Lucasfilms grand Oscar campaign

Remember when the accademy gave him the AFI lifetime achievment award this summer?

 

True, very true...but are the American Film Institute and the MPAA technically the same thing? I don't know. While it's hard for Hollywood to totally ignore someone like GL who built his own little movie empire with his own sweat, blood and action figure money, there is probably still some Hollywood resentment against GL for that very same reason. The Academy did give GL the Irving Thalburg award for achievements in film some years ago on Oscar night, but it still doesn't change the fact that in recent years the FX awards have gone to other movies (Matrix, Two Towers) that probably should have gone to TPM and AOTC respectively. ILM's work on both those films was certainly more impressive (at least to me) f/x-wise then the films that won. Don't get me wrong, LOTR f/x were very good-and the Matrix was cool at the time (seems a little dated now-must be all the "bullettime" we've seen in lesser films and TV commercials) but there seems to be just a little more polish to what ILM has done for the PT. Hey, just my opinion.

 

He also has Memoirs of a Geisha and Munich, so you never know...

And if I recall correctly, the reusing of themes rule is no longer enforced.

 

I like the fact that Lucasfilm is trying to garner some award buzz, as obviously the conclusion of the film saga marks the end of a very significant era in cinema history. Honestly, though, I don?t think that Sith deserves to take home anything other than Best Costume Design. Visual Effects might be a possibility too, but even from the few previews I?ve seen thus far I think King Kong will rightfully clean up in the that area.

As for all the McDiarmid hoopla, I?d label his performance as upgraded Star Wars acting, but surely nothing that deserves serious Oscar attention.

Who knows, though. To me this year has seemed like a very weak one as far as the number of quality films go. Perhaps that will work to Sith's advantage.

 

I could be mistaken about this, but isn't the members of the Academy made up of about 2/3 actors? Which is why only movies with great acting gets nominated for Best Picture, Best Director etc.

 

Amy Allen best supporting actress is a lock.

 

I am big McDiarmid fan. But lets face it, his performance was solid for a Star Wars film but nothing Oscar worthy. In fact it was only good before his transformation into Mumm-Raa, when he went way over the top.

The man is capable of Oscar performances but he does better performances on the stage every week.

Samuel L Jackson?!?!? Good actor. Absolutely atrocious in ROTS. Really bad.


And I thought Lucas didn't care about awards? Why the big pitch? And putting himself forward as well??

 

If Natalie Portman gets a best supporting actress nomination, I will lose the will to live!

 

It reminds me of the system of how directing works in England. For them, directing is very tied into the theater, and therefore mostly pertains to guiding performances. Visually, a film can be pretty-much completely under the authority of the cinematographer-- or "lighting cameraman"-- if the film's director doesn't have the will to push themselves harder on the crew. Lucas suffered this problem on ANH, frequently having to butt heads with his director-of-photography. I've read that on the set of ESB Kershner didn't speak much with that film's DP, Peter Suschitzky, because he was working so long with his actors.

I don't know. Acting is important to a film, but I really wish that the Academy would wake up and realize that cinema is primarily a visual medium.

 

Personally, all I want is for ILM and Trisha Biggar to get the awards they richly deserve. ILM should've taken home the Visual Effects Academy Award from '99 to '04. Episode III or War of the Worlds has to win this year. Trisha deserves the Costume Academy Award with her brillant work in the Prequels.

 

I've felt for years there ought to be an award category for Best Writer-Director, seperate from the individual categories. That way you'd have an avenue to honor filmmakers like Lucas, Tarantino, Lynch, Lars von Trier, Wes Anderson etc. who create their own original pieces, and don't just adapt previously existing works. Writing and directing out of thin air is a very different process and takes a much different creative mind than adapting a novel, play or story to suit the needs of cinema. They may often leave behind certain aspects of storytelling that other, singularly directors wouldn't.

Lucas is often blamed for stiff, uninvolving interpersonal performances and scenes that could just as easily be an attempt to convey a period of culture as stiff and uninvolving itself, like Victorian London, perhaps. Tarantino is usually decried for his often obscure and obsolete references to genre 70's film and television, usually stuff that labeled racist, sexist and exploitive, but this can just as easily be seen as analagous to the filmmakers of the French New Wave paying homage to the film noirs that inspired their own works, and his new interpretations of such conventions often breath new life, resonance and introspection into them (this is equally applicable to Lucas and corny adventure serials). Lynch is seen as brilliant, but often criticized of indulging in "weirdness for weirdness' sake," and while his minimalist dependence on a story's coherence can be trying for some audiences' patience his works more than make up for what they lack with enough effort. Lars von Trier's mix of high expressionism with down-to-Earth documentary investigation and Brechtian theatricality, as well as his outright sadistic pleasure in creating stories that physically, psychologically and emotionally torture sympathetic young women can taste as bitter and unforgiving as Wes Anderson's perfectly composed pieces of diorama rich tableau and pre-adolescant angst and precociousness can seem cloyingly ironic and too-damn-cute for its own good, but just because, like the rest and so many other fine filmmakers, they're missing some of the balance that more accepted directors have doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken seriously. Their originality more than makes up for some of their limitations.

Directors like Spielberg, Eastwood, Howard and Jackson are often praised for the sense of balance in their work, but to be quite honest none of them are really original. I believe there ought to be recognition for originality, even in spite of aesthetic moderation, in all the Academies of the western artistic tradition. I'd rather watch a motion picture by the most self-indulgent filmmaker out there than a movie by a middling, easy-to-swallow director any day.

 

No, I'm talking about a category that represents original writing and directing, as opposed to directing a work you didn't write or simply adapted from a previously existing work. It represents a completely diferent kind of filmmaking, one that can't be recognized with just the Original Screenplay award.

 

It's recognized if you win both Best Directing and Best Original Screenplay. j/k

 

Well, that never happens. Usually the BOS award is given to a somewhat unorthodox writer/director while the BD award is given to the safer, more orthodox director. Think of how Tarantino won the Best Original Screenplay award for Pulp Fiction but lost the Best Director award to Robert Zemeckis for Forest Gump. Often, the BOS award doesn't even go to a writer/director anymore, and just to whomever wrote the safest screenplay that year. Think of how Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's script for The Royal Tenenbaums and Christopher Nolan's script for Memento both lost to Julian Fellowe's Gosford Park.

 

I'm sure you're right, but I don't think it's a very big chance that there will ever be a Best Writer-Director/Auteaur Oscar since the Academy has indicated that they really wish to reduce the number of categories rather than add a new (and possibly overlapping) one.

 

I'd settle for losing the will to post.

 

We could always hope for it to happen, but I think it's not likely as long as they have BD and BOS and have been talking about having fewer categories. Best Animated Feature category was long overdue anyway.

 

For me, an Auteur award has been long overdue since, say, Orson Welles lost as best director for Citizen Kane to John Ford for [/i]How Green Was My Valley[/i], back in 1941.

 

ROTS should at least win for best FX, seriously with the new 64AMD technology they used you can't deny the opening scene was awesome.

 

I believe Ian mc Diarmid is completely deserving of a nomination or even a win for supporting actor.

His performance(s) were high caliber and his Chancellor performance wouldn't have been out of place or Flash Gordon-esque, whatever, in ANY film. Anyone who saw the UK TV drama Elizabeth in which he co-starred with Helen Mirren will see that his performance as Palpatine; simillar to his role as Lord Burley in aforementioned drama; is actually pretty subtle and top notch.

This isn't a slate on old prune-face Emperor Palpatine btw; it's just by nature he's much more of a caricature; a FANTASTIC caricature given off an aurra of utterly delightful intoxicated evil.

"I'm too weak, OH!, don't kill me- PLEASE! "- classically trained staging acting and humour at its finest!

 

Long ago, I lost interest in the Oscars. In fact, I rarely had any true interest or respect for it. The decisions are all very money-driven, very political, rather nationalistic and done with revenue in mind.
Same goes with the Grammys and most entertainment award shows.
I just wish such shows were truly based on quality, and not all those EXTERNAL reasons.
I don't care if Revenge of the Sith doesn't win. I like it, and that's all that matters. I don't need any award show, especially one as rotten as the Oscars, to tell me what's good. I like what I like.
And if ROTS won a ton of Oscars, so what. That would likely more be reason to hate the movie. Now, if the Oscars were a respectable, honest awards show, then that would be saying something.
I mean, come on, guys, you like Sith, isn't that enough? Or do you really need it to get that recognition from a flimsy, corrupt film organization? For what reason?

 

lucas should win for the whole star wars saga like peter jackson did with lotr, he won those awards really for the culmination of the whole trilogy not just one film and i think lucas should for that reason also

 

This is the first time that I wholeheartedly agree with you, Battlewars! If there's any decency at all in the Academy (probably isn't) then they will award ROTS with a handful of Oscars. I've stated on numerous occations that LOTR:ROTK winning 11 Oscars is the biggest shame in the history of the Academy. But if they award Lucas the same way I will forgive them.