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13 Nominations to Rule Them All 571

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-isn't-that-special dept.
PatSmarty was among the onslaught of people who noted that the Oscar Nominations have been announced and that FotR has 13 of them. Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge also in there too.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

13 Nominations to Rule Them All More

13 Nominations to Rule Them All

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  • Awesome (Score:5, Funny)

    by sllort ( 442574 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:17PM (#2994386) Homepage Journal
    I always stay on top of Slashdot so that not a single Oscar nomination passes me by. Does anyone know how Snow Dogs is doing in the Oscar race?

    --
    You're Reading Managed Agreement [slashdot.org]

  • karma whore (Score:4, Informative)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:20PM (#2994403) Homepage Journal
    Not a wholly informative hyperlink that. See the full list, here [guardian.co.uk]
  • On one hand, I really want FOTR to do well, but on the other, I'm afraid that the success of FOTR will change the editing/special effects process of TT and ROTK...

    Still, it's a wonderful day indeed when *anything* by Tokein is nominated for an Academy Award.
    • It will be just idiotic if Ian McKellan doesn't win the best supporting actor award.

      Of course, I think he had enough screen time to qualify for best actor, but they'd never nominate an elderly British actor that most people have never heard of. Have to think of the ratings.
    • > Still, it's a wonderful day indeed when *anything*
      > by Tokein is nominated for an Academy Award.

      The day would be more wonderful if Tolkien was getting credit instead of the plagarist Tokien

    • Re:A Fine Day in Geek History (Score:4, Funny)

      by Fourier ( 60719 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @01:45PM (#2995035) Journal
      Yeah, I think we all want FOTR to do well. I feel the same way about ABM, although RH's vision may differ substantially from what SN had in mind. IIRC, GL overcame similar obstacles in TPM...
      </sarcasm>

      Dude, I'm sure your post was really insightful and all. It's just that I am not sure how to read it. :-)
  • Cases in point: "I am Sam" and "A Beautiful Mind". I would have included "Moulin Rouge" but Kidman's character didn't last that long.
    • Forrest Gump
      Rain Man

      the list goes on and on

      Im sorry but it doesnt take a genuis TO ACT RETARDED

    • Re:why are mental illnesses considered oscar worth (Score:5, Funny)

      by b0r0din ( 304712 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:27PM (#2994462)
      In Sean Penn's case, he wasn't even acting.

    • Re:why are mental illnesses considered oscar worth (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jgerman ( 106518 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:35PM (#2994527)
      Come on, taking on the role of a mentally-retarded person has been the cheesy cliche thing to do for years in Hollywood. Actors pray for that role because it ALWAYS seems to bring critical acclaim. "A Beatiful Mind" I can deal with, even if it is sensationalized, at least it's about a real mathematician.
    • IAAA (I am an actor), and I can tell you from experience that playing a character with a mental illness is a very challenging role to pull off convincingly. It is not just about "acting retarded" as another reply to this post stated, but rather it is about trying to understand a mental state that you have never experienced directly and then being able to convincingly portray it to an audience in such a way that they can really believe the character is real. I haven't yet had the chance to see "I am Sam" or "A Beautiful Mind" yet, but I don't doubt for a minute that Sean Penn and Russell Crowe deserve their nominations.
      • "I Am Sam" is embarassingly bad... it's a desperate plea for an Oscar that has inexplicably been heeded. Heaven help us if he wins because we can expect a boatload of crappy "I Am Retarded" flicks from aspiring "Actors" within a year.

      • Re:why are mental illnesses considered oscar worth (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @01:02PM (#2994723) Journal
        This review of "I am Sam" questions whether it is ethical to roll your eyes, laugh in a childlike way, slur your speech and call it a performance? [washingtonpost.com]. Another review notes that , the performance - showy and contrived - is all too obviously meant to get Oscar's attention. [washingtonpost.com]

        I have avoided the film.

      • I would agree with Wateshay in that playing someone handicapped - even someone who is temporarily handicapped (by drunkeness say) is a difficult thing to do. You have to maintain consistency throughout AND (in the case of drunkeness of some mental afflictions where the sufferer would be considered "High Function") you have to play it as though you were trying to be "normal"/sober. Don't real life drunks spend most of their time trying to show how undrunk/sober they are? A badly acted drunk ignores that human tendancy and falls down and loudly hiccups alot. An individual human with some social awareness will try to minimize their differences (usually - unless they are an COBOL coder ;-) this ongoing attempt is what the actor has to capture.

        IMO Dustin Hoffman did not do this (as the character did not call for it) in "Rainman" as the character was not afflicted with a condition that would/could allow him to care how he was percieved by others. He did have to be meticulously consistent throughout though, which I thought he did - though whether that merits an Oscar is another question.

        For an interesting take on a handicapped person who is definitely "not nice" check out "Proof" from 1991. Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from "The Matrix") plays a blind person who believes that no one is telling him the truth, he tries to document this belief with photographs. Russel Crowe plays a friend in one of his early film appearances. Hit the imdb for more info. ( www.imdb.com generally or specifically (for "Proof")):

        http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102721 )

        All that being said - Hollywood will continue to crank out manipulative junk because we will go and see it. The Oscars are set up to advertise the manipulative junk that Hollywood produces. No one wants to see movies about normal people in normal situations - so it should be no surprise that this sort of thing is getting and will continue to get nominations.

        In this light I am more impressed by an actor who is willing to switch from Hero to Villain rather than "normal" to "non-normal"(Ben Kingsley from Ghandi to his role in "Sexy Beast" which incidentally has gotten him an Oscar nomination - though I have to agree that it is not a "normal" person he is playing!)

        Some actors either refuse to play a villain, or their agents won't allow it (or they never get a good villain script... I'd like to see Tom Hanks play a villain, but I doubt that the "star machine" will let him now. If Ronald Regean had played the right villain (and done it well) he might never have made it to the oval office.

        For an interesting take on the whole "Oscar" thing dig up a copy of Danny Peary's book "The Alternate Oscars" which details year by year from 1927 to 1992 or so (and is blessed somewhat with hindsight) the award winners and what didn't win or didn't even get nominated and should have (IHO). He manages to remove much of the hype and politics of the day (substituting his own of course - but still a fresh and interesting view). The book is OOP, but a good library can get you a copy on interlibrary loan.

        In the end though the only Oscars really worth checking out are what I think of as the "foundation" ones for Cinematography, and best adapted, and original screenplays. Without those things every Oscar that follows would be much much more difficult. Those awards also tend to have a bit less hype, and thus a bit less political crap, attached to them.

      • Yes in the sense of no (Score:3, Insightful)

        by epepke ( 462220 )

        IANAA, but both my parents were. I did, however, work in a mental hospital.

        It's absolutely true that it is extremely difficult to play a mentally ill person. However, it does not therefore follow that actors who do a bad job of it automatically deserve awards. Writing an operating system is hard, too, but that doesn't mean XP is good.

        The only reasonably accurate portrayal of the behavior of psychotics I have ever seen on film was Ophelia in Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet. The character in Pi didn't act like a psychotic, but the film did evoke a reasonable image of mania.

        Patch Adams was probably the worst offender in this regard. Absolutely none of the characters were even remotely right, with the possible exception of the catatonic guy in the wheelchair. Crazy People did get the concept of schizophrenic insight (which is real and very common), but that was in the writing, not the acting.

    • (nominated for best foreign language picture)

      Elling is about a guy from an asylum who has just moved into his own apartement.

  • Moulin Rouge (Score:5, Funny)

    by OctavianMH ( 61823 ) <matthewhensrud&gmail,com> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:21PM (#2994415)
    It's wonderful of course that LOTR has so many nods, but it was expected.. What I wasn't expecting is how many nominations Moulin Rouge received. I personally find that fantastic. It's definitely a love/hate movie, but dude, few movies achieve its level of artistry.

    Though, I think A Beautiful Mind should have gotten an effects nomination, since it takes damn near wizardry to make *math* look cool.

    • A suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mckwant ( 65143 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:38PM (#2994560)
      Personally, I can't stand most Hollywood films, so I haven't seen A Beautiful Mind, but you might check out Pi, another film that makes math look cool. The direction is aggressive and extremely indie, but it's worth checking out.
    • I can't quite understand why it didn't get nominated for any musical categories. Basically anything that Baz had to do with, didn't get nominated. How does a movie get nominated for Best Picture, but not for direction?

    • I have two minds about Moulin Rouge. On the one hand, there is no doubt it was a beutiful movie and I personally enjoy musicals. I would like to see more of them made.

      On the other hand, there's just no getting around one fact: The movie's plot totally sucked! I guess there was sort of a story, but it was so simplistic you probably sum it up in one sentence.

      Like I said, I really like musicals, but let's get back to actually having GOOD MOVIES that happen to be musicals.

      For this reason, I'm glad it's getting an award because it will encourage them to make more, but it's really not deserving (except maybe costumes, music, etc).

      • Like I said, I really like musicals, but let's get back to actually having GOOD MOVIES that happen to be musicals.

        If you haven't already, you might consider giving Hedwig and the Angry Inch [imdb.com] a try. Great musical, great movie, in my opinion.

      • Re:Moulin Rouge (Score:4, Funny)

        by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @02:27PM (#2995312)
        I guess there was sort of a story, but it was so simplistic you probably sum it up in one sentence.

        The same can be said of most musicals.

        The Sound of Music: A flighty nun becomes a caretaker for a rich Austrian family who decides to leave the country when Hitler takes over.

        West Side Story: A ballet-dancing street thug falls in love with a girl who's brother is in a rival gang.

        Jesus Christ Superstar: The Gospel according to Judas.

        The Music Man: A con artist pretending to be a music teacher sell instruments in a small Iowa town and falls in love with the local librarian.

        Cats: A bunch of faggots jump around in furry costumes while singing lame rock-opera adaptations of poems that T.S. Elliot wrote to amuse small children.

    • Re:Moulin Rouge (Score:3, Informative)

      by Coolfish ( 69926 )
      I don't know how Beautiful Mind got past Nash and or the biographer, as it is riddled with falsehoods and mistruths. It neglects the fact that Nash was gay, that he had a child with a different woman who he neglected because she wasn't of the right class, etc. etc. Nash was a much more complicated person than the movie showed, not to mention he had far more accomplishments than just Nash's Equilibrium (which he did not think up the way that it was portrayed in the movie, btw. Nash wasn't interested in girls at all, even his eventual wife he married just because of the whole anti-homosexual movement back then).

      Also, the whole "i'm a top secret army guy finding out the germans and their bomb thing" was bs, he believed he was in contact with aliens, not tracking german nukes in America.

      Read the book, it's far more interesting and goes into details Hollywood would never touch.
      • Indeed. I just got finished with the actual biography. I got into a conversation with a co-worker yesterday. I started listing scnes from the movie that were blatently wrong.

        1) The scene with him giving the baby a bath. The truth is that Nash actively avoided both sons that he had. He was in in a mental institution when his wife gave birth, and left for Europe shortly after that.

        2) Nash's acceptance speech for his Nobel prize. The truth was that he was divorced at the time.

        3) His roommate. The truth was that Nash never seemed to suffer from visual halucienation.

        4) The Nazi bomb idea.

        5) Nash teaching today. Apparently he is in residence at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, but only teaches an occasional seminar.

        6) Nash's work for the Department of Defense. Nash worked for RAND for a while as a researcher, but was apparently more involved in pure mathematical research and game theory than active code-breaking.

        7) Princeton. The truth is that Nash did quite a bit of work at MIT, but the movie leads you to believe that Princeton was the only place he ever did anything.

        8) Nash's recovery. The movie would have you believe that it was entirely Nash repressing the illness. In truth, it would seem that Nash has actually been in remission. As he says it, it seems like the volume of the ideas have been turned down, allowing him to concentrate on reality instead.

        9) His idea for his equilibrium theory. Nash has stated that the idea came from thinking about nations trying to acheive what they want, not from a hot chick in a bar.

        10) The scene with the pens in the faculty louge. Nothing ever happened like that.

        I did not like the movie, both as a math/psych student and as a movie buff. Crowe definitely deserves for Best Actor, but little other than that.

    • Re:Moulin Rouge (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Moonshadow ( 84117 )
      Though, I think A Beautiful Mind should have gotten an effects nomination, since it takes damn near wizardry to make *math* look cool.

      Good Will Hunting, anyone?

  • But how many will FotR win? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PowerTroll 5000 ( 524563 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:22PM (#2994419)
    In 1982, E.T. was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, but it won just one, for Best Visual Effects [infoplease.com].

    Being nominated is fine and such, but the real test will be on oscar night.
    • Remember that the Academy hates any kind of Genre film, be it Western, Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi, or Fantasy.

      If FOTR does win *any* non-technical awards, it will be an AMAZING acheivement.
      • Remember that the Academy hates any kind of Genre film, be it Western, Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi, or Fantasy.

        Westerns like "Unforgiven" and "Dances With Wolves"?

        Crime films like "The French Connection", "The Godfather", and "The Godfather, Part II"?

        Horror films like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Shakespear in Love"?

        Okay, you might have a point about sci-fi and fantasy (although "Gladiator" and "Ben-Hur" could loosely be called fantasy movies... well, gay fantasies, anyway).

        Then again, even as somebody who really likes science fiction, I can't really think of a sci-fi movie that should have won a Best Picture Oscar. I guess you could make the case that "2001: A Space Odyssey" should have beat out "Oliver!" in 1968, but your opinion would probably be in the minority there.

    • Being nominated is fine and such, but the real test will be on oscar night.

      What ever happened to "It's an honor just to be nominated"?
    • The reason why E.T.: The Extraterrestrial didn't win the Best Movie Oscar was the fact late in 1982 a movie came out that did match the type of movie AMPAS members really like: Gandhi.

      Gandhi was both an epic and socially-conscious movie (both of which AMPAS members really like), and Ben Kingsley's performance as Mahatma Gandhi was really good (he definitely looked the part).

      Also, the total overkill of marketing for E.T. really turned off too many AMPAS members, too.

    • In 1982, E.T. was nominated for 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, but it won just one, for Best Visual
      Effects



      And just how many of those special visual effects will be obliterated by new effects in the upcoming twentieth aniversary rerelease? (Spielberg has already turned rifles into walkie talkies).

  • The 13. (Score:5, Informative)

    by spt ( 557979 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:24PM (#2994438)
    1. Best Picture
    2. Supporting Actor (Ian McKellen)
    3. Director (Peter Jackson)
    4. Screenplay
    5. Art Direction
    6. Cinematography
    7. Sound
    8. Original Score
    9. Original Song
    10. Costume
    11. Film Editing
    12. Makeup
    13. Visual Effects


    To avoid the new lamesness filter, I need to increase the average length of my lines ... please ignore the following.
    Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
    Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
    Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
    Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
    • Just a note, that's "adapted screenplay" not "original screenplay."

    • My predictions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BJH ( 11355 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:59PM (#2994709)
      Of those, I reckon it'll go like this:

      1. Best Picture - No way. The Academy is a bunch of rich old farts that wouldn't know high fantasy if it leaped up and bit them in their collective white asses. It'll go to "A Beautiful Mind", because the Academy loves actors portraying mentally ill people.
      2. Supporting Actor - McKellen takes it. Ben Kingsley's already got his Oscar (IIRC, for Gandhi), and c'mon, not even the Academy would be so twisted as to give it to Jon Voight.
      3. Director - Toss up. Since Jackson's a semi-unknown who isn't American, they'll either give it to him by a landslide or ignore him totally. I reckon it'll go to Jackson, though.
      4. Screenplay - They'll say "No originality in LoTR" or something and give it to A Beautiful Mind.
      5. Art direction - Moulin Rouge. Deserves it, too.
      6. Cinematography - A nice safe category that no-one gives a fuck about, so it'll go to LoTR.
      7. Sound - Who cares? But it'll probably go to Pearl Harbor or other such dreck.
      8. Original score - God knows, but I sure hope it ain't A.I.
      9. Pearl Harbor or Vanilla Sky.
      10. Costume - Moulin Rouge, again deservedly.
      11. Film editing - Black Hawk Down, because it's Ridley Scott, and we can't be unpatriotic or anything, can we? Fuck Ridley Scott.
      12. Makeup - LoTR, definitely, just for the Uruk-Hai.
      13. Visual effects - LoTR, again because no-one cares about this category.

      • Screenplay - They'll say "No originality in LoTR" or something and give it to A Beautiful Mind.

        Sure it's not original - it's an adapted screenplay. It was one of the most difficult adaptations of a book to movie form ever done and it was handled superbly. It is better than most people who love the book dared to hope.

  • Proof Americans Can't Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lysander Luddite ( 64349 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:25PM (#2994443)
    What percentage of these films were released in the past 3-4 months? What percentage in the first 3-4 months?

    "Besides Crowe, who stars as Nash in ``A Beautiful Mind,'' the best actor nominees were Sean Penn as a retarded father seeking custody of his daughter in ``I Am Sam''; Will Smith as boxer Muhammad Ali in ``Ali''; Denzel Washington as a rakish bad cop in ``Training Day''; and Tom Wilkinson as a vigilante father in ``In the Bedroom.''

    A Beautiful Mind: released 13 December 2001
    I am Sam: released: 28 December 2001
    Ali: released 25 December 2001
    Training Day: released 5 October 2001
    In the Bedroom: released 19 January 2001
    Moulin Rouge: released 16 May 2001

    Proof that Americans can't remember what happened in the entertainment industry for very long.

    • Proof that Americans can't remember what happened in the entertainment industry for very long.

      Or proof that most of the good movies are released at the end of the year on purpose...

      • That's subjective. I would argue that there were many films just as good, if not better, released in Spring and Summer.

        Take a look at IMDB's top 250 movies of all time. [http://us.imdb.com/top_250_films]. Look how many in the top 20 were made in the past 20 years. Only 5 were made before 1970.

        Nope, Americans have no memory when it comes to film.
        • And you would say that list is only American because???? Are there some kind of access control on which country you can vote from? Nobody from anywhere else in the entire world has ever voted on the IMDB? So you last line should really read:

          "Nope, No one has a memory when it comes to film"

          What I find more interesting is, how much of a percentage does the non-US films make up of the top 250 films.... it's like what 5% total?

    • Re:Proof Americans Can't Remember (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:32PM (#2994497) Journal
      Mediocre films are released early in the year, because it's easier to get the "BEST FILM OF THE YEAR" accolades.

    • Re:Proof Americans Can't Remember (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:33PM (#2994515) Homepage

      Wrong. What it's really proof of is that it's now standard practice for anyone who has a hope of getting an Oscar to release their movie late in the year. It's well known that Hollywood has a strong tendency to release specific types of movies at particular times. Big action adventure movies are most frequently released in the summer, family movies are frequently released between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and movies that are considered to be serious Oscar contenders are also generally released late in the year. Now that may be because the people who schedule things believe that the voters have short memories, but the release pattern has a lot to do with it.

    • Movie studios hold the releases of all of their "Oscar hopefuls" till late December releases. So it's no surprise that most of the movies that get nominated were released in the last month or two of the year.

      (By the way, the dates you mentioned *must* be wrong or some of them wouldn't be eligible for Oscars. There must be some sort of release before Jan. 1 for them to be eligible.)
    • What percentage of these films were released in the past 3-4 months?

      What percentage of these films *still haven't been released* in some places?

      I'm (in the UK) still waiting to see A Beautiful Mind.

    • Re:Proof Americans Can't Remember (Score:4, Informative)

      by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:51PM (#2994661) Homepage Journal
      Proof that the movie industry times releases of movies they think have a shot very close to the the Oscars. Might be nice if the independents had the money to sit on top of a movie for half a year. Crouching Tiger was delayed by the MPAA because they wanted it dubbed for US release hopeing that would break it's production house. Their plan backfired, pushing Crouching Tiger's release to the eve of the Oscars. Sony, while being part of the MPAA, is an asian company and pushed Crouching Tiger into theaters despite the MPAA's protests. We won by getting to see CTHD unaltered and CTHD won at the Oscars.

      I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco. The theater was absolutely full. 99% of the audience were Chinese. The theater broke up in laughter when Lo (Chang Chen) sings while leaving Jen (Zhang Ziyi) to take a bath.

      My Question: what are the lyrics to that song?

  • Whay are all the leading men... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:26PM (#2994452) Homepage Journal
    Besides Crowe, who stars as Nash in ``A Beautiful Mind,'' the best actor nominees were Sean Penn as a retarded father seeking custody of his daughter in ``I Am Sam''; Will Smith as boxer Muhammad Ali in ``Ali''; Denzel Washington as a rakish bad cop in ``Training Day''; and Tom Wilkinson as a vigilante father in ``In the Bedroom.''

    Why are most of the leading men portraying ... uh, dammaged characters. Besides Ali (who later in real life suffers problems) these seem to all be retarded/schitzo/rakish/problematic characters somehow.

    Hollywood loves problematic characters, hates problematic people.

    • Because psychotic characters are easy to portray, yet for some reason people think it's great acting if someone twitches for two hours.

      There's a great quote by Jimmy Stewart on the subject; something about actors who could play a psychopath, but couldn't play a guy going to the store to buy a carton of milk. After scouring google I couldn't find it, but maybe someone else knows it...

  • Moulin Rouge & Jennifer Conelley & LOTR (Score:5, Funny)

    by Twister002 ( 537605 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:26PM (#2994453) Homepage
    I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the previews when it came out. I thought it would be a musical with some original music. Most of it was just pop songs scored differently. bleh. Can't believe how long it was either. I had to stop myself from laughing because my finance was enjoying it and I knew if I wanted to have any hope of sex that night that I'd have to enjoy the movie too. ;)

    They just had Jennifer Connelly on the Today show talking about her nomination. yum yum. She's been intelligent eye-candy in enough movies, it's about time she was nominated.

    Of course you know LOTR won't win Best Picture. It doesn't have any mentally handicapped people or crazy people in it (unless you count Saruman? Maybe they should have promoted it as "Boromir: One mans journey through madness" or "The Dark Lord: He saw the world differently")

    "HI THIS IS BOROMIR. GIVE ME THE RING"
    "I think that's a little too enthusiastic Boromir"

  • The MPAA is EVIL! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:30PM (#2994483)


    Those bastards at the MPAA want to destroy your civil rights! If they have their way, we will all be living in an Orwellian nightmare! The Slashdot community should fight them! Boycott! Boycott!

    2 seconds later....

    OOHH! Academy Awards? Cool! LOTR RULEZ! I saw it 34 times and gladly gave the MPAA hundreds of dollars! HOORAY FOR THE MPAA!
  • how many nominations is this movie avalible for, total? 15? 20? Have any other movies ever done this before? I think "Titanic" had 7...

    13 seems like alot, but it doesn't mean anything without somthing to compare it to.

    • Re:out of how many? (Score:3, Informative)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 )
      Titanic had 14 nominations, and it won 11 of them.
      13 is a hell of a lot for one movie..well done, epic, mainstream movies with decent to excellent acting are the movies that make those huge Oscar sweeps, simply because so much work goes into them. Makeup, effects, costuming, editing, sound, cinematography...that's where these movies get those huge numbers ;)

      • Re:out of how many? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by McD!ck ( 444861 )
        Titanic had 11 oscars, but if you notice, NONE were for acting and/or quality of plot. They had all the technical stuff down, FX, sounds, Costumes. . .etc. I can only hope they reward Jackson's et al. creative ability on plot (Screenplay) and Ian's ability to act. I don't want LOTR to get only Tech oscars. . .they deserve better!

        I hate to compare a movie of epic proportions like LOTR to the slimemold of Titanic.
  • This year is the first year for the Animated Feature Oscar, and 3 films made the cut from the several that were put forward: Shrek, Monsters Inc, and Jimmy Neutron...surprisingly, all 3 are CG films, despite a few traditionally animated films that were still in the submission pool. Shrek also got a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
  • If you want to check out the movies that have had the most Oscar nominations, check out this list [filmsite.org] for summaries by film.

    The nominations record is held by Titanic and All About Eve (1950) at 14, and the most wins award is shared between Titanic and Ben Hur (1959, 12 nominations) at 11. Titanic is the only of these three to have won Best Picture. It's kindy funny that of 12 nominations for Ben Hur, the only it didn't win was Best Picture. Damn, what's it take? ;)

    I'm not sure, but I'd also imagine there are more categories now than in 1950, so those numbers might not be all *that* meaningful.
  • BEST PICTURE:
    Shouldn't. It's a good film but not the best of the year. It's not a complete, self-contained story, and that usually counts for a lot.

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ian McKellen
    Shouldn't. It's a token nomination: Ian McKellan practically did nothing that was worthy of winning an award. He brings the same class to LOTR that Guinness brought to Star Wars, but his largely-ignored work in other films is so far superior it's almost laughable. Plus, Gandalf's an easy character to play.

    BEST DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson
    Won't, but should. His work in showing characters of disproportionate size in the same shots is hugely underrated. It takes talent to fit that as seamlessly into a movie as Jackson did.

    ART DIRECTION:
    Would any other year, but might lose to Moulin Rouge.

    CINEMATOGRAPHY:
    Should. Had too much nice stuff to look at.

    COSTUME DESIGN:
    Shouldn't. Fantasy adventure is pretty easy to make neat-looking costumes for.

    FILM EDITING:
    Shouldn't. LOTR wasn't as clean in some areas as it could have been.

    MAKEUP:
    Should. The beasties were great.

    MUSIC (SCORE):
    Dunno. They all sound the same to me. There hasn't been a really fantastic score since The Thin Red Line.

    MUSIC (SONG):
    If this is for the Enya song, shouldn't. It contributed nothing to the movie except once the credits were rolling. This award is custom made to silly Disney or Pixar movies.

    SOUND:
    Should? Didn't see Black Hawk Down or Pearl Harbour in one of those arena theatres. Still bombs and machinery crashes are easy -- Jackson had to incorporate unusual sound effects (eg: the Balrog).

    VISUAL EFFECTS:
    Shouldn't, but probably will. For all the good stuff, there was some sloppy CGI work at times in that film.

    WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY):
    Shouldn't. Much of what made the book great was edited down, and the dialogue was run of the mill push-the-plot-forward stuff (except when it was oh-looky-we're-talking-about-THE-THEME stuff).
  • I think that Peter Jackson is a shoe-in, first of all. It's been pointed out that LotR is one of the world's foremost genre-establishing tales, and its been mis adapted for screen/animation enough times that this attempt was viewed with great trepidation. Jackson is obviously the man with the vision that turned the epic into an excellent on-screen adaptation. Trying to envision ways to portray/convey all that he did is difficult.

    With 13 nominations -- well, best picture is the one to bring them all, and in the Dorothy Chandler pavilion, bind them. I have to say, I'd have seen LotR regardless of what anyone said about it, but I had to go in hoping for the best but fearing the worst, because fantasy never has done well on the big screen. And of course, I was stunned by the quality. At some point, best picture might be awarded for the vision of bringing something with variety in. I'm a little concerned that with last year's gladiator win, they may want to award BP to something less 'epic' and more quirky, like 99's American Beauty. Still, popular movies clearly do better in the BP race, partially because the whole academy gets to vote on it, I'm sure, whereas only one's peers vote for related oscars (ie, directors vote for directors).

    Anyhow, I think LotR may win simply because it may have the power to create an onscreen genre just as it did in print -- and what a marvelous accomplishment. But if the sequels perform as well, then they'll have essentially grossed $900M on a $300M budget -- that would basically be in line with Titanic ($600M back domestically on a >$200M movie), and hollywood loves a winner. Also, those kind of numbers are the sort that might bring other fantasy novels to the screen. That would be a paramount accomplishment.

  • So Why Does This Matter? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CrazyLegs ( 257161 ) <crazylegstoo@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:48PM (#2994640) Homepage
    I cannot understand the preoccupation that some folks have with whether or not LOTR (or Star Wars or whatever) wins an Oscar (or whatever). These movies still seem to get made, regardless of winning any trophies. Why? Because they are enjoyable to lots of people and they make money.

    Sorta makes me wonder whether too any people's sense of self-worth gets bolstered somehow if LOTR wins an Oscar or two - i.e. if you all like LOTR you must all like me....

    • It matters because the people who make movies like LOTR go through a lot of hardships to get them made. So winning an award gives them a sense of fulfillment--like what they did is worth something to the world. It also helps them to get other movie ideas past the movie folks for potential making as well. So it's good to cheer for movies like this to win things that you think they should win.
      • Um...I think a sense of fulfillment would come from a whole lotta people watching their movie, not from a few hundred voting members of The Academy who may (or may not) have watched it. As for helping get other movie ideas considered - well perhaps. But I still think it's all about money. How else can one explain American Pie 2?

    • The phenomenon explained. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Why recommend a book to a stranger just because you enjoyed it? You don't have a financial stake in the book, after all. Why tune into your local sports team when it is playing for the championship, especially if you haven't been doing so during the down times? For that matter, why post your pearls of social criticism to Slashdot? Surely by now you've given up on making the masses as enlightened as yourself.

      The answer, I think, is that people are social animals. We like to share information, we like participate in a greater social whole, and we like having that greater whole validate our viewpoints. Fandom is just one facet of this.

      Basing your self esteem entirely upon the the whim of the Academy, or upon the results of a game where surely chance plays a considerable part is clearly not a good idea. However, that's not what most people are doing. They're just participating in a pleasant diversion, a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bet. If "we" win, then I feel good for a few hours or days. If "we" lose, I have a few minutes of cathartic disappointment and move on to the rest of my daily life.

      While I probably participate in fandom less than most people I know, I don't feel any contempt for it. I find it perfectly understandable and harmless. What I don't really have a good handle on is what the Germans call Schadenfreude -- the pleasure that comes from raining on somebody else's parade.

  • Memento [otnemem.com] got nominated [washingtonpost.com] for best original screenplay ("written directly for the screen"), even though it's based on a short story [esquire.com].
    • Have you read the short story? Honestly, there's not that much in common between the two. The movie appears to be based on the short story as much as Star Wars was "based on" LotR.
    • It uses a common mode to the short story. I made the same mistake, but later discovered that the book that the other Nolan released around the same time as the movie was not the rereleased short story of the same name, but rather the adapted screenplay from his brother's movie, which he coauthored. It comes bundled with another screenplay and (bonus!)) the original short story, for contrast.
  • Even though it wasn't a very popular movie, I am really surprised Jim Carrey didn't get nominated for his work in the Majestic. I thought this year the Academy would throw him a bone after the whole "Man on the Moon" controversy.

  • Not nominations, but one OS to rule them all (Score:5, Funny)

    by little1973 ( 467075 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @12:53PM (#2994677)
    The tale of a modern hobbit...

    I was visited by a mighty computer-magician who knew many secrets.
    During our conversation I told him about that I had installed a new
    Windows version. I showed him the install CD which was perfectly
    round and glittered magnificently.

    My friend face became dark when he saw the disk. To my astonishment
    and distress the wizard threw it into the microwave oven and turned
    it on at the maximum. I gave a cry and tried to turn it off , but
    the magician held me back. Holding my breath I watched as the CD was
    revolving in the oven. Then the magician got the CD from the oven and
    dropped into my hands.

    - It's quite cool. Take it!

    The CD was unscratched and cold and it seemed to have become thicker
    and heavier in my hands.

    - Hold it up! - said the magician. - And look closely.

    As I did so, I now saw fine lines, finer than the finest pen-strokes,
    running along close to the center of the CD. They shone piercingly bright,
    and yet remote, as if out of a great depth.

    4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C 20 4F6E65204F5320746F
    2066696E64207468656D2CDA4F6E65204F5320746F206272 69 6E67207468656D20
    616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E65737320 62 696E64207468656D

    - I cannot read the fiery letters - said I in a quavering voice.
    - No - said the magician, - but I can. The letters are hexadecimal,
    of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which
    I will not utter here. But this in the Common Tongue is what is
    said, close enough:

    One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
    One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

    It is only two lines of a verse long known in SysAdmins-lore:

    Three OSs for the Corporations under the sky,
    Seven for the Software-lords in their halls of Silicon Valley
    Nine for Mortal .coms doomed to die,
    One for the Dark Gates on his dark throne
    In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
    One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
    One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
    In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.

    He paused, and then said slowly in a deep voice.

    - This is the Master CD, containing the original source code of
    Windows. This is the CD that he lost many ages ago, to the great
    weakening of his monopolistic power. He greatly desires it - but
    he must not get it.

    I sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand,
    like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf me.

    - This CD, - I stammered, - How, how on earth did it come to me?
  • I first heard about LOTR being made into a film about 2 years ago. I'd never read the books, but had always wanted to. I quickly bought the books, and read them even quicker. I fell in love with the story. I watched the film's developement very closely over those 2 years, reading Tolkien Online [theonering.com] and TheOneRing.net [theonering.net] almost daily. I bought the soundtrack (excellent!) and a couple books. I even bought some miniatures [games-workshop.com]. I reread the books a few months before the film was released, and enjoyed them even more the second time. I caught a showing of the film on it's first day out, and have been back for a total of 7 times (so far!).

    Now, if you had told me 2 years ago that LOTR would be nominated for 13 Oscars, I would have said you were nuts. This is truly an amazing accomplishment, and LOTR deserves every one of them.

  • Bummer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <101retsaMytilaeR>> on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @01:15PM (#2994807) Homepage Journal

    OK, I know I'm in the minority, but I loved A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. If you hated anything about it, or hated the ending, or whatever, I encourage you to see it again once the DVD comes out and look past the obvious. A great site devoted to analysis of the film is Mysteries of AI [mysteriesofai.com]. There's a ton of information on the site (although, he doesn't have it totally done at this point).

    Re: if you hated the ending... ask yourself if Monica was real or not.

    As for the Oscars, I was really disappointed with Osmont not getting a best actor nomination. I thought he was fantastic. I didn't really expect a best picture nomination, because it was so dark and so many people didn't get it ("what's with the aliens??" ARGH!)

    I think this is one of those pictures that will only be appreciated in 20 years after people start taking it apart.

  • I understand that Moulin Rouge was a love/hate film, but how can something like that be nominated for best picture? I think everyone kind of agrees that LOTR was good. I did, and I am not a fan. (easy, easy, it's OK). But MR? What a stinker. My fiancee, who is a French teacher, and I were both looking forward to it. We were the only ones in the theatre, and we were laughing out loud at how utterly stupid the movie was. We only lasted a little over half way through it. We kept thinking - the stupidity will stop, and they will get to the movie - but it didn't. There were many things I didn't like about LOTR too (like the Titanic-esque 3 minute pans of the scenery with little CG people walking along) but overall it was a good movie. Too many people hated MR for it to be best picture. At best, it was a Barney show on acid.

  • I don't think anybody mentioned this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by karb ( 66692 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @02:29PM (#2995322)
    But there's some statistic, somewhere, (too lazy to find it). I'm surprised nobody else mentioned it (or I didn't see the comment).

    In the last 17-20 years (don't remember exact number), Every Best Picture But One Was Won By The Film With The Most Nominations.

    In other words, FoTR is nearly a shoe-in for best picture.

  • Best Screenplay should go to Memento (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2002 @05:05PM (#2996205)

    I'm glad that Memento [imdb.com] got nominated for the best screenplay and film editing awards. It was the most thought-provoking film I saw last year. Brilliantly written and executed with a stunning performance from Guy Pearse, it was perhaps also the best film of the year, Lord of the Rings notwithstanding. It certainly has major geek appeal, dealing with identity, memory and personality and the role of time. Its also one of the truly great "puzzle" films. It takes most people several viewing to work out what is really happening. Take a look at this [salon.com] Salon article (with major spoilers, you have been warned) for some insight into the complexity of this film.

    I predict Memento will get the Screenplay award and that Lord of the Rings will take best picture.

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