Oscar nominations

[Dreddz]

James Cameron should have won Best Director.

[Rocket Edge]

Crash is horribly melodramatic and unsubtle, it beats you over the head with its message to the point of tedium. As for Braveheart, hilariously anti-English, homophobic, messes with history beyond the point of 'I'll let this slide because it's a film', and has the nauseating sight of Mel Gibson copping off with not one, but two much younger women. And it beat Babe, which is especially unforgiveable.

I thought Crash was a great film. I really don't see where your getting the unsubtle & melodramatic part from.

Braveheart was great because I'm Irish, and who likes the English? Jokes aside you can say it messes with history but the basis of what happened in the film happened in real life. Scotland won it's independence over England, no?

And The Hurt Locker will be forgotten in 5 years? I'd love to have your psychic abilities. I think it'll go down as one of the best films made about war.

I think it was obvious I wasn't being entirely truthful in my statement. Yeah, who's to know if It will be or not, but after seeing it all I can say is 'good film, but thats it'. Did it strike any emotion in me where It had me thinking about the film after it was done? No.

Saying 'Film/Band/Singer X will be forgotten in 5/10/20/100 years' is a daft argument, you have no way of knowing such a thing.

Again what I said above.

James Cameroon not winning best director is a joke, and Avatar missing out on best film is also. Typical Oscars carry-on taking a massive on the entire film industry. The Hurt Locker is a well made film - don't get me wrong, but Avatar is just in a league of its own for representing what a film should be all about. It doesn't necessarily bother me too much but after seeing both films and when one too me is clearly better than the other, it's a let-down. District 9 or even Up were much better films.

On the ceremony, I didn't see it yet so I'll see then. Happy for Jeff Bridges too.

[charliepanayi]

'Avatar is just in a league of its own for representing what a film should be all about'

Stunning visuals and a bog standard scipt? I don't think that's what a film should necessarily be all about at all.

And when you say 'this film will be forgotten', how am I supposed to know that the statement is not entirely serious?

As for Crash, it ladles on the RACISM angle to the point where it just gets daft. The one great bit of the film is when Matt Dillon tells the screaming Thandie Newton to shut up. It's one of the weakest ever Best Picture winners.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Avatar, when it comes to your average blockbuster, I'd take James Cameron over most directors. But I have a soft spot for the underdog, and so that's one reason why I'm happy for Bigelow and The Hurt Locker.

[Shiny]

District 9 = science fiction (Oliver beat 2001 to Best Picture, which tells you all you need to know about how the Academy treats science fiction)

Up = animation (another genre which the Oscars ignore)

I don't think these genres are ignored otherwise they wouldn't have been nominated. Science Fiction movies have won Oscars before (Star Wars anyone?), but never for Best Picture to my knowledge. You would think out of ten damn movies they'd pick one that was actually good. The fact that Avatar won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and then The Hurt Locker took home the Oscar for the same category really makes me worry about who is choosing these to win.

Also at the people saying how much balls it took to make Avatar: anyone with a computer, an editing program, and two cameras can do 3D. It's not hard. And he essentially used lots of green screen which made things easier as well. He didn't have to worry about shooting on real sets. It's hard to shoot 3D on actual locations -- well harder than shooting on green screen.

[Dreddz]

Also at the people saying how much balls it took to make Avatar: anyone with a computer, an editing program, and two cameras can do 3D. It's not hard. And he essentially used lots of green screen which made things easier as well. He didn't have to worry about shooting on real sets. It's hard to shoot 3D on actual locations -- well harder than shooting on green screen.

Are you kidding me? No offense but you really have no idea what you are talking about. I recommend you watch this interview with James Cameron to get a better idea of how Avatar was made. James Cameron was robbed last night of Best Director. I lost a lot of respect for the Oscars for that.

[Shiny]

No I am not kidding you. And I'm not listening to that guy talk. He's a tool. Green screen, Maya, two cameras, a crap script, a few B-movie actors, Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools. There you have Avatar.

The camera they used was actually a 3D camera, and many of them run about 20,000; which would probably be better than using the two cameras to get the same effect.

[Dreddz]

No I am not kidding you. And I'm not listening to that guy talk. He's a tool. Green screen, Maya, two cameras, a crap script, a few B-movie actors, Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools. There you have Avatar.

The camera they used was actually a 3D camera, and many of them run about 20,000; which would probably be better than using the two cameras to get the same effect.

Watch the interview before you embarrass youself even more. You really know nothing.

[Shiny]

No I am not kidding you. And I'm not listening to that guy talk. He's a tool. Green screen, Maya, two cameras, a crap script, a few B-movie actors, Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools. There you have Avatar.

The camera they used was actually a 3D camera, and many of them run about 20,000; which would probably be better than using the two cameras to get the same effect.

Watch the interview before you embarrass youself even more. You really know nothing.

I heard him speak on a show already. That was enough for me. You may think it's hard to make a film like that because you don't know how to go about doing it or don't have the tools to do it to your advantage. But, like I said it's not when you do. Maya can make the CG you see in the film and there are plenty people I know who work in Maya -- it can be a fun program. It's weird how much you seem to obsess about this guy like he's some sort of God of filmmaking when he makes the most subpar scripts in the history of it. With that said, I did enjoy Avatar. But Best Director he is not. Not this year anyway.

[Bunny]

Oh hey, Alice made a bunch of money already. It must be an amazing movie.

[Dreddz]

I heard him speak on a show already. That was enough for me. You may think it's hard to make a film like that because you don't know how to go about doing it or don't have the tools to do it to your advantage. But, like I said it's not when you do. Maya can make the CG you see in the film and there are plenty people I know who work in Maya -- it can be a fun program. It's weird how much you seem to obsess about this guy like he's some sort of God of filmmaking when he makes the most subpar scripts in the history of it. With that said, I did enjoy Avatar. But Best Director he is not. Not this year anyway.

Well first of all the interview I posted goes much more in-depth into how Avatar was made than other interviews with him. I strongly urge you to watch it before you go on like you know what your talking about.

And I do have a lot of respect for James Cameron and have no idea what peoples beef with him is. He is one of the few directors who isn't just going for a quick buck. He wants to push film making to the next level and for the most part succeeds every time. And as far as his scripts go, well you clearly didn't understand what his intentions were for Avatar. He wanted it to be a commercial film. Family entertainment if you will. I doubt he is looking back at some of the cheesy lines and thinking to himself "I'm so clever for putting that in there". I think it takes a certain degree of honesty to not try and be overly clever with your script. To prove James Cameron can make a decent script, go watch Aliens, arguably the most quotable movie of all time.

[Ouch!]

While I will agree that Shiny is overestimating how simple it was to make Avatar, I'll have to agree with the points regarding the script (which is more than just dialogue). Aside from the admittedly gorgeous visuals, Avatar is a movie that we've all already seen before. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it certainly hurts Avatar in the long run. Avatar, quite frankly, isn't everything that it could be. It fails to deliver substance. Sure, it's a technological marvel, and props to Cameron for pushing the envelop visually (and I'll also admit he's one of the few directors these days who seems to have a sense of choreography during action sequences), but that's hardly enough to deserve a Best Picture Oscar. Avatar won the only Oscar it deserved. I found The Hurt Locker very underwhelming, but I understand exactly why it won. If Avatar had won, I would have been extremely disappointed.

[Slothy]

While I will agree that Shiny is overestimating how simple it was to make Avatar, I'll have to agree with the points regarding the script (which is more than just dialogue). Aside from the admittedly gorgeous visuals, Avatar is a movie that we've all already seen before. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it certainly hurts Avatar in the long run. Avatar, quite frankly, isn't everything that it could be. It fails to deliver substance. Sure, it's a technological marvel, and props to Cameron for pushing the envelop visually (and I'll also admit he's one of the few directors these days who seems to have a sense of choreography during action sequences), but that's hardly enough to deserve a Best Picture Oscar. Avatar won the only Oscar it deserved. I found The Hurt Locker very underwhelming, but I understand exactly why it won. If Avatar had won, I would have been extremely disappointed.

This pretty much. There is no way anyone can realistically tell me that Avatar deserved best picture when all it had going for it besides visuals was that they had decent acting, and the script wasn't laughably bad. I'm not going to say whether the Hurt Locker deserved to win because I haven't seen it yet, but Avatar certainly didn't deserve to win over the likes of Up, Inglourious Basterds or District 9 which had more going for them than just their effects.

Avatar was a fun movie to watch, but that's really all it was. It's not something I'd ever hold up as even being an amazing film or even amazing for it's genre when you start looking beyond simply the audio and visual side of things.

[Dreddz]

You lot are so picky. I reckon the Best Picture should be decided by how much entertainment value is put on screen. Avatar isn't perfect, but its a lot of fun. Just on that basis alone, it deserved the Best Picture award.

[Bunny]

I reckon the Best Picture should be decided by how much entertainment value is put on screen.

There you go.

[charliepanayi]

You lot are so picky. I reckon the Best Picture should be decided by how much entertainment value is put on screen. Avatar isn't perfect, but its a lot of fun. Just on that basis alone, it deserved the Best Picture award.

I reckon it should be on what the best film is (yeah, fat chance I know). And 'entertainment' is a very subjective concept, I found There Will Be Blood (a very slow film that bores most people to tears) far more entertaining than something like Avatar.

And my point about SF and animation is that they will win technical awards, maybe be nominated for big awards, but they will not win Best Picture. A bit like foreign films.