? Their paydays will be drastically reduced and their working conditions will become less glamorous by several orders of magnitude. The equipment and techniques that Cameron has created stand to change completely the experience of acting and/or the production of movies. As technology gets better and environments become indistinguishable from reality, all that will be needed to produce a movie from a physical point of view will be a script, a director, camera operators, digital production facilities and actors working all day long in front of a green screen. Acting will become a much less glamorous and lucrative experience, and like you say, support people like set designers and builders and costume and makeup people will likely find their jobs in jeopardy as well. > [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > And directing has more to do than simply vision and visual inventiveness. Getting excellent performances out of actors, calibrating an effective tone and attention to theme, and showing resourcefulness in taking on provocative and challenging subjects are all aspects of great directing, too. And with mediocre performances, leaden heavy-handedness in its theme, and predictable handling or overly-familiar material, _Avatar_ doesn’t even come close to what several other of its competitors (not just Bigelow’s film) managed to do. We’ll just have to agree to disagree in this regard. I thought _The Hurt Locker_, for example, was merely a good film with nothing about it that stood out as being extraordinary, and when you consider that virtually everything about _Avatar_, from the sets and machinery and flora and fauna and what the characters said and did and where and how they moved, all came directly from the mind of James Cameron there is no question in my mind that what he accomplished in terms of directorial performance is far greater than that of any of the other nominees. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/267 "2010-03-08T07:18:10Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > I don’t know if Bullock deserved Best Actress, because I haven’t seen the movie. But Streep’s performance in _Julie & Julia_ certainly didn’t strike me as anything special (the only one of the five I saw). I thought Streep hit it right on the nose with her portrayal of Julia Child. Child is so familiar to many of us that any flaw in the portrayal would be instantly obvious, but after a few minutes into the movie I stopped thinking about Streep and just saw Julia Child come to life. At the same time she added a depth to the character that went beyond what we saw on television. The scenes with her sister were amazing and the sadness in her eyes when she realized she would never have kids was poignant. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/268 "2010-03-08T07:21:06Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I took offense at Mo’nique’s statement – “award based on the performance, not the politics”? Or I would have taken offense if I’d ever won an Oscar. It just seemed unnecessary. She’s been the odds-on favorite to win. Her performance was outstanding. Why inject politics into it? Jeffrey Wells [started it](http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/12/she_doesnt_want.php) by telling Academy members to teach her a lesson by not nominating her. What a dick. There was [even an article in the New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/movies/awardsseason/10monique.html?hp) about the brouhaha of her not campaigning. She had her reasons though. When asked “But isn’t she worried that “they” will think she doesn’t want the Oscar?” [QUOTE=Mo’Nique] “I’ve been asked the question before,” she said, “and it’s like, guys, I also have this show called ‘The Mo’Nique Show’ where I tape six shows a week. I have twins who are 4, so I have babies, I have an amazing husband and a son who’s 19. What I can participate in I’m more than happy to.” [/QUOTE] She’s appeared at just about every awards show she’s been nominated for as far as I know, and she’s won most of them. She just hasn’t gone on the stump, like most nominees do. She was in essence giving a very polite finger to Jeffrey Wells and his idiot ilk. I loved it, and wish I could have seen the look on Wells’ face. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Actually, I thought that _was_ the rule; for awards going to multiple people, only one person was supposed to speak. It was part of the speech the director, or Producer, one of the two, gave to the nominees during the Nominee Luncheon. He specifically said, if there’s more than one winner, decide in advance who will be the speaker. He also said that if you’re the one speaking for the multiple winners, don’t just thank your own wife and family, thank everyone’s. I noticed a few people screwed that up. > [@eleanorigby](#): > > Alec and Steve in bed is not funny, either. You might know this, but just in case, that was a parody of **Paranormal Activity**. I laughed. My husband, who hadn’t seen PA, didn’t get it. All in all, I’m happy with the evening. I don’t think **Up In The Air** got anything, but neither did several movies. If someone sees a link for that introduction to the Animated Features, please please post it. My husband and I were practically on the floor when the dog licked the camera. That’s the most beautiful Cameron Diaz has ever looked. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/269 "2010-03-08T07:52:42Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > If you put vision, creativity, inventiveness, attention to detail, scope, and hard work into creating a turd sandwich, what you end up with is a spectacular turd sandwich. But no one is going to eat it. Enough people have eaten it to make it the largest grossing film of all time. People the world over are leaving that movie stunned, deeply affected emotionally and sometimes at a loss for words to explain how they’re feeling. What more can a person expect from a movie than that? And besides, Cameron knew perfectly well what he was doing with the more simplistic story line. He was out to deliver a message - several actually - and he knew that a more complex story line would interfere with the emotional involvement that people would need in order to derive from the movie the things that he wanted them to take away from it. He wanted the movie to give them a different perspective on humanity - to look at human beings from the perspective of not being one yourself. And he wanted Americans, people whose country has never been invaded, to experience as closely as is possible what it’s like to experience the destruction and violence and despair that is part and parcel of being invaded by a foreign force. And of course he wanted to impart an environmental message and to try to get people thinking in terms of the need to protect our own environment here on Earth. All of this would have been short-circuited by a more complex story line that kept people from becoming so involved with the characters and the landscape and the results of the actions that were taking place, and Cameron knew that. So while to you it may appear that he’s nothing more than a hack, churning out a technological marvel with a story intended to appeal to adolescents, the reality is that _Avatar_ is a work of genious, operating on levels that the average bear is unaware of. People who dismiss _Avatar_ as simplistic are like people who think children could paint like Picasso. The reality is that they can’t and that Picasso knew exactly what he was doing in order to create the emotional response that he wanted people to experience from viewing his paintings, and Cameron was doing the same thing with _Avatar_. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/270 "2010-03-08T07:54:28Z")
Oh, before I forget, what was the deal with the woman who interrupted that one winner’s speech? Best Documentary Short I think? He started this heartfelt speech and then this random woman grabs the mike and starts ranting about how “men never let women speak.” The hell? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/271 "2010-03-08T08:02:22Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > What was up with that guy who won for the short documentary film (Music for Prudence), who got Kanye-d? I’ve heard rumors that that woman was fired from the project but the filmmakers kept her name on the project and that’s why she was at the Oscars…why was she walking up there, though? Her name is Elinor Burkett and according to [this cite](http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1633363/story.jhtml) she was the movie’s producer. Guess she thought that gave her the right to act like the classless asshole that she clearly is and commandeer the microphone in the middle of William’s touching, heartfelt speech. What an ass. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/272 "2010-03-08T08:13:30Z")
Wow I totally didn’t see that \*\*Freudian Slit \*\*had just asked the exact same question as me! Thanks for the answer on that. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/273 "2010-03-08T08:17:17Z")
Sure. I started to give you an ETA shout-out but the edit window was closing and I figured you’d see it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/274 "2010-03-08T08:30:35Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And besides, Cameron knew perfectly well what he was doing with the more simplistic story line. He was out to deliver a message - several actually - and he knew that a more complex story line would interfere with the emotional involvement that people would need in order to derive from the movie the things that he wanted them to take away from it. What he knew was that a more complex story line would interfere with his profits. He did not set out to create a great work of art, he set out to make a great work of mass entertainment. I don’t think Avatar was a turd sandwich. I enjoyed Avatar. It was fun and entertaining, and a lot of others would agree with me. But artistic achievement isn’t technical achievement or marketing achievement. Giving Avatar an artistic award would be like giving McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts a culinary award. McDonald’s technical and marketing achievements in food are unmatched by most, but that says nothing about the quality of their food. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/275 "2010-03-08T08:51:03Z")
I didn’t mean that Cameron necessarily wanted to create a work of art though in my opinion he certainly has; I meant that he was using what appeared to be a simple message in order to create a deeper emotional and psychological response to his movie. He explained all this very well in a discussion he had with Charlie Rose last December on the day before _Avatar_ was released, but for some reason it’s been taken down and I’m not able to link to it now. You may choose not to believe him but I see no reason for him to lie. It’s not like Charlie Rose has that large of an audience. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/276 "2010-03-08T09:15:26Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I didn’t mean that Cameron necessarily wanted to create a work of art though in my opinion he certainly has; I meant that he was using what appeared to be a simple message in order to create a deeper emotional and psychological response to his movie. He explained all this very well in a discussion he had with Charlie Rose last December on the day before _Avatar_ was released, but for some reason it’s been taken down and I’m not able to link to it now. You may choose not to believe him but I see no reason for him to lie. It’s not like Charlie Rose has that large of an audience. I saw that interview. What I understood from it was that Cameron used a simple message so that it would resonate with the most amount of people. Here is a quote from the [transcript](http://www.charlierose.com/download/transcript/10866): > [@](#): > > CAMERON: I haven’t actually sat through a screening in China. But our results in China are phenomenal. They’re off the scale. And, you know, it will be highest-grossing film in China. And, you know, so I’m guessing that they’re responding in the same way to the universalities of the human experience in the film. I think they’re probably – if I have to guess-- and what I can tell from the reports I’m getting there – they’re crying in the same places and they’re cheering in the same places. So they’re getting it. There’s something almost the sort of – the simplicity of the story seems to transcend cultures very easily, and the strength of the visuals. Here Cameron is saying that the simplicity transcends cultures. One way of reaching a larger audience. > [@](#): > > CHARLIE ROSE: Here is my point, though. Everything – To have the impact, does it always have to be white hat/bad hat? Can you make it more nuanced? And if you do, will you lose something both in terms of commercial value or in terms of political value? > > JAMES CAMERON: Well, you know, look, we’re kind of in uncharted territory with this movie, because it’s a big $200 million plus production, four-year production, big mainstream Hollywood picture that is dealing with social, political, cultural, environmental themes. That’s in a very narrow category because I can’t point to other examples of that. The studios try to stay away from that stuff. They don’t want to lose one ticket sale to somebody who might be upset by, you know, a message. So they caution away from that. And generally speaking, common wisdom is you don’t do so. You do it in a smaller picture. Here it looks like Cameron dodged Charlie’s question. But what I understand from his answer was that he made the story simple because it was the safe thing to do. He need to make a return on a huge investment and the best way to do that was with a simple story. If anything that interview made me believe that Cameron knew exactly what he was doing with the simplicity. He was making a story that would satisfy the greatest number of people possible. And he did it extremely well. It’s no fluke that the man has made so many blockbusters. He’s very smart and knows what it takes to make a commercially successful movie. ETA: This is actually an interview after the movie was released and not the one in December. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/277 "2010-03-08T11:18:16Z")
[Here’s a Salon interview](http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2010/03/07/music_by_prudence_burkett) with Crazy Short Film Lady and Interrupted Director. Dra-ma! Dueling Pistols at Dawn-type stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Lethal\_Babydoll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@Lethal\_Babydoll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lethal_Babydoll)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/278 "2010-03-08T12:21:17Z")
> [@fusoya](#): > > NONE of the awards given out tonight are technical. The technical awards were last week. These are all artistic awards. Technical awards are for things like developing new types of film stock or CGI applications. Artistic awards are the creative process behind a specific film (acting, direction, editing, costume design, etc) I tried making this exact point to some crazy guy at work who for some reason gets personally offended by Oscar results he doesn’t like. As the clip on the show demonstrated: collecting, choosing and mixing sound is a creative process. But that is what people call them _shrug_ ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/279 "2010-03-08T13:12:03Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Congratulations, **Archive Guy**! > .[/SIZE] Yep, congrats. One of my worst showings, but as a whole, we were all off this year. I predicted 11:52 PM EST for the Best Picture award. When was it given out? I went to bed. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674/280 "2010-03-08T13:20:08Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And besides, Cameron knew perfectly well what he was doing with the more simplistic story line. He was out to deliver a message - several actually - and he knew that a more complex story line would interfere with the emotional involvement that people would need in order to derive from the movie the things that he wanted them to take away from it. He wanted the movie to give them a different perspective on humanity - to look at human beings from the perspective of not being one yourself. And he wanted Americans, people whose country has never been invaded, to experience as closely as is possible what it’s like to experience the destruction and violence and despair that is part and parcel of being invaded by a foreign force. And of course he wanted to impart an environmental message and to try to get people thinking in terms of the need to protect our own environment here on Earth. Yes, the simplistic story may have been a way to bring those “messages” to the mass audience initially drawn by the geewhiz factor (whether the people should be fed a simplistic version of Important Issues[sup]tm[/sup] is another story; sometimes, though, it’s better than nothing). Still, _the Hollywood people who do the voting_ have probably by now seen dozens of “message” movies involving one or more of those themes, so they may have felt jaded and not seen it bringing anything new _to them_. Wouldn’t be the first time the Academy fails to put itself in the public’s shoes, heck, the usual conceit tends to be that the Academy is of Those Who Know, by Those Who Know, for Those Who Know. (The expansion of the Best Picture candidate roster was itself a way to get more “popular” movies into the Oscar night broadcast. ) Besides, (a) some in the Academy may be having second thoughts about having laid it on so thick upon _Titanic_ when they did, (b) this may just have been a year where the Academy was in an anti-blockbuster mood; and (c) SciFi does tend to be ghettoed away from the top tier awards and limited to design/cinematography/art. (Weren’t they using preferential-voting instead of straight-ballot system this year? That may have also influenced the result.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oscar-watch-along-thread/531674.md?page=15)