The Zone

by **Bloo** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:03 am

Baldwin and Martin were weak hosts

I'm shocked that Hurt Locker won, really thought they'd give Kathryn the best director and Avatar best picture

should have been district 9 or Basterds but we all knew they never had a chance

by **RogueScribner** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:03 am

Up had a brilliant first act. Everything else, meh. It did absolutely nothing interesting with its villain.

by **Fried Gold** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:04 am

Did that seem like a botched ending to anyone else?

It was:

"Please welcome Tom Hanks....Hurt Locker....yhay.....good night everybody...." in the space of two minutes.

by **Jabbadonut** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:04 am

Hell Frakkin' Yeah! The Academy got it absolutely right, all the way down the line, this year. Every frakkin' award went to the right people. Damn, that was fantastic. For those who are pissed "The Hurt Locker" won over "Avatar," be serious. If you saw both films, you know which one was more deserving. Give it up.

by **Leckomaniac** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:04 am

RogueScribner wrote:Up had a brilliant first act. Everything else, meh. It did absolutely nothing interesting with its villain.

Damn it, Rogue, why must you be such a villain!

You are my Oscars Lex Luthor.

by **tangerine** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:05 am

Fried Gold wrote:Did that seem like a botched ending to anyone else?

It was:

"Please welcome Tom Hanks....Hurt Locker....yhay.....good night everybody...." in the space of two minutes.

Yah what the hell happened there, I blinked and it was over. Anyhow I'm off to bed, goodnight dudes

by **Fried Gold** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:05 am

I think every rational person is in agreement that Moon should've won Best Picture.

by **RogueScribner** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:06 am

Leckomaniac wrote:
RogueScribner wrote:Up had a brilliant first act. Everything else, meh. It did absolutely nothing interesting with its villain.

Damn it, Rogue, why must you be such a villain!

You are my Oscars Lex Luthor.

I speak the truth!

by **Fievel** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:06 am

I actually liked Martin & Baldwin. The opening jokes made me laugh.
Having said that, they seemed useless after that.
Why even have a host? Just do an opening number and then let the announcer introduce the presenters.

by **John-Locke** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:07 am

Fuck, my head hurts, night all

by **RogueScribner** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:08 am

I've only been watching for the last hour and a half or so. I think I saw them for about 30 seconds total. So yeah, why even bother having hosts? Hire someone to open the show, then just cycle through the various presenters.

by **Al Shut** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:08 am

I think I shall retire for now

by **King Of Nowhere** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:09 am

It was a good laugh watching it with you lot on here (& twitter) doing real-time commentary, but the show it's self was shit.

by **Fievel** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:10 am

You Europeaners are a hardcore lot!!!!

by **Bloo** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:10 am

Fried Gold wrote:I think every rational person is in agreement that Moon should've won Best Picture.

agreed

by **Seppuku** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:41 am

The one cool moment for me was Jeff Bridges winning and his very stoned sounding acceptance speech. The only thing that would have been cooler would have been if, just once, he'd replaced one of those mans with the word "dude." It wouldn't have to be obvious or anything. I love that guy though, always puts in stalwart fucking performances and doesn't cowtow to that circle jerk shit.

Other than that, I thought it was pretty cold and lame. I'm glad the BBC didn't spend my license fee (that I haven't paid) on that.

by **bastard_robo** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 6:07 am

Well, Just about everyone I called won.. Hurt Locker for best pic and Director, The Dude for best actor, Waltz for Supporting, Sandra and Mo"Nique (which what ever shit ball movie she has done now can now claim Academy Award Winning Actress in it) UP for best animated.

But the Screenplays.. Fuck those wins. Hurt Locker was great on its visual, acting and directing, but was a weak ass script. Precious was bleh.. Just.. Bleh.. The movie panhandled to lowest common denomination of guilt. fuck it.

Huzzah to Bigelow though.. for A) being the first female director to pull an oscar, and B) up staging your Ex Husband.. I love Irony.

and People who are saying that AVATAR will stand the test of time.. I wouldn't count on that. It opened the door for more epic fantasy movies, but in 20 years more people will remember LORD OF THE RINGS than Avatar. Avatar will be looked at the beginning of MoCap and over the top fantasy sci fi films.

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:14 am

The Cock Hurter won.

Well that just shows doesn't it? And now is the final nail in the coffin of my view on Oscars now. Damn you Katherine Bigelow. All you did was weaken a universe today.

I am retiring from this stupid biased ceremony and never bothering with Oscar anymore.

You guys who say you watch it out of Tradition need to grow up. All traditions can suck so much that they need to be bucked and abandoned. People do it to Christmas, you surely can do it to this insult to integrity and deservation farce.

by **Brit Pop** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:20 am

I'm kinda glad Avatar only collected 3 Oscars, and they were pretty much technical gongs.

I was getting wound up because the Avatar winners who made speeches, did them fairly early in the show and they were toungueing Cameron's bung something fierce.

You cringe when a guy collects an Oscar and spends three minutes talking about 'the genius that is James Cameron', and how much he is 'honoured and priveledged' to be part of such a 'journey'.

Comon guys!!!! You may never get to win another Oscar! So instead of putting all the praise on JC, why not think 'hey, I did the work that won me this... maybe I deserve this!' - and take credit for it.

The early Avatar winners seemed to be priming the crowd for the inevitable clean sweep that the film did not achieve - I think back to Return Of The King Oscar night, where at the end you pretty much had the whole cast and crew surrounding a Christ-like PJ - all basking in the greatest night of their lives (including that Struggling Background Artist Sean Astin crying).

Cameron watched that Oscar night and probably thought 'Oh man! Thats totally gonna be me in a few years!'

by **DaleTremont** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:10 am

Fried Gold wrote:Did that seem like a botched ending to anyone else?

It was:

"Please welcome Tom Hanks....Hurt Locker....yhay.....good night everybody...." in the space of two minutes.

For reals that sucked. I know they're trying to keep a schedule but honestly they couldn't have even named the nominees? Even for something as uselessly self-gratifying as the Oscars, I thought that was a little disrespectful. If you don't keep the people sweating in their seats you've taken away the best part of the show!

Also, I'm sad I.B. wasn't recognized, except for Waltz, but I'm happy for Bigelow.

And not sure if Sepp already mentioned it in his magically vanished post, but they left out Bea Arthur of the In Memoriam!

It's like the Star Wars holiday special never even happened!

by **so sorry** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:27 am

DaleTremont wrote:
Fried Gold wrote:Did that seem like a botched ending to anyone else?

It was:

"Please welcome Tom Hanks....Hurt Locker....yhay.....good night everybody...." in the space of two minutes.

For reals that sucked. I know they're trying to keep a schedule but honestly they couldn't have even named the nominees? Even for something as uselessly self-gratifying as the Oscars, I thought that was a little disrespectful. If you don't keep the people sweating in their seats you've taken away the best part of the show!

Also, I'm sad I.B. wasn't recognized, except for Waltz, but I'm happy for Bigelow.

They rushed thru what the Academy has deemed the most important award!

Here's a thought, cut out one of the non-essential numbers from earlier on. For example, the rediculous dance number. Waste.Of.Time.

Also, I'm sure it was mentioned earlier, but that tribute to "Horror movies" was terrible. Fucking Beetlejuice and Twilight in the montage???? C'mon. That's just...C'MON!!!

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:28 am

the theme song for this year's oscars should have been radiohead's "no surprises"

by **Vegeta** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:39 am

The most predictable Academy Awards I can remember.

Did anyone else find the cameras desperately seeking a reaction shot of every black person in the theatre when Jeffrey Fletcher won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for for PRECIOUS to be vaguely racist? Seriously, it was kind of weird... here's a shot of Lenny Kravitz, here's a shot of Morgan Freeman (what did they have to do with Precious beyond having the same skin color of the writer?). I also found the loud speaker announcement that "Could this be the first year for an African American to win an Best Director?" to be cringe worthy. It was more like the Academy pointing out how inclusionary they are rather then just honoring the guy for his achievement. Instead it's "oh and he's black too, look how we included him, aren't we so very progressive".

The God awful ego stroking speeches by co-stars (or former co-stars) of the Best Actor/Actress nominees... then coming out and announcing all their names again before presenting the actual award was incredibly redundant and stomach churningly unnecessary.

What in God's name was with the interpretive dance presentation for Original Score... EGADS!

by **Fried Gold** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:09 pm

so sorry wrote:
DaleTremont wrote:
Fried Gold wrote:Did that seem like a botched ending to anyone else?

It was:

"Please welcome Tom Hanks....Hurt Locker....yhay.....good night everybody...." in the space of two minutes.

For reals that sucked. I know they're trying to keep a schedule but honestly they couldn't have even named the nominees? Even for something as uselessly self-gratifying as the Oscars, I thought that was a little disrespectful. If you don't keep the people sweating in their seats you've taken away the best part of the show!

Also, I'm sad I.B. wasn't recognized, except for Waltz, but I'm happy for Bigelow.

They rushed thru what the Academy has deemed the most important award!

Here's a thought, cut out one of the non-essential numbers from earlier on. For example, the rediculous dance number. Waste.Of.Time.

Also, I'm sure it was mentioned earlier, but that tribute to "Horror movies" was terrible. Fucking Beetlejuice and Twilight in the montage???? C'mon. That's just...C'MON!!!

Best Picture is The Main Award.

The mistake they made was announcing the nominees for it throughout the show. That should've been the final 10-15 minutes. Instead, they went big on this character reference thing for each Best Actor nominee. Then just kinda chucked the last couple of awards out there on stage.

by **so sorry** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:27 pm

Fried Gold wrote:The mistake they made was announcing the nominees for it throughout the show. That should've been the final 10-15 minutes. Instead, they went big on this character reference thing for each Best Actor nominee. Then just kinda chucked the last couple of awards out there on stage.

I'm not bothered by the Best Picture nominee stuff during the broadcast... it's supposed to keep my interest during the "boring parts" and I suppose its to build some drama for the end. Which unfortunately, they blew. It's the equivalent of chatting up some chick at a bar, putting in tons of effort to get her to come home with you, convincing her to sleep with you then you *NSFW* in 20 seconds and she's all like, "I stayed up for THAT?"

by **Pacino86845** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:17 pm

Vegeta wrote:The most predictable Academy Awards I can remember.

Did anyone else find the cameras desperately seeking a reaction shot of every black person in the theatre when Jeffrey Fletcher won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for for PRECIOUS to be vaguely racist? Seriously, it was kind of weird... here's a shot of Lenny Kravitz, here's a shot of Morgan Freeman (what did they have to do with Precious beyond having the same skin color of the writer?). I also found the loud speaker announcement that "Could this be the first year for an African American to win an Best Director?" to be cringe worthy. It was more like the Academy pointing out how inclusionary they are rather then just honoring the guy for his achievement. Instead it's "oh and he's black too, look how we included him, aren't we so very progressive".

The God awful ego stroking speeches by co-stars (or former co-stars) of the Best Actor/Actress nominees... then coming out and announcing all their names again before presenting the actual award was incredibly redundant and stomach churningly unnecessary.

What in God's name was with the interpretive dance presentation for Original Score... EGADS!

I'm completely with you on all points, and I will extend the weirdly racist attitude to include sexism as well. I thought Streisand's excitement seemed real enough, but they were mentioning the first female/black director shit in the pre-show already. It was very lame.

I also didn't like how Gabourey Sidibe was everyone's long lost best friend all of a sudden (including Oprah). It reminded me of the bullshit surrounding the cast of Slumdog Millionaire last year, where as it turns out a bunch of them were still living in the slums despite being in an internationally successful film. As if Hollywood has roles for actors like Gabourey Sidibe, what is she gonna become a teen heartthrob all of a sudden? Yeah. Right. The irony is that Hollywood will continue to perpetuate the narrow and impossible fantasy that Gabourey's character in Precious escaped to in her life, and this will be done exactly by never casting Gabourey in any kind of "princess" role.

Perhaps it's because this year's Oscars seemed particularly lame, but all the ego-stroking and hypocritical empathic behavior stuck out more than normal.

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were terrible as the hosts, the jokes they were making in the beginning were either weirdly embarrassing or simply fell flat. Later on there were a couple of funny bits, one of which was obviously improvised:

1. I thought the Paranormal Activity parody was funny
2. When Steve Martin said that he wrote Jeffrey Fletcher's speech, that made me LOL

But I am also bitter about the winners, it just highlighted one huge problem with how these awards are handed out:

Oscars are decided based on momentum. Pixar's Up was very good, but if the Academy wasn't in the habit of giving the animation award to Pixar then The Fantastic Mr. Fox would have deservedly received it, or maybe even The Secret of Kells (while I haven't seen the film, I've seen only praise for it).

The momentum they follow is often just the by-product of other award shows: great, 10 Best Picture nominees and everyone knew for a few weeks now that it was a 2-film competition, essentially.

And because of the bullshit momentum-following films which would get maybe one or two awards end up taking loads of categories, and others end up with nothing!!!

I might be bitter here, but I think there is some sense to what I've said. I was hoping Up would not get the Best Animated Feature award, and I was hoping that Inglourious Basterds would actually pick up the Best Screenplay award at least, in addition to Christoph Waltz's well-deserved, if not predictable Oscar.

by **so sorry** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:21 pm

You guys complaining about the predictability of the awards is so predictable.

Let me close this thread by saying this: Catherine Bigelow is a serious MILF.

by **minstrel** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:32 pm

I'm with those who say that, in a few years, The Hurt Locker will be forgotten and Avatar will be remembered. I have the Hurt Locker DVD, and it took me three tries to sit through it. For one thing, it's pretty boring once you get past the fact that what these guys do is dangerous. They just keep doing it over and over until I'm yawning and turning it off. I have no desire whatsoever to see Hurt Locker again. I have, however, paid real money to see Avatar three times in theaters so far and I might do so again, and when it's released on DVD I'll buy it and watch it more times. I like being in that world.

So in my view, it should have been Avatar over Hurt Locker, no question. But I haven't seen some of the other nominees (Inglorious Basterds being one of them).

by **BuckyO'harre** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:35 pm

I still haven't seen all of the animated nominees,but I'm fairly confident that 'Mary and Max' is better than any of them and it didn't get nominated.

As for 'The Secret of Kells'- Spectacular animation and a good film,but there just isn't enough of a story for it to have deserved winning.

by **Tyrone_Shoelaces** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:01 pm

James Taylor? Really?

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:10 pm

Vegeta wrote:Did anyone else find the cameras desperately seeking a reaction shot of every black person in the theatre when Jeffrey Fletcher won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for for PRECIOUS to be vaguely racist?

personally, i found it very inspiring that a mildly retarded man was able to write an oscar-winning screenplay.

by **Al Shut** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:12 pm

Wow, former President James Taylor

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:14 pm

so sorry wrote:You guys complaining about the predictability of the awards is so predictable.

Let me close this thread by saying this: Catherine Bigelow is a serious MILF.

she's definitely the hottest of james cameron's various former and current wives. suzy amis looked like the crypt keeper sitting next to him. and have you seen linda hamilton lately? she makes even the crypt keeper look sorta hot.

i thought it was funny that cameron was sitting directly behind bigelow, so he had to spend the whole night staring at the back of her head. i wonder if it gave him deja vu?

by **Seppuku** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:15 pm

Al Shut wrote:Wow, former President James Taylor

Don't you mean former soft rocker Zachary Taylor?

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:16 pm

I skipped it altogether this year and watched Zombieland with some friends instead. Had fun with that one.

My lack of interest in the awards themselves notwithstanding, I'm enjoying how divided everyone is this year. Makes for some interesting discussions.

I'm glad Avatar only won technical awards. It deserved those completely, and deserved nothing else.

by **Leckomaniac** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:38 pm

Has this been brought up yet?

I was wondering what the fuck was going on there.

by **Pacino86845** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:41 pm

I don't know if it was mentioned here, but definitely that was the WTF Moment of the night.

by **Leckomaniac** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:43 pm

Pacino86845 wrote:I don't know if it was mentioned here, but definitely that was the WTF Moment of the night.

I love how the woman is claiming that the guy's mother prevented her from going up there by using her cane. Crazy.

by **Nachokoolaid** on Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:39 pm

But according to Academy rules, the director was supposed to accept the award, no one else. The fact that she was even up there was in bad taste, not to mention cutting him off, Kanye style.

by **Marksman230591** on Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:47 pm

Well, this year's oscars were pretty boring, at least compared to last year's, namely for the following reasons:

-Alec Baldwin and Martin Short: while I got some good laughs from them, they weren't even nearly as cool and charming as Hugh Jackman last year.

-Too many things were predictable: I mean, really, everyone was thinking that for Best Pic it would be Avatar or Hurt Locker, and that's just how it played out, as well as all the other actor winners. But I'm glad Waltz got it, though. He absolutely deserved it.

-The big winner of the show had a few awards TOO MANY!: look, I liked The Hurt Locker. Really. But it was not that fucking good. While I understand some may not have liked Inglourious Basterds, you gotta admit, Tarantino's movie had a FAR better script and dialogue than the generic documentary-style Iraq War screenplay. It just goes to show you how most of the Academy members were just sucking on the Hurt Locker's cock because they thought it was the "cool" thing to do, since now this year they had a legitimate and good opportunity to give the Best Director and Picture award to a woman, and because its "themes" and its political relevance these days, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and all that. Face it, it was pure and utter ass-kissing and you know it.

You know what movie would've made me happy the most if it won? Inglourious Basterds. Why? Well, while it's good to see that the Academy thinks that a big-budget is not necessary to make a good film (and I loved Avatar, by the way. It entertained me more than any other film of 2009, even IB. But before you think I'm a hypocrite, just keep reading on), they would've given the same message and given the award to a more deserving film had they given it to Inglourious Basterds, and it would've also meant that politics didn't really factor into anything because, let's face it, IB was probably the least politically relevant film of the list.

In the end, compared to last year, this ceremony was pretty damn weak and held almost no surprises. But I am glad that The Cove won for best Doc. Feature. And that Star Trek won at least something.

by **Al Shut** on Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:23 pm

Marksman230591 wrote: you gotta admit, Tarantino's movie had a FAR better script and dialogue than the generic documentary-style Iraq War screenplay.

That's what Tarantino got for his poor spelling

stay in school kids!

by **Fried Gold** on Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:40 pm

Leckomaniac wrote:Has this been brought up yet?

I was wondering what the fuck was going on there.

Apparently it wasn't just a creative disagreement. She was actually removed from the credits of the film about a year ago, at her own request after a lawsuit, and technically wasn't even a producer. But some loophole meant that she could qualify to be on the Academy's list as a producer. So she shouldn't even have been there.

Annoying thing #451 - They let Ben Stiller do an unfunny five minute Avatar intro for the special effects award....yet were cutting the lesser known winners off mid-speech due to a lack to time.

Odd thing #92 - Martin & Baldwin were the presenting the show. Yet they were only on for about ten minutes in total. Why do they even bother having hosts?

Moderately Interesting thing #16 - In his intro thingy, Chris Pine came across as quite a good orator.

by **The Vicar** on Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:53 pm

"-Alec Baldwin and Martin Short:"

by **Bloo** on Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:30 am

what awards do we have left?

Tony's and MTV?

by **Marksman230591** on Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:21 pm

Bloo wrote:what awards do we have left?

Tony's and MTV?

In my mind, the awards season ends with the oscars. After Twilight won most of the awards in the MTVMAs last year, I lost all credibility in that show. And Tonys? Yeah... Don't care about those either.

I guess we can finally wrap this thread up and start the Awards Season 2010/2011 one around December or so.

by **Bloo** on Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:23 pm

yeah the Twilight sweep of MTV will probably be repeated this year with New Moon.

The Tony's though, are totally legit. Although I haven't been following real closely to see what new shows have opened this year

by **minstrel** on Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:35 pm

The Tonys may be legit, but most of us don't have the opportunity to see the shows, at least without extraordinary expense of time and money. I wish I could see more live theater, but if you're not close to Broadway or London's West End or a few other hotbeds of theater, it's pretty tough to do. So it's hard to maintain interest in them.

by **Jabbadonut** on Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:55 am

Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:The Cock Hurter won.

Well that just shows doesn't it? And now is the final nail in the coffin of my view on Oscars now. Damn you Katherine Bigelow. All you did was weaken a universe today.

I am retiring from this stupid biased ceremony and never bothering with Oscar anymore.

You guys who say you watch it out of Tradition need to grow up. All traditions can suck so much that they need to be bucked and abandoned. People do it to Christmas, you surely can do it to this insult to integrity and deservation farce.

Personally, I loved The Hurt Locker and felt it deserved the Best Picture Oscar, but I hear you. I've been very disappointed in the past with some of the so-called "Best Pictures." Don't give up on them yet. Wait til next year, at least.

by **Leckomaniac** on Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:29 pm

The Vicar wrote:"-Alec Baldwin and Martin Short:"

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!

TWOWILDANDCRAZYDUDESILASH!

by **Bloo** on Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:25 pm

minstrel wrote:The Tonys may be legit, but most of us don't have the opportunity to see the shows, at least without extraordinary expense of time and money. I wish I could see more live theater, but if you're not close to Broadway or London's West End or a few other hotbeds of theater, it's pretty tough to do. So it's hard to maintain interest in them.

I hear ya, I like watching them because it lets me know what's new and I can find the music for it. For example, I doubtr I would have been interested in NEXT TO NORMAL if I hadn't seen their performance on The Tony's last year, but I did and while it's not an album I listen to regularly, I find it to be an amazing show. It also gives me a heads up to look for what shows will be going on tour at some point.