Oscar predictions? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Oscar predictions?

skateluvr

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Oct 23, 2011
They see it as memory, with Streep playing Thatcher in dementia. I've only seen previews but Meryl completely becomes Margaret, the way she became Julia Child. She has played every role to the max, but to take on historical characters that we have so much footage of...it speaks to her skill that they did not go with a Brit like helen Mirren or many other amazing actresses. I think I have seen every Meryl movie except "Mamma Mia" and only because I hate Abba. I think I must be the only one!

I am in New England and we are getting our second snow of the winter. Ecologically, not good, but I am grateful to God as last year we got 78 inches, and being disabled, I wanted to just die, really. I have been able to get out thru this amazingly quiet winter. I'd love to be in Arizona, but that isn't likely.

Anyway, today, I watched TCM, OLYMPIA, and enjoyed Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story" which I saw many years ago. I somehow remembered a different ending, with "Sister" going back to the Congo and reuiniting with the surgeon. I think they ended it with her leaving the convent because it would have been very controversial to have her leave the religious life for a man. But that was my hope watching it. I love Audrey Hepburn. No one looked like Audrey either, though i see Rooney Mara was maybe channelling her with the black hair. I should check the listings more. Or ask you what is coming UP! I find myself being critical of many old movies because I grew up with gritty realism of Cinema post 60s, and I agree with Streep the acting is way better now. I wish Spielberg were more active as he is my favorite moviemaker and he has never made a film I did not like. Much of what gets on screen has way more gratuitous violence (and sex scenes that don't seem needed) than my frail nature can honestly take.

So, I am thrilled Olympia we have this move and Oscar thread. I sense you are "mature" and I can trust the taste of you ladies. I at least know what to look for when the DVDS COME OUT. Movie theatres are hard for me. I too love Sharif. Dr. Zhivago still makes me weep, and I had "Lara's theme" in a music box years ago. I loved him opposite Barbra in "Funny Girl." That is my favorite musical, with Funny Lady coming a close second. How I wish film makers had the guts to do these kind of movies today. The talent is out there, and shows like Glee and Smash show there is TV audience for this. i just can't imagine people not loving a great broadway musical brought to film, even if it is tough to transform live theatre to the colder medium of film. Well, I am dating myself. I wish I could do something about Tv programming. We are being intellectually assaulted.

So Olympia, if you have a movie rec for TCM, please let me know. I have never had the time in my life to be a movie buff. It often takes figureskating to get me to turn the telly on! Since it's now on internet, I spend much more time online reading.
 
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seniorita

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Jun 3, 2008
I havent seen Mama Mia either, so you are not alone:) I ve seen some pieces of the film, it just didn't happen so far
I have some friends who had seen the cast here when they were filming it!

Olympia my mum had a crash on Sarif, we ve seen all his movies in this house:)
About Iron Lady, the most bold thing I read is that Streep was so good that she made Thatcher actually likable, lol!
I ll see Hugo hopefully by Sunday and tell you, I m curious because they say they used different 3d techniques and the movie is not as dark in colors as usually the 3ds are. I don't like 3d much, I think last 3d movie I saw was the alien smurfs ( The Avatar) ;)
 

Tonichelle

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Jun 27, 2003
just can't imagine people not loving a great broadway musical brought to film, even if it is tough to transform live theatre to the colder medium of film.

there have been many broadway musicals made into films lately, just not this Oscar season.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Yes, let's keep this movie thread going!

Seniorita, I just realized that you're the one person among all of us who is likely to have visited the locale of Mamma Mia! I did see the movie, but I didn't warm to it. Meryl Streep is kind of wasted doing Abba songs, though the cast is a humdinger--Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, and of course Streep. To my mind, the music is way too insubstantial for the overblown way it's produced, and Streep and the guys don't really have pop voices. Also, the time frame is all wrong--there's no way Meryl was a young flower child twenty years earlier. She isn't just too chronologically old, she's too emotionally mature. But okay, I'm glad they clearly had fun making the movie, and it certainly shows her versatility.

Interesting sidelight: The storyline for the original theatrical musical is loosely based on a minor movie of the sixties called Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, in which Gina Lollabrigida was the supposedly widowed (but actually unmarried) mother of a twenty-year-old girl by one of three American GIs stationed in Italy during World War II. I have actually seen that movie, and the minute I heard of Mamma Mia, I said "aha!" I turned out to be correct. In any case, Seniorita and Skateluvr, neither of you has lost anything by missing Mamma Mia. It's adequate, and that's about it.

On the other hand, I completely agree with you, skateluvr, about Julie and Julia. What a beautiful movie, and what a lovely portrayal of Julia and Paul Child! One reviewer wrote that every movie from now on should star Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. It was a stroke of genius to alternate the narratives of the two women--the view of Julia Child through the lens of time made her story all the more powerful.

I never know what's going to be on TCM until I am there on the channel, because I always forget to check their great website, which has their monthly schedule. Every year they devote February to movies that had some connection with the Academy Awards--either a nomination or a win for acting, directing, Best Picture, even music or cinematography. So I got to pig out on Errol Flynn movies including The Sea Hawk and Robin Hood, and the splendid picture about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, The Miracle Worker. I missed the Audrey Hepburn movies, I'm sorry to say. You're right; there's no one like her. And she was a great lady in real life, working for the U.N. on children's issues.

Maybe Streep is right that the acting is better nowadays, or at least more naturalistic, but there's stuff from earlier eras that will not be equaled: Cary Grant's debonair comedic timing, the magical grace of Fred Astaire with any partner or alone, and earlier back, the mysterious appeal of Garbo's face in a silent movie such as The Temptress. I actually prefer her in silents to her talking pictures. Dialogue weighs her down, somehow--except in Ninotchka. Maybe to me these movies are windows onto other worlds, just as much as Avatar is. (Seniorita, I love your description of the Na'vi as alien smurfs!) A lot of them are on DVD nowadays, even some of the silents.

One musical I'm eager to see as a movie: Wicked. I love the music!
 
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Tonichelle

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Please toni, fill me in. what broadway musicals were on film this year or last? tks

as I said in my last post this Oscar Season there were no big musicals. it goes in cycles, just as everything else... however they have made remakes of several - unfortunately most were flops (I haven't seen them so I can't judge)... I don't even know if they were redone as musicals or not, and there's talk that other musicals are in talks of being remade. Hollywood, right now, is all about the remake.
 

seniorita

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Jun 3, 2008
Someone else had said Navi as blue smurfs, I just borrowed it since then, I thought it was hilarious!:)
I d seen the musical of Mama Mia in the past so more or less I know whats going on on the film too(And I m a Colin Firth uber :D), Olympia the island the filmed it is Skopelos, it is a beautiful one because it has lots of green and also green sea instead of blue, it is not the typical white little houses - blue everything else of greek island, and it was not that popular before the movie. Now it is crowded, I ve been there BMM (before Mama Mia:biggrin:) and after and it is completely different, now it is very trendy kind, and I think they still play this movie there everyday in the summer in the openair cinemas!:laugh:
Watch Chicken with Plums;) I dont know why it was not in the foreign list nominees but it should have been
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
In recent years, Chicago was made into a movie very successfully (with Catherine Zeta Jones winning an Oscar for it), and Nine and Rent were also filmed, with considerably less financial success. I think Rent had most of the original Broadway cast, including Idina Menzel (who also starred as Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway), and Nine had almost everyone in the world in it, including SIX Oscar winners and one nominee: winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, and Nicole Kidman; and nominee Kate Hudson. Sheesh: I just looked it up on imdb-dot-com, and its budget was $80 million, but its gross intake was about $20 million. That qualifies as a flop in my book. The description of it in Roger Ebert's review doesn't make it sound very attractive to me.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091223/REVIEWS/912239996/1023

The only other musicals recently filmed that I can think of are the High School Musicals. I tried to watch the DVD of one; I made it through fifteen minutes of it and had to stop. I think I've outgrown that plot line by a long way.

Anyone else have anything to add to the list?
 

Tonichelle

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Jun 27, 2003
Don't forget teh remake of Hairspray (much better than the one with Ricky Lake, and got Oscar buzz) The Producers: The Musical was great... dream girls (I didn't like it, but others did). The remake of Sweeny Todd (that got lots of Oscar Buzz)... but again those were in the last few Oscar Cycles. This season there wasn't one that I know of except Footloose (is that a musical? LOL)
 
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oh, thanks, Toni! I knew you'd come up with more. In my estimation, Footloose counts as a musical, though the cast doesn't sing very much. The music is more geared to dancing, isn't it? I didn't see it, though I'd like to, just to compare it to the original, which was wonderfully fresh and well acted. John Lithgow, for example, as the original father, was splendid. It seems odd to have a remake of something so iconic, but it would be interesting to see if the filmmakers did something with it.

Oh, wasn't there also a remake of Fame? After the original film, and the fine series, I didn't want to venture into the new film, but sometime I'll see it.
 

skateluvr

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Oct 23, 2011
Movies thread back! I have seen on DVD J. Edgar. Glad I watched for the history of it but wasn't impressed with Leo As j. Edgar. I liked Army Hammer as the boyfriend, though Clyde. I also saw on DVD, My Week With Marilyn. It was pretty good. Michelle Williams certainly does a creditable job as Marilyn, but not as over the top stunning and glamorous as Marilyn Monroe could be. A more demure, innocent Monroe interpretation. With so much written and onscreen about Monroe, I think it is a fairly easy characterization if you have the looks and the body. Interesting that Smash is a musical about Monroe. She just never goes away does she? Fascination with her is still there, and always will be.

Anyone catch anything good on DVD?
 
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Aug 16, 2009
I have Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris on my list, though I'm not normally a Woody Allen fan. I love the idea of going back to the twenties in Paris.

Interesting to hear your take on DiCaprio as Hoover. I thought he might actually be very good, considering what else he's done and how many great directors seem to love him, including Scorsese himself. But maybe J. Edgar Hoover is just not the kind of character one would want to spend one's time with.

Michelle Williams is supposed to a great actress, far more talented than her former Dawson's Creek costar, Katie Holmes. In terms of beauty, Williams isn't the standout that Monroe became. Williams has a pretty face but nothing distinctive; her power seems to come from acting ability rather than glamorous looks, which immediately makes me like her.

Speaking of DiCaprio, isn't it interesting to contemplate the clever and/or lucky choices that James Cameron made when casting Titanic? A lot of directors try to cast unknown performers as their leading young love team. The central actors of many memorable films fade out quickly, though, never having the careers that such early success would predict. (Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, for example.) But the leads in Titanic have each been rousingly successful at playing substantial and varied roles. Winslet has won an Oscar, and DiCaprio has been nominated at least once.
 
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Tonichelle

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Ugh. Titanic. Such a waste. One of Winslet's worst imo. I dont think she and leo have movie magic together at all. And dont get me started on the historical inaccuracies.
 
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I was fond of it. For me, whether it had inaccuracies or not, it was clearly a labor of love on Cameron's part. It's hard to find a movie that has a genuinely epic feel and a sense of another time. When I look back at biographical pictures and large-scale historical films, I have trouble finding more than a handful that are capable of putting me in the time and place. Getting the balance between the human scale and the large sweep of events is so tough. For me, for instance, Gandhi and Dr. Zhivago succeeded while Ryan's Daughter did not. (And both Gandhi and Zhivago contained historical inaccuracies. I'm sure they moved events around. They were not trying to be documentaries, but to convey an overall impression.) I felt that with Titanic, I was there, both in close-up and in large vistas. Of course a lot of that is subjective, so I don't expect to convince you of this, but I do see why it affected so many viewers. There's a lot of skill and heart there.

As for Kate and Leo, I think that part of the lack of movie magic was that Kate was playing someone who was very restrained, suppressed. She was trained to be aloof (and to sell herself to the highest bidder, so to speak). That part didn't bother me, because I think they were both in character.

One thing that struck me watching this movie was that Titanic started seeming to me almost like the planet Krypton: a beautiful ecosystem (for want of a better world) heading for disaster, with only a few survivors left to tell the tale and bear witness to its glory. Besides, I loved the costumes and the music, and you know what a sucker I am for costumes and music. So I have to vote yes. Feel free to vote no with your ballot!
 

Tonichelle

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Kate was good when Leo was not in the scene. I don't understand how an actor who did so well in Gilbert Grape can become so monotone in such a "romantic" part as Jack Dawson. IMO the main characters were dwarfed by better performances by just about everyone else "on the ship."

Cameron pushed his film to be historically accurate, that he'd done extensive research and blah blah blah - which he had. The problem for me, however, is he totally negated the historical facts for the more sensational tabloid fodder of the time. Sure, it sells a better movie, but my generation completely BELIEVED that story to be history (it drives me up the wall) he villified some of the ships crew in ways that they had already been exhonerated years earlier. (I feel the same sort of annoyance at Disney's Pocahontas which is so blatant in its inaccuracy it's not even funny, and again I can't tell you how many people my age think it was correct if "a bit disneyfied". I can still remember my 8th grade history teacher having to walk out of the classroom to regroup himself because one of my classmates was adament that Pocahontas' story was exactly like the Disney movie and the history book we were reading was outdated.)

I also feel, with as much love as Cameron has for the ship, that the use of some of the actual artifacts of the Titanic supposedly as props is disrespectful. I personally don't approve of grave robbing - be it mummies or the Titanic. In the case of the mummies I understand wanting/needing to know of the cultures and what not, but return them back to where they belong instead of parade them around the world for a buck. Titanic, and other shipwrecks of her era, does not give us any more insight into what culture was like back then, it's well documented. I agree it's nice to know what happened, but after all this time it's still all speculation. And even "back then" they knew it was from the cutting of corners the ship owners and builders used to save money and get her out on time. It proved massively fatal.

Then there's the decision to use Jack Dawson as the name of the main character. There was an actual Jack Dawson (I believe he was a worker on board the ship in the boiler room) who's body was recovered and buried. After the movie, love struck folk went and showered his grave and grieved for him... nevermind that Leo was not portraying HIM... and Cameron, IIRC, found it humorous. Again, I didn't.

I personally don't like Cameron's films or a lot of what he says, so I see Titanic as a big waste. I think he's using the 100 year anniversary to line his pocket even further, and to me it's just not cool...


Interestingly enough they are also showing this film again in 2d... and people are going. Seriously? It's added nothing new, and tickets are how many dollars more than they were 10ish years ago?! *facepalm*

I will say I liked Victor Garber as Mr. Thomas Andrews, as well as Kathy Bates as Molly Brown... and Billy Zane played a good villian. But I don't see it as one of the greatest films of all time... just a really big budget movie that played to love sick teens really well... I hear Kate's epic scene is great in 3D though. :sarcasm:
 

skateluvr

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Oct 23, 2011
LOL, I kinda feel more like Toni re Titanic. The ship and the disaster were the stars here and it was so epic-it was overdone. I agree the supporting actors were better, Billy Zane was great. I never felt it was cast right. If we go with kate, and I think it was a good choice, lovely Englisg rose, it was Leo who looked too young, too thin, too small next to voluptuous, zaftig, mature Rose. I always felt another male would have more chemistry with Kate. Zane for one-better scenes.

I get seasick very easy and nauseous so I don't want to see it in 3D. If it's on TV, I'll watch.

As far as the more mature Leo in Makeup as J. Edgar, there was growth and change, but it is obvious why he wasn't in running for Oscar. Michelle Williams is impressive in her movie. Never saw Dawson's Creek. Is that where Holmes came from? I see her as another Cruise wife, and maybe she'll do some mature work worth watching. I was aggravated when the Kennedy family ? got that HBO series pulled. Or did they? I don't have HBO, but I figured I'd see it somewhere. Katie did look a bit like Jackie all done up. What ever happened with that series?

ETA Cameron went to bottom of the seas in a little vehicle-brave guy-timed perfectly with re-release of Titanic, huh? How rich is this guy? Oh, his lucky women, ex and otherwise, LOL.
 
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Tonichelle

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Katie Holmes did a very good job as First Lady Kennedy. Actually that whole series was fantastic and is in my collection - and I'm not a fan of the family. Greg Kinnear did a superb job as President Kennedy... I didn't come away pitying the boys, but it did give insight. The series went on and you can get the entirety on DVD which is how I saw it. IIRC it wasn't an HBO series, it was on another cable channel (we don't get HBO but my parents watched it on TV...) I'm actually kinda obsessed with the mini-series. I've watched it many times.
 

skateluvr

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Oct 23, 2011
Great thoughts Toni, I'd like to rent it, but not buy it. Maybe I can find a cheap used copy of the series on Amazon. I feel I missed a good series. I never get tired of Kennedy books, movies, etc. I am the same with certain royals, like Diana. I just read everthy published despite the fact there isn't much about either that hasn;t come to light. I suppose Netflix would have it. I just have too much I am avoiding to join and start renting lots of old movies I missed. Olympia mentioned Ryan's Daughter in her post. I vaguely remember that. Olympia, I remember the theme music but not the actors, it was so long ago. I remember loving that movie in Jr. High. I'd like to see it again, as I recall so little except being taken with the music. Do you know the music? I know you are a huge music and movie buff!
 
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Yes, and the music was Maurice Jarre, as was the music for David Lean's other big films, Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. Of the three sound tracks, Ryan's Daughter was the least memorable to me, but he's always attractive. I remember the actual movie as sumptuously pretty, including two of the leads, Sarah Miles and Christopher Jones, but the love story didn't reach the immortal heights of Zhivago, and the political elements weren't as compellingly depicted as they had been in either Zhivago or Lawrence, where you were aware at all times that the fate of nations hung in the balance. It might be worth seeing again, though; maybe I am forgetting its high points.

I'm glad to hear that Katie Holmes did well as Jackie. I have generally found her a bit insipid--for instance she was way too young as the DA in Batman Begins (not entirely her fault that the filmmakers cast someone too young). I also remember she showed up on one of the dance competition shows lip-synching to her pre-recorded rendition of "Come On, Get Happy," and all I could think of was how pale a copy of Judy Garland she was. If you are, to put it charitably, "aspiring," you don't make your first TV appearance singing a song so iconically associated with one of the voices of the century--unless you're competing on American Idol, of course, where it's excused.
 
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