Oscars

Visual Effects, Makeup and Art Direction are the categories in which "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" managed to earn the infamous trophy. I had very much wished for David Fincher to win Best Director and for the movie to take home the Best Picture prize... but it seems Danny Boyle made the winning flick this season.

Since I could not yet watch "Slumdog Millionaire" (or "Milk" or "Doubt" or "The Wrestler"), I have very little to say about the Academy's decisions. But from all I have heared and from Danny Boyle's previous films, I'd say it's a safe bet that the film deserves its recognition.

How do you agree or disagree with the award winners?

Here's the complete list of winners:
http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2009/oscars

16 comments:

  1. Fincher was robbed. Slumdog is one of the most overrated films ive ever seen. This years oscars should have been split between Dark Knight and B Button.

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  2. What a relief!

    Not that I think that SM is a better movie but every frame of CCOBB screamed for an Oscar. That was too much. I'm glad the voters didn't buy it. And don't misunderstand me : I love Fincher. But Zodiac was THE movie that deserved an Oscar, not this one.

    And by the way, Fincher shouldn't be disappointed he left with distinctionse for the art direction and sfx, which are unfortunately what CCOBB is all about.

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  3. Button is technical masterpiece so the awards are well deserved. I was hoping for some miracle to happen but this is unfortunately Boyle's year at the Oscars. I agree with Stephen, that Slumdog is a little overrated. I apreciate it for its cinematography and editing. Other than that, Boyle's tricks didn't work on me.

    We should be happy that the Academy finally recognized a Fincher film! I think that his Best Director Oscar is inevitable :) We just have to wait some more.

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  4. I'm glad Slumdog won cause now we can start forgetting that movie and people can start discovering Ben Button on it's own terms. If it had won the Oscar people would forever react to it the way Gould has.

    Ben Button is a kind of a Rorschach's test and what you bring to the movie really shapes what you get out of it. The movie isn't structured to pull out of you it's structure to invite you to pour into it. One has be willing to go along on the kind of journey in order to enjoy it. If you are told you're going to see the greatest movie ever made the likely reaction is going to be "where's the beef?" And when you tell them you're the beef they say fuck that movie.

    Fincher once said that he realized that he didn't make movies for premire night but for the day when people could forget him, forget the actors in the movie and just come to the story with an open mind. With the oscar hangging over it's head and with the kind of movie Ben Button is, the oscar would only help to continue to inviting "where's the beef" resentment.

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  5. Fincher will be back. Rendezvous with Rama - first Science Fiction film to take home Best Picture and Best Director in 2015!

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  6. Folks, the academy gets it right about half of the time, wrong about 25% of the time, and dreadfully wrong 25% of the time.

    Zodiac was the best picture of 2007. The academy not nominating it at all for this honor was the academy getting it dreadfully wrong.

    Button was the best picture of 2008. At least it was nominated! Incremental progress! Slumdog was a very strong film as well -- I actually thought Boyle deserved best director, Button deserved best film. So.. a case of the academy getting it just slightly wrong.

    Fincher is one of our best, if not our best, directors, and he'll get his due from the Academy in good time. For the time being, true movie lovers should enjoy his remarkable imagination, talents, and energy. Heavy Metal will probably not get a nod for best pic, but will likely be a superbly entertaining film.

    DW

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  7. where can we find photos of Fincher during this night?

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  8. The Great Gatsby had a hard time of it with critics too. But, in the end, it is a satisfying film. And so that will be the overall verdict for Benjamin Button. I just wrote a piece about Benjamin Button. Feel free to take a look at it at Newsarama.

    I was very moved by Benjamin Button and I came away feeling that I'd seen something very special, a classic. Oscar or no Oscar. With that in mind, I did like the new layout and complete overhaul of the Oscars. It is wonderful how they had past Oscar winners acknowledge all the nominees and celebrate the recognition that comes with being nominated.

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  9. 20 years from now CCBB will be more fondly remembered than Slumdog. I guarantee it.

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  10. I'll hold you to it, Clairvoyance.

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  11. Muy injusto especialmente el oscar al mejor director que debía ser para Fincher. Fincher is the best director. Vale, no se hablar inglés (sorry) pero el oscar al mejor director me parece el menos merecido para slumdog (y mira que hay unos cuantos...) Fincher demuestra también ser clásico, perfecto (como siempre), cuidadoso y de un gran talento para rodar una pelicula tan ambiciosa. Y aun así no deja de ser Fincher

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  12. sounds about right!

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  13. I have a raging erection.

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  14. It could've just been my biased imagination but I could've sworn Fincher got the hugest applause out of all the Best Director nominees. Maybe that goes to show everyone in attendance knows he's a living legend whose work transcends silly award ceremonies.

    Also, I saw Slumdog again just to see if my initial underwhlemed assessment was correct. If anything I probably disliked it even more. The only parts that live up to the ridiculous hype for me are when the brother characters suffer terrible hardship as kids, but even then it's just a watered down City of God. All the stuff with the game show, and all the stuff involving the title character's obsession with getting the chick, just aren't becoming of the type of film that has the runaway momentum to sweep every award ceremony in existence. Those two things are intrinsically linked too because the kid was only on the show to get her attention in the first place. And it seemed like a really lazy narrative device for everything that happened in the kid's life to coincide with the game show questions just because "it is written." Yech.

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  15. I love Fincher but there's something about CCOBB that oozed prestige and polis and a kind of self-righteous expectation of Oscar glory that makes me glad it when to Slumdog. Here's the paradox: Zodiac didn't try to be profound but was, CCOBB tried DESPERATELY to be profound but came off trite and bloated. Danny Boyle will never be the formal perfectionist Fincher is but Boyle is just as a great a film maker for almost opposite reasons - he doens't want complete control over his work but invites the madness of reality to invade his frame and his stories which gives his films a free, exuberant quality all of their own (especially trainspotting and slumdog).

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  16. Salman Rushdie slams Slumdog:

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.72d8443178d81efb91dfe7eed836b682.6c1&show_article=1

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