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The Creative Arts Emmys (aka the Emmys no one cares about) were awarded last week. The Oscar telecast was nominated for ten Emmys and since no one else gives a hoot about those categories nine those awards were handed out on Saturday. Outstanding Music and Lyrics will be handed out at the Primetime telecast on Sunday, presumably so Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg can take the prize for “Motherlover.”
The Academy Awards won three!
- Choreography for that lame “Musicals Are Back” number starring Beyonce
- Short Form Picture Editing
- Sound Mixing for a Variety or Music Series or Special (take that, Dancing with the Stars!)
They lost the big category, Outstanding Special Class Program, to the Beijing Opening Ceremonies. In fact, the Olympics pretty much kicked the Oscars’ ass all over the place. They also lost out on:
- Art Direction For Variety, Music Or Nonfiction Programming to the MTV Video Music Awards and American Idol
- Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special to the Beijing Opening Ceremonies
- Lighting Direction (Electronic, Multi-Camera) For Variety, Music Or Comedy Programming to American Idol (that one’s gotta hurt, amirite?)
- Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special to the Beijing Opening Ceremonies
- Writing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special to Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger
So congratulations are in order for what was a pretty decent Oscars telecast.
Previous Grouches coverage here.
Update: The Academy Awards took home Outstanding Music and Lyrics last night at the Primetime Emmys for the cute Hugh Jackman opening number. The winners noted that the award was presumably moved to primetime due to the unusual appeal of this year’s nominees (aka two noms for Justin Timberlake) just to have the least telegenic group win. This ups the Oscars’ Emmy haul to four!
It’s starting to get a little cooler here in DC and with the change of seasons a young man’s thoughts naturally turn to late-year movies. And all the news coming out of the festivals in Telluride and Toronto have me excited!
Here are some movies that I’m looking forward to:
Up in the Air. As an unabashed Juno lover I’m excited for Reitman’s latest and at this point I don’t think Clooney can do wrong. Plus I like airplanes.
The Men Who Stare at Goats. Goofy military stories with more Clooney!
A Serious Man. I’m loving what I hear about the Coens’ latest. Sounds like a heavy drama with a lot of laughs; comparisons to Fargo are a great sign.
Precious. The incest-rape-pregnancy feel-good story of the year.
The Road. Viggo Mortensen? Yes. Post-apocalyptic hellscape? Hell yeah!
Sherlock Holmes. As a martial arts badass we always knew he was.
The Fantastic Mr Fox. Maybe not an Oscar film but I loved the book as a kid and Wes Anderson is usually pretty terrific.
Agora. I’ll take a stylized Roman epic.
And the Grouches are seeing The Informant! tonight, which I have high hopes for.
Even Oscar bait like An Education and Bright Star seem mildly interesting. Compared to the long slog we were looking forward to last year at this time you can see why I’m psyched.
What is everyone else looking forward to?
When I was but a young award watcher it struck me as unfair that all the other awards shows could win Emmys but the Emmys had nothing to win. Can’t someone hand out an award for that terrific opening monologue from last year by the five reality show hosts?
The Academy Awards telecast received ten Emmy nominations. Just like the Oscars the Emmys give out a lot of technical awards but they don’t do it on the telecast. So any Oscar love on Emmy night will probably be announced earlier.
The nominations:
Art Direction for Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming (vs the 2008 MTV Music Awards, A Colbert Christmas, American Idol, and the Grammy Awards)
Choreography for the Musicals Are Back number, probably the worst part of the telecast in my opinion. It was nothing but quick snippets of famous musical songs presented in no special order. Why is that interesting? (vs one Dancing With the Stars number and four from So You Think You Can Dance)
Directing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special (vs Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Bruce Springsteen Halftime Show, The Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration, and Will Ferrell: You’re Welcome America A Final Night With George W Bush)
Lighting Direction (Electronic, Multi-Camera) for Variety, Music or Comedy Programming (vs American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Show With David Letterman, and Saturday Night Live)
Music and Lyrics for the cute and well-produced but only somewhat funny/clever opening number about the movies in recession (vs A Colbert Christmas, A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, Flight of the Concords, “Motherlover” from SNL, and another Justin Timberlake performance from the 2008 ESPYs)
Short Form Picture Editing (vs Dancing With the Stars, Stand Up to Cancer, and two The Daily Show With John Stewart episodes)
Sound Mixing for a Variety or Music Series or Special (vs American Idol, Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Bruce Springsteen Halftime Show, Dancing With the Stars, and the Grammy Awards)
Special Class Programs – I believe this is the top prize (vs Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008: Leonard Bernstein, George Carlin: The Kennedy Center, Tony Awards)
Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Miniseries, Movie or Special (vs Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Bruce Springsteen Halftime Show, Grammy Awards, and Tony Awards). There are literally dozens of people nominated in this category and it doesn’t appear that a single one is a woman. Are there really no camerawomen?
Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special (vs Chris Rock – Kill the Messenger, Louis CK: Chewed Up, Ricky Gervais: Out of England, Will Ferrell: You’re Welcome America A Final Night With George W. Bush). It’s up against four stand-up comedy specials. I don’t think this ends well for the Oscars.
So go get them, Oscars! Beat those no-talent hacks at Dancing With the Stars!
I love how secretive the Academy is about their members. Go to the official site, and you’ll get a “sample” of voters. For the past few years, though, they’ve issued press releases listing the people they invited. Here are the 134 newbies. If you’d like to compare, I’ve found linkes to the invitees for 2008, 2007, and 2006.
I have two main comments here. First, the press release lists two films after each person, and it is pretty entertaining to see their choices. Among the actors, my favorite may be Jeffrey Wright getting Quantum of Solace and W. But there are some pretty tremendous films namechecked in the other categories. The casting director of Agent Cody Banks! Paul Blart Mall Cop’s cinematographer! And Failure to Launch’s! The woman who designed the costumes for The Hangover and Superman Returns gets the nod. The dude who edited Step Brothers and Talladega Nights gets to vote. And no need to check your vision, the Academy really does acknowledge the existence of Santa Clause 3. My favorite duo is either those attributed to producer Broderick Johnson: One Missed Call and P.S. I Love You or sound designer Hamilton Sterling: Fool’s Gold and Scary Movie 4.
My point here isn’t to disparage the picks. I know nothing about these people, and I’m sure they are all perfectly qualified voters. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were more in tune with my preferences than current voters, and at first glance they seem to represent an interesting mix of movies. It is just kind of odd to see these sort of movies listed on an AMPAS press release.
Perhaps more importantly, I don’t really know how AMPAS decided on these people, but the timing is pretty odd. Did it take Madea Goes to Jail to get Tyler Perry into the club? Not that I’m surprised the Academy is behind the curve, it just would seems that Perry been a legit contender for years, and I’d wager he represents a point of view AMPAS has been trying to add to their roster.
Does the fact that the actors category skews relatively young provide more evidence that the Academy is trying to freshen its image, or is it just that all the older actors are already in? Still, it is kind of crazy that two members of “Freaks and Geeks” get in, and just odd in general at the Academy’s seemingly implicit acceptance of comedy.
The writers category is fascinating. I’m absolutely thrilled writer John August got in, because he is awesome (his blog is a must-read). He wrote, among other things, the excellent Big Fish, the Charlie’s Angels movies, and Go. Dustin Lance Black was nominated for last year’s Milk, the Academy decided to keep pissing off Adam as much as possible by inviting Courtney Hunt (and Melissa Leo) whose Frozen River is her only produced work. And finally, Howard Rodman, who has written a few movies no one saw, including Savage Grace and Joe Gould’s Secret. Before you go yapping your mouth, I realize that isn’t a true statement, in fact I watched one of his movies, August. I didn’t like it.
What does it all mean? Frankly, not much. The Academy says they have about 6000 members, meaning this year’s class will represent about 2% of the population. Still, it is interesting to put some names and faces to the infamous “Oscar voters” you might see us rant about in the coming months.
Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that starting this year there will be ten best picture nominees. The world clamored for the Grouches’ response to the news, and the Grouches obliged. In a chat room, naturally:
Brian: so, the Oscars expanded to 10 nominations for Best Picture
your first thoughts
John: I’m curious to hear a quick yea or nay from everyone
Jared: i like that
yea
Brian: yea
John: nay for me
Adam: yea
John: qualified nay. I’m curious to see how it works out
Jared: well, sure
Brian: well we all are
Adam: way to adjust your opinion to satisfy the masses
John: I think it smells of desperation
Brian: but Im curious to see any change made to the Oscars cause why not?
they’re trying to compensate for so many of their members having bad taste
John: I think it’s clear they’re trying to get more popular films involved to get the ratings back
and frankly the Oscar monetary bump isn’t what it used to be
but you know, it wasn’t that long ago that big budget, major productions were dominating the oscars
Gladiator, Erin Brockovich, Braveheart, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind
and that was awful because these mediocre movies were dominating by virtue of their size
the cycle has turned back onto smaller productions. I think given time trends would change again
So Jared’s right, the MTV Movie Awards were an adequate amount of fun. I don’t think the ridiculous mix of teen and serious films received sufficient mockery. What was the point of Kate Winslet’s nomination for The Reader? A half-baked attempt at legitimization?
But it was mostly an interesting, irreverent program, especially when assisted by DVR. Thankfully I didn’t fast-forward through the jaw-droppingly awful New Moon trailer.
Here are a few more things the Oscars could borrow from MTV:
- Sandra Bullock bouncing awkwardly to hip hop.
- JJ Abrams keyboard solos.
- Nominee homages from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
- Classy “Jizz in My Pants” renditions.
more about "Lonely Island Medley", posted with vodpod
Get cracking, Academy! You’re just a nom for Bullock – The Proposal looks like a sure winner – and a token hip hop Best Song nomination away…
Oscarwatchers generally don’t have much love for the MTV Movie Awards. And hey, when Twilight and High School Musical 3 dominate the list of winners, it isn’t hard to feel that the distaste is warranted. But I actually have a lot of respect for the MTV Movie Awards and think they have something to teach the Academy: It is OK to be passionate about movies.
I certainly hope members of the Academy like movies, but sometimes I’m left with the impression that they don’t really love films. Oh, sure, they may wax rhapsodic about cinema, but can you imagine very many of them waiting in line for a midnight screening of something? Say what you will about Twilight and HSM3, but they inspired mass hysteria in a pretty sizable chunk of moviegoers. That shouldn’t be a bad thing. No one is suggesting the Oscars should switch to fan balloting or only nominate movies seen by lots of people. But how many people loved Frost/Nixon or The Reader? The fact that you are coming up with a name for each only proves my point. The Dark Knight met with riotous fan approval, but also near-universal acclaim. It shouldn’t have been punished because its supporters were loud.
Another Oscar season ends with a whimper. I can’t say I’m unhappy to see it end because it was a pretty weak year with few movies that really moved me and not even many Oscar categories with interesting races.
Much like last year we clearly don’t care enough to post our Oscar night thoughts in any sort of timely manner, but the internet could use a few more opinions and I’m here to give them.
The telecast producers intended to shake things up a bit this year and their efforts were mostly for the positive. Hugh Jackman’s recession-themed opening number was fun albeit a bit inside baseball. The overarching “storyline” of the night, following a film from inception to completion, was interesting, even if it did mean the first three categories were major categories. Some of the jokes were wickedly funny and edgy in ways Oscar jokes usually aren’t. Jack Black was even funny. The “yearbooks” were okay, save the hilarious comedy edition from Judd Apatow, which was a highlight of the evening. Things seemed to move along pretty well, perhaps helped by the close proximity of the seats to the stage so every winner was at the podium in less than ten seconds. But it still went 20 minutes over so that quixotic search for an Oscars telecast that ends on time will never end. I appreciated that no one was played off, even if I wished it had (see: lame Makeup winner who just read names from a list as fast as he could).
Introducing acting nominees with former winners really did not work for me. It was way too indulgent. Just show the clip of Anne Hathaway crying and move on instead of telling us how much we were moved by her.
The winners were all very predictable, with Departures winning Foreign Language Film the only major upset. Adam’s tally of 16 correct predictions in 2007 seemed like a great total, higher than what’s usually needed to win a pool. This year it took 19 to win the Grouches’ pool and I’ve seen people who picked as many as 22 correct. That’s just absurd. When you have to dig as far down as Sound Mixing to find a slightly off-the-wall winner you know it’s a predictable year. At least one major race, Actor, had some drama to it.
And with that we bid adieu to 2008 and get ready for 2009. God willing this year will be better. The million dollar question: by the time the big awards movies start popping up in the fall will any of us even remember Frost/Nixon?
Jared and I took in the slate of Animated Short nominees each of the past two years. The 2007 nominees literally put me to sleep but in 2006 it was a pleasure taking in preparations of a singing bird before the big show (“Maestro”), that Ice Age squirrel’s attempt to protest his food (“No Time For Nuts”), and Disney’s wonderful and devastating watercolor take on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Matchstick Girl.” The winner (and my favorite), however, was a Danish/Canadian entry called “The Danish Poet” with a distinct animation style and a wry look at love and fate.
Youtube is starting a program to feature short films called The Screening Room and “The Danish Poet” was one of its first selections. I highly recommend it. It’s embedded below or click through it to get to a high definition version.
It’s been over a week since the Oscar ceremony and I guess the eerie silence around these parts is an indication that all of us were a bit Oscared out, what with all the movie watching, review writing, predicting, and live blogging. So now that everyone and their mom has chimed in with their thoughts on the telecast, why not us?
I enjoyed it. I know it was the lowest rated Oscars in modern history, but it was fairly entertaining with a great host and good winners. Jon Stewart delivered a funny monologue and did a great job emceeing. He got poor reviews two years ago in what I thought was a fine performance but the reviews seem to be pretty universally positive this time around. He also gets a huge pat on the back for bringing Marketa Irglova back out to give her speech. The tribute to binoculars and periscopes was inspired.
The rest of the montages were pretty weak. On the one hand, we avoided some of the lame montages of recent years (writers on film! all the foreign films to have ever won the Oscar!), but on the other we didn’t get any good ones. These were clearly made in case the strike didn’t end in time and the Academy couldn’t get old movie clips for free, so naturally they used the footage they already owned. Kind of a yawn and self-congratulating. The Oscars presents… another montage about the Oscars!
But let’s talk about the winners. I’m very happy with how it all went down. In the series of articles we posted proclaiming our preferences, my favorite won all but one of the categories (and the one standout, Javier Bardem, is completely deserving anyway). I was happy to see Julie Christie lose and was pleased for the praise lavished on No Country for Old Men. If only their pseudonym Roderick Jaynes had won for Best Editing then the Coens would’ve picked up four Oscars. Tilda Swinton’s win was a very pleasant surprise because you had to think that Cate Blanchett, Ruby Dee, and Amy Ryan all had legs up on her.
Actually, my favorites won much more often than my predictions. And on that note, congratulations to Adam who walked away with the Oscar pool victory. Getting 16 of 24 in this year is a very nice score.
I wouldn’t say there were many upsets, save maybe for Swinton and Marion Cotillard. While the categories were often hard to pick, one of the front-runners generally won. I was a bit surprised to see The Bourne Ultimatum sweep the sound categories and editing. I guess I don’t know much about sound but it seems to me so much of No Country for Old Men was told through sound, while Bourne was more just loud and the editing was merely a case of quantity. The quick cuts sort of made me nauseous. The Transformers shut out was also somewhat surprising. It was a fairly good action flick and it looked really great. And with his loss, Transformers sound mixer Kevin O’Connell lost the Oscar for the 20th time without a win.
No weird shadow performance art this year, which was nice, but some of the song performances sort of fell flat. “Falling Slowly” sounded great, of course, and “Raise It Up” from August Rush came out well, but I don’t think any of Enchanted’s songs translated well to the Oscar stage. “That’s How You Know,” a big, rousing number in the film fell flat on stage. How neat would it have been to see Eddie Vedder or Dewey Cox up there instead?
And so another Oscar season is behind us. I thought it was a terrific year for film with a lot of very deserving nominees. I saw a lot of films for this project and only disliked a surprising few. So here’s to killing our braincells with sports comedies and superhero movies until this fall, when we’ll be back on the lookout for quirky comedies, lush period pieces, and bleak stories about the dark side of humanity full of moral ambiguity.
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