This is topic The Oscars 2018: Results from the 90th Academy Awards in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-05-2018, 02:11 AM:
 
Winners are listed first and in bold.

Best picture
Best DirectorBest ActorBest ActressBest Supporting ActorBest Supporting ActressBest Original ScreenplayBest Adapted ScreenplayBest Animated Feature FilmBest Foreign Language FilmBest Documentary FeatureBest Documentary – Short SubjectBest Live Action Short FilmBest Animated Short FilmBest Original ScoreBest Original SongBest Sound EditingBest Sound MixingBest Production DesignBest CinematographyBest Makeup and HairstylingBest Costume DesignBest Film EditingBest Visual Effects
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-05-2018, 07:43 AM:
 
"Heaven is a traffic jam on the 405" ???!!! If you ever wanted proof that they've just legalized pot in this place...
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-05-2018, 08:39 AM:
 
100% okay with these. Good to see Deakins finally being awarded.

Sam Rockwell was a must as well. He was even more impressing in Three Billboards than Frances McDormand. He deserves the award for his body language alone.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 03-05-2018, 08:59 AM:
 
First Oscars I've watched in about 5 years. So, for the 90th year in a row, worst Oscars ever.

Was Deakins coked out of his mind, or is he always twitchy and scratchy?

Sally Hawkins (big fan) looked seriously ill. It's usually a big competition to decide who is the most dangerously underweight woman at the Oscars. No contest this year. Get that woman a cheeseburger.

Best Acceptance Speech: Allison Janney. If only she had stopped after the first sentence (and she would have won the jet ski).

The Best of the Dead was severely lacking in star power this year. We need a higher quality of deaths for next year.

Worst Dressed: Armie Hammer and his maroon velvet tux. Runner up, the sound editor who I guess thought he was being rebellious, but just looked like a clown.

Worst Make Up: J-Law. Looked she hired a Cher Stylist wannabe.

I guess some movies got awards, too. But who cares? [Wink]
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-05-2018, 09:37 AM:
 
Yup. Awards well deserved, but the entertainment factor of the show was pretty low.

The live music/singer performances also appeared pretty amateurish to me. I have no problem with an 'unplugged' approach as such, but not at the OSCARs.

That said, not everyone in that business needs to be a brilliant entertainer, so, scratching Deakins appeared quite personable to me.
But, hosts and presenters should offer a bit more bang for the buck.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-05-2018, 01:36 PM:
 
I watched Frances McDormand's acceptance speech online. I thought she was having a nervous breakdown at some point.

I enjoyed the Best Picture presentation segment.

From the clips they showed, the Best Picture winner looked like a positively horrible movie, but what do I know? It must be decent at least.

I was glad to see Coco get best animated film, really no contest this year on that one. I don't know if any of you get the Hollywood Reporter, but I do and I was amazed to see the number of giant promotional ads that were placed pushing The Boss Baby. Seriously? Even Ferdinand was better.

Best Song was a closer race for me, I thought the tune from The Greatest Showman was really good but the Coco tune was great as well.

Bottom line, this is probably the Oscars I cared least about in my exhibition career just because we hardly played any of the movies. We played only 2 of the Best Picture nominees.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-05-2018, 01:43 PM:
 
Once again, there were no surprise winners at all in any of the major categories. All of the winners were telegraphed by previous awards presenstations from the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Producers Guild and Writers Guild.

I was happy for Jordan Peele winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. I really liked the Key & Peele show despite the griping from Dave Chappelle. Hard to belive Peele is the first African American to win a screenwriting Oscar. I thought maybe someone like Spike Lee had done that previously (Dead Poets Society won that Oscar the year Do the Right Thing was nominated).

Another unique piece of trivia: I'm pretty sure Kobe Bryant is the first person to win both an Oscar and NBA championship trophy. Are there any other professional athletes who have won championships in an organized sport and also won an Oscar?

Francis McDormand's "inclusion rider" thing seems really out of touch with how and WHERE most "Hollywood" movies are being produced. High cost and regulatory requirements have pushed many productions out of California. States like New Mexico and Georgia have attracted many hundreds of movie and TV projects. Texas and Louisiana are popular sites for production. And then there's all the stuff going on outside of the United States. Vancover, Toronto and other parts of Canada have been grabbing up "American" movie and TV productions for a long time. Even New Zealand and Australia are doing the same. A bunch of this stuff is about controlling cost, diversity and inclusion be damned. Increasing amounts of post production work, such as animation and CGI work, is getting farmed out to the Far East and India.

I was a little disappointed Dunkirk didn't win the Best Cinematography Oscar. The movie didn't have the greatest ever looking 70mm & IMAX 70mm footage. Still it was a pretty tremendous effort to shoot that kind of a movie on 65mm film, with most of it being true IMAX. The Oscar winner, Bladerunner: 2049 was a great looking movie; however, much of its look was generated in the computer not on set and in the camera. With the amount of CGI, digital back lot compositing, color grading, etc going on with movies like Bladerunner: 2049 they almost qualify to be lumped into the Best Animated Movie category. These movies are only a few steps short of being cartoons. Dunkirk was a very "analog" movie by comparison.

It's a long running Oscar tradition to have movies up for the top awards get their haul of nominations inflated by gimmies in the technical categories. Dunkirk seemed to be a worthy winner of the Best Film Editing Oscar. I think Baby Driver was worthy of the award as well. The other 3 nominees in that category were just along for the ride. Other more action oriented or experimental movies might have been more worthy of inclusion there.

quote: Martin McCaffery
Was Deakins coked out of his mind, or is he always twitchy and scratchy?
I was thinking it might be imaginary "meth bugs."

quote: Mike Blakesley
From the clips they showed, the Best Picture winner looked like a positively horrible, but what do I know? It must be decent at least.
I think viewers need to actually watch The Shape of Water and give it a chance before passing judgment on it. I thought it was a really good movie. It has a truly despicable villain. Parts of the movie will make viewers uncomfortable and squeamish. But it all ends up making perfect sense in the end. Performances from Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg and several others were great. This was a very different movie in a tide of so much same-ness.

The Three Billboards movie might have won the top prize if not for some controversy surrounding it. I haven't been able to watch the movie yet for myself. It played here in Lawton a very short time and we missed it.
 
Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 03-05-2018, 04:04 PM:
 
I ways hoping when many Dunkirk award winners were giving their little thanks you's at the Oscar show that they would mention It was shot on rare 70mm film, a classic format from the mid 50's that makes the movie crisp and stand out. The public has no idea what 70mm is these days as no one even plugs It, not even the guys that filmed It when they won a award for Dunkirk in front of millions of people around the world.
 
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-05-2018, 04:31 PM:
 
quote: Bobby Henderson
I was a little disappointed Dunkirk didn't win the Best Cinematography Oscar. The movie didn't have the greatest ever looking 70mm & IMAX 70mm footage. Still it was a pretty tremendous effort to shoot that kind of a movie on 65mm film, with most of it being true IMAX. The Oscar winner, Bladerunner: 2049 was a great looking movie; however, much of its look was generated in the computer not on set and in the camera. With the amount of CGI, digital back lot compositing, color grading, etc going on with movies like Bladerunner: 2049 they almost qualify to be lumped into the Best Animated Movie category. These movies are only a few steps short of being cartoons. Dunkirk was a very "analog" movie by comparison.
Cinematography and Special Effects have always been very close to each other. The problem with stuff like the Academy Awards is that there are just vague guidelines on what to vote. In case of cinematography, what's more important? The process of getting there or the actual end result?
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-05-2018, 07:53 PM:
 
I was under the impression only cinematographers could vote in the cinematography Oscar category. One would think they would at least appreciate the effort that went into filming a war epic on 5/65mm and 15/65mm film. On the other hand there are cinematographers who are staunchly in favor of an all-digital approach. So maybe there's a clash of philosophy present. Inception is the only recent movie to make any use of 65mm cinematography and win the Best Cinematography Oscar.

FWIW, the American Society of Cinematographers gave its 2017 feature film award to Bladerunner: 2049. Yet another examples of the Oscars being telegraphed by other awards programs.

Long ago the Oscars divided the Cinematography awards into separate color and black & white categories. I'm not sure what they should do here. "Best Digital Intermediate" Oscar? Film use is dying off overall, so they wouldn't be able to sustain a separate "Film Cinematography" category. And then there's the issue of movies being shot on film, even 5/65mm in some cases, yet having all the posting work done via digital intermediate. With digital-based production so much of the movie's final look doesn't happen in the camera at all. They cover the basics on set then manipulate the living hell out of it with color grading, effects compositing and all sorts of other artificial sweeteners.

quote: Terry Monohan
I ways hoping when many Dunkirk award winners were giving their little thanks you's at the Oscar show that they would mention It was shot on rare 70mm film, a classic format from the mid 50's that makes the movie crisp and stand out. The public has no idea what 70mm is these days as no one even plugs It, not even the guys that filmed It when they won a award for Dunkirk in front of millions of people around the world.
Yeah, it's a shame. Even many people who have heard of 70mm don't really understand it. That's how you can have a movie shot on 65mm film, but processed in the digital realm during post and then output it to 70mm release prints as if no bottle-necking took place at all.
 
Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 03-05-2018, 10:42 PM:
 
Nobody mentioned it, I'm so happy Gary Oldman got the Oscar for his performance in the Darkest Hour. Well deserved, and overall a great film.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-05-2018, 11:26 PM:
 
One thing I noticed that when they were running down the list of Best Pictures, the onscreen graphics shortened the title of the eventual winner to just "Shape of Water." I hate when that happens....it is "The Shape of Water." You would think the Academy would get things like that correct. I'm a real stickler for stuff like that on our marquee and such. I'll bet the filmmakers are the same way.

At least when the title was announced as the winner, they read all four words of the title properly.
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-06-2018, 06:05 AM:
 
Mike, were you able to put 'Three Billboards' onto your marquee properly? Because we struggled ;-)

- Carsten
 
Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 03-06-2018, 07:55 AM:
 
Winners and losers aside, the whole ceremony was so overtly political that it was hard to watch. I'm completely down with the Time's Up movement, but after all the bombast and shallow posturing they handed an Oscar to none other than Kobe Bryant, who was accused of raping a woman in a Colorado hotel room in 2003, he ran the "I thought it was consensual" defense and wound up apologizing and laying a ton of money on the gal. I guess everybody forgot, but for those who didn't it makes all the speeches and chest pounding a little laughable.

At least they remembered Haruo Nakajima on the memorial reel. It made the show for me.
 
Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 03-06-2018, 10:08 AM:
 
Bobby, re who votes for what: for nominations, each branch votes for their members, cinematographers for that, writers for screenplay, etc .
In the final voting, full membership votes for everything.
It gets a bit more complicated, but this is the general rule.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-06-2018, 11:23 AM:
 
Totally agreed about the politics angle. One political website I like to read commented that by choosing Jimmy Kimmel to front it, AMPAS was in effect telling half of the population to go and watch something else. I'd say that it was even more than half. My political outlook veers toward the conservative, and my wife's to the liberal. She was watching it, I wasn't (I was keeping half an eye on it while doing household chores). She got fed up with the political speeches about an hour in, despite agreeing with the content of them, and after one of them (can't remember who - possibly Frances McDormand), switched off the TV and we took our son for a walk in the park instead.

I can't help thinking that if AMPAS had imposed the film-tech.com rule and placed an absolute, blanket ban on any political comment, with the speech scripts pre-vetted and everyone forced to sign contracts agreeing to pay swingeing fines if they went off script, the ratings would have been better.

But the main problem was the movies. Like it or not, the Oscars is intended as a promotional vehicle for mainstream films. Its relevance to arthouse and minority interest films exists, but is restricted to acknowledging their contribution and influence on mainstream cinema - hence the reason that there are foreign film and documentary categories, for example, but they don't get a lot of attention. Giving the best picture Oscar to some weird movie that spouts philosophical BS and which almost no-one saw or will see, is not doing the brand any favors.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-06-2018, 11:37 AM:
 
quote:
Mike, were you able to put 'Three Billboards' onto your marquee properly? Because we struggled ;-)
We didn't play it, but it would have fit using all three lines.

I agree they should get politics out of the award shows. The ratings are falling for all of them plus the NFL games too, so there's a common denominator there, but I agree the Oscar ratings are more driven by the movies.

I'm surprised the Oscars haven't tried to hook-up somehow with the People's Choice awards to make themselves more mainstream.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-06-2018, 03:42 PM:
 
The things I found most annoying in the Oscars telecast were Francis McDormand's acceptance speech (for reasons I mentioned earlier on Page 1 of this thread) and certain deviations in the show.

Traditionally the previous year's Best Actor Oscar winner presents the Best Actress Oscar. When Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence took the stage to present the award I was confused at first but then remembered Casey Affleck won the Best Actor Oscar last year for Manchester By the Sea. I get why he didn't present the Best Actress Award. Not knowing the specifics of two law harassment suits that were settled I'm still guessing Affleck's acting career is likely finished. It's great some monsters in the entertainment industry are getting their comeuppance. Still, it looks like the concept of due process has been pushed aside in the hysteria. How many of these harassment cases have gone to criminal court?

I wonder how the Times Up and Me Too movements are going to react when the Brian Banks movie is released. That one is based on the true story of a star high school football player whose life and path to the NCAA and NFL was derailed when he was falsely accused of rape, convicted and imprisoned for nearly 6 years. A decade later his accuser admitted to making up the whole story so she and her mother could sue the school district for a bunch of money. By then Banks was past his prime. I only bring up that case and this movie project because some members of this movement are acting like it is impossible for a man to be falsely accused of a sex crime. The Innocence Project has fought a bunch of cases like this, including that of Brian Banks.

quote: Leo Enticknap
Totally agreed about the politics angle. One political website I like to read commented that by choosing Jimmy Kimmel to front it, AMPAS was in effect telling half of the population to go and watch something else.
I don't think the choice of host would have made any difference. Many "red" viewers would have avoided watching the show anyway. I'm not sure what would qualify as a conservative leading awards show (the annual Country Music Association awards show seems kind of moderate to me). If there was such a thing I'm sure just as many "blue" viewers would avoid watching as well.

The way it looks to me is that most who have picked a side in the "sport" of politics are walking around with big chips on their shoulders just itching to take offense at something. These days they get triggered just by hearing any opposing viewpoint. Just hearing someone out is seen as a form of capitulation. They want the opposing side to shut up, stay quiet and wear whatever derogatory label is assigned to them without protest. Meanwhile moderates are seen as traitors by those with enough "courage" to pick a right or left side. The moderates think the people on the far left and far right have lost their minds.

quote: Leo Enticknap
But the main problem was the movies. Like it or not, the Oscars is intended as a promotional vehicle for mainstream films. Its relevance to arthouse and minority interest films exists, but is restricted to acknowledging their contribution and influence on mainstream cinema - hence the reason that there are foreign film and documentary categories, for example, but they don't get a lot of attention. Giving the best picture Oscar to some weird movie that spouts philosophical BS and which almost no-one saw or will see, is not doing the brand any favors.
Did you watch The Shape of Water? Granted, it's a strange fantasy movie, but what about it was "philosophical BS?"

The main promotional vehicle in the Academy Awards show is the commercial breaks. There's plenty of movie ads there. I did think it was a little slippery on Disney's part to have Jimmy Kimmel and friends crash the screening of A Wrinkle in Time. That gave that Disney movie some extra publicity.

When I was a kid I was pissed when movies like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. lost out to "artsy fartsy" movies like Annie Hall, Chariots of Fire and Gandhi. These days the Oscar results don't bother me nearly as much. If I have an issue with anything it's more often in one of the technical categories. "How dare they not give a 70mm movie an award!" The Oscars are not the end all be all authority over what amounts to being the best movie or what's best in specific movie categories, like Best Catering. The AMPAS' Oscars show is just one of many movie awards presentations.

The next thing is movies that are good and movies that make lots of money are often two separate things. There are great movies that just didn't sell lots of tickets. There are movies that sold lots of tickets that are honestly crap. With so many sequels, re-makes, reboots and other derivate stuff dominating the box office and movie production pipelines I think the Academy Awards would be better off just ending itself rather than making its awards more "mainstream."

The People's Choice Awards already gives props to movies that sell a lot of tickets. Is MTV's Movie Awards show still around? I haven't watched MTV in years. That show was doing the same thing. Some people will actually avoid watching movies that have won in major Oscar categories. They equate the Oscar with boring movie.
 
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-06-2018, 03:53 PM:
 
quote: Richard P. May
Bobby, re who votes for what: for nominations, each branch votes for their members, cinematographers for that, writers for screenplay, etc .
In the final voting, full membership votes for everything.
It gets a bit more complicated, but this is the general rule.
I was under the impression that only the "Best Picture" category is open for all members to vote for, both during nomination and final vote. It would, at the very least, make more sense.

quote: Bobby Henderson
I was under the impression only cinematographers could vote in the cinematography Oscar category. One would think they would at least appreciate the effort that went into filming a war epic on 5/65mm and 15/65mm film. On the other hand there are cinematographers who are staunchly in favor of an all-digital approach. So maybe there's a clash of philosophy present. Inception is the only recent movie to make any use of 65mm cinematography and win the Best Cinematography Oscar.
I'm still under the same impression: Cinematographers nominate and vote for cinematographers.

The problem with those kind of awards shows is that they deliberately obfuscate the rules. It's not like an exam at a school, where usually the outlines of scoring points are more profoundly outlined. Now, you can argue if something considered a form of art should be judged against such a strict set of rules, because art should be free...

Personally, I think the way of getting to a certain result should be a large part of the decision making process in selecting the beneficiary in such an award. I would consider Dunkirk a larger cinematographic achievement than Blade Runner 2049, even though it looked absolutely awesome.

Maybe one of the reasons why the results of the Oscars seem to be so telegraphed from other shows is because the jury members let themselves be influenced too much by those results. Maybe they're afraid of making different choices, because if all the others generally agree on certain movies and they end up with totally different results, it could seriously hurt their credibility. (As far as the whole show still has left some credibility.)

quote: Mike Blakesley
I'm surprised the Oscars haven't tried to hook-up somehow with the People's Choice awards to make themselves more mainstream.
We're seriously talking about the elite hooking up with what the plebs think? [Smile]

quote: Bobby Henderson
Did you watch The Shape of Water? Granted, it's a strange fantasy movie, but what about it was "philosophical BS?"
I watched it. And while it was a beautifully choreographed movie with some strong acting, the story itself was just 13 out of a dozen boilerplate, predictable boredom, as was most of the character development. I think the "artsy fartsy" factor was actually pretty limited, so I didn't really get it when it started to hit #1 on all the award shows.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-06-2018, 04:05 PM:
 
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Maybe one of the reasons why the results of the Oscars seem to be so telegraphed from other shows is because the jury members let themselves be influenced too much by those results.
Actually many the same people are voting in both awards programs. For instance many of the member of the American Society of Cinematographers are also academy members as well. There are occasions where an award winner of something like the Director's Guild feature award does not go on to win the Best Director Oscar, but that kind of outcome is rare.
 
Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-06-2018, 04:23 PM:
 
I found this years Academy Awards dreadfully boring. Far too much padding. Between irrelevant speeches, lame jokes, the musical interludes and that horrible field trip to the multi-plex next store. I am sure it was a thrill for those in the audience at the Chinese Theatre, but for the rest of us watching a bunch of the self-absorbed elite coming down from on high to mingle with us commoners was enough to stop the show dead. It was insulting to all concerned.

Plus, the actual best film of the year, Wind River, was not even nominated for anything.
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-06-2018, 04:25 PM:
 
Actually I'd prefer MORE politics, simply because the jokes are better...

If it was just for the awards or the kitsch stage design, it would be a real waste of time to watch.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 03-06-2018, 07:06 PM:
 
quote: Bobby Henderson
The main promotional vehicle in the Academy Awards show is the commercial breaks.
Or, as they were called "Three short films inspired by WalMart's Box"
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-06-2018, 08:56 PM:
 
I almost forgot about the Walmart Box thing.

quote:
Plus, the actual best film of the year, Wind River, was not even nominated for anything.
Wind River was the best movie of the year based on what metric? Personal opinion? The movie and its first time director, Taylor Sheridan did pick up some awards and nominations from different movie and critics organizations. I like how Taylor Sheridan is outspoken on Native American issues. In terms of aggregate scores from critics and movie festivals, Get Out accomplished the most wins with critics and the movie awards season.

quote: Carsten Kurz
Actually I'd prefer MORE politics, simply because the jokes are better...
It sure does give people something to talk (or rather bitch) about.
[Razz]
 




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