2008 Academy Awards

[BatSpider]

I hope DDL wins Best Actor

and Next year: Heath Ledger as Joker

 

[Hunter Rider]

DDL is the biggest certainty of this years Oscars.

 

[Watson]

DDL is the biggest certainty of this years Oscars.

I think the question now it what outrageousness he will get up to in his speech.

 

[Drizzle]

and Next year: Heath Ledger as Joker

Do you think they'd give him a posthumous supporting actor nod?

 

[Apollo]

wait, so why does the academy hate Burton again?

 

[Movies205]

wait, so why does the academy hate Burton again?

Academy more interested in substance than flash which is what Burton's style is. He's renown for his style rather than his substance. In terms of direction, he crafts fascinating visuals however his attention to story, pacing, etc can be pedantic quite a bit. However I'm in the camp that thinks he should of gotten a nod for Sweeney Todd which was great.

 

[Matt]

DDL is the biggest certainty of this years Oscars.

I don't know, Daaavy. If Clooney can split votes with DDL, there is a chance, albeit a slight one, that Depp can backdoor the win.

 

[Movies205]

I don't know, Daaavy. If Clooney can split votes with DDL, there is a chance, albeit a slight one, that Depp can backdoor the win.

Daniel Day Lewis has this in the bag. I haven't seen the movie but everyone is raving about his performance. I need to see this. Let's not also forget that BO and popularity also plays a role in the oscars and Michael Clayton really is a blimp on the map.

 

[Matt]

I think you underestimate Clooney's influence with the academy.

 

[Movies205]

I think you underestimate Clooney's influence with the academy.

I suppose but he also won last year which won't bode especially well. Plus its Daniel Day Lewis, the guy just commands respect. We'll see but I don't see Clooney winning it.

 

[Matt]

I definitely do not see Clooney taking the win either, but I do see him stealing enough from Lewis based on name alone that POSSIBLY Depp could backdoor it.

 

[Movies205]

I definitely do not see Clooney taking the win either, but I do see him stealing enough from Lewis based on name alone that POSSIBLY Depp could backdoor it.

I really can't see Depp winning for such a character role, for much the same reason Borat didn't get a nomination last year. Oscars tend to shy away from flash and more on substance. And while I love Depp's performance as Sweeney Todd, its more for the entertainment and camp factor than real "acting" chops that I can pretty much see from the previews that Daniel Day Lewis brought to his role. If anything Depp would of had a better shot at winning for his role in Finding Neverland than now.

Also may I throw a shout out to Viggo who did an excellent job in Eastern Promises.

 

[DACrowe]

Academy more interested in substance than flash which is what Burton's style is. He's renown for his style rather than his substance. In terms of direction, he crafts fascinating visuals however his attention to story, pacing, etc can be pedantic quite a bit. However I'm in the camp that thinks he should of gotten a nod for Sweeney Todd which was great.

If you're talking about some of Burton's lesser efforts (Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) I'd agree with that statement. Otherwise I think it is bull ****. Burton is not all flash and no substance. Those who say that either do not get his work or ignore its value. Yeah some of his more popular movies have been style such as the very enjoyable Sleepy Hollow or the brilliant comedy, Beetlejuice, but many of his movies have a lot going on that people ignore. Ed Wood is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. It is not flashy, it is not highly (I emphasize highly) stylized and is one of the best biopics ever made. It is covered in Burton's signature dark comedy but tells the story earnestly of a man who loved to make movies and does not judge him because those said movies were awful. It is rather an appraisal for moviemaking and the drive it has for all auteurs, which Burton sees a recognition of in Wood.

Sweeney Todd is a masterpiece as well. Simply said it combines all of Burton's trademark visuals and steps the mup a notch where they have never been so bleak or shrouded in darkness. He turns the paleness on its head to give everyone a silent moie look and is obviously Burton's attempt to make a film in the classic horror movie mold and is heavily inspired by Lon Chaney's silent classics, Universal's 1930 horrors (take out the singing and blood, Boris Karloff could have played this Sweeney Todd and Peter Lorre the Beadle) and the psychological horrors Van Lewton had in 1940s RKO pictures. It was deeply layered here, but also balanced it with a very incredible story that is wrought with melodrama, yet seemed to avoid the melo in melodrama and made the characters seem very realistic and poignant in their tragedy. It was paced perfectly and is one of the few adaptations of a stage musical that works completely on its own as a film. It stands by itself and moves, paces, etc. completely well and there is no jump when they burst out into song, it is simply an extension of the characters. Add to that this is the music of Stephen Sondheim and you end up with what is for my money the best movie of 2007.

But we can go into earlier works like this. Many on this board discredit his Batman movies, because they are not entirely faithful adaptations to the comics. So what? They are the closest superhero movies have ever come to art house. Batman (1989) was Burton's attempt to make a neo-noir or a modern film noir, in the superhero genre. You scoff at that? Well Scorcesse tried to make neo noir (to far greater success, mind you) with Taxi Driver, or Scott with Blade Runner, Curtis with LA Confidential (the obvious one), Polanski and Chinatown, etc, etc. But Burton was more driven by the visual style of noir. And noir (most anyway) are very stylized movies. Burton uses the high contrast lighting, the shadows, the bdark city where the only sunlight in the movie is in window lighting for a few sets and ONE outside shoot in the daytime. It is relentlessly oppressive. And Burton takes his heavy inspiration from how the German Expressionist movement inspired American filmmakers in noir. The set design might as well be Fritz Lang's Metropolis but dirtier. Like all noir, it is an attack on urban living and how it corrupts the soul and everyone who lives there. It is not pure like living in nature and everyone there is depressed and trapped in this bleak post-apocolyptic world. Jack's line at the beginning "Decent people shouldn't live here, they'd be happier someplace else," is what most noirs are about.

And their are the motifs of costumes with the fedora hats and trench coats, etc. But that does not mean it is just style. Burton uses his basis to completely develop the characters. Batman is a broken anti-hero who is in the dark almost the whole movie. We never get the full picture of him until he has a flashback in classic film noir style and we cannot decipher if it is how it really happened or how Batman is choosing it to happen. Burton leaves it up to a more mature audience to even see if they want to believe it was Napier who killed his parents, because in noir the flashback must always be taken with a grain of salt. Vicky Vale has men flock around her leading almost to all of their deaths, and the one most obsessed with her dying (Joker). Is that not the premise of "Laura" the 1944 classic about the unintentional working girl femme fatale? And does Joker not fall in love with her but from her picture like the detective character in said movie?

And to move on saving time Batman Returns is an entirely different beast. It is a straight up piece of expressionism. All of the characters develop Batman, because they are all his counterpoint. Penguin is the child who was lost and makes due from losing his parents, under very different circumstances and from the same background. Selena Kyle was wronged like him and is looking for vengeance under a cowl, and will not hear Bruce's warnings even though they are kindred spirits. Max Schreck (named after Nosferatu's lead actor) is Bruce Wayne's public image distorted and who he could have been possibly if he did not grow up so ****ed up. And all of these characters and the plot are developed through the visuals. That is not shallow style over substance. That is the style is the substance. Why not attack Murnau for Sunrise, then or Lang for Metropolis? Catwoman's psychology is based on her costume, it is her holding herself together like Bruce controls his insanity (in Burton's world, Bruce Wayne is insane) by wearing it and feeling she is avenging herself. But she fails to make the pain go away and as the costume is shredded by all the men in her life she loses her grip on reality and is also where Bruce could go. She is simply nuts by film's end. And while the end of the movie is very melodramatic and even operatic, it is the final scenes that are possibly more noir than the first one. Bruce loses the obvious femme fatale who he wrongly fell in love with. She is gone and he failed to do the right thing by arresting Schreck (even though he was hypocrite as he did kill Joker). At the end he finds the cat and is completely alone on Christmas eve and depressed as hell and he basically lost at the end of the movie. The bad guys are defeated, but Bruce realizes he is probably not a good guy and that there are no heroes in the world as he walks away alone to his self-made prison one snowy Christmas night. Ultimate noir right there.

And Burton's other pictures can be dissected like this. Edward Scissorhands, another classic is also a piece highly stylized by expressionism. If the Batman movies was Burton's attack on urban living and how it corrupts everyone and makes them pieces in the cog machine (like Walter Neff in Double Indemnity), then Edward Scissorhands is his attack on suburban lifestyle and its gossiping, cruel side. Scissorhands is told through expressionism obviously and is a fable that ends with Ryder dancing in the snow. In fact outside of BR and ST, all of Burton's movies end very happily. So the prince of darkness and obsessed with dark movies emphasis, I'd argue is wrong. And Big Fish is a very mature movie that paces perfectly. There is a restrained mature movie he made about the relationship between a father and son, or a storyteller and non-believer. It is a sweet intimate movie that only goes high on the stylized visuals in the dubious flashbacks and is restrained into "naturalistic" filmmaking in the present setting. It relies on great acting, pacing and most of all storytelling as that is what the movie is about and how it can bring people apart and pull them back together and how it allows a storyteller (or filmmaker) to live on well past his death.

So to say Burton has no depth or is style over substance just shows a lack of comprehension for what he does or a willingness to dislike it because it is all so highly stylized that one chooses to look away from what the movie really is saying past its unconventional appearance. But he does not campaign, bribe or make picturs that have characters wearing their hearts on their sleeve usually ready to break down for a good crying scene very much. So the Academy chooses to ignore him. Sad.

 

[Drizzle]

I think you underestimate Clooney's influence with the academy.

Dude, you're overestimating it if you think Clooney has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

[Matt]

Y'never know though, Movies. People were shocked when Hopkins took the win for Silence of the Lambs for those very reasons.

 

[Matt]

Dude, you're overestimating it if you think Clooney has a snowball's chance in hell of beating Daniel Day-Lewis.

Read the post, I never said Clooney would beat him, I said Clooney MAY be able to split his votes enough for Depp to take the win.

 

[tzarinna]

I really can't see Depp winning for such a character role, for much the same reason Borat didn't get a nomination last year. Oscars tend to shy away from flash and more on substance. And while I love Depp's performance as Sweeney Todd, its more for the entertainment and camp factor than real "acting" chops that I can pretty much see from the previews that Daniel Day Lewis brought to his role. If anything Depp would of had a better shot at winning for his role in Finding Neverland than now.

Also may I throw a shout out to Viggo who did an excellent job in Eastern Promises.

Yes, you may.

 

[Hunter Rider]

I don't know, Daaavy. If Clooney can split votes with DDL, there is a chance, albeit a slight one, that Depp can backdoor the win.

I just don't see it, the others merely are making up the numbers this year.

Ewwwwwwwwww i see very LONG Burton posts.

 

[DACrowe]

I just don't see it, the others merely are making up the numbers this year.

Ewwwwwwwwww i see very LONG Burton posts.

And why is that a problem? Has there been a lot of Burton arguing in previous pages (I only read the first page and only saw one Burton comment there) or people don't like long structured pieces of argument (as far as internet posting goes) as opposed to 1-2 sentence comments like "Burton is all style over substance?"


Burton is very stylish, but what he does goes underappreciated by the Academy and people who feel the need to step down on him because he is popular with cultish audiences.

 

[Movies205]

And why is that a problem? Has there been a lot of Burton arguing in previous pages (I only read the first page and only saw one Burton comment there) or people don't like long structured pieces of argument (as far as internet posting goes) as opposed to 1-2 sentence comments like "Burton is all style over substance?"


Burton is very stylish, but what he does goes underappreciated by the Academy and people who feel the need to step down on him because he is popular with cultish audiences.

I will respond to your post when I have the time to give it the respect it deserves. However I would feel we both been posting here long enough to respect each other. I've seen your posts and respect them, so I would assume you've read enough of mine to respect my own. The only reason I didn't write an essay on the subject is because the main point was that I was making was the academy appreciates substance over style. Burton is a stylish film-maker no doubt about that as for how much substance lays in Burton film that's up to debate, and when I have time I will post a retort to your rather grandiose post.

 

[DACrowe]

I am sorry, I did not mean to be insulting. I understand the reasoning of your post and respect you as an intelligent poster who has much insight. I merely was saying why is it a problem if it was a long post. I did not mean an insult to anybody. And I admit the post is a bit rambling, I just am tired of seeing Burton getting bashed as a shallow director more interested in visuals than depth. I agree he is unconventional in his storytelling techniques, but I don't find that to mean he is all flash.

I apologize if the previous post insulted anybody.

 

[Cinemaman]

My predictions:

Best Picture
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Directing
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
JUNO

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Daniel Day-Lewis
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Javier Bardem
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Ellen Page
JUNO

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Ryan
GONE BABY GONE

Best Foreign Language Film
THE COUNTERFEITERS

Best Cinematography
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Best Art Direction
SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

Best Costume Design
SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

Best Film Editing
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Sound Editing
TRANSFORMERS

Best Sound Mixing
TRANSFORMERS

Best Visual Effects
TRANSFORMERS

Best Makeup
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

Best Music (Original Score)
ATONEMENT

Best Music (Original Song)
RAISE IT UP

Best Animated Feature Film
PERSEPOLIS

Best Documentary Feature
SICKO

Best Documentary Short Subject
LA CORONA (THE CROWN)

Best Short Film (Animated)
PETER & THE WOLF

Best Short Film (Live Action)
LE MOZART DES PICKPOCKETS (THE MOZART OF
PICKPOCKETS)

 

[Drizzle]

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Saoirse Ronan
ATONEMENT

Just out of curiosity, why'd you pick her? She's probably the least likely to win.

Best Animated Feature Film
PERSEPOLIS

There is no way in hell that's beating "Ratatouille".

 

[Matrixo]

There is no way in hell that's beating "Ratatouille".

Is Ratatoullie really this amazing film? I must watch it.

 

[Drizzle]

Yes. Watch it. Now.