• Elvis Mitchell bemoans the fact that the 10 didn’t leave room for a comedy. [CNN]
• John Horn reminds that the “Oscar boost” isn’t all that prevalent for the films that need it the most: documentaries and foreign language films. [Los Angeles Times]
• James Cameron says he’d have been just fine with the aborted “Avatar” spoof. It still wouldn’t have made the bit any funnier. [E! Online]
• Brilliant: See if you can get a goose egg on your Oscar predictions. [Awards Daily]
• Dave Karger makes his final calls. [Entertainment Weekly]
• I’ve never seen a major outlet played like a fiddle in this way since Michael Moore made the New York Times his bitch. What is this, the 12th piece casting “The Hurt Locker” in a negative light? Wow. [24 Frames]
• How to throw a blockbuster Oscar party, with Anthony Breznican. [USA Today]
Comments
11 responses to “3/4 Oscarweb Round-up”
What exactly are people hoping to gain by continuing to smear The Hurt Locker?! The ballots were in two days ago! If there even was a chance (which there wasn’t) of affecting opinions that actually matter, it’s far too late now. Are people that bored and impatient for something to gossip about? [/rhetorical]
I find it incomprehensible that Oscar season shenanigans are becoming international news stories. Perplexing is the only way to put it. Now again my local paper carried an article about The Hurt Locker being somewhat plagiarized from Sarver’s life. This has never ever happened before, how are these ‘stories’ even becoming big news.
The LA Times has really crossed boundaries of taste and credibility. Inspite of their claims of innocence, I can only conclude all this is as some savage concentrated effort to bring down The Hurt Locker. I mean its rather conspicuous isn’t it, day after day after day.
To answer your question, Pam, yes. People are getting bored. Like I figured, a good number of the categories are all but sealed air-tight, and people are getting antsy.
The race this year is pretty much void of any real suspense, and so people are grasping at straws for some scandal and intrigue.
And yeah, I’m almost a bit embarassed by the LA Times over this past week. I usually just breeze over the articles I don’t want to read, but when I went there this morning, there had to have been like seven or eight pieces by now making one effort or another to discredit Hurt Locker.
It was cute at first, especially since I personally didn’t give a shit about the film (I know, I know, how ignorant of me), but now it’s like I half expect Hammond to thumb his nose at Hurt Locker, then steal its crayons or chocolate milk during free time.
I’d venture to say that the Oscar boost is very relevant to foreign films and documentaries. The Oscars are the only way most people find out about these films.
Ask a moviegoer to name one documentary from 2008. If his answer is not “Man on Wire” I’ll eat my hat.
What brought Pan’s Labyrinth (and as an extension of that, Guillermo del Toro) into the international spotlight? How about Bowling for Columbine (and as an extension of that, Michael Moore)? I’d say that the Oscars give us our list of foreign flicks and docus to see year after year.
I consider A Serious Man to be a comedy.
Certainly a darker one, but still a comedy.
Yeah, A Serious Man is a comedy. No one shed a tear when they heard about his test results. The way the article reads, I doubt he even saw it.
What comedy should have made it? (500) Days of Summer is not very good. The Hangover would have been nice to see, though. It was not in my top ten of the year, but it was closer than a lot of the actual nominees.
I thought Avatar was hilarious, though.
How is Bradley Cooper’s character not redeemable? He clearly loves his wife and kids.
The I-hate-my-life dialogue is an act. Phil is just one of those characters that loves to bitch.
Fitz, he manufactures the cost of field trips to steal money from his students to go to Vegas. That is pretty low.
If aggregating all online talk is anything, it looks like Avatar will win–although I’m pleasantly surprised at how many peeps are talking about The Hurt Locker as well: http://www.spiral16.com/blog/2010/03/avatar-and-hurt-locker-lead-in-online-oscar-traffic-basterds-a-distant-third/
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between online chatter and the winner…we”ll know Sunday.
Serious Man IS a comedy. Coens clearly meant it as one.