Does anybody care about them anymore? I didn’t watch it at all, and I also missed most of the nominated movies this year. We had the winner, No Country for Old Men, playing in town a few weeks ago, unfortunately coinciding with an exceptionally heavy work week for me, and I couldn’t find time to see. There Will Be Blood is playing at the Morris Theatre this week, and I may have to squeeze in a few hours to check it out…but not because Day-Lewis won an award.
Isn’t that what it’s about, anyway? If we’re going to take off 3 hours or more for some entertainment, it makes more sense to go see the movie than to watch a tedious show about the movies.
I’ve never been interested in awards shows. On the other hand, who am I to judge how someone else spends their leisure time?
Spent the weekend installing these nifty new zebrafish breeders; but I found time to see Persepolis, which I recommend.
I do recommend There Will Be Blood. A classic battle between an atheist oil man and quacked out religious nut who happens to own the land he is drilling on…
I wouldn’t care about watching the JD Powers awards ceremony, or the American Dental Association awards ceremony. Why would I care about Hollywood’s?
I tried watching the Oscars show once. That was in the early 1980s. The only thing I remember about it is that (a) practically all of the movies were things that I’d never seen, and for that matter, mostly still haven’t seen, and (b) a movie that evidently involved a lot of people in 1920s period running shorts (“Chariots of Fire”) beat out “Excalibur” for best costumes. I thought that was such a travesty, and that the rest of the show was so dead boring, that I never watched the Oscars again.
I used to watch the Academy Awards every year. This year, I didn’t see ANY of the films nominated for Best Picture. So… eh. I hung out with my husband and baby instead.
People love pomp and glamour. And they love movies. That’s what the Oscar’s are about, seeing movie stars dressed to the nines and congratulating each other. But I watch it every year. Maybe I’m a dupe.
Anyway, There Will be Blood is a stunning move. For that matter so are No Country for Old Men and Juno. It was a great year for film. Go see There Will be Blood, though. It’s definitely worth it. You need to drink that movie’s milkshake. You need to drink it up.
“it makes more sense to go see the movie than to watch a tedious show about the movies.”
total agreement.
and i propose the next iteration, too:
it makes more sense to actually do something valuable with your life–fall in love, raft a river, cook a dinner–than to watch a tedious movie about doing something.
for those values of “do something” for which you would rather not do the thing in question–e.g. getting shot by nazis, raped by thugs, or chased by zombies–i have no idea why you would want to watch the movie, either.
What was that again Mr Ham? You are a false prophet and God is a superstition? Anyone for bowling?
I went to see ‘No Country for Old Men’ a few weeks ago and am recommending it to everyone since. Have yet to see ‘There Will be Blood’, though it is on my list along with ‘Juno’.
Like the big girl I am, I love the pomp and glamour of the Oscars, but don’t watch it as at 3 hours long is a tedious affair!
I’ve always been a movie buff, and I do generally watch the Oscars to see if my picks are the ones that actually win. I think movies are either something you’re into or you’re not. (I have a good friend who is one of those people who only rarely can stand to sit and watch one, but I won’t hold it against her, and vice versa.) Movies are an art form, and as with any genre of art, some is excellent and the rest is usually some version of crap. Caveat emptor.
“There Will Be Blood” was pretty incredible, and Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is well worth the ticket price. “No Country for Old Men” was equally incredible but profoundly disturbing in a way that really sticks with you. (Nobody ever said good art had to be pretty.) And Marion Cotillard was truly amazing as Edith Piaf. So I do recommend that you at least try to catch a few of the winners. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
kid bitzer @#8:
It’s hard to fall in love/raft a river, etc in just 3 hours, though I agree you could do other more important stuff with that time.
Besides, PZ’s already got the Trophy Wife, so #1s been taking care of, and #3 (cooking dinner) looks like it gets done (PZ ain’t anorexic-looking). PZ, you up for some rafting?
By all means, don’t bother reading fiction, Don’t listen to poetry. Stay away from plays and the like…
I’ve rafted the Green River in Utah a couple of times, and the Green River in Washington (a much milder enterprise) even more, so sure, I like rafting.
I want my YouTube!
FUCKING PAKISTANI MUSLIMS!
“The BBC reported that Pakistan’s attempts to block access to YouTube may have inadvertently caused the outage. Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s shutoff access to YouTube inside the country in response to the posting of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, which have outraged many Muslims.”
I like it. It’s the kind of thing you can keep as background noise whilst doing other things.
And it flattered my French chauvinism, Marion Cotillard was great as Edith Piaf, and she did look great at the ceremony. And Javier Bardem, what an actor !
It’s not often that Europeans get a clean swipe of the 4 acting prizes, 2 brits, 1 spanish, 1 French (wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t all non believers).
Am I the only one that really disliked “No Country For Old Men”? Yes, it was ‘artsy’, yes it was trying to send a profound message, yet I found it had some gaping problems with it. (Which I won’t go into on the odd chance that people do want to go see it still.)
“Juno”, was spectacular in my mind however. I’m watching “There Will Be Blood” tonight, so I can get the comparison.
The Oscars this year however did lack most of the excitement that they’ve had in past years. John Stewart was the best part of the show I think. (That crack about deciding the Oscar via Super-delegates was precious.) I think the lack of ‘huge’ movies on the ballot didn’t help. (Granted, it was good to see the ‘little’ guys score big though this year.) I’m big into cinema, the Oscars however I find to be a very poor indicator of the quality of the actual films. Especially the ‘best picture’ award.
You might find the “conversion” scene of Daniel Day-Lewis’ atheist in the church rather interesting…
Personally, I was kind of offended by the perpetuation of the atheist as misanthrope stereotype in that movie. Are there any movies with nice atheists?
The problem with the Oscars specifically is that they are so often irrelevant and beside the point when it comes to movie art. The (American) movies widely considered to be the greatest ever made–Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, Vertigo, Sunset Blvd–were ignored. Sure, both Godfather movies won–but compare the careful, rich genius of those films with… Titanic? Million Dollar Baby? Forrest Gump? I mean, as they say, come on.
Ignore the awards, watch the movies.
PZ, I cannot stress this enough: do NOT see “There Will Be Blood”. It’s boring. It’s two hours and forty minutes of Daniel Day-Lewis overacting. Do NOT waste your time or money on this turkey.
There’s actually a decent story hidden inside this tedious piece of movie-making. It probably would have made a good 95 minute movie. Read the book instead (Oil by Upton Sinclair).
Not nominated for Best Pic, but did anyone see Sweeney Todd? Did you not LOVE it? Johnny Depp… I adore you…
BTW, will e…. Forrest Gump is a fantastic movie. If for no other reason, the soundtrack.
I was tempted mainly to see what Jon Stewart’s bits would be between sketches, but ultimately even that couldn’t compel me to care.
Guess I’ll catch up with the best segments online.
Does anybody care about them anymore?
Yes. If you don’t like the show and find the it tedious, don’t watch it. Duh. Writing about how you don’t care… that’s something you’d normally find over at UD.
P.Z.-
What is it with you? First you brag about not watching the Super Bowl, now it’s the Oscars. Join the culture, dude!
You should see Juno! Ellen Page is my new love.
Godless propaganda flick The Golden Compass won an Oscar for visual effects. That’s as many Oscars as were awarded to C.S. Lewis Christian propaganda flick The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
And BTW, the Oscar telecast isn’t “about the movies”; it’s a telecast of an awards show. A show “about the movies” would be things like “Ebert and Roeper”.
Ay yi yi–the Forrest Gump soundtrack is partly why I hated the movie! ;) It’s Vietnam–we have to play the Doors! It’s a protest rally–we have to play Dylan! I found it unimaginitive and obvious. Give me a Robert De Niro fight scene set to “Please Mr. Postman” or, well, the Doors in Apocalypse Now.
However, I agree, Sweeney Todd was glorious. Johnny Depp is, was, and forever will be cool.
I rather enjoy the Oscars. I’m a film buff and enjoy the suspense of what films are going to win. It’s the best example of un-natural selection I can think of.
as an irishman, and fan, i was thrilled to see glen hansard and marketa irglova win the oscar for best song, for ‘falling slowly’ from the movie ‘once’. it’s a beautiful song, from a great little movie, which is well worth watching.
for anyone who likes the songs in ‘once’, check out ‘the swell season’, which is glen and marketa, plus a finnish violinist and a french cellist (both living in ireland). their album, also called ‘the swell season’, is gorgeous.
glen is also the lead-singer and songwriter for ‘the frames’, an irish band which has been around for ages, and is well worth a listen.
Normally I would agree about not watching the telecast because it always seems to be a contest about which movie is the sappiest, not the best but if you get away from the major categories sometimes good things happen:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4600
I do think that Laurel Hester will be remembered as a civil rights figure. She fought a good fight and made a difference.
Ay yi yi–the Forrest Gump soundtrack is partly why I hated the movie! ;) It’s Vietnam–we have to play the Doors! It’s a protest rally–we have to play Dylan! I found it unimaginitive and obvious. Give me a Robert De Niro fight scene set to “Please Mr. Postman” or, well, the Doors in Apocalypse Now.
However, I agree, Sweeney Todd was glorious. Johnny Depp is, was, and forever will be cool.
I used to watch it, but back when Martin Landau got an award for Ed Wood, and they cut him off mid-speech to go to commercial, I decided that I no longer needed to watch it.
Here we go again!
“The story began unfolding Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the nation’s telecom regulator, ordered Pakistan’s Internet service providers to immediately block access to a specific YouTube video which it said was so incendiary it could trigger riots. A senior official at the authority said it also contacted YouTube, requesting that the site remove the video. The PTA argued the clip was a violation of YouTube’s terms of service, which ban hate speech. YouTube has since removed the clip. The site says it does not comment on reasons for removing specific videos.”
GDad, I remember that well–Landau was so pissed off, I think he was trying to give some props to Lugosi. A great role for Landau, a nice way to reclaim dignity for an actor who was so often denied it, and for Landau’s speech to be shut down like that was truly a slap in the face. The Oscars are not about art, it’s about actress ad space for dress designers.
Tell that to the people who watch the shows about the show about the movies, a la Entertainment Tonight or whatever it is.
The movie should be called There Will Be Blood… (Eventually). The cinematography and Daniel Day Lewis were superb and deserved the Oscars they won (the only two), but it was over-long (the should have cut the brother out of the movie altogether, that subplot didn’t add anything to the story at all) and I think the young fire and brimstone preacher was miscast. He wasn’t convincing at all.
I was glad to see Atonement winning for best musical score, which it had, and Diablo Cody (Juno) winning for best original screenplay proving that even strippers and bloggers can dream of Oscar glory! And the feel good story of the night was Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová winning the Oscar for best song (far and away better than the trio of Enchanted songs). Their movie Once is well worth seeing.
“No Country For Old Men” was a scary enough book that I am afraid to see the movie. I understand the Coen Brothers fiddled the ending anyway.
(.)(.)
Katie #18 said: Are there any movies with nice atheists?
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Into The Void.
Correction to #38: Touching The Void
I was so happy to see Marion Cotillard win for La Vie en Rose. What a great movie that was! My eyes were pretty much swollen shut from bawling toward the end, though.
No Country for Old Men was fantastic as well. There was an embarrassment of riches this year, movie-wise. Eastern Promises is one I would definitely recommend. I haven’t seen There Will Be Blood or Michael Clayton yet but I plan to.
I can’t work up any enthusiasm for Juno. Just not the sort of theme I find interesting.
@ #21
A friend and I went to see Sweeney Todd and we did indeed love it. I’m definitely getting it when it comes out on DVD.
But then I’d happily let Tim Burton and/or Johnny Depp violate me sexually repeatedly if they wanted to, and not utter a word of complaint.
PZed (okay, I’m a Canadian) I recommend “There Will Be Blood” highly. And “Michael Clayton”, and “Juno”, and “Atonement”, and “La Vie en Rose” — damn, it was a good year for movies. Most of the winners were reasonably deserving, and a for a movie buff like me, the telecast was entertaining (particularly the award for Best Song, which went to the right people).
If you like Ellen Page in Juno, you should see Hard Candy…now that was a disturbing movie.
Watching a good movie is to watching the Oscars as having good sex is to watching other people masturbate.
I’m not a There Will Be Blood fan…seems like people either loved this movie or hated it, and I’m pretty much in the latter camp. Too long, horrible soundtrack, serious overacting on the part of Day-Lewis. There’s suppsedly this dramatic rivalry between Day-Lewis’s character, the materialistic atheist, and Paul Dano’s character, the religious nut who gets seduced by materialism, but Dano just wasn’t in the picture enough, and his character didn’t seem to have any real power in the town.
The conversion scene was somewhat interesting in that it was difficult to tell if it was all total B.S. on the part of Day-Lewis’s character, or if there was some sincerity in it. I felt there was.
Also: not one female character in the whole movie. The women in the movie are faceless sheep, without exception.
Not to mention the pointlessness of the ending. Oooh, money and alcoholism screw people up. Gee, that’s a brand new idea!
Anyway, I spent $10 to see this movie and I was bummed.
I recommend No Country For Old Men instead.
Hard Candy was brutal–I’m a hardcore horror fan and that movie–wow. Good stuff, though. Not quite the “hipster whimsy” of Juno, however.
I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I watched the Oscars — probably about seven. Glad to hear others are finding it hard to care.
I’m glad The Golden Compass got recognized for its visual effects; I found them not just expensive, but imaginative and well-deployed. The only effect which should have been much better was the ice-bear fight, and by “better” of course I mean “bloodier”.
I can’t sit through awards shows without falling asleep. I watched about a half-season’s worth of Metalocalypse on DVD instead.
Oh, well, glad to find out that at least one award went to a cast member of Michael Clayton. Tilda Swinton really was amazing as a banally-evil corporate clone in that one.
I agree about the first two, but as for zombies, some of us dream about experiencing/surviving a Zombie Apocalypse. Watching the movies is the closest we can get.
Re: #32
“..ordered Pakistan’s Internet service providers to immediately block access to a specific YouTube video which it said was so incendiary it could trigger riots…
What the… Ok, so they didn’t like it, understood. So… why would you then go riot and destroy your own stuff? How does that get back at the infidels? “we’re not violent! Let’s go burn some stuff down and show them!!”
???
Is there anyone else here who didn’t even know that the Oscars happened until reading this post?
Personally, I was kinda hoping the writers strike would still be going on and the ceremony would be like the Golden Globes this year where they just had a guy read off the winners. I find that kind of thing amusing.
Yeah, I can see how that 4 hours a year sitting on the couch with the Tivo remote in your hand can be onerous. Those bastards!
#8: In what way is it “more useful” to raft a river than to watch the Oscars? If there is a practical purpose for me getting from one end of the river to another, there are better ways to do it than rafting. Otherwise, surely rafting is just something you do for fun. Much like people would watch the Oscars for fun.
People claiming that one form of fun is somehow “better” than another really annoys me. Why can’t you just say “I dont enjoy X” rather than somehow pretend that your preferred entertainment is inherently “better”? Probably because it is a form of arrogance.
Maybe off-topic but has any of you seen the Zeitgeist Movie? I was intrigued but since I’m not an historian nor an american is hard for me to know how real is it. PZ could you make a post for it?
“Juno” was a total piece of crap. I think it was supposed to be a comedy. I know lines like “I’m a Planet” (pause for laughter) had me in stitches. I tried to give it a chance, but I couldn’t take and had to walk out. And the music was just irritating.
Hell fucking yes, Donalbain. You hit it straight on the nose with this one.
Oh, I forgot to plug Once. It’s haunting and beautiful and amazing. Go rent it. I’m so glad it won. Though you could guess that Enchanted wouldn’t win – its three nominated songs almost certainly fractured the pro-Enchanted vote.
For all of you men out there who entertain fantasies of boffing tight-bodied teenagers, go and see “Hard Candy”, a Canadian film starring Ellen Page in a better and more memorable performance than she gave in the admirable but very dramatically slight “Juno”. Glad you saw it, PZed. (For those you who don’t know, Canada does have a very small film industry which produces for the most part quite mediocre films — mediocre in their dullness, mostly, not that they are made incompetently. The exception seems to be sex; as expressed on film, the Canadian view of sex is disturbingly sad and dysfunctional.)
As for “There Will Be Blood”, it is a stylized movie with stylized performances, and fans of naturalism in acting just won’t like it. Chacun a son gout and all.
Oh, and it was great that the winning documentary was about the torture-to-death of an innocent Iraqi tax driver; that was a more political choice for the Academy than choosing Michael Moore’s “Sicko”.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a marvelous french movie with an atheist who learns something about life without resorting to the cheap rhetorics of religion. It’s beautiful and I’m sad that it didn’t win any awards.
I haven’t been to a movie in a theater since…
Since…
Since…
The last Star Wars movie?
The last movie I watched was…The recent Casino Royale, on DVD?
Hell, I didn’t even know the Oscars had taken place. Of course, I’ve lived in a major city for 9 years now, and I’m still fuzzy on what channels outside of PBS that we have on the local TV, never mind what shows belong to what networks. Obviously, I don’t go to movies or watch TV. It’s not that I can’t enjoy a good movie or show. I can. It’s just that I usually won’t make the time for it. I’d rather surf the net, or read a book (gasp) or scribble in my own modest little novel. Or, hell, I can sleep. That’s a lot more entertaining than most of what comes out of Hollywood these days.
Even when a movie’s out that interests me, I usually won’t make the effort to pop over to the theater. It has to be a really, really good film (to me), and I’ll go only if it’s one of the early matinees on a Monday or Tuesday when school is in session. Attending any other time means my blood pressure will most likely go stratospheric over the talkers, the cell-phone junkies and the yahoos who obviously were raised in barns, since they haven’t figured out closing their mouths while they eat. I’m so sick of rude, obnoxious people, I could scream.
It’s usually worth recording (you can skip the speeches that way) – I watched it, but with a raging case of the flu I’m pretty much trapped in front of the tv anyway. It was an okay, and Stewart was good.
I also proselytize for Once, a little movie that doesn’t go where you expect it to, and opens up people’s lives in the way some good movies do. Jon Stewart is obviously a fan, too, as he brought the female lead out from backstage so she could give an acceptance speech (they had shut off the mike after her partner spoke).
Oscars are good for little memorable moments like that.
And tonight we also had, “Binocular and periscope scenes through Oscar history.”
“The Oscars are not about art, it’s about actress ad space for dress designers.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing. :-)
I don’t watch the Oscars because I care about movies. I do care about movies, but that’s not why I watch the Oscars. I watch the Oscars mainly to ooh and aah over, and/or make fun of, famous people dressed in expensive outfits.
I spend plenty of time being a loner and a rebel and wrestling with the deep eternal profoundnesses of life. Once a year I spend a few hours watching attractive famous people parading about in fabulous or absurd outfits, largely because it’s what millions of other people around the world are doing. And I don’t have a problem with that.
And ditto to #13 and #53. #8’s comment is absurd. Part of having a life is participating in culture and enjoying art. Dissing on people because they get meaning from different things then you do makes no sense.
Oh, and ditto to #61. The tribute to binoculars and periscopes had me on the floor. One of the funniest things I’ve seen all week.
PZ – this might have been the night to watch – it was good to have Minnesota connections in this year’s academy awards ceremony, and ‘ya gotta love Jon Stewart.
As a St. Louis Park jewish kid in the late ’60’s & early ’70’s, my wife spent some time going to Marx brothers movies with Joel and Ethan Coen. Their latest movie won 4 awards, among them best director.
And Juno, a delightful movie set in Minneapolis in the 80’s, allowed Diablo Cody to win an award for best original screenplay (Diablo had been a stripper before she was a writer … Jon’s joke had to do with her ensuing pay cut).
Minnesota aside, host Jon Stewart was at his best – at one point humbly bringing back on stage an award winner (minor music award) who had not been given a chance to speak, and who had a beautiful message about hope and dreams and tenacity. I enjoy the nobodies climbing on stage with Hollywood Aristocracy.
Besides, I find documentaries and the people who make them simply fascinating.
So, why wouldn’t you watch? OK, you thought Joan Rivers would be spouting fashion / popularity drivel … but no, thank the cephalopod diety – it was Regis on the red carpet this year. Come to think of it, maybe we should tune in late and just ignore that part of the program, eh?
Spoiler alert–
PZ, you’ll be glad when you see _There Will be Blood_ because in the end good triumphs over evil.
I gave it a miss, this year: I love the clothes, but when I’ve seen none of the films there’s not much fun to it. And all of these either didn’t come to tinytown at all or stayed for three days, tops.
But I’ll call you, Greta Christina: Best dress?
My vote is a tie between the French Actress who got the Best Actress for La Vie En Rose and/or Heidi Klum, who at least looked like she was at the freakin’ _Oscars_. Everyone else was so damned tasteful. I miss Cher.
Dr. Myers,
you haven’t missed anything at all. infact considering that ‘4 months, 3 weeks and 3 days’ was denied a nomination presumably bcos its feminist and poses very difficult questions to the pro-life lobby, this oscar night was a disgrace.
and btw 4-3-2 is arguably among the best movies ever made.
#42: “I was so happy to see Marion Cotillard win for La Vie en Rose. What a great movie that was!”
I agree! Her performance as Edith Piaff was outstanding, very worthy of the award. I watched La Vie en Rose on DVD this weekend instead of watching the Oscars. The story is stunning, will stay with me a long, long time. The commentary by the director and Ms Cotillard after the movie was also outstanding and the footage re makeup for Ms Cotillard was drop-jaw amazing.
Katie said: Personally, I was kind of offended by the perpetuation of the atheist as misanthrope stereotype in that movie. (There Will Be Blood)
I thought the same thing at first, then I decided that he was a nihilist, not an atheist. I always give the atheist the benefit of the doubt.
Juno was less than interesting. I prefer the story, “Melody”, which was at least original.
Sparky, I agree No Country For Old Men completely overrated. First half was fairly decent. The rest of the film pretentious and there were some plot developments that were closer to holes. Fargo it ain’t. I read a review that said Javier’s character was death incarnate and that the moral was that death will always get you in the end. Yep, I get that but I still don’t think it was handled particularly well.
Same with Atonement. Three word sum up. What a pretentious wank. Okay so that is four. Kiera Knightly in wet undies redeems the movie a little though.
This was the first year I had the benefit of a DVR (TIVO-wannabe), and I tell ya, 4 hours down to an hour and a half – with the bits I knew were going to bore (acceptance speeches by set designers) passed over in a blink.
I did like the cast of “Once”, and how it was treated when the humblest person to walk onto the stage was at first cut off, and then given her moment back.
That was what we like about the Oscars, people who we see being fake for a living, finally being human and real.
The thing about There Will Be Blood is that Daniel Day-Lewis’ character was not the most vile person in the film. The preacher family outdoes him by a mile, and at least his character had semi-decent reasons for much of what he did. Plus, even at the end, he still had a tighter tether to reality than did the preacher. (The “I drink your milkshake” line comes from Albert Fall’s Teapot Dome testimony, by the way.) As Stuart Klawans said in his review in The Nation, if they’d stuck to the Sinclair novel, it wouldn’t be as tightly-made a study in obsession and corruption; the political subplot of the book was rather clumsily welded to the picture of the driven oil man and his son.
IT is the biggest, most glamorous night of the year. It is the night when millionaires give each other awards for dressing up and pretending to be someone else.
The only good part of the oscars is the obituary reel.
Other than that its just a three hour long TV commercial.
And BTW I’m not criticizing people’s choice of how they spent the evening. What did I do instead of watching the oscars? I spent the whole evening playing Packrat on Facebook. Because my useless fun us more useful useless fun than your useless fun. :P
A GREAT PRO-ATHEIST MOVIE !
I completely agree with Marcus, #61, if you want to see a really great movie, based on a true story, and with a great pro-atheist stance, you got to see “the diving bell and the butterfly”.
PZ, pleaaase see it and I’m sure you’ll make a post about it. You will love it ! (and that’s something else than the Golden Compass).
http://www.thedivingbellandthebutterfly-themovie.com/
“Faced with a harrowing predicament, Jean-Do will use enormous courage and determination but, most of all, his soaring imagination to escape from his trap. Tapping into the limitlessness of his memories, fantasies, wit and wishes, he finds a way to race through experiences of wonder and grief, sex and love, fatherhood and childhood, faith and questioning, ecstasy and absurdity – and touches the very essence of what it is to be human.”
The one problem with “Diving Bell” is that it slanders the girlfriend, claiming that she never came to visit him when in fact she was there every day. http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2008/02/23/diving_bell/
There Will Be Blood: Atheist pwns religious nut. I smiled through all of it.
The soundtrack was done by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.
No Country is well-done and beautiful to look at; and the fact that a protagonist meets will ill fate before the movie’s over didn’t bother me any more than it did in Fargo or Blood Simple. But I just didn’t care enough about the point it seemed to be addressing — which I saw as being “Whose world view is the more masculine and stoical?” with the Coens’ winning out over the various misguided characters — to hold it in the highest regard.
I watch the Oscars when I can, but missed this year, which kind of saddened me because I was much more impressed with the roster of films then I have been in the last few years. Also, my favorite director died this year (Ingmar Bergman – a grand old atheist in the existential Swedish tradition) and I wanted to see the “looking back on the years dead people” segment. Plus, Jon Stewart.
You have to love a show that gives the award to two relatively unknown Irish independent musicians, and gives them a chance to say something from the heart in front of an audience of millions. Even if Jon Stewart has to step in and make sure they both get their chance.
That’s what it’s about for me — the small filmmakers and artists getting their moment in the limelight. And getting flustered or teary is part of the magic.
It’s like the Olympics. Or the NCAA championships. Real people facing surprises, life-changing moments, disappointments, and upsets. And the vicarious, mirror-neuron emotional involvement we can all take part in.