I certainly haven't seen all the 2009 movies (and I never will), but I'll predict that the Best Director Oscar won't go to James Cameron for "Avatar," but to his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker," making her the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Off topic ... from the NY Times ... Tiger Woods is being linked to a Canadian medical doctor (Anthony Galea) who was found to be in the possession of human growth hormone. Galea also has treated age defying swimmer Dara Torres and NFL players.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/sports/15doctor.html?hp
so is the new 10 nominee format a response to low television ratings, or did the dark knight single handedly expose the academy as terminally out of touch and stuck in their own little world?
ReplyDeletehurt locker did nothing at the box office, literally only a few thousand people saw it, so having it win any major awards would send ratings even lower than they already are. so i don't know what to think.
i would have to research it, but if hurt locker won one of the major awards, it would have to be easily one of the least viewed winners in the history of the academy awards.
Didn't she make Strange Days? Disgusting and odious movie.
ReplyDeleteShe's a posh upper middle class bohemian arm chair radical type who sensationalizes mindless violence as hipster romanticism.
But, maybe she matured and finally made a half decent movie.
And, it wouldn't be an affirmative action oscar win!
ReplyDeleteKoodos to Ms. Bigelow--I like her and partly because she's not a whiny type= the very average, sometimes incompetent female directors who accuse the industry of sexism to compensate for their lack of talent/dedication.
BTW, Steve, do you think that both Bob Herbert and Herb Blow are AA hires? The two of them do nothing except whine about either:
ReplyDelete1. racism
2. sexism
3. the poor
4. mothers
Here's my quote from last year when you suggested Mickey Rourke as a possible Oscar contender...
ReplyDelete"Sentimental to you and me, but the Hollywood crowd can't wait to stick it to the rest of America by awarding the Best Actor Oscar to Sean Penn for his "courageous" performance as Harvey Milk. Write it down."
Well, it looks like this year, based on the "buzz", it could be a battle for best actor between Jeff Bridges, as a washed-up country singer, and Colin Firth, as a gay British college professor.
I believe Bridges is more popular in the film industry than Rourke, but never underestimate Hollywood's hatred of middle America.
http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news?slug=ap-canadiandoctor-doping&prov=ap&type=lgns
ReplyDeleteGood to see Deuce Bigelow's sister is finally getting the recognition she deserves.
ReplyDeleteI dono, it's a bit noncommittal -- stringently so -- on the morality of the war. I can't see it winning an award of that calibre. Message movies of the rote sort tend to net the goods.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody still watch or care who wins an Oscar? It is really just a trade show for the entertainment industry.
ReplyDeleteBig up the Bigelow.
ReplyDeletepat said
ReplyDelete> Off topic ... from the NY Times ... Tiger Woods is being linked to [...] human growth hormone. <
The story refers rather vaguely to "drugs" in general as well, leaving open the possibility that more than HGH is involved.
No wonder "Tiger Juice" got pulled quick. Too many bad connotations.
In a fair world, Bigelow would win for her excellent film. Unfortunately, I think what South Park has called "Dances with Smurfs" will get more awards.
ReplyDeleteA Canadian doctor who has treated golfer Tiger Woods, swimmer Dara Torres and NFL players is suspected of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to a newspaper report.
ReplyDeleteOn topic:
ReplyDeleteOscar Prediction: Morgan Freeman will win as Mandela.
C'mon, it's got every progressive "ding" in the book:
1. Black (ding!)*
2. Morgan Freeman (ding!)
3. Clint Eastwood connection (ding!)
4. Anti-apartheid (ding ding ding!)
I haven't kept count but I think that black American men have won 50% of the leading man Oscars in the last 10 years, including such
box office winners as THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND.
About Tiger, being accused of using performance enhancing drugs is the only factor that might truly hurt his image. So far, this has been win win win all the way for the cheetah. He was overexposed and taking a break from golf was just what the doctor ordered.
His image hasn't suffered at all among golf fans. But if he's exposed as a drug-taker, that would really hurt him.
Well I think whoever put together this video of George Brett, titled "I shit my pants last night", should at least get a nomination:
ReplyDelete(warning: funny, swear words, NSFW)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Dn0hs-CM8&feature=related
The most depressing film/performance usually wins, which for me also includes the "transgressive" films. Perhaps the Academy threw a bone to the transgressives last year with Milk and this year it's payback for Jeff Bridges body of work and performance in a film with depressing undertones.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, it would definitely be an impressive accomplishment for fashion designer Tom Ford to produce and direct a film that is worthy of an Oscar on it's own merit his first time out and not just get the nod because his film covers a gay love affair.
The Hurt Locker has grossed $12M in the US to date, implying about 120 thousand people have seen it.
ReplyDeleteOff-topic. I bought a PlayStation 3, and I love Blu-Ray!
ReplyDeleteI have a Nakamichi receiver with two channels of sound coming attached to my 720p Sharp Aquos TV, and these movies are pushing my system farther than I thought it could go.
I'm going back to Best Buy to purchase movies I already own, but in the premium Blu Ray version.
I have the Bourne Trilogy, Black Hawk Down, and I'm going back for National Treasure and The Rock!
"Good to see Deuce Bigelow's sister is finally getting the recognition she deserves."
ReplyDeleteHow bigelow can you go, gigolo?
"hurt locker did nothing at the box office, literally only a few thousand people saw it,"
ReplyDeleteThe Hurt Locker made over $12 million in the United States and and additional $4 million internationally on a budget of $11 million.
Hope to the gods of chaos that Avatar never even consider for an oscar. The previews are even gay.
ReplyDelete"Hurt Locker"?? Ohhhh,thats the title? I thought it was a football bio: "Urlacher"! My mistake. I thought george clooney was the big choice to win for his latest boring,unseen movie,'Up Up And Away' or whatever it is.Weird that he has been linked to at least one Tiger mistress. Re Tiger riding bareback:how did he do all this with these,er,ladies and not get a disease? Maybe dear Elin's wrath---the broad did try to kill Tiger,after all--was based on some medical results? :0 Re 'pat' saying,"Tiger..is being linked to a Canadian medical doctor" thought occured that it was a sexual reference and I thought,"Tiger scored a doctor? Hitting above his average!" Then I saw it was one Anthony Galea,anothet thought:"Tiger is accused of being on the Down Low"; finally seeing its a refernec to his going to the HGH guy.Oh yeah,heard that. I think I cleared up this issue a few blogs ago:of course this swine is on the juice! How much of a white-guy jock sniffer do you have to be to doubt that?? The money to be made from a $500 injection...huge!
ReplyDeleteOff topic (sorry) -
ReplyDeleteSteve -
Ever thought of relocating to Nevis or St. Kitts?
There is no income tax there. Some bloggers and programmers move there since they work out of their home anyways.
OT
ReplyDeleteSteve, there appears to be a National Question issue in the recent election of a lesbian mayor in Houston.
"This lines up with the larger national trends in America. Republicans only win elections by controlling white-dominated rural and suburban areas, and almost all other parts of the country lean towards the Democrats. And thus Republican power is being chipped away at slowly through pure demographics, as the nation as a whole grows more racially diverse and more urban. In many ways, Texas is ahead of the trend, since the state has not had a white majority since 2005."
The writer, Marcotte, appears to be a Kevin MacDonald poster girl. "My favorite bloodsport," she says, "is taking angry swipes at institutional Catholicism."
Those darn liberals.
"hurt locker did nothing at the box office, literally only a few thousand people saw it, so having it win any major awards would send ratings even lower than they already are."
ReplyDeleteIt did $12m US and has 20,000 ratings on imdb, so I'm guessing a lot more than "literally only a few thousand people" have seen it.
The country is leaning toward the Dems, huh? Watch 2010 explode that lefty dreamboat out of the water.
ReplyDeleteLOLLERskates! are people seriously suggesting that more than a few thousand people ON EARTH saw hurt locker? if 100000 people saw this movie, that means that less than 1 million people saw this film worldwide. do people posting in this thread realize how small and insignificant that makes a film? less than 1 million views? youtube videos of cats get more views than that. a real best movie nomination should rack up $100 million in the US box office alone. plenty of winners in the past have, it's only recently that the academy is so ludicrously out of touch.
ReplyDeletein a world with 7 billion people, with an ever expanding movie theater infrastructure, bringing films to nations around the world, so much that the international box office of many US films is bigger than the domestic box office, people are really going to argue that anybody actually saw hurt locker? folks, nobody even HEARD of hurt locker. anybody in this thread who says they have multiple friends who have even heard of hurt locker is a liar or is hopelessly SWPL, because hurt locker had no marketing budget.
hurt locker is so obscure and was seen by so few people, that 3 times as many people saw the obscure "I've never even heard of that one" nominees from LAST year. are we gonna go boxofficemojo.com on those too, to prove that "lots!" of people saw them?
i'm sure hurt locker is good, but it is the ultimate academy award nomination. reducing the nominations down to films that are so obscure, seen by so few people, as to basically not exist.
Steve, there appears to be a National Question issue in the recent election of a lesbian mayor in Houston
ReplyDeleteDon't make too much of it, the turnout was only 16.5%.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aJlxjUiZh2oI
Hollywood and the media are on a full court press to sanctify gays and will be making movies about fag agonistes from now until homosexual marriage is written into law by the Supreme Court. No one has suffered more for the right to proposition guys in bathroom stalls. America's romance with sexual confusion continues...
ReplyDelete"so is the new 10 nominee format a response to low television ratings, or did the dark knight single handedly expose the academy as terminally out of touch and stuck in their own little world?"
ReplyDeleteJody, even if you come off like a raging lunatic and don't know what a "capital letter" is, you got one right, there buddy; The Dark Knight was a brilliant film.
Sailer brings up an interesting point. Why hasn't there been a lot of great female film directors--though there have been many great women writers, composers, editors, actresses, and etc? There have even been a good number of powerful women in exec or producer roles in Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteIs it because one has to be really crazy and authoritarian to be a director--centrifugal artistic/social force who must also deal with the pressures from the finance department? Maybe most women are not up to that task. A film director is like a military general.
Even so, there have been great female directors, the most famous(or infamous)being Leni Riefenstahl. But, the greatest is no doubt Lina Wertmuller who made some of the best films of the 70s. Though she didn't win as a director, I think Seven Beauties did win as foreign film, which is a de facto win for the director.
PS. Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Chantal Akerman, and Amy Heckerling suck!
"I haven't kept count but I think that black American men have won 50% of the leading man Oscars in the last 10 years, including such
ReplyDeletebox office winners as THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND."
Well let's just take a trip in the way back machine and see: We'll go back 20 years just for kicks...
* 1989 Daniel Day-Lewis - My Left Foot as Christy Brown
* 1990 Jeremy Irons - Reversal of Fortune as Claus von Bülow
* 1991 Anthony Hopkins - The Silence of the Lambs as Dr.Hannibal Lecter
* 1992 Al Pacino - Scent of a Woman as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade
* 1993 Tom Hanks - Philadelphia as Andrew Beckett
* 1994 Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump as Forrest Gump
* 1995 Nicolas Cage - Leaving Las Vegas as Ben Sanderson
* 1996 Geoffrey Rush - Shine as David Helfgott
* 1997 Jack Nicholson - As Good as It Gets as Melvin Udall
* 1998 Roberto Benigni - Life Is Beautiful as Guido Orefice
* 1999 Kevin Spacey - American Beauty as Lester Burnham
* 2000 Russell Crowe - Gladiator as Maximus Decimus Meridius
* 2001 Denzel Washington - Training Day as Alonzo Harris
* 2002 Adrien Brody - The Pianist as Wladyslaw Szpilman
* 2003 Sean Penn - Mystic River as Jimmy Markum
* 2004 Jamie Foxx - Ray as Ray Charles
* 2005 Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote as Truman Capote
* 2006 Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland as Idi Amin
* 2007 Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood as Daniel Plainview
* 2008 Sean Penn - Milk as Harvey Milk
Oh, let's see, three of the last 10 and three of the last 20 as well, that's about 50% right?
And amongst "Box Office Winners" we have "Reversal of Fortune, Leaving Las Vegas, Shine, the Pianist, There Will be Blood, and Milk. Powerhouses all.
I find this quote interesting (The Oscar Badmouthing Has Begun):
ReplyDelete"Similarly, Hollywood is incensed privately by the Coen brothers' A Serious Man and its Jewish stereotypes. Trust me, this will bubble up to the surface before too long if either film looks to be in serious contention for Best Picture."
It's the best movie of the year, but no one wants to touch it. I'm assuming that Steve's failure to review the movie is due to his own confusion over what to make of its scathing depiction of Jews.
I can't quite get over Bale's speech impediment/lisp/whatever. I mean, Batman wears a suit half the time and the only thing you can see is the mouth in all its lispy glory. He beats Keaton (who had the chops but nowhere near the necessary physique) I guess.
ReplyDelete"I can't quite get over Bale's speech impediment/lisp/whatever. I mean, Batman wears a suit half the time and the only thing you can see is the mouth in all its lispy glory. He beats Keaton (who had the chops but nowhere near the
ReplyDeletenecessary physique) I guess."
He doesn't sound lispy, especially when he is Batman rather than Bruce Wayne, growly and mental perhaps...
If it's something you can see (rather than hear) maybe it's just the shape of his mouth.