88th Annual Academy Awards

[redhawk23]

While I was surprised to see him nominated, I thought Damon did a fantastic job. Ostensibly, the role is very jokey and light but I think Damon was really able to sell the extent to which that attitude was a coping skill and was able to show how that began to waver. The film is rock solid and he carries it almost 100%. I actually appreciate that the academy was willing to recognize that kind of work even though it isn't quite as overtly dramatic as screaming and eating horse livers.

 

[jf300]

I just saw Creed last night. In the first hour of the film, I was oblivious as to why Stallone is nominated, let alone the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor. However, by the end, I was fully convinced that I'd got him wrong all these years and he's actually a very convincing and nuanced actor.

Then again, I also saw Bridge of Spies recently and Mark Rylance was exceptional so I think he should win.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I just saw Creed last night. In the first hour of the film, I was oblivious as to why Stallone is nominated, let alone the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor. However, by the end, I was fully convinced that I'd got him wrong all these years and he's actually a very convincing and nuanced actor.

Then again, I also saw Bridge of Spies recently and Mark Rylance was exceptional so I think he should win.

Yeah, Stallone is my favorite but if anyone is going to beat him, it needs to be Rylance. He carried that whole movie on his back.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Yeah as Stallone being nominated is the one thing I'm most emotionally invested in, if he doesn't get it, Rylance would be the one actor I'd be okay Stallone losing to.

 

[Kane52630]

Same.

 

[weezerspider]

Since when does age have anything to do with it? John Singleton was 24 when he was nominated for "Boyz n the Hood".

Which was an anomaly. SIX directors since the beginning of the Academy Awards have been nominated under the age of 30. Six in 88 years. You think Creed was great enough for them to break that mold? I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying it's incredibly naive to expect that.

You can say it's my opinion Creed wasn't amazing. That's my opinion and I never said it wasn't. Do I need to put IMO after every post? However, it's not my opinion that we've seen this story a thousand times because we totally have. Even if that doesn't bother you, the film we're going to get upset about being snubbed is the one that did absolutely nothing new for its genre? Is that what we've come to?

 

[CaptainWagner]

Which was an anomaly. SIX directors since the beginning of the Academy Awards have been nominated under the age of 30. Six in 88 years. You think Creed was great enough for them to break that mold? I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying it's incredibly naive to expect that.

You can say it's my opinion Creed wasn't amazing. That's my opinion and I never said it wasn't. Do I need to put IMO after every post? However, it's not my opinion that we've seen this story a thousand times because we totally have. Even if that doesn't bother you, the film we're going to get upset about being snubbed is the one that did absolutely nothing new for its genre? Is that what we've come to?

Personally, I think films should be critiqued first and foremost on their actual quality. Creed may not have taken the boxing genre in brave new directions, but that doesn't mean that Coogler, Jordan, Stallone, or the film itself should be thought less of.

 

[weezerspider]

Personally, I think films should be critiqued first and foremost on their actual quality. Creed may not have taken the boxing genre in brave new directions, but that doesn't mean that Coogler, Jordan, Stallone, or the film itself should be thought less of.

I'm not saying it's bad. It's an above average film. I'm just saying it didn't do anything groundbreaking, so I don't get why so many people are upset about it getting snubbed. It's not like The Dark Knight which was too good to be ignored and brought its genre to a new level and then was ignored. This was a well made boxing film. Simple as that. However, that is not the kind of film that typically gets nominated, so it baffles me that people are using it as an example of a great injustice. It's like, we all loved Star Wars, but no one expected it to get nominated. Sure we would have been thrilled if it was, but it's not and we knew it was going to. Oh well, who cares. Creed should be the same way. It's a well done genre piece that never had much serious Oscar hype aside from Stallone and it's naive to think it ever had a real shot.

 

[Drizzle]

Which was an anomaly. SIX directors since the beginning of the Academy Awards have been nominated under the age of 30. Six in 88 years. You think Creed was great enough for them to break that mold? I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying it's incredibly naive to expect that.

You can say it's my opinion Creed wasn't amazing. That's my opinion and I never said it wasn't. Do I need to put IMO after every post? However, it's not my opinion that we've seen this story a thousand times because we totally have. Even if that doesn't bother you, the film we're going to get upset about being snubbed is the one that did absolutely nothing new for its genre? Is that what we've come to?

Not once did I say that Coogler deserved a Best Director nod for Creed. I was pointing out that you finding a 28-year-old director being nominated as incredulous when it really isn't that far-fetched.

 

[weezerspider]

Not once did I say that Coogler deserved a Best Director nod for Creed. I was pointing out that you finding a 28-year-old director being nominated as incredulous when it really isn't that far-fetched.

Six out of four hundred and forty is pretty rare. Six in eighty eight years is pretty rare. That's pretty incredulous.

 

[Dark Victory]

Interesting article on the diversity controversy facing the Oscars.

Biggest takeaways (from a 2012 investigation): the Academy pool of 6,000~ members is 94% white, 2% black, while latinos and asians together make up 1-2%. The Academy is about 77% male and also skewed older, with a median age of 62 years old. Only 14% of members are younger than 50.

Those statistics will ring alarms in the heads of those who want to jump to conclusions, although since 2012 the Oscars announced on multiple occasions they've made efforts to diversify (race, gender) the member pool. Between 2013 and 2014, the Academy recruited 750~ new members whose backgrounds are notably more diverse than previous samples.

However, 92-93% of the Academy is still white and the average age of members continues to gradually increase. Members serve for life, so it's understandable that significant change will be slow; more eye-raising, however, is the applicant process. Nominees are automatically considered for membership, which would obviously lead to a more diverse applicant pool -- but only if more women and people of color were nominated. Standard procedure requires prospective members to be sponsored by two current members.

If all of that doesn't sound like an exclusive white country club for the old boys of Hollywood, I don't know what does. It will be interesting to see where future reforms go, as mentioned in the statement on Monday by the Academy's president, who happens to be black.

However, I think there are more pragmatic reasons for the lack of diversity among the nominees and member pool than racial/cultural/gender obliviousness (although I'm sure that exists, consciously or unconsciously among voting members, along with other mischievous **** they've been accused of in the past). Playing the numbers game is a hard sell when confronting matters of taste.

And would it really be the Oscars if people didn't have something to ***** about? Let's not forget that Chris Rock is going to have a field day with this ****.

So if Hollywood insiders like Jada, Spike and others are saying there's a real issue...then there's a real issue

Meh, not to play devil's advocate, but anyone can stand on a soapbox -- and that's just two people. One being the wife of an Oscar contender who wasn't nominated and the other being ****ing Spike Lee.

 

[jmc]

I think the thing that gets over looked here is that at the end of the day we don't know how people voted. There may very well have been 2-3 actors of other ethnic diversities who were close to getting nominations for all we know but just missed out by a hand full of votes. There's also the issue that a lot of voters don't watch every film and every performance that gets nominated, so they just choose whoever is popular at the time.

 

[samsnee]

Someone yesterday said to me "I don't see what the big deal is about there only being white nominees two years in a row." My response was "Ok, so if it was all black nominees two years in a row, you'd be ok with it?" No response after that.

Anyway, I don't think just nominating more black actors is the problem here. I guarantee next year when there are, you'll get cries of "affirmative action Oscars". The real underlying problem is that there aren't just a lot dramatic good roles for non-white actors that aren't based on historical characters. I can't even remember the last time a black actor was nominated for a role that wasn't based on a historical character. Denzel in Training Day?

 

[roach]

I was at an industry function last night at the WGA and someone said this: The Movie industry is 90% Jewish. The Jewish people have been/are an oppressed people. Oppressed people can't see when they are doing the oppressing and get outraged when they are accused of oppressing.

 

[weezerspider]

Someone yesterday said to me "I don't see what the big deal is about there only being white nominees two years in a row." My response was "Ok, so if it was all black nominees two years in a row, you'd be ok with it?" No response after that.

Anyway, I don't think just nominating more black actors is the problem here. I guarantee next year when there are, you'll get cries of "affirmative action Oscars". The real underlying problem is that there aren't just a lot dramatic good roles for non-white actors that aren't based on historical characters. I can't even remember the last time a black actor was nominated for a role that wasn't based on a historical character. Denzel in Training Day?

Denzel for Flight in 2012.

 

[SuperT]

Someone yesterday said to me "I don't see what the big deal is about there only being white nominees two years in a row." My response was "Ok, so if it was all black nominees two years in a row, you'd be ok with it?" No response after that.

Anyway, I don't think just nominating more black actors is the problem here. I guarantee next year when there are, you'll get cries of "affirmative action Oscars". The real underlying problem is that there aren't just a lot dramatic good roles for non-white actors that aren't based on historical characters. I can't even remember the last time a black actor was nominated for a role that wasn't based on a historical character. Denzel in Training Day?

Denzel and Halle both won lead actor/actress Oscars for roles that weren't based on historical characters but they were still pretty stereotypical - a crooked gangster cop and an abusive mother.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Kane52630]

Hollywood Reporter's actors roundtable is up on youtube, fyi.

 

[Greens]

Hollywood Reporter's actors roundtable is up on youtube, fyi.

Michael Caine and Sam Jackson stole the show there.

 

[kvz5]

So there's talk of revising the rules to make the BP a hard 10 (instead of 5 to 10 nominees). What do you guys think? On one hand, it will increase the odds of those films lingering on the outside but on the other hand, what's to say that a hard 10 would mean the inclusion of films like Creed, Beasts of No Nation, or Straight Outta Compton and not just the inclusion of turds like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?

 

[Doctor Jones]

My God, this is all just a distraction. You think changing some rules is gonna fix things? Please. It's easy to point to the Academy because they have a face and a name but it's only a superficial thing. You're not making any changes. First and foremost, the Oscars are based on subjectivity which is shaky ground as it is, so some day when the playing field is leveled with equal diversity, you're still gonna get the same type of criticism of people yelling over what should and shouldn't have been nominated, what is and isn't worthy, etc. Just like it still is now and was before. That's not gonna change. So to approach it from this angle and to think it's going to create more diversity in the industry is foolish. That's not how it works. If anything the nominations exposed the industry problem. Yet people seem to be more focused on blaming the Academy. It ain't just them. They're a result of the system. Changing the result isn't gonna fix the fundamental system.

This is all a distraction from what's really going on and that's the INDUSTRY that's so entrenched in their own private world behind closed doors they're invisible. They're the culprits and they're the ones who make the industry the way it is. And if that changes, then you get real change. This is only a band aid to appease the masses and to create the illusion that everything will be better. It's still not enough.

The Academy is a constant that's outside of all this. It's the ****ing Oscars. No matter the diversity, it's always going to be subjective. This is like saying we're going to get diverse people in order to win awards. That logic is so terrible it's just laughable. It's almost patronizing.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I don't know how I feel about a mandatory 10 BP slots. I do think they could stand to allow flexiblility to go beyond 5 Noms in the Acting Noms and maybe Directing

 

[NotSoLongAgo]

It seems like people forget asians and latinos are minorities that get the short end of the stick, too. Whenever this conversation comes up diversity seems to become "let's include more black people"

 

[terry78]

It seems like people forget asians and latinos are minorities that get the short end of the stick, too. Whenever this conversation comes up diversity seems to become "let's include more black people"

asians and latinos can "pass."

 

[MeenieWK]

My God, this is all just a distraction. You think changing some rules is gonna fix things? Please. It's easy to point to the Academy because they have a face and a name but it's only a superficial thing. You're not making any changes. First and foremost, the Oscars are based on subjectivity which is shaky ground as it is, so some day when the playing field is leveled with equal diversity, you're still gonna get the same type of criticism of people yelling over what should and shouldn't have been nominated, what is and isn't worthy, etc. Just like it still is now and was before. That's not gonna change. So to approach it from this angle and to think it's going to create more diversity in the industry is foolish. That's not how it works. If anything the nominations exposed the industry problem. Yet people seem to be more focused on blaming the Academy. It ain't just them. They're a result of the system. Changing the result isn't gonna fix the fundamental system.

This is all a distraction from what's really going on and that's the INDUSTRY that's so entrenched in their own private world behind closed doors they're invisible. They're the culprits and they're the ones who make the industry the way it is. And if that changes, then you get real change. This is only a band aid to appease the masses and to create the illusion that everything will be better. It's still not enough.

The Academy is a constant that's outside of all this. It's the ****ing Oscars. No matter the diversity, it's always going to be subjective. This is like saying we're going to get diverse people in order to win awards. That logic is so terrible it's just laughable. It's almost patronizing.

This

Ignore all the Smiths and the Spike Lees and oh so righteous wanna be do Gooders
That's all about making themselves feel better

This guy^^^^

Speaks sense