The Oscars

OK… so the Oscars were last week. I didn’t watch them, I never do (I’ll get to that later), but I did manage to see the cool Horror Montage the morning after. Very cool.

A couple of days later, my buddy Cinesthete, at Reel Friction posted his thoughts on the Oscars. Upon reading it, I felt that I had express some of my own thoughts… mostly as rebuttal to his thoughts, and adding a few of my own.

I reproduced most of his article here, at least the parts that I had felt the need to comment. To read the whole article, go here. There were a few things that I had no thoughts or cares about.

Here goes:

I don’t pretend to understand cinematography (anyone who has seen my films can attest to that), but does lighting generated on a computer count? I’m surprised Avatar won.

I won’t even claim to understand any cinematography (at least you made a few films, Cinesthete), but as a 3D artist and animator, I can say that lighting is one of the most challenging aspects of the job. Every aspect of lighting is translated through hundreds of parameters that we take for granted. Positioning, intensity, and attenuation are just a difficult to determine in a virtual scene as it is in real life. And then there is the whole science of Radiosity (shadows and light bounces) that need to be configured… otherwise you’ll end up with something like a scene in the original Tron (they may have been ground breaking in 3D, but we have gone a long way since then).

Once you tweak all the parameters in order to imitate real life, you then have to marry it to actual real life footage. Granted, on many of todays sophisticated computers and equipment (thanks to George Lucas), this is not too difficult. But trust me, it takes damn near rocket science to figure out how to use all that equipment and programs.

So “lighting generated on a computer” is really putting it lightly. It’s like saying anyone can pickup a camera and become a James Cameron. It is, after all, just “looking through a lens”, right? I’m not shocked that Avatar won that award. As a matter of fact, I am shocked it didn’t received more technical awards, but thats how the Oscars work…

The White Ribbon, my vote for best film of the year, did not win Best Foreign Language Film. I’m ashamed that was the only one I saw in that category.

I haven’t seen any in the Best Foreign Language Film, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. You know why? Because none of them were Horror, Science Fiction, or Fantasy. And that’s the problem with the Oscars… they never take these kinds of movies seriously. Anytime a movie gets one of those labels, people think “Uh oh, its just another one of those Creature Features like from the 50′s.” Case in point: that last time a horror film got best picture was Silence of the Lambs. And people still argue that it is not horror, but just a thriller. How can a movie with characters that bites the face off a prison guard and wear the skins of his victims not be horrific? Just because IMDB says its not? There’s more science fiction and fantasy in movies these days than people would like to admit. But as soon as you label it that way, it’s a joke.

Pixar has done no wrong in the past few years, and the Academy has thankfully recognized that.

Pixar definitely deserves recognition; I won’t disagree with that. However, I don’t think that they should have gotten with Up. Personally, I feel that Wall-E was a far better movie and far more creative than Up. And visually, Wall-E is far more superior compared to Up. This year, I think that Fantastic Mr. Fox should have taken the award. But, since Up was nominated for Best Picture, is was a sure win for this category…

This is how the Oscars work (and it really pisses me off). Many times in the past, great actors, actresses, and directors have been around and not recognized by the Academy. Then they suddenly wakes up to decide to finally give these people the recognition… for movies that were not really their best. Case in point: your next comment…

Bigelow wins for best director! The Hurt Locker was directly very well, and she deserves recognition, but in my mind more for Point Break and Strange Days then for her most recent film.

I never saw The Hurt Locker, and probably never will. But Strange Days was an excellent film and overly underrated. Why? Well, it may have to do with it being labeled as Science Fiction. Nuff said.

District 9 did not deserve any nominations, let along Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay? I don’t care what LCD says.

This is one area where LCD and I agree, and we rarely do agree on anything! (LCD is the other contributor on Reel Fiction). Although, I think it is for different reasons. District 9 is not just another Science Fiction film with fancy effects. It explores a possibility of the human condition in light of a situation that is unimaginable (not something that has been already done). This movie makes you think, it makes you feel, and it makes you root for the hero. It’s dark, but yet shows some hope. It definitely deserves to be nominated and should have been nominated for even more.

I’m sure I would feel the same way about A Serious Man, even if I didn’t see. Just from what I read about it, it sounds rather boring and uninteresting.

I happened to catch all of the 10 Best Picture Nominees and I give them a 60/40 good to bad ratio. The best of the lot was A Serious Man, which I saw too late to put on my Top 10 of the Year.

(He, he, he) I only saw 4 of the 10, and I am OK with that, really. I’m happy to see District 9 make the list. I’m glad to see Avatar made it for the simple fact that it is Science Fiction… but I hardly think that it was Best Picture quality, but I’ll take it. More movies like these should be included in the nominations. And I would like to think that the Academy increased it’s nominations to allow room for more genres… but I’m probably wrong.

10 Best Pictures? Including more films makes the category less important.

The Best Picture category is kind of pointless, in my opinion. I think that being the best of anything should be judged by its accomplishments, and in this case by how many awards it receives in other categories. I think the Academy should introduce more categories and the Best Picture will just come out on it own.

I don’t really like John Hughes.

You are too young to like John Hughes. The man is a significant part of an era that you did not experience. He is more than just a director, his is a documentarian. If my grandkids ever came up to me and asked what the 80′s were like, I would tell him to watch a few John Hughes film.

If the Academy allows Foreign Language Films and Animated Features to be nominated for best picture, they are logically saying that all the Best Picture Nominees are better than all of the nominees from those other categories. That is why I don’t like the Oscars.

And in this year’s case, it was true! Up was nominated for best Animated Feature and Best Picture. It won the Animated Feature, so clearly it was the best and deserved to be in the Best Picture category. I should have seen that coming!

Again, proving my point that the Best Picture category is just plain pointless.

Why is there a Foreign Language Film category? I don’t get it. If the Academy Awards are US based, then why are we are recognizing them? And we are including foreign films, then why not include them in other categories (Best Actor, Film Editing, etc). Yet another reason the Oscars are f*cked up.

And now, for my little rant: I’ll tell you why the Oscar’s suck. It’s because they don’t have enough representation of all the genres. Yes, I’m talking about SciFi, Horror, and Fantasy… as well as Anime. Also, the Academy is too political. I really think the Kathryn Bigelow was elected Best Directory because it was time to have a female take the award. Just like in 2001 when DENZEL WASHINGTON and HALLE BERRY won Best Actor and Best Actress respectively. They just wanted make history. This year, again, they made history.

I stopped watching the Awards since the late 80′s because they stopped making any sense. Plus, less and less movies that I enjoy were not even recognized while boring, unimaginative films were getting all kinds of awards. And, the hosting is just ridiculously boring.