Tag Archives: Best Picture

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Oscars Pool Cheat Sheet 2014

Need help filling out your Oscars pool ballot? Tuesday Night Movies has you covered!

oscars statues

Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o from 12 Years a Slave pulls a win over Jennifer Lawrence.

Supporting Actor: I feel like Jared Leto has a lock on this one.

jared-leto-dallas-buyers-club1

Actor: See what I wrote about Leto for Supporting Actor, but replace his name with Matthew McConoughey.

Actress: Oscars 101: Never bet against Meryl Streep. Except this year. Bet against Meryl Streep. August: Osage County has been panned, and everyone seems to adore Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. Cate Blanchett with the win as the David to Streep’s Goliath.

Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years A Slave, though I’d personally like to see Philomena take it.

Original Screenplay: Her. This seems to be as much a lock as the male acting categories.

Director: Cross out all choices except for Cuaron and McQueen. Now flip a coin. Or go with Cuaron. I’m going with Cuaron.

Best Picture: Again, I think it’s Gravity vs 12 Years a Slave. While I think Cuaron will beat out McQueen in the directing category, I think 12 Years a Slave will take home Best Picture. As long as American Hustle doesn’t win, I’m happy.

12 years a slave poster

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezski – Gravity

Editing: This is another one that I think will come down to either 12 Years a Slave or Gravity. Like Director, I think this one will fall to Gravity’s side.

Score: Gravity

Song: I LOVE Pharrell’s Happy, but Let it Go from Frozen is a juggernaught that can’t be stopped. Let it Go – Frozen.

Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty – Italy.

Documentary Feature: 20 Feet from Stardom

Animated Feature: Frozen with a lock.

Documentary Short: The Lady in Number 6

Live Action Short: Just Before Losing Everything

Animated Short: Get a Horse! – More like get a broom; Disney sweeps animation this year.

GET A HORSE!

Make-Up: Dallas Buyer’s Club, though I would love for Bad Grandpa to be able to call itself “Oscar Award Winning Movie Bad Grandpa!”

bad grandpa

Costume Design: The Great Gatsby

Production Design: The Great Gatsby

Sound Mixing: Gravity

Sound Editing: Gravity

Visual Effects: Gravity

GRAVITY

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At The Theater 2012 #4: The Artist

I still haven’t seen 6 of the 9 movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year. That said, I will riot if The Artist does not win.

If you haven’t seen The Artist yet, go do so. And see it while it’s still in the theater. Don’t wait for it to come out on DVD. Parts of the movie are shot from the POV of the theater audience, and it looks much cooler seeing that in a theater than it will on your couch.

When the Oscar nominations were announced, I read more than one cynical movie reporter write that Hollywood loves to look at itself, so surely The Artist will win. No, The Artist will win because it is a screen full of AWESOME. Okay, mostly whimsy, but an awesome amount of awesome whimsy.

I loved this scene so much. I could watch it over and over.


Throughout the movie, I kept asking myself, “What does this screenplay look like?” I would love to see it. Was it shorter, but denser than a regular screenplay because it was so action heavy? It will be interesting if The Artist wins Best Original Screenplay at tonight’s Oscars. I hope they read from it when they’re showing the nominees, as they’ve done with Best Screenplay nominees in the past. I want the screenplay to win the Oscar for the same reason that I want Jean Dujardin to win for Best Actor: I don’t think this movie would have worked if either wasn’t so amazing.

Was The Artist a pseudo-telling of Charlie Chaplin’s life? George Valentin is the biggest silent film star. He’s often accompanied by his very cute dog. And his star fell after the advent of talkies. Oh, and they both had signature moustaches…but thankfully, George’s wasn’t shared with the most hated despot of all time.

Cutest dog ever?

Minor spoilers follow after this picture of George silently screaming! Read further at your own peril!

During the scene when sound literally enters the film, and George is hearing everything in the world around him, but can’t make a sound himself, I thought, “Wow! What a twist! The movie is like a Twilight Zone episode! It’s so cool that they filmed this in black and white. Not only does it make sense for the era in which the film takes place, but it also makes sense for this Twilight Zone homage!” And then it turned out to be a dream.

Random thought of this review: How awesome was it to see Dauber from Coach make a brief appearance as a policeman?

It’s T-minus 2 1/2 hours to the Oscars as I write this, so unless you have amazing time management skills, or access to a time turner, if you haven’t seen The Artist yet, you probably won’t before The Academy Awards air. Whether The Artist wins or loses Best Picture, you should definitely see it.

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On The Couch #6: District 9

In the battle between District 9 and Avatar on which would make for a better date movie, Avatar wins hands down. Not because of the 3D, or the more attractive aliens, but because of Avatar’s lack of vomit. If I were to summarize District 9 in three words, it would be “too much vomit.” Someone seems to be upchucking every few minutes in the movie. It doesn’t matter if you’re human or alien; if you’re a character in the movie, there’s a good chance you’ll heave at some point. Even a robotic exoskeleton battle-suit throws up a couple of times. I didn’t know robots could barf!

If District 9 had a smaller special effects budget.

Once you get past all the ralphing, District 9 is a pretty cool movie. I like science fiction films that use aliens to highlight how shitty we can treat our fellow man. The aliens in District 9 are freaky looking, with a mother ship right out of Independence Day, but unlike the aliens on V, they’re not bent on world domination. They’re also not cute and cuddly like ET. They’re just trying to get by, living in their shantytown, dealing with prejudice from the local populace, getting screwed by the government and big corporations, selling outer space tech to the local Nigerian gang, and eating as much delicious cat food they can get their appendages on.

To be honest, I’m surprised there’s such a backlash against Avatar, but such a love for District 9. Both are about humans gaining an appreciation for the other side by becoming one of them. Both show that corporations care more about making money than doing the right thing. Both feature villains that are pulled from the action villain cliché book. So what is it? Does having Peter Jackson as a producer give it a certain amount of cache that James Cameron doesn’t carry any more? Did Titanic ruin Cameron for the sci-fi set?

By seeing District 9, I’m one step closer to seeing all 10 Best Picture nominations for this year’s Oscars. I’m a bit behind on that, having only seen 6 of 10. I’m behind on other things as well: behind at the theater and behind on the couch. I’m hoping to catch up on all three this week. Hurt Locker should be arriving in the mail from Netflix on Saturday, which leaves The Blind Side, Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, and A Single Man to see in the theater by Sunday evening. Can I do it?