Comments on: Open Thread for December 18, 2009

By: Robert A. Clayton

Robert A. Clayton — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:42:14 +0000

Jennifer Jones!

By: perich

perich — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:00:09 +0000

@Trevor: I’ve found that the best comedic actors can also handle drama fairly well. Will Smith has been good in his dramatic roles; Bill Murray was perfect in Lost in Translation; even Adam Sandler was good in Punch-Drunk Love. A sense of the absurd really helps in portraying nuanced feeling.

@Lisa: I saw that too late for it to make the post. Also a notable loss.

By: Gab

Gab — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:54:07 +0000

@Greg: I really enjoy steampunk, so that sounds made of awesome. It’s why I totally dug “greats” like _Wild Wild West_ and _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_, even though every critic and review said I shouldn’t have.

Trevor: “At the root of comedy there is usually some pain, and so in order to be funny you have to confront that pain and literally laugh in the face of it.” Poetry.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:08:51 +0000

One more notable death this week was screenwriter Dan O’Bannon who penned “Alien”, “Heavy Meal”, “Return of the Living Dead” and “Total Recall.” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0639321/news

Also – really, really excited for Iron Man 2, including Mickey Rourke’s Russian accent!

By: Trevor

Trevor — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:35:52 +0000

I think the reason the Academy doesn’t give a seperate award for comedy is because, for every “Annie Hall” (last honest-to-God comedy to win Best Picture) there are a dozen “Freddy Got Fingered”s out there begging for the same honor. Plus, the Oscar crowd are snobs, if your name is hard to pronounce and your performance redefines “melodramatic” they fall all over themselves to reward you. But God help you if your movie has a dick joke or two, or twenty, in it.

To my thinking, drama is much, much easier to pull off than comedy. The best movies find a way to mix the two (which is why I really liked “Funny People”, even if the rest of America didn’t). At the root of comedy there is usually some pain, and so in order to be funny you have to confront that pain and literally laugh in the face of it.

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:28:59 +0000

1) Nooooo. . . Not Oscars for Comedies. . . It would mean telling someone that a movie was not funny. . . and ellipses rarely impart comedic timing to a sentence.

2) Let me put it this way (and this is also for Gab up there): I want to see, at the end of the movie, Sherlock Holmes strap himself into a steampunk Iron Man suit and fly out the roof of Scotland Yard. With the theme blasting in the background.

Tell me that wouldn’t be AWESOME! I dare you.

By: stokes

stokes — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:43:29 +0000

Hey now! Fantasia 2000 is freaking great. The Space Whales? The Hirschfeld homage? The bit in the Steadfast Tin Soldier one where he falls into the harbor? Did I mention the SPACE WHALES?! Come on.

By: Sheely

Sheely — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:36:59 +0000

Julie Andrews was nominated for best actress in The Sound of Music in 1965, but I guess she wasn’t really nunning it up for most of the movie…

By: perich

perich — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:04:50 +0000

@Clio: you’re correct. But I should have prefaced “not for EEEEVIL nuns.”

By: Clio

Clio — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:07:23 +0000

Guys, the last Oscar-nominated nun was Meryl Streep for Doubt—LAST YEAR. Sarandon won for Dead Man Walking in 95.

I am really, really excited. I don’t generally enjoy action movies or superhero movies, but RDJ and all the construction porn get me over that hump for Iron Man.