Game Over
Devotees of eternal cinematic Movie Godz justice are tonight contemplating the drinking of hemlock, the inhaling of lethal gas and leaping from high cliffs. For Tom Hooper, a highly talented, handsome, intelligent and quite likable fellow who directed a very commendable 1993 film called The King’s Speech, has won the DGA award for feature film directing…and when I heard this news about 80 minutes ago, I folded. My face turned ashen gray and I died a little inside. Because I knew then and there that the Best Picture Oscar race was all but over. The King’s Speech will almost certainly win and The Social Network will lose.
As satisfying and well-wrought as The King’s Speech is in the realm of old-fashioned, emotionally reassuring cinema, this is an Oscar night that will live in infamy. The Academy’s fudge-pudge mentality has prevailed. Hooper’s DGA win echoes the triumph of Crash over Brokeback Mountain, Chicago over The Pianist, Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas, Ordinary People over Raging Bull and How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane. And the Best Picture Oscar wins of Driving Miss Daisy, Around the World in 80 Days and The Greatest Show on Earth.
Comfort, contentment and middle-class Masterpiece Theatre milquetoast values have prevailed. They “liked” The King’s Speech better, so there. Kick me, shoot me, run me over with a double-decker bus.
Early tomorrow morning the henchmen of Soviet Colonel Dimitri Ilyavich Karger will kick my door in and put me on a train to a Siberian gulag, and I’ll go willingly because I know when the jig is up. My spirit is spent. I’m feeling so downhearted I’m wondering if I can even sleep tonight. This is a very deflating moment for those who know the final truth of things vs. those who chose their little comfort blankies. We’ve suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. But there’s no choice but to be fair and gracious and respectful to the film that has won and….no! No! I am John Foster Dulles refusing to shake the hand of Chou En-lai.
A friend feels awful about this. I told her we all have an opportunity to be big about it, to be gracious and deferential…and to remind the world that ONLY IN THE TINY LITTLE CULTURAL POCKET OF THE LOS ANGELES FILM INDUSTRY (and among the even more fragmentary Academy member circles in New York City and London) DOES THIS KIND OF SHIT PLAY IN A PLURALISTIC VOTING-BODY SENSE. History will not look kindly. The under-35 generation will distance itself that much more from this bastion of backward-gazing, old-fart status-quo centrist values. The Social Network has swept the critics groups, is a far, far better film in the minds of the Movie Godz, and it will gleam for decades to come. What happened last night is a ensemble backslide move for the ages.
Lee J. Cobb has swung the jury in favor of guilty, and Henry Fonda is the one slowly walking down the steps in the early-morning light, his head hung in dejection.
I’d add Return of The King beating Master and Commander in 2004 to that list.
Whether or not you feel The Social Network is worthy of all the praise, overrated, whatever, I don’t know how anyone can hear this news and not conclude that the DGA is a bunch of philistines. Most of these people are not artists, theyre craftsmen (at best) earning a living. It enrages me that an organization supposedly made up of people that are theoretically the ones in control of a production’s identity, its integrity, would bestow an award on this nobody over four very talented men, including at least two that many consider visionary.
Fuck this industry. Fuck the DGA, the PGA, the self-loathing WGA, and AMPAS. Let no one talk shit about the critics groups any longer, because they’re the only ones who have a consistent record of good taste.
Jeff:
FWIW, I don’t think the game is over.
But I sure wish I had placed a bet in Vegas on TKS, because it was underdog to TSN right after noms were announced…I am sure that the odds are being corrected to make TKS the favorite as I write this.
Wow. I guess Fincher is the new Scorsese. I kind of saw this coming, as Fincher is a prickly personality and these awards shows are all about schmoozing and popularity contests at the end of the day. Just remember this is the organisation that gave the Best Picture to Oliver! over 2001 A Space Odyssey. It means nothing.
So, let me get this straight… the DGA, which is loaded with TV directors, gave their award to a TV director made good, and you think it means something in the Oscar race?
Props to lazarus above me for a pretty interesting point:
I think “we” all assume that “DGA” or “the Academy” means ARTISTES and we imagine types like Scorsese and Lynch and Malick and Mann, or our favorite madmen actors and actresses, really viewing cinema through exciting, visionary, progressive filmmaking brilliance; But as has been pointed out to me countless times, and what I realize more and more reading Hollywood insider blogs:
The people who actually make movies are oftentimes the very worst judges of their quality, many times barely even seem to LIKE movies anymore… That cynicism and complacency sets in, and they’re just TOO BUSY to even see what’s out there– How many actor or director interviews do we see or hear where they don’t even SEE the current movies because they’re so busy making their own?
So with those madmen otherwise engaged with their own enterprises, or just statistically marginzalized– How many brilliant movie fanatic Academy members with impeccable tastes are there, versus old-ass TV directors and journeymen and craftsmen who’ve been in the guild for 50 years and don’t even LIKE movies anymore?– the voting probably falls largely on the workaday members, who skew older and grumpier and stodgier.
Shit, just working in the furthest flung realm of postproduction, I can assure you that cynical Angelenos over 45 don’t like fucking ANYTHING, hate the whole industry, are all burned out and disillusioned and spend most of their energy waxing nostalgic about “how movies used to be.”
King’s Speech– which I liked fine– is PERFECT for them.
In the last 62 years, 56 DGA winners (=90 %) also won the Oscar…
There needs to be some sort of Contra-Oscars. I know there’s a million awards now but they all come down to politicking. Pretty much any awards for current movies will come down to that, I guess. Because seriously, The King’s Speech was not the best movie to come out in 2010. It was pretty decent ww2/royal/brit-porn but come on.
So here’s my suggestion: we pick the movies ten years after the fact. By that time we have a pretty good idea of their historical import – imagine picking the 1994 Best Picture in 2004 – it wouldn’t be Forrest Gump. In 2009 would American Beauty win a poll as best picture of 1999?
I thought Fincher’s was the most impressive feat but I could also argue for Aronofsky or Nolan or even Boyle over Hooper. It’s almost like the DGA went for the least ambitious, most accessible undertaking.
You’ve got to be joking. Hooper?
Da, it’s over, comrade.
Finally get the chance to catch TSN later today, too. To be honest, though, even if I think it’s good, do you really think it’ll hold up in a few years like ‘Kane did, given the subject-matter? I mean, Avatar got old for most people after *three months*. ‘Course, the same could obviously be said about “How Green Was My Valley” or “American Beauty”….
I keep thinking about the crowd reaction shots intercut with the king’s stammering speech, you know that clip that gets played over and over again at awards shows? Just when you think they can’t get any worse Jacobi appears and pulls a classic. Some kind of internet meme just begging to be created using those shots…
This indeed is starting not to bode well for Fincher’s future with the Academy, I’m very afraid now.
Betting odds have indeed changed in favor of the Kings Speech. On Unibet, right after the nominations were announced, TSN was at 1,75 and KS at 4. Now they’ve changed to 1,6 and 1,7 for TSN and KS respectively.
Everyone here seems to be missing the point. The KIng’s Speech had heart and soul, The Social Network had neither. That’s why critics are critics and not artists. Sleep well, you lumpy people.
I kinda get tired of everyone slagging American Beauty year in and year out. Yes, it doesn’t “hold up” in our collective film geek memory like Insider or Fight Club or Eyes Wide Shut or Three Kings or Matrix or Malkovich or Sixth Sense or whatever other 1999 Wonder you wanna throw at me (hint: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY POWER, INCHES POWER, BOW)…
But it’s basically a fairly strong Oscar winner, relatively speaking. Spacey, Bentley, Birch and Chris Cooper are ALL aces in it, even if the Bening/Gallagher stuff is a bit broad and obvious. Spacey has some throwaway line about wanting to get home to the James Bond marathon that always gets a laugh of recognition from me… The Mendes/Hall compositions are striking….
And, frankly, even among the allegedly exalted MAGICAL YEAR of ’99, if the choice is between watching Spacey ogle jailbait Mena Suvari, or watching Catherine Keener be severe and unpleasant in Being John Malkovich, I’ll take American Beauty any day of the week, plastic bags and all.
Actually, now that I think of it, much as everyone talks up 1999 as THE magical year of contemporary cinema, and much as I loved the movies themselves on opening weekend 11-12 years ago, I haven’t thrown Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, or The Insider into the DVD player since 2000, 2001 at the very latest; Three Kings I watched ONCE in the last decade. Compared to EIGHT HUNDRED times I’ve seen Fight Club. For that reason alone, FINCHER is long, LONG overdue, even if I don’t LOVE TSN as much FC or The Game.
More pressingly ON TOPIC:
TOM HOOPER? Is this really a guy who’s going to be written about in film essays for decades to come? Will there be TOM HOOPER festivals at LACMA and the New Beverly? Robin Wood-style essays on his thematics and socio-political importance?
He’s like the new Hugh Hudson.
I’m still mad. I wasn’t this mad when Rob Marshall won over Scorsese.
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Everyone in the DGA should be strapped down like McDowell in Clockwork Orange and forced to watch Welles, Ozu, Renoir, Ford, Kurosawa, Fellini, Mizoguchi, Lang, Fassbinder, Antonioni, etc. until they finally understand what fucking DIRECTING is, and what is worthy of being designated as the “best” of a given year.
When the WGA picks crap it doesn’t bother me because writers are a bunch of self-loathing losers who are essentially writing blueprints that other people make art from. Not a big deal. Same with SAG. Actors have so many self-esteem/need for attention issues that one can only imagine what goes into their decisions. But the directors? The people who should be above all this stuff? This is what you choose?
Line them up against the wall and put them in boxes. Give DGA memberships to film school kids who actually give a fuck about contributing something meaningful. This is an absolute disgrace. Hollywood should be rioting like Egypt right now.
Directing isn’t just about showing off what you learned at film school or referencing your favourite film-makers. If it was then Aranofsky would be a shoe-in. It’s about controlling performances, tone, mood etc, not your back catalogue of great films. Tom Hooper is as deserving as anyone else based on a judgement of the individual films.
atleast you can admit its just a game. If history has taught us anything, its that Oscar night be done with soon enough, so that these movies can finally just be what they are: beautiful stories and not beauty pagent contestants.
Sometime today I’ll tell a friend or two that loved TKS that it won a major award over TSN, and those people will go, “Yeah, well I loved The King’s Speech!”
It’s a crowd pleaser. Everyone is happy after they have watched King George overcome his stammer (more or less).
I don’t begrudge Hooper. I would rather see Fincher be honoured, but it’s not like he’s someone who is sitting at his laptop waiting for an email to say he’s been nominated for something else. I have a hunch he’d rather be on a film set any day of the week over sitting for a couple hours in a room of insufferable people.
Not so fast
Anthony Harvey for THE LION IN WINTER
Francis Ford Coppola for THE GODFATHER (right?? WTF?)
Steven Speilberg for THE COLOR PURPLE
Ron Howard for APOLLO 13
Ang Lee for CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Rob Marshall for CHICAGO
In Speilberg’s and Howard’s cases, they weren’t even nominated (haters beware – to most of us black folk, The Color Purple holds up…much better than, ahem, “Out of Africa”)
Tom Hooper did a lovely job with his John Adams miniseries, as did he with The King’s Speech. And he will be a lovely addition to this list.
(although watch the snarky and dismissive comments about Fincher and film school – he’s had enough of a varied and inspiring career not to be deduced to that. Shit, Hooper, god love him, obviously never saw a Merchant-Ivory he didn’t love either).
Wow. I guess Fincher is the new Scorsese. I kind of saw this coming, as Fincher is a prickly personality and these awards shows are all about schmoozing and popularity contests at the end of the day. Just remember this is the organisation that gave the Best Picture to Oliver! over 2001 A Space Odyssey. It means nothing.
Honestly, how many people even knew who Tom Hopper was a year ago?
I can understand TKS winning over TSN, but Hooper beating Fincher is the most fucked up thing in the history of the universe.
“I’d add Return of The King beating Master and Commander in 2004 to that list.”
What a random comment.
The oscars and the pre-awards build-up (PGA, DGA, etc.) are just an excuse for industry to mingle and congratulate this or that. People who take the actual awards at all seriously are apt to take themselves too seriously. The directors who were nominated will continue to find work, mostly exceptional work, and will continue to do exceptional work in an industry where work can be exceptionally hard to come by. TKS is a perfect little movie for what it is. TSN is, of course, a classic example of an important film with more to say about it’s particular time and place, but, of Fincher’s films, Zodiac is still his best and most exhaustive work, imo. A masterpiece of suspense, paranoia, lost opportunity, and despair. I don’t think anyone sees Fincher’s career going down the toilet for lack of winning this one, any more than Nolan’s or any other visionary director past or present.
I’d add How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane.
I guess the guilds are the superdelegates, there to check the critics. Sad. I mean I like KING’S SPEECH, I’d give Best Picture to INCEPTION or THE FIGHTER over NETWORK, but I thought at least Fincher had his overdue Oscar in the bag. Hope it still plays out that way, because he’s stuck in fake Sweden with Daniel Craig for the next three years.
Also if Geoffrey Rush wins the SAG Award I’m going on a bender. I keep trying not to care about this stuff.
I keep thinking about the crowd reaction shots intercut with the king’s stammering speech, you know that clip that gets played over and over again at awards shows? Just when you think they can’t get any worse Jacobi appears and pulls a classic. Some kind of internet meme just begging to be created using those shots…
No one made much of Rob Marshall losing the Oscar after his DGA win. In fact, could the Academy have made a more controversial choice than Roman Polanski? Sometimes they get it right. My money is still on Fincher for the win.
I don’t get it. Seriously? Tom Hooper?
I actually think his work on DAMNED UNITED was excellent — that movie is criminally under-seen here in the States. But that movie is directed so, so, SO much more skillfully than TKS.
While I really liked TKS… the direction was NOT its strong suit. (Unless you like fish eye lenses.)
(and Wells: no one can possibly agree with you when you refer to the “Movie Godz”… come on, man!)
Coppola lost to Bob Fosse for Cabaret is a deserving winner. There’s no WTF on that outcome.
On the other hand, Color Purple was a pity vote. That should have gone to Peter Weird for Witness.
being in the room last night for the DGA Awards..I can tell you the audience was stunned over the Hooper win..Kathryn Bigelow (who read the winner) was visibly shocked..one of the other directors (not Fincher) couldn’t contain himself and let out a howl of laughter. Having been to a lot of these award shows this season a bit…I’m sure all of the directors want to win themselves, but get the feeling they don’t mind losing to Fincher…I think they *do mind losing to Hooper considering the direction was the weakest part of King’s Speech.
I’m really really disappointed but what Wells wrote was so right on the money and freaking hilarious it may have been worth it. And I would add Gladiator over Traffic and Braveheart over Apollo 13 to the list.
The AMPAS had a good run. Four years in a row where they did not make an unwise choice for Best Picture. It had to end sometime. Now with Harvey “Oscars Puppetmaster” Weinstein back in the game after being regulated to the sidelines the last few years, it’s back to business as usual.
Nobody will be watching The King’s Speech in 5 years. It will be as irrelevant as Crash or A Beautiful Mind.
The problem is that The King’s Speech is so damn antiquated both in structure and in content. I’ve seen it twice now and it plays well, it’s a fine little movie, but it’ll be a huge mistake when it wins – it’s a flash-in-the-pan, a quick emotional lay, it’ll be one of “those” Academy decisions brought up for decades to come.
Nothing funnier than a bunch of guys on the internet explaining what “directing” is. Priceless.
Now, as for Wells: Take a deep breath and steady yourself, grasp a wall and just tell yourself: “It’s just a stupid award.”
There, you’ll feel better.
People got to remember that all the losers in this race are going to go home to their mansion and their millions in the bank and sleep better than most of us.
If the award shows get it so wrong, so often, why is it considered an honor to win? Is it only when your personal favorite wins that it’s a good thing? As far as being irrelevant, I would think TSN would be at the top of that list. In 10 years, how out of date is a film about facebook going to seem? The other films nominated (in the top 5) are stories that can hold up over time, without feeling dated.
Palmer: may be funny… but keep in mind some of us *do* work in the industry. I, for one, am not sitting in my parents’ basement opining about something I just saw on Netflix.
And while yes, “it’s just a stupid award,” the Oscars are SUPPOSED to mean something — they certainly do to the people who are nominated. If the AMPAS just copped to the fact that it’s all done in the service of Hollywood marketing, we’d all be better off. (Which, yes, is the reason we can’t be too upset when a CRASH slips through and wins — it’s all about money spent in order to make even more money.)
PastePotPete’s idea that we should award Oscars ten years hence is a good one — but would never work for the reason above. Who cares about 10-year-old movies? There’s no money in that.
Am I the only one who is aware of David Fincher’s toxic reputation in Hollywood? Does no one else remember that he *punched* a Paramount exec. over not getting his kudos for Benjamin Button? The guy has a reputation as a monster. Cast from his movies are said to have to be gagged by their agents to prevent them speaking out about what a tinpot he is on sets. No one wanted to reward him for Fight Club or Benjamin Button (also thought to be an Oscar front-runner) or this.
Duh?
I’ll say it again: the Soviet tanks analogy is complete bollocks. Maybe because I’m looking at the firepower on both sides of this battle line.
Sony, Rudin, Fincher, Facebook, best-seller, Sorkin vs Harvey, Hooper, Seidler, M.C.Stammer?
And you’re still positioning TKS as the powerful forces of oppressive evil?
Balderdash as someone in a Sturges movie would say.
You can keep beating this faulty metaphor to death or, as I suggest, find a new one.
I suggest, on the basis of your belief that one is exquisitely crafted, conceptually bold, wonderfully relevant (whatever that means) vs one that is solid, sturdy, familiar, safe, argue that TSN is a shot of Herradura Reposado vs a shot of TKS’s Cuervo gold.
While I sip my wonderful Sammy Hagar-brewed Cabo Wabo of Woody Allen’s brilliant, subversive, disturbing study of tangled webs that strangle their makers and a pure heart that survives through all the chicanery….YWMATDS.
That was also a Sony product in the US, for those keeping track of manufacturer’s labels and regime arsenals. But all the King’s horses….
I`m starting to hate the British. Bad enough this nobody won the DGA now HW has cast Brit actor Henry Cavill as Superman! Every major superhero franchise is now lead by a foreigner! What`s wrong with American actors?
@ryanstewart..Fincher never punched a Benjamin Button executive..that was an internet rumor that was quickly shown to be BS.
What’s wrong with American actors? Well, if the best they could get for Green Hornet was Seth Rogen, then bring on the Brits and Aussies!
@Mr. F: No doubt, I worked in the industry for several years myself and know the ins and outs and also know what it’s like to have your name announced on an awards show. But that being said, there is a large amount of folks in the industry (granted, I retired years ago for more important pursuit) who know these things are just public jerkfests, or maybe the texts I got form the ceremony last night and will tonight mean nothing.
RyanStewart is a liar and an ass.
1. Fincher NEVER punched a Paramount studio executive. The whole thing was over the fact that executive had not greenlit the project earlier, when the CGI technology wasn’t up to par, so Fincher poked him and said “I guess I should thank you for the effects being so good.” Or something to that effect. Fincher was being Fincher, but no one got punched. Ridiculous.
2. The relationship between Fincher and Paramount didn’t deteriorate because Fincher didn’t recieve accolades. It deteriorated because Paramount wanted Fincher to cut the running time of Benjamin Button and he refused. The studio retaliated by refusing to make any more of his films: ie HEAVY METAL and TORSO.
3. Benjamin Button was never the frontrunner for Best Pic. Way to rewrite history there. Was Fight Club ever even considered?
4. You’re crazy if you think no actor wants to work with him.
I guess I now know how Harvey Weinstein got the PGA and DGA to vote against Fincher.
Do you think Zuckerberg’s demonstration of a sense of humor and a pleasant personality on SNL last night will make any difference?
One of my concerns was that no Best Picture winner has ever had a really unlikeable lead character. Will real life merge with biopic life and dispel some of that unlikability?
I’m probably guilty of way over thinking it.
It is still so hard to believe that “The King’s Speech” has a lock on best picture. How can they drive right by “The Social Network” which Stephen Holden of the New York Times called “a once in a generation movie.?” David Denby of The New Yorker called it revolutionary and “absolutely emblematic of its time and place.” Rolling Stone’s review called it an American landmark.
Tom Hooper seems like a good guy and I’ve heard him explain how his mother discovered his next film as an obscure play.But “The Social Network” seems a much bigger challenge and so much more of an achievement by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin.I hope some readers caught Jesse Eisenberg’s surprise guest Saturday on SNL who at least called the film “Interesting”.
“But “The Social Network” seems a much bigger challenge ”
Challenge? The dialogue carried the movie, not the direction. Any TV commercial director could have done a fine job with that script and those actors.
“One of my concerns was that no Best Picture winner has ever had a really unlikeable lead character.”
No offense but have you ever watched a movie? That sounds like something you read.
David Fincher forgot to include one important thing in TSN– a protagonist. Yes, it was a big movie, and an important one, but afterward, who really cared about those people?
This lack of a protagonist is why TSN will not win Best Picture. And the beautifully acted protagonist of TKS is why it will win. That film will ride Colin Firth’s coattails for a lot of awards on Oscar night.
Also Henry Cavill as Supes is fine, especially since it means he’ll never be Bond, which clears the way for Fassbender.
I say if “The King’s Speech” wins Best Picture we burn down every theater playing it, as well as the British Embassy in Washington D.C.
I hear a lot of you people joking around about this. Have you no idea how SERIOUS this is?!
Don’t you see what might happen?! “The Social Network”, clearly one of the greatest works of art in the history of humankind, just might lose the coveted Academy Award to “The King’s Speech”, one of the worst piles of shit ever created?
This will destroy the economy, cause further widespread unemployment, bring about mass starvation and disease in the Third World and quite possibly be the spark that ignites World War Three!!!!
Sleep tight, those who prefer one to the other.
“No offense but have you ever watched a movie? That sounds like something you read. ”
No I went back through all the best picture winners, most of which I’ve seen (except for a few of the very early ones). Some of them had unlikable characters but not in lead roles. The only film I’m not sure of is The Lost Weekend – It’s been so long, I cannot remember how it ended.
You’re so smart, prove me wrong.
@Actionlover
Finally someone has spelled out the importance of this battle.
Wells’ problem now is that he’s already declared Academy voters younger and hipper than in the past so if TKS wins he cannot blame those old stodgy bastards.
They’re both fine films. Thank God they both got made and we were able to enjoy them (and all the other movies we got to see this year!)
corey 3rd…
Pity vote my ass.
I love Cabaret…and it’s still a WHAT THE FUCK moment. I show it in my class (Cabaret) and it’s a matter of taste, but I much more moved by The Godfather.
And the supposed masses (mostly white, be honest) fanboys who detest The Color Purple …well that film elicits a love it or hate it reaction…which means at least it has the stuff to HAVE such a reaction…unlike the calm and tepid “The King’s Speech.”
Here’s why I find this TKS vs TSN “outrage” so laughable.
Is TSN eight times better than “The Searchers?”
It has eight times as many Oscar noms.
Was “Tom Jones” the best film of the year instead of “8 1/2?”
You know which won and which could only be nommed in the foreign lingo section.
Is the screenplay for “Divorce Italian Style” better than the screenplay for “Last Year at Marienbad?”
Yep, former is the Oscar winner over the latter.
Is “True Grit” five times the Western that is “The WIld Bunch?”
Ten noms to two…
Same as it ever was.
Foreign films and docs can’t compete.
Edgy, demanding films that aren’t big money spinners often change the history of cinema but rarefly get nominated.
Same as it ever was.
It’s like fighting about Dukakis vs Bush.
Were they really the BEST two candidates to lead America?
Or were they the two that made it through the hall of secret handshakes and the kissing of the rings of the boys in the backroom that leads to the funding of their campaigns?
Start the dialogue here about the wonderful films of 2010 that never figured in the marketing plans of the Contentioni and prove the REAL independence of the Consensi.
If you want to wail and rail about QUALITY MUST PREVAIL,then nail those reviews of all of the Far From Contention wonderful foreign language films, the busted theatricals, the true indies, the docs that illuminated, to the door of the Studio-funded Church of Awards Season and stop this silliness about Soviet tanks.
Fyi, Harvey, Aaron, David, Scott, et al all drive Porsches and Mercedes and none of them are equipped for off-road use.
I’m still pulling for True Grit for the upset….call me naive.
It would be awesome if this led to a voting split between TKS and TSN, allowing a dark horse to sneak in and claim victory from out of nowhere. Remember, its possible that a film can win with only 11% of the votes.
And all the Oscar pundits and bloggers crying outrage secretly LOVE this. It adds real drama to the actual ceremony – right up until the final envelope gets opened, all bets are off. Who wants to sit through that three hour crapfest when its a foregone conclusion? We want to see those fuckers sweating it out till the bitter end.
Color Purple is a painfully lame film. Spielberg was 0-4 at the DGAs at that point. He racked up a lot of votes from people guilty that they couldn’t give it to him for blockbuster flicks.
Painfully lame to whom? You? Right.
It doesn’t look like this Director’s Guild group feel guilty about anything they do. There are people who feel differently than you do about TCP, corey3rd. I agree to disagree with you…
…but Spielberg still won.
Let’s see what happens at the SAG awards, supposedly the biggest branch out there.
American Beauty is basically Stripes. Spacey is the wacky irreverent guy who changes everybody around by throwing arch smartass one-liners in their direction. One-dimensional characters (the mom, I mean wife, listens to 50s show tunes and that’s supposed to be 1998 or whatever?) and the exact same ending as way too many Dreamworks pictures of that time, including Gladiator and even In Dreams, that Neil Jordan horror movie thing– the character dies (frowny face) but has a vision of heaven that involves being reunited with family (smiley face!)
How can they drive right by “The Social Network” which Stephen Holden of the New York Times called “a once in a generation movie.?” David Denby of The New Yorker called it revolutionary and “absolutely emblematic of its time and place.” Rolling Stone’s review called it an American landmark.
Yeah, there’s one of those every year.
I didn’t like TKS, but I hated the camerawork in the movie. I also thought it was the dullest visually out of the films chosen.
I dont have sympathy for Fincher, because I wanted Nolan to win, but I’m surprised they didn’t go wiht him.
I also agree, The Damned United was a much better movie than The King’s Speech. More entertaining, and Timothy Spall isn’t an out of place caricature.
“one of the other directors (not Fincher) couldn’t contain himself and let out a howl of laughter.”
I bet it was Aronofsky.
^ If it was actually one of the competing directors, I bet it was Darren, too.
“I can understand TKS winning over TSN, but Hooper beating Fincher is the most fucked up thing in the history of the universe. ”
EXACTLY how I feel.
“It would be awesome if this led to a voting split between TKS and TSN, allowing a dark horse to sneak in and claim victory from out of nowhere.”
Yes, but which film? I’m sorry, but I am not seeing it (which obviously doesn’t mean it’s impossible). Someone mentioned True Grit, but I’d definitely rule that out. Has a remake ever won before? I would think that would make some people hesitant to cast their vote its way; plus the Coen brothers already had a film that won only three years ago.
The Departed won. Ben Hur too. If you don’t count Ben Hur as a remake, then True Grit isn’t one either.
I do think it can win. My idealistic mind still hopes for Inception
Ahhh, Departed. But of course.
I would definitely argue that it just got swept along on the (somewhat embarrassing) Scorsese love fest that year. Would it have even been nominated if it was directed by anyone else?
But still, you’re correct. It’s happened before, and it’s happened recently. There is a precedent.
American Beauty is basically Stripes. Spacey is the wacky irreverent guy who changes everybody around by throwing arch smartass one-liners in their direction. One-dimensional characters (the mom, I mean wife, listens to 50s show tunes and that’s supposed to be 1998 or whatever?) and the exact same ending as way too many Dreamworks pictures of that time, including Gladiator and even In Dreams, that Neil Jordan horror movie thing– the character dies (frowny face) but has a vision of heaven that involves being reunited with family (smiley face!)
How can they drive right by “The Social Network” which Stephen Holden of the New York Times called “a once in a generation movie.?” David Denby of The New Yorker called it revolutionary and “absolutely emblematic of its time and place.” Rolling Stone’s review called it an American landmark.
Yeah, there’s one of those every year.
Also Oliver!
True Grit ought to at a minimum get Deakins his trophy.
Both are good movies. THE KING’S SPEECH is deeply moving. THE SOCIAL NETWORK is (suitably) cool and caustic. That helps explain why one may vanquish the other. But in the end they both remain good movies.
Let’s have some perspective. These are not the Nobel Peace prizes we are discussing here. And Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize.
This will only confirm for me that the Golden Globes have better taste than the Oscars if THE KING’S SPEECH snatches the Best Picture award.
Two points:
1) Tom Hooper is, and will always be, a TV director.
2) re: Lex’s point about 1999 movies… “I haven’t thrown Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, or The Insider into the DVD player since 2000, 2001 at the very latest.” Dude, I watch The Insider every fucking year, and it’s just as tense as it was when it first came out. Being John Malkovich represents the best representation of Charlie Kaufman’s Id yet, and I haven’t seen anything funnier or more inventive than the chase through Malko’s subconscious since. And Magnolia is uneven and a little ridiculous, but there are so many pleasures in that film rewarded by repeat viewings that I feel like you’d have to be a putz to not watch even BY ACCIDENT two or three more times.
Much love to Any Given Sunday, though. I have the Peace And Inches speech memorized verbatim.
“Has a remake ever won before?”
All the time. Ben-Hur, The Return of the King, Chicago, Oliver!, Marty, etc….
“Has a remake ever won before?”
All the time. Ben-Hur, The Return of the King, Chicago, Oliver!, Marty, etc….
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