What movie would you give an Oscar to?

Remove all ads!

The Oscars are handed out tonight.

You can talk about whatever movie they do and say this deserves or doesn't deserve an award (before or after the awards ceremony).

But, as well as the usual picks for this or that award, just give one for being a good movie.... call it your personal Oscar or whatever.

Yes, please, debate if Avatar or The Hurt Locker should get best picture.

I've seen both and if limited to those options I would pick The Hurt Locker. Avatar had great scifi, great affects, and I didn't feel bad when I saw it in 3D. The Hurt Locker still had a deeper (it seemed) storyline.

That said, I think I would give a personal Oscar to Moon.

It was a low budget and low key scifi but I thought it made very good use of a small cast to deal with a what if situation in a personal and thoughtful way.

 

If I could go back in time I would go to 1994 and make sure that Shawshank Redemption won all of the Oscars instead of Forrest Gump.

 

I would go back to 1977 and give Star Wars the Best Picture over Annie Hall... outside of film studies majors and Woody Allen nuts, who remembers that movie? Star Wars will last forever.

Which is why I think Avatar should have won best picture - for it's flaw (unoriginality), it is one of the most groundbreaking movies of the last three decades...

 

I haven't seen "Hurt Locker" yet so I can't compare it to Avatar. However, I do not consider Hurt Locker winning too much of an upset as it is the type of thing the academy would vote for (and a way to send an F you to Cameran). Although, I believe history will prove you correct and Avatar should have won.

 

I've seen both Avatar and Hurt Locker but my choice for the Oscar is District 9. Avatar is just flatly unoriginal as far as story and plot is concerned, it's pure eye-candy but I do recognized the technological contribution it offered and I truly don't mind spending money just to watch it again and again. Hurt Locker, honestly, it's too Americanized, I can't really sympathize with it to the level of seeing it as Oscar-worthy. I hope that didn't sound offending.

As for the others, I agree with Shawshank Redemption is worthy of an Oscar but I also believe Forrest Gump deserves the Oscar too.

I really think Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon deserves to win instead of Gladiator. Zhang Yi-mou's Hero is another Oscar-worthy film. Pan's Labyrinth (Mexican) and Let The Right One In (Swedish) deserves at least a crack at the Oscar Best Picture.

 

Hmm.. thanks for the opinions voiced so far.

A couple of the older movies I hadn't even seen.

I just wanted to point out that when I mentioned Moon being worthy of some recognition I was actually talking about a movie that was in theaters last year and thus could, time/release-wise properly be up for a Oscar during this batch of awards.

Here is a link to its trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhIB0mqbPiE



I saw District 9 and thought it was a very good movie-perhaps a pity more people didn't see it. In terms of plot I think that The Hurt Locker did have a deeper one. The part where the main character, a corporate desk jockey, turned around and actually saved the alien's life simply because the a bad guy called him a coward struck me as a type of situation I've seen in other movies before. But that just my take on it and all in all I do feel it is a worthwhile film (you'll get more out of watching it than say Transformers 2 even though the latter made alot more, not to dis that movie its just it struck me as more effects than plot driven too).

 

Not many people knows that the main character of District 9 played by Sharlto Copley actually improvised all of his dialogue in the film. But no, that is not the reason why I think it should have won the Oscar.

@dmc, for some reason, Black Hawk Down was also about American soldiers and it was even based on a real event. Still, it didn't feel as Americanized as Hurt Locker. Maybe it's just me but I find it easier to understand how it felt like to be a soldier watching BHD, HL just doesn't felt that way to me. For instance, in BHD, Hoot with his vague explanation of why he's a war-junkie felt more understandable than SFC W. James choosing Iraq over his family. Just my pov. But I have to agree that HL indeed had a good story and directing.

 

Improvization actually disqualifies a movie in some areas. Aladin (the Disney cartoon) was disqualified from original screenplay because Robin Williams improvised too much.

 

Does the disqualification applies when no dialogue was written for the part? Can't confirm but I think that was the case for District 9.

 

The Hurt Locker should never have won. Movies = visual storytelling. A good story has a plot, and character development. The Hurt Locker had neither.

 

I haven't seen either locker or avatar, but here's my take on the Oscars:

It's easy enough to see without an awards ceremony which films were commercially successful. Commercial success is but one metric -- albeit a very powerful one -- that can be used to judge a film. I have always thought that the Oscars judge films based on other metrics -- powerful acting, realistic / compelling storylines, great writing, insightful themes, and that sort of thing, not to mention technical accomplishments like sound and cinematography. Movies that score well there might not necessarily score high with the moviegoing public.

KInda goes back to the old thread in Booktalk : "Why are the classics kinda boring?"

 

All those awards don't mean much in the end. It makes actors and directors more bankable and may help their careers but not getting one doesn't mean that a movie is crap either.

I'm not that interested in the Academy Awards to be honest.

 

Nior, you are saying that The Hurt Locker is *more* American than Black Hawk Down? Is that possible without forcing the audience to recite the pledge of allegience at the end of the movie?

The only thing I cared about in the Oscars came to pass, Waltz won best supporting actor. Wouldnt have minded if he got lead but supporting is ok. He gave me what was probably the best movie villain I have ever seen.

 

^ It's kind'a hard to explain but that's how it felt for me. As for possibility, well it happened to me. ;D I think perhaps with BHD, the plight of the Somalians (or Somalis) helped in taking the focus off being "too Americanized". At least, that's just my personal view.

 

It just stuck in my craw how they mowed down hundreds of Somalians without a second thought but when one of the American volunteer soldiers stubbed his toe it was the greatest tragedy since the Black Death. That movie really illustrated to me how different we value a human life depending on where the human is born.

 

Interesting how you can compare the bodies of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Somalia as "stubbed his toe."

 

Wasn't that scene I had in mind but that one serves as well. The American being killed and dragged through the streets were shown as something extremely horrible and atrocious and we were supposed to feel such sympathy for hmi and the family he abandoned to go to war. Then black African after black African have been gunned down, tens, hundreds of them mowed down like so much grass and that is just as it should be and that isnt given more thought than the killing of a Bond villain's henchman.

I find Black Hawk down as nothing more than another flagwaving, US cheering action movie which can have some charm. That is why I was surprised when Nior said that the Hurt Locker was even more like that when I had heard that it was a somewhat nuanced drama movie.

 

When in war, at least countries that act civilly, the idea is to get the other side to surrender and then treat them as human beings once they surrender. The scene in that movie portrays how the American was treated when captured as opposed to how the Somali leader was treated, you know the guy who's engine is shot out and is treated so badly he gets to smoke a cuban cigar....

 

Let me put it this way, a lot of American war movies I've seen are US flag waving films. And really, can I blame them for that? Although, I do sometimes wonder how they have coaxed the Japanese, German, or Vietnamese actors to portray their race as if they were pure evil or simply lower than Americans (but let's not go there anymore). With BHD, I simply just look past the flag wavers (it ain't new) and saw the plight of Somalia (which was new to me then). That was more because aside from the great famine, I don't know much about what was going on in Somalia. I didn't even know that American troops were there at all. So just because I find Hurt Locker to be more Americanized than BHD doesn't necessarily mean I think BHD isn't one. It's more like there was something to help shift my focus. So with due respect, it's not exactly something with a much deeper meaning, just that there was some distraction for me.

Personally, I prefer the likes of Casualties of War with Sean Penn and Micheal J. Fox and When Trumpets Fade with Ron Eldard (the captured pilot from BHD) over HL and BHD for that matter.