Are we happy with the results?
And why did they remake The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? I watched the first one a while back on netflix, and it couldn’t have been more than a year or two old and was really good as is. Has anyone seen them both? Why did they remake it?
And Rose Byrne. Wow.
Mnemosyne
Meh. I actually liked last year’s show better — I was one of the few who thought Anne Hathaway did a good job.
And I feel cheated out of getting to see “Man or Muppet” performed. Feh.
MikeJ
If David Fincher says he wants to make a movie you should let him.
eemom
Who. The Fuck. CARES.
Legalize
Mrs. Legalize and I are still bummed that “Drive” was jobbed entirely. Since “Moneyball” was the only nominated movie we saw last year we were rooting hard for that. Oh well.
lamh35
Wow I’m on record elsewhere on how I felt about The Help, but of all the nominees from the film, I expected Viola Davis to win if the others didn’t.
I don’t know, I just thought that the character that Viola played was a much better character and less of a caricature than the one played by Octavia Spencer and better acted as well. So the thought of Viola losing and Octavia winning seems off in my brain somehow. But I’m just over thinking of course.
Heck I guess the silver lining is that if you’re gonna lose, then losing to Meryl Streep ain’t bad?
Oh well. Viola in all her natural hairdo glory looked beautiful.
Congrats to Meryl.
ETA: btw, Meryl’s speech was as charming as usual.
Yutsano
@lamh35: If yer gonna lose, losing to a fucking acting goddess is definitely no shame.
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
Who thought the big upset of the evening would be Meryl Streep winning?
David Koch
because it was a foreign language film. It’s no different than Le Femme Nikita and Infernal Affairs (The Departed).
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Wha?
Mart
They remade the Dragon Tattoo as they wanted to showcase the awesome Rooney Mara, the great-granddaughter of both New York Giants founder Tim Mara and Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: I had a lot of respect for Jonah Hill, up against Kenneth Branagh, Max von Sydow, and Christopher Plummer. Not bad for a comic actor. I hope this helps him get more straight roles.
David Koch
I was surprised Streep won. It was panned by critics and bombed at the box office.
lamh35
@Mnemosyne: yeah. NO ONE predicted that.
Mnemosyne
Aisha Tyler had some great tweets tonight:
amk
iranians, french, irish, oscars, sacha, crystal, librul hollywood …
exploding rwnj heads everywhere today.
Tokyokie
@Mnemosyne: I thought Anne was adorably game, but that James Franco was disgustingly smug. And I’m pissed off that the “In Memoriam” listed neither Charles Napier nor Bill Hunter.
Mark S.
@eemom:
Geez, someone needs another Santorum thread.
Never mind, fuck Ricky. How about Mitt Six Pack’s response to whether he watches NASCAR:
David Koch
I like Meryl, here’s a clip of her peeing herself over the Kenyan dictator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KKyh_hupOlU#t=204s
The Gimp
@MikeJ: Fincher didn’t ask to. He was begged by the studio to.
The Fincher version is closer to the book, and better, in my opinion.
FuriousPhil
I didn’t watch it. I spent my evening watching cult classics from the 80s. If The Road Warrior isn’t the finest movie ever made, it must be close.
I stopped caring about the Oscars when Saving Private Ryan beat The Thin Red Line. So a while ago now, I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
Was it just me or is Billy Crystal a bit over-botoxed? He seemed shiny – as though his face had been machine polished.
BruceFromOhio
Natalie Portman is teh hawt, even as she reads cue cards awkwardly.
Otherwise, eemom kinda nails it.
lamh35
@Yutsano: @Mnemosyne:
I needed a Viola win to take the place of Halle Berry winning Best Actress for Monster’s Ball where she essentially won for wearing no makeup, showing her boobs and having sex with Billy Bob Thornton????
African American Lead Actress/Actor nomination don’t happen often enough let alone actual winners…so I’m gonna have to wait a while before I can get that Halley win out of my head.
Comrade Mary
Some good speeches, some good presenters, some good choices for awards, but in the end, the most overall meh Oscars for me ever.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mark S.:
Holy shit.
I liked it a lot better than last year’s show. The presenters were funnier, and I think even Crystal got better as the night went on, although he needs someone to tell him that his self-insert montage gag is just not funny. Didn’t have much of an emotional investment in the movies up for awards, but I thought it was overall good. Doesn’t feel like a wasted evening.
Spaghetti Lee
@eemom:
You’re just a constant little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?
eric
hours of watching Archer on Netflix…have not laughed this hard in a long while
amk
bbc oscarblog
In case you missed this point, The Artist is the first black-and-white best picture winner since Schindler’s List in 1993 (although there was actually a little bit of red in that film), and then before that The Apartment in 1960. And it’s the first silent winner since the very first Oscars in 1929, when the film Wings was honoured. So, it’s a triumph somewhat against the odds. It’s the stuff of movies.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@eemom: STFU. Why don’t you just skip these threads you don’t care about? Do you have some sort of pathology that impels you to tell people how much you don’t care about these things?
pseudonymous in nc
Hm, a squillion dollar Hollywood deal or stick with the Swedish-language made-for-TV version? I wonder.
I want to see more Best Actress winners dressed like the awards they receive. But I’m only going to watch the Thatcher film if she dies horribly at the end.
Mike G
@amk:
And Occupy Wall Street was described as ‘cool’.
Right-wing asshole meltdown will arrive on schedule.
Calouste
So the Oscars are shared between a French movie set in America and an American movie set in France.
Spaghetti Lee
I just had a revelation. Maybe the way for me to enjoy the Oscars more is to not read any pre-Oscar predictions articles. That way I can go in without knowing who’s “expected” to win.
Warren Terra
@eemom:
Y’know, I don’t really disagree with you. I could totally give a sh!t about the Oscars, and I especially wasn’t going to watch a normally boring Oscar show made unendurable by the MCing of Billy Crystal, who I understand was briefly funny, or at least bearable, twenty years ago. I only dropped by the comments section because I was curious to see any comparisons between the two versions of the Dragon Tattoo films.
But if you’re bothering to bitch at people for talking about something you don’t happen to be interested in, you are seriously fncked up. Here’s a hint: maybe not every blog post is about you.
Alison
@amk: Plus, the reference to “undocumented immigrant” must have made their asses twitch. Mwahaha.
David Koch
@FuriousPhil: actually “Shakespeare in Love” beat “thin red line” — much makes it worse.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mike G:
I think you’ve got your cause and effect backwards. The right-wing meltdown is a constant, some would say a fundamental law of the universe. It’s the things they’re raging about that just happen to show up.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus:
Speaking of shiny faces, Angelina Jolie looked positively reflective.
Billy Crystal laughed at his own jokes a bit too much. And he was definitely playing to the v1agra set. He kept it moving along, though.
Meryl looked shocked. Loved her speech, though.
I love the French cast and crew of The Artist. And Jean Dujardin…so charming. I’ve got such a crush on him right now.
MikeJ
@Calouste: I’ve not seen Hugo. Did Marty/Thelma’s average shot length continue to shrink? Are they now down to subliminal levels? Don’t get me wrong, I worship both of them, but there’s a direct correlation: the longer the shots, the better the Scorsese/Schoonmaker movie.
moe99
word from someone I know who is plugged in hollywood said that when Fincher’s group signed the contract they did not know about the Swedish version. Stranger things could be.
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
Do you remember Davis in Out of Sight? She had a teeny-tiny cameo, but, damn, she stole that scene right out from under J-Lo (and that was when J-Lo could still act).
hhex65
@David Koch: oh, that’s sweet…at first I thought the link was going to be that scene where Thatcher giggles when she meets Daniel arap Moi.
piratedan
OT: but Cactus Barbie endorses the Romneybot3000 for the AZ R Primary, this was easier to predict than the Oscars….
amk
hewlett packard gave me my own oscar just now. £ 250,000 and a brand new HP Envy 17-1000 laptop to boot. All I have do is give them my fucking life details.
Fucking spammers.
Bago
@eric: Archer deserves awards. Seriously people, Phrasing!
Nemo_N
Subtitles? Dubbing? Eeewwwwwwwwww.
Everything must be spoken in the original american.
techno
I have seen all three version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo–Fincher’s, the Swedish film version, and last night, the original mini-series version. The mini-series version is by FAR the best (and can now be streamed on Netflix.)
As for Fincher’s version, I found it confused and quite frankly, a waste of time. It was filmed in Sweden but there was almost nothing Swedish about it. And Daniel Craig as a Swedish intellectual is absurdly cast. Ah well, that’s what you get when you spend $100 million to remove some subtitles.
Tokyokie
Well, hell, if you want to get indignant about Oscar snubs, there’s always Rocky (Boy, it doesn’t hold up well, although Sylvester Stallone was a star who certainly suffered from overexposure.) over Network and Taxi Driver or the utterly unwatchable Dances With Wolves over GoodFellas. Not that C’era una volta il West was even nominated.
Ronnie P
I didn’t watch, but I see Rango won for animated film. I forgot that was a 2011 film. I loved it.
FuriousPhil
@David Koch:
My point still stands. About how irrelevant the Oscars are to my film-viewing choices.
Notable exceptions – it has usually been worth checking out the foreign film nominees most years. I thought I saw that a film from Iran won?
Hoo boy, cue the right-wing noise machine on that acceptance speech. I doubt they pay much attention to movies with subtitles though.
amk
gene hackman – the best actor evah. rest are all buncha pussies.
David Koch
I was surprised.
The french guys all thanked their wives but didn’t mention their mistresses.
That’s low.
MikeJ
@Bago: Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was a great movie.
amk
bbc
The Artist wins the day. It came and it conquered, barely saying a word.
lamh35
@Mnemosyne: Every movie I’ve seen Davis in she has killed it. She rarely gets the lead role, but as supporting she always stands out, even in crap like “Eat Pray Love” and she was great in “Doubt” with Meryl Streep.
She had a great body of work for an African American actress, if actresses like her were offered more starring roles like Meryl’s or Julia Roberts, then she’d have a better chance I think.
But if the scripts arent’ there, and the money men don’t want to finance a movie with a strong African American woman in the lead role, what can you do? I guess you can do like Tyler Perry, but Tyler Perry gets rounding paned over his movies, but he at least gets his scripts made.
Oh well. Gotta go to bed now. So sad for Viola Davis, but hey I hope she gets a chance at bigger roles now.
Tokyokie
@MikeJ: Actually, Hugo is a sweetly sentimental film with lots of extended and intricate tracking shots. None of Marty and Thelma’s characteristic jackhammer style, but then, Scorsese adapts his style to fit the material. But you need to see it in 3-D. Best use of 3-D ever in a movie, IMHO, as Scorsese uses it to give his images greater depth rather than throw crap at the audience.
eric
@Bago: genius. pure genius. i cant believe i have waited this long for this guilty pleasure.
as for the Oscars, isnt that what you tube is for?
David Koch
@Tokyokie:
I think it falters because of the five — yes, five — sequels cheapened the underlying character.
paramedicx
Thin red line didn’t lose to Saving private Ryan. SPR was beat by Shakespeare in love
Anoniminous
Flickan som lekte med elden
Domestic Box Office $9,081,782
International Box Office $53,205,641
Worldwide Box Office $62,287,423
Most simultaneous US screens: 178
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Domestic Box Office $101,431,090
International Box Office $119,700,000
Worldwide Box Office $221,131,090
Most simultaneous US screens: 2,674
I trust that answers your question?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bago: Love that show. Love it.
@techno:
The character is a investigative journalist from a working class background who also happens to be an ex-Special Forces type. I don’t think Craig was miscast at all.
David Koch
@Tokyokie: TCM’s year end remembrance is always superior (have some tissues handy).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZOlXXwhe0
paramedicx
Rocky is a great love story mixed w/ a blah boxing movie….put your fvcking hands up Rock!!!!
Anne Laurie
@amk:
Like Michael Caine, Hackman was — shall we say, maybe a little tooo eclectic in his film choices? But I’ll admit the Spousal Unit & I have watched some movies we’d otherwise not have considered because he was in the cast.
The other guy in that trinity would be Walter Matthau…
Upper West
Sorry — The Artist was undeserving. It won because of Weinstein employing Koch brothers methods to campaign for it. Of the nominees, Midnight in Paris was best, Warhorse, second.
Best picture was Margin Call.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FuriousPhil:
Diva or it didn’t happen.
@David Koch:
Meh. Malick certainly makes great films, but not Oscar-type-great films. A film featuring as much internal dialogue and as many lingering close-ups of grass as that film, no matter how beautiful or deep, ain’t winning against anything with a much more definable narrative line.
And, for fuck’s sake, Scorsese didn’t win best picture for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or GoodFellas. Chaplin’s City Lights wasn’t even nominated. All four of those films are ten times better than TTRL.
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
If you like science fiction and haven’t seen it, she’s great in Solaris. The rest of it, not so much, but she’s terrific.
paramedicx
Gary Oldman should have won for Dracula, but Keanu sucks therefore the movie was passed over
MikeJ
@paramedicx: When it came out I was only interested in Winona running around in her nightgown in the rain. Still the best part of the movie.
Violet
@paramedicx:
Wow, Keanu. Haven’t thought of him in years. Is he even in movies anymore? I know, “The Matrix” films, but that’s been awhile. I still love him in “Bill and Ted.”
techno
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s what makes Sweden different. Working class kids get first-rate educations. You get a job as a writer in Scandinavia and you are NOT an inarticulate boob like Craig played the role—no matter how poor your parents were.
patrick II
Nolte’s face was so red I was worried he was going to stroke out.
Viola Davis looked great tonight. She has done much good work over the years and I was rooting for her.
Natalie Portman should have been a co-presenter. She would have been the only lady not taller than the guy she was standing to all night.
George Clooney’s girlfriend is Stacy Keibler who finished second on Dancing with the Stars a few years ago, is 5’11 with 38 inch legs.
I think Artist won for audacity. Who would invest time, money and talent in a silent black and white film in 2012?
paramedicx
Keanu…yeah, where has he been? I’m gonna guess botched plastic surgery attempt, in hiding….
lamh35
Umm Jimmy Kimmel is crazy…that is all.
Mnemosyne
It would be awesome if someone would build a TV show around Viola Davis (David Milch, maybe?) but I don’t know if she’d be willing to leave Broadway for that long.
MikeJ
@techno: I’ve spent a good deal of time in Sweden, working and playing, and they have as many inarticulate boobs as the US does per capita.
patrick II
Oh, and the remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has grossed over 100 million to date. Americans do not attend subtitled movies. I liked the original better in everything but the cinematography.
paramedicx
5’11” w/ 38 inch legs (great insertion of creeper facts :) not that I could but, if a chick can dunk on me I’m out…
dead existentialist
@pseudonymous in nc: Hee hee. Thanks for that ’cause I’m appalled that HOLLYWOOD could glorify that horrid old git.
(Better movie would’ve had her and Ronnie stumbling around together saying, “Nice to meet you,” over and over. Karma should be a bitch.)
ETA: Really, people? You watch this shite? I watched a show about kibbutzes (sp?) on PBS. There’s a cognitive dissonance in the ether if BJers who rail against the MSM actually watch the tedium of the Academy Awards.
PurpleGirl
@Mark S.: That man is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking clueless — I have friends who are owners — WTF. They really need to wire his mouth shut but then he’d write the answers and they’d still be clueless.
Jennifer
I stopped watching the year that Pulp Fiction lost to Forrest Gump. Not that Forrest Gump sucked, but I was sick of Tom Hanks and sick of “let’s give the Oscar to the movie that portrayed the gimp!”
I’m convinced that if you want to win the Best Picture Oscar, the surest way to do it is to cast Tom Hanks as a physically or mentally handicapped man in the Holocaust. Nothing else would stand a chance against it.
paramedicx
WI raised paramedic living near Raleigh…turn offs: chicks who don’t like subtitles….
Tokyokie
@David Koch: Thanks. Although TCM, oddly, left out Bill Hunter as well. But it reminded me that the Oscars overlooked the likes of G.D. Spradlin, Harry Morgan and James Arness as well (although the Academy no doubt argues that the last two were mostly TV actors). All they needed to do was the close-up of G.D. saying, “His methods have become unsound.” Sigh. Of course, Hunter reluctantly and resignedly blowing the whistle to commence the attack at the end of Galipoli is a brief but great film moment as well.
MikeJ
@paramedicx:
I’m always amused when politicians use the theme at rallies, forgetting that Rocky loses at the end of the movie.
handsmile
@Mnemosyne:
And for that matter, why did “they” remake Solaris. Clooney is no Banionis as Kelvin. Never no complaints about McElhone though. One of Soderbergh’s rare miscues.
Spaghetti Lee
@Jennifer:
Ahem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tearjerker_(American_Dad!) (5th paragraph)
eric
@Tokyokie: when he is listening to the opera in his tent….. then “cant send the boys to do something i wont” brilliant
Tokyokie
@Jennifer: Excuse me, but Forrest Gump does indeed suck. Rich Hollywood types telling us that we should be happy with what we have. For a movie that I think shows how Bob Zemeckis really feels, watch Used Cars.
paramedicx
When someone I know starts dating someone new I always say ‘take her to the zoo’ & I laugh & laugh…nobody gets it (tears of a clown)
Jennifer
@Spaghetti Lee: Your linkee, it no workee.
If it’s a link to someone saying the exact same thing I just posted, well…I hadn’t seen it before, but let’s face it, it doesn’t require any deep thought to come up with that formula, just a functioning memory.
Emerald
I’m very happy. Not only was the broadcast the best I’ve seen (which may not be saying much, but they kept it moving) but I got three of my four choices. Christopher Plummer, Jean Dujardin and The Artist.
It’s historic, it’s beautifully made, and it’s the feel-good movie of the year. I defy anyone to walk away from that film without a smile on their face. Was it truly the best film? I dunno. I didn’t see all of them. But it took enormous courage even to make that movie, and it is a marvelous achievement.
Jean Dujardin deserves this completely. At one point in the movie I’m sure that they used film from the original 1920 Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks. Dujardin fit that image perfectly, and I loved it that he thanked Fairbanks. His co-star was also exceptional.
Mind you, Hugo is a fine, fine film. Visually fantastic. But imho, The Artist easily trumps it, and I’m delighted it won (and also that Hugo did so well too). So it was a great night for me!
Bruce S
Eftersom det var på svenska
Spaghetti Lee
@Jennifer:
It was an episode of American Dad:
Meanwhile, Tearjerker plans to use his masterpiece tragedy film, Oscar Gold, depicting a mentally retarded alcoholic Jewish boy and his cancer-ridden puppy during The Holocaust, to make the moviegoers cry themselves to death literally.
Jennifer
@Tokyokie: Yeah, I’m not a fan of Gump, because it pimps the “see, ANYONE can make it in America if they just do what they’re told!” way too hard.
Spaghetti Lee
@Tokyokie:
No offense meant here, but honestly, when I hear someone takling about “Rich Hollywood types telling us to…” it’s like I’m reading Breitbart. It’s a movie, not a set of orders how to live your life.
Yutsano
@Tokyokie:
The Oscars were wrong.
Tokyokie
@eric: Yeah, Bill Hunter was one of Australia’s most respected actors, but he was already middle-aged when the likes of Peter Weir put the country’s film industry on the map, so he rarely got leading roles. (Although there’s Newsfront, another great performance by Hunter.)Still, he pops up in a number of great Aussie movies, like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Absolutely Ballroom and Muriel’s Wedding. Think the last thing I saw him in was The Square, another great little movie with a nice turn by Hunter.
paramedicx
Holy crap Bruce, how’d u make that ‘a’ have an aneuryism?
Tokyokie
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, I realized that sounded like faux right-wing populism after I punched “Submit.” But it is condescending as hell.
David Koch
Forest Gump didn’t hold up. I think it’s attraction was it’s original special effects, which 18 years later, is common place. Plus, it was a self-indulgent Boomer scrap book, which was fine at the time, but subsequently, people became exhausted with the endless Boomer navel gazing.
[yes, Woody Allen used the same effects first in Zelig, but nobody saw that film]
Omnes Omnibus
@David Koch: The book was f-ing hilarious.
Tokyokie
@Yutsano: I know that, and he was in the likes of Inherit the Wind and The Far Country (as well as being the most miscast actor ever to portray Ulysses S. Grant in How the West Was Won). But because he was on M*A*S*H and Dragnet for so long, the Academy figured it could overlook him. Arness I can sort of understand, although The Thing, Them! and Hondo should have been enough to get him in there. But what’s the rationale for leaving out Spradlin?
Violet
@Tokyokie:
Wasn’t part of the reason Forrest Gump won was the new technology where they inserted him into actual historical footage? I remember seeing news show clips talking about how revolutionary it was.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tokyokie:
Hell, what was the rationale for leaving any of them off…But including Whitney Houston?
eemom
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
@Warren Terra:
Fuck off, pansy-ass hall monitors.
As I mentioned yesterday evening, there’s a whole fuckload of comments on this blog every day, all the time, about who gives a shit about any given post topic. I don’t see why mine should be singled out for abuse. You don’t like ’em, scroll the fuck down.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
Goodness fuckin’ gracious!
How much did you have riding on Hugo? C’mon, own up…
MikeJ
@paramedicx: AltGr+w. It’s not actually an “a”, it comes after “z” in the alphabet.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Who?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
Ooooooow…That much?
:P
It was the Scorsese entry. It won a lot of tech & arty statues. Didn’t win Best Picture, though. Just for the info, knowing that you don’t care.
piratedan
@Tokyokie: which is sad because he was so excellent in The Oxbow Incident, one of the seminal pictures about our values as Americans.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@eemom:
How about you follow your own advice?
The prophet Nostradumbass
The only movie I saw that was nominated in any category was Rango, and that was because it was showing on a flight I happened to be on. I liked it, it was amusing.
Martin
@MikeJ: opt-a for the Mac folk.
Bruce S
Tree of Life didn’t get the Oscar for the same reason Moby Dick wasn’t the Book-of-the-Month club selection back in 1851. Cuz, you know, it just wasn’t effective, accessible storytelling…too weird and chock full of extraneous shit that didn’t make any sense. Pretentious exercises like that never catch on.
WyldPirate
@eemom:
Because every time you post you: a) bitch about something, and; b.) tell someone to “fuck off” in the same repetitive manner?
Perhaps if you would pull your undies out of your ass crack you could become more creative and sound less like a a retarded, one-note digital insult parrot cared for by a meth-addled biker.
Bruce S
“Wasn’t part of the reason Forrest Gump won was the new technology where they inserted him into actual historical footage? I remember seeing news show clips talking about how revolutionary it was.”
Guess they hadn’t seen Zelig…
Actually the most amazing thing technically about Forrest Gump’s visual effects was the absolutely convincing portrayal of Gary Sinise’ character as an amputee. That couldn’t have been done so effectively without the digital processes. I wasn’t familiar with Sinise and assumed he was actually an amputee and had been using prosthetics in the earlier scenes. All of that said, I hated Forrest Gump. Perhaps the worst “best loved” film I’ve ever seen. Cloying at it’s best, utterly reactionary at it’s worst.
moe99
Loved The Artist. Glad to see it won.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Bruce S: Never understood the appeal of Forrest Gump. Cloying is a very good description of it. Zelig, on the other hand, was a very funny movie, and I’m not particularly a Woody Allen fan.
ETA: Just looked at the other nominees in the year Forrest Gump won Best Picture, and it was easily the worst movie of all of the nominees.
Warren Terra
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Rango was OK, but it was a bit of a bait-and-switch. The intro sequence, the character design, and Depp as the voice was a Ralph Steadman / Hunter Thompson homage and a good one, but the rest of the movie (except for a bit of trippiness with prophecy, and a bit of the attitude the artists and Depp brought to the title character in scenes other than the opening) was just canned pap, typical Ssaturday-morning cartoons. I don’t regret watching it, but I’d never watch it twice.
LarsThorwald
@MikeJ: This, but also, I felt that Rooney Mara did a superior job as Lisbeth Salander First, I could never believe that Noomi Rapace was a 26-year old who was subject to the whims of the system. She was too wizened, too headstrong to play Salander. The relationship between her and the actor who played Mikael Blomqvist in the original was too much a relationship between peers. Peers in age and in experience. I think Rooney Mara captured the fuck you attitude of the character from the books while keeping the insecurity and vulnerability of Salander that Stiegs Larrson envisioned and put to paper. I was underwhelmed when Noomi Rapace’s version of Lisbeth got revenge on her guardian. I was kept in suspense by the scenes in which Mara’s Lisbeth sought revenge.
Steve Zailian deserves much of the credit for improving on the original in both dialogue and exposition. And character development. I identified much more closely with Daniel Craig’s Blomqvist and Mara’s Lisbeth in the Fincher film.
I thought Fincher’s version was richer in both character development and tone than the original. That said, there were many similarities between the Swedish version and Fincher’s to keep me from noticing how alike they were. Did it need to be remade? Absolutely not. Did I appreciate the fact it was? Absolutely yes.
Bruce S
“remake The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?”
I saw some of the Swedish version on HBO, but enjoyed the remake and had actually forgotten enough of the story that it was fresh and a pleasure. I’m a Daniel Craig fan and thought all of the acting was terrific. The only person I know who read the book and saw both movies thought the remake was the better rendition. I have no idea other than that opinion. As far as I’m concerned, it was essentially a popcorn movie so it makes perfect sense for it to be remade if the Hollywood version can capture a bigger market. Not like they were tampering with some classic.
freelancer
@LarsThorwald:
This. I avoided the remake for the reason I avoid a lot of American remakes, but it is a really great film.
LarsThorwald
And you are all flunking basic Hollywood 101.
Saving Private Ryan was in the same category for Best Picture as Shakespeare in Love. As the screenwriter William Goldman — who wrote Butch Cassidy and The Princess Bride — noted in his annual Premiere magazine Oscar overview that year, there was one movie that was genuinely honest and sweet and should have been nominated and won, and it got neither, and that was There’s Something About Mary. He was right.
1993 saw Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and another film that should have won but which, in the intervening years, has become more appreciated and beloved than either of those movies: The Shawshank Redemption. Currently one of the highest rated movies on IMDB of any film made in the last 40 years. And deservedly so.
freelancer
@Bruce S:
There’s an article on Cracked on why the movie BIG has the worst Happy Ending ever, and it makes a compelling argument, but I think the worst happy ending ever is Gump. It was always baffling to me how there was a maudlin ending filled with hope, but if they remade Gump as an episodic TV show on CBS, it’d be called “How I Met Your Mother and why we are both HIV positive”.
Bruce S
I liked the Iran guy’s comments accepting – good antidote to The Crazy we’re being subjected to – want to see that picture.
Joel
The main Oscar thing I’m interested in is the memoriam reel. Is that online anywhere?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Joel: The official site doesn’t seem to have anything.
The one thing I was happy about when that was on TV was that the audience either kept quiet, or they muted the sound in the theater.
Joel
@Bruce S: I used to work at a Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company. So that’s something.
Bruce S
“1993 saw Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and another film that should have won”
1994 – but your point is taken. The worst travesty of the 1994 Oscars is that Hoop Dreams not only didn’t win best documentary, but wasn’t even nominated.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Joel: Every time I visit Monterey, I see one of those abominations right on Cannery Row. That the city of Monterey approved that thing is amazing.
Mind you, when John Steinbeck was alive, the cities of Monterey and Salinas (now home of the “National Steinbeck Center”) hated Steinbeck’s guts.
Linda Bacon
@lamh35: I so agree about Viola Davis, who gave the most amazing performance I saw this year. She made me see and feel what it must be like to have to keep your real self and your real feelings tamped down while being insulted, ignored and never really seen by white women who never saw her has a person. There was an audible gasp, of disappointment, when Meryl’s name was said. Oh, well. And if she had to lose, then best that she lost to Meryl, who is an icon and was so gracious.
Joel
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Fun fact: the restaurant started in Monterey. It was called “The Rusty Pelican” and was a modestly-sized chain when the ownership group took advantage of a licensing opportunity from Paramount in exchanged for allegedly 2% of gross or profits, unsure which. Ergo: Bubba Gump’s.
How do I know this? Well, it turns out that there used to be, and probably still is, a practice in place that tied wages and promotions to knowing stupid facts about the history of the company, and of course, the movie itself.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Joel: Amazing.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Bruce S: Hoop Dreams is a movie that Roger Ebert still complains about not having won an Oscar.
Bruce S
Roger is right. Although a lot of Oscar “best pictures” aren’t and have been chosen over more memorable films, what I can’t figure out is why it wasn’t even nominated in its category.
AxelFoley
@Bruce S:
This. Straight up, this.
freelancer
@Joel:
So instead of pieces of flair, it’s that the employees need to know that every time the movie did a time jump, the next iteration of Gump was wearing a blue plaid shirt and that the Doors had more songs in the movie than any other band?
Tell me again how corporate culture towards workers isn’t fascism with a cheerful nametag?
Rome Again
TZ and I turned on the Oscars for the last five minutes, just long enough to see this report on the local news afterwards:
Tee hee! …and this man wants to be a congressman?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Rome Again: If only that was Arpaio.
piratedan
@Rome Again: well why not? IOKIYAR is still in effect isn’t it?
also this:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/02/perversity-of-extremism-tends-toward.html
techno
@MikeJ:
Not in journalism, they don’t.
Of course, when I go to Sweden, I get to hang out their intellectuals so my perspective may be skewed.
Rome Again
@piratedan:
That’s an awesome link. Thanks! :)
Rome Again
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
It hurts Arpaio by association. He was talking up Babeu just a few short months ago. Now he’s saying Babeu needs to work through the gay outing scandal. Well, I think after tonight’s report, he’s going to give up on Babeu altogether.
eemom
@WyldPirate:
Srsly, Wyldie? This is YOUR advice to someone else?
Self-parody, we hardly knew ye.
HobbesAI
@Martin: alt+1 3 4 on the numberpad for å works, with the rest of extended ascii as shown in this table.
JGabriel
@LarsThorwald:
I was with you up until Shawshank. I don’t think it’s a bad film, just mediocre. I am utterly puzzled and perplexed by the popular consensus that it’s some sort of great film. I think it’s the most over-rated film ever.
.
JGabriel
@HobbesAI:
If I could execute complex keyboard combinations like that, I bet I’d be a lot further along in Skyrim.
.
R-Jud
I’m getting an ad in the corner with a picture of Angelina Jolie from about 10 years ago in it. It’s really sad how her weight has crashed since her Mom died. She looked like an escaped Twilight extra, sans sparkliness, last night.
freelancer
@JGabriel:
Everything is good when it’s set to the score of Miller’s Crossing.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@Tokyokie:
read the book by winston grooom, seriously, totally different message, and a lot funnier, and not so weepy or melodramatic either.
seriously, read the book, it doesn’t take much longer than the time you have wasted on the movie.
:disclaimer: it will make you hate tom hanks with the fury of a thousand suns for how inept he was at the role, and how he destroyed the adaptation to make a tom hanks joint.:
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Out of Sight is a great little movie! One of my Soderbergh favorites. I’ve got the DVR set to snag it on HBO2H at 12:55 p.m. today. (It’s on again at midnight tonight.) I should just get the DVD. (And The Limey.)
Lojasmo
@Martin:
Or just hold down the a on an iPad.aæãåāàáâä
Tokyokie
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yeah, she acted in all of three movies, one of which hasn’t been released yet. And the two that have been are no damn good.
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: I always heard that the title character, for starters, was a whole lot randier than the movie version, and that alone would have made the film a lot more interesting.
Perfect Tommy
One of my teabagger Facebook friends posted the following diatribe:
My comment: “Another Republican debate this weekend?” did not go over too well : )
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
My all-time favorite Michael Caine quote, about Jaws: The Revenge: “I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
Elizabelle
Dang. For short live action: “The Shore” beat out “Tuba Atlantic.”
Both are good, but “Tuba” was mucho original and mordantly funny.
I wish theatre owners would run the short films (live action, documentary, animation) before movies, instead of just soft drink commercials.
Give some love to up and coming directors and ideas.
Steeplejack
@Tokyokie:
He also had a great little part as the main character’s crotchety father in The Last Days of Chez Nous, an overlooked gem by Gillian Armstrong.
zmulls
The basic outline of FORREST GUMP is that the main character never thinks for himself, or of himself, listens to his momma and respects authority — and he winds up rich and famous (shares in Apple!!). The characters who challenge authority, go out to find themselves — who either explore the world for different experiences (Jenny) or who try to be the master of their own destiny (Gary Sinise) — are killed and maimed. It is a *very* Republican family values movie.
And yes, everyone forgets the really great thing about ROCKY was that he loses at the end, and it *doesn’t matter*.
zmulls
As for GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, I saw the original Swedish version, but my wife didn’t. We went to see the Fincher version together and enjoyed parts of it but were underwhelmed. She had a lot of trouble following the narrative.
I went back and watched the first 15 minutes of the Swedish version and it was *much* easier to follow. The Fincher version is a narrative mess. I am becoming a lot more sensitive to screenplays that have clunky dialogue and/or messed-up structure. (Watching MARGIN CALL, I winced more and more at the endless exposition — Highly intelligent characters who work in high finance saying “Hey, explain this to me like I was a child (so the audience gets it this time around)”
Lee
I’ve seen all three of the Swedish movies (and read the books). The first one was pretty good. The next two were each decidedly worse. The third movie was barely watchable. I’m glad they are remaking it if simply for the reason that we’ll get better 2nd and 3rd movies.
The American remake of the first movie holds up well against the Swedish version (and the book). I think some of the slight story changes they movie made versus the book actually make it better. One of the story changes makes it a worse story.
And Rooney Mara as Lisbeth is so smoking hot I’d watch a movie of her eating Cheetos.
Elizabelle
@zmulls:
I loved the original Swedish movie; liked its chilly blue-grey cinematography of bleakness. Liked Noemi Rapace way more than Rooney Mara. What happened to the women murder victims seemed better understood in the Swedish film; lot more character development.
Didn’t care for the Fincher remake. Crasser and uglier. Salander seemed to show up way later in the movie, more like a supporting character for Daniel Craig.
Have never gotten through the “Tattoo” book. Beginning is so dull and (I thought) poorly written. Guess it picks up later.
zmulls
The beginning of the book is a long and very involved discussion of the libel case that puts Blomkvist in prison. Both movies (wisely?) start with a very abbreviated summary of that event, getting to the meat of the story.
Yes, the American version was very murky about all the other murders, murkier about the family relationships, murky about Salandar and Blomkvist, spent too much time on the rape scene(s) (and time in the press congratulating themselves on doing the scenes), and added sex scenes that didn’t add anything to the plot.
At the beginning of the Swedish version, Blomkvist is moving around dealing with the libel case, and Salander is following him, taking video. We don’t know why, but we do know get the sense there is already a connection between them, and when she shows up later with a dossier on him it makes sense. The American version has her come in to the office and it’s jarring because we haven’t seen anything leading up to that.
In the Swedish version, they early on have Blomkvist put the family pictures on the wall, talking through the family relationships, and the film returns to that wall often, so you “get it.” In the American version I could barely tell who was related to whom.
And so on. Fincher was all about the look and feel and cinematography and the sex. With a great script (FIGHT CLUB) he makes an amazing film. With a poorly executed script he makes an “interesting to look at” one.
vheidi
@Perfect Tommy: so much for my keyboard ;-)
John D
@amk:
Um, The Artist is a blowjob to Hollywood. There was literally NO WAY it did not win Best Picture, and the pre-Oscar odds showed that. 1-12 is a ridiculous favorite.
Elizabelle
Maureen Dowd’s Sunday column was entitled: Ghastly Outdated Party.
I wasn’t sure whether it would be about the Oscars or the Republicans.
Stoic
Ellie Kemper, double wow.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
From the Internet, the flash, apparently official, Irony died at 1:33 a.m. Central Standard Time, 1:33 Eastern Standard Time, some 8 hours ago.
eemom
@chopper:
fer teh WIN.
RIP.
Bruce S
Still not giving a fuck 165 comments later?
Mnemosyne
@zmulls:
SPOILERS ahead, but …
That didn’t bother me in Margin Call, because I thought the whole point of the movie was that these guys are actually salesmen, not financial wizards. That’s how the math got out of control in the first place — no one really understood how the equations worked except for one or two guys, and one of those got fired and couldn’t be found when things started going wrong.
The reason they got in over their heads and almost tanked the whole company was because they thought they were smarter than they actually were and they ended up having to have everything explained to them in the most basic terms.
SBJules
I was bummed that Viola Davis didn’t win best actress. I didn’t see The Iron Lady; I could not imagine spending time with the loathesome Margaret Thatcher. Meryl will be nominated again soon(next year?) no doubt, but will Davis? Will she get a leading role worthy of her?
28 Percent
Saw The Artist back in January & it was extrordinary – definitely a movie that is a theater experience (go, you’ll understand when you see it). It was a splendid movie. If you like Jean Dujardin, two others of his movies which are both frickin’ hilarious – OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio are available on netflix.
As for GwtDT, read the books & seen all the movies. The Swedish GwtDT was like a love song to the Swedish countryside – it was gorgeous enough to make me want to winter there (yikes!) and Noomi – you just couldn’t keep your eyes off of her. I thought Rooney Mara may have come closer to capturing Lisbeth Salander’s character, but she felt so inconsequential a character when you compared her to Noomi Rapace’s performance.
The books are dizzyingly plotted, especially the first one which goes just all over the place (and includes the Rape of Salander which is completely extraneous to the plot of the first book but is what starts the ball rolling on everything that happens in the next two…) I thought the American movie simplified the right things in the book’s plot and kept the right things – like spending enough attention on Lisbeth draining the bad guy’s accounts and making it clear that she had fallen in love with Bloomquist. Both movies actually cut out a lot, a whole lot, of the sex that was in the book. I can only think of three adult female characters in the books with whom Bloomquist doesn’t get it on. One of them is dead in the same chapter she’s introduced, one is a married cop who only meets Bloomquist once or twice, and the third is his sister. And that actually pales beside the escapades Lisbeth gets up to.
Paul in KY
@amk: It is not completely silent. He speaks at the end of the movie.
Paul in KY
@MikeJ: I have the same feeling when I’m at a sporting event & the home team’s band starts playing ‘The Imperial Dirge’ or whatever they call that music they play in Star Wars.
That’s the bad guy’s music & they lose!
I guess I should be happy they don’t play that catchy tune ‘The Horst Wessel Liede’.
Paul in KY
@eemom: It was probably used on him sometime.
estamm
@Upper West: Did you SEE ‘The Artist’? The movie was fantastic, and I’ve seen it twice. It richly deserved the Oscar, and the actor probably got 95% of the vote for best Actor.
estamm
@zmulls: Forrest Gump was an AMERICAN values movie. I’m no Rethuglican, and I loved it. To me, the movie was saying “Be true to yourself, be honest, think of others, and you’ll go far (sometimes literally)”. If anything, it was an anti-Republican movie, since those qualities are what Republicans espouse, but rarely do. Would a Republican give away half of his fortune to an African American family simply because of a promise made years earlier? Hardly.
goethean
You guys are actually much better on movies than you are on politics.
Larkspur
Everybody longs for a role worthy of Viola Davis, and yet here we all are, typing comments. We should be writing that screenplay.
I mean that seriously, not scoldingly. I haven’t seen any of the films, didn’t watch the show, but am enjoying everyone’s comments, while going back and forth to Tom and Lorenzo and The Fug Girls for the fashion pix. T&L like Emma Stone’s red dress, TFGs don’t. I’m going to side with T&L on that one.
Elizabelle
@Larkspur:
Writing that screenplay. That’s a great idea. (Be the change you seek, etc etc etc.)
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Did you read the Swedish language version.
@28 Percent:
Thanks for this. I have not read the novel or seen the other versions, but I was impressed with Fincher’s version and with Rooney Mara. I thought that Daniel Craig downplayed his role in order to let Mara shine more. But more than that I liked that her character reminded me of a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Mouse from the Walter Mosley novels. She takes cases not because she is damaged, but because they interes her. But she can be unpredictably dangerous.
I got no problems with different actors giving their take of an interesting character, so I look forward to catching up with the original language versions of the film.
I thought Gump was one of the phoniest movies I ever saw. I recall that a number of conservatives thought that it skewered liberal values, but I just thought that it was inauthentic. Liked Gump, but didn’t much care for his relationship with his ladylove, or her independent story.
jake the snake
@handsmile:
Stanislaw Lem is supposed to have hated the Tarkovsky version. Didn’t like all the metaphysics. The book was about how diffficult it would be for an alien and humans to communicate.
He probably would have had a stoke over Soderburghs verson
rea
@Omnes Omnibus: a investigative journalist from a working class background who also happens to be an ex-Special Forces type.
“ex-special forces type” certainly wasn’t in the book.
Omnes Omnibus
@rea: The books clearly state that he did his military service in an elite unit.
Joel
@zmulls: I thought Se7en was really good, too. Helps to have solid acting.
Gromit
@Jennifer:
I didn’t care for “Forrest Gump”, but wasn’t “Pulp Fiction” the one with the gimp?
Rafer Janders
@zmulls:
(Watching MARGIN CALL, I winced more and more at the endless exposition—Highly intelligent characters who work in high finance saying “Hey, explain this to me like I was a child (so the audience gets it this time around)”
Um, that actually happens. A lot.