In grand Overthinking It tradition, Matthew Wrather and Peter Fenzel cover the 2010 Oscars by barely talking about them, concentrating instead on the rapidly decentralizing media landscape, the counterproductive use of racial and gender distinctions (e.g., first woman “Best Director”), and career advice for Busta Rhymes.
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wow. the oscars were that boring, eh? I didn’t watch it, but if the most exciting thing about it was its business model, it must have sucked.
I watched the show on Sky (I’m in London) live, for the first time ever, and it was sooo boring. Never again will I watch a version where I can’t skip through the boring parts. I agree with Fenzel, those people they had commentating were awful. But you didn’t even talk about the upset with the best foreign picture! Otherwise, good discussion, nicely carried by the two of you, which makes sense as you usually do most of the talking.
Better idea for a Busta Rhymes: Take the romantic comedy idea, but instead of a high school teacher, make her a lawyer. That way you can still have the tension between this new lady that is the stablizing element in his life and his old group of friends culminate in a court case in which his friends are the defendants and the lawyer is the prosecutor. Then he is asked to testify in the case, and must ultimately must choose between his old and new life. It’s compelling!
@Chris: I’d totally watch that.
Any screenwriters out there?
(That’s a rhetorical question, in case you couldn’t tell.)
@Chris
Awesome!
Of course, he has to sneak some speakers into the courtroom for the climactic scene and rap his testimony.
@Nat
Yeah, those people on Sky were _awful_. I didn’t even know it was really an upset for best Foreign Picture, because their commentary was so inane that I didn’t trust their opinion on anything.
When the “smart one” keeps touting Avatar as the best movie ever made or whatever, you know you got problems.
Also, that couch totally wasn’t supposed to fit three people.
What is the Sky network, Nat? Is it legit?
I’ve seen this observation in other places on the Internet, so can’t take credit, but: Along the lines of the foreign film and Kathryn Bigelow discussions, why are there still “best actor” and “best actress” awards? The Oscars don’t have separate awards for male and female directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, etc. What’s so essential about male acting vis-a-vis female acting that causes it to make sense that they be judged separately?
Also, on the foreign films: why does the announcer say “This is the second win and eighth nomination for Argentina,” rather than highlighting the actual people who made the film, as in every other category? I assume the Argentinian film industry is no more monolithic and homogenous than the American film industry.
@Tom – There seems to be two things going on here, 1) I don’t mean to be Sexist on this but the film industry is still run mostly by males so many good roles for women are not approved by the studios and 2) There aren’t too many good women actors out there.
1) Its self explanatory, but for every Juno out there, there are a dozen 500 Days of Summer. I use these examples for a reason because in my opinion, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt had very similar acting chops in their respective movies. But because Page is a female, she gets a nod for best actress while Cobra Commander wasn’t even in the same stadium for an Oscar nom. If Levitt was played by a female (Roles reversed) she would be up for best actress because of the lack of depth of female lead roles. Its a fact – if Queen Elizabeth was never born, 50% of Best Actresses would have stared in an Marie Curie movie instead of Queen Elizabeth movie. Its a fact.
2) The lack of good women actors goes down to two words – sex sells. When a decent actress such as Scarlett Johansson keeps getting great parts because she is so hot, it leads to less rolls for women. People then expect the actresses to be hot and bad acting, so someone with acting chops won’t get a part because we as a society ‘expect’ bad acting as long as their is eye candy on the screen. Now I don’t mean to be hyperbolic about it – Glen Close and Meryl Streep are still better than 99% of the male actors out there, but the second ‘tier’ of female actresses would be on about the seventh or eight ‘tier’ of male actors.
Now these two can go hand in hand, chicken or egg fashion. Because studio’s only put hot women in movies and don’t care how they act, they don’t make movies with good roles women. Because their are no good roles for women, young actresses would rather spend an hour on a stair master then in an acting class to get role. The cycle continues.
Pop Culture Sidebar – The 2002 movie S1m0ne is about the fact that any good looking actress in Hollywood has been so pumped up they don’t know how to act so Al Pacino digitally creates an actress (Played by Rachel Roberts who later ‘acted’ in Entourage and Ugly Betty, shows best known for hot women who can barley read a cue card). Winona Ryder plays a real actress who realizes that she’s only gotten by on her looks and decides to go to acting classes. If only some real actresses took the advise.
@Bob Well, there’s a surfeit of vapid male parts, as well. But (to pick the first counter-example that comes to mind), Frances McDormand’s part in Fargo is just great acting, plain and simple. I think it, in fact, compares favorably to Geoffrey Rush, who won Best Actor that year. Would McDormand have won the hypothetical “Best Lead Acting” award if she had gone head-to-head with him? Maybe. Wouldn’t it be cool to know?
@Fenzel
Sky is the major Satellite Tv network in the UK. It’s owned by Rupert Murdoch.
@Fenzel Yeah, Sky is legit. It rakes it in from being the UK network that shows big US dramas like Lost and 24, as well as things like the Simpsons. Sky Movies which showed the Oscars is a premium channel, I was just lucky enough that my work shelled out for it (and that I was on the night shift). But their ‘expert’ was definitely suspect, and the other 2 on the couch were tv comedians, who obviously had little knowledge of film. Just be glad you didn’t watch the red carpet preshow, that was worse (if possible).
@Tom I was stunned about the mention of Agrentina’s nominations as well. It’s not like the country has anything to do with the creative output. As for the male and female categories, I think they should mix it up and do something along the lines of the golden globes, i.e. best comedic actor/actress (as one award) and best dramatic actor/actress. It would be interesting to see how the politics of that would play out. Meryl Streep would still win everything though.
@tom @nat — The reason the country is called out for nominations and wins is that the countries themselves submit films for consideration, not the individual filmmakers. (Not that that makes it right.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Foreign_Language_Film