The Oscars 2023

[Bartmanhomer]

Last night I watch the Oscars on TV and it was good. I heard that the woman who won Best Costume Design from Wakanda Forever has her second Oscars. Avatar won Best Visual Effects. I'm surprised that the Woman King wasn't nominated for any category at the Oscars. But whatever it was a good show anyway. :smile:

[Mystic Muse]

Generally speaking, I do not care about the Oscars, but Ke Huy Quan saying with the excitement of a 5 year old hearing Santa Claus is real saying "MOM! I WON AN OSCAR!" Is one of the most joyful things I've seen in weeks.

[Ionathus]

I think this is only the second time in my life that I'd seen the Best Picture film before it won the Oscar - the first time, obviously, being Return of the King.

I usually don't watch the Oscars (I didn't this year either, but I usually don't too). But it was fun to learn that EEAaO pulled off a near-sweep. One of the best movie watching experiences I've ever had: making me feel the things I felt walking out of that showing is what every movie should strive for.

[Wintermoot]

Interesting. I was born in 1974. So looking back at movies I've seen the year they came out I see a decided drop off as I've gotten older.

2023 Everything, Everywhere, All at Once Yes
2022 CODA
2021 Nomadland
2020 Parasite
2019 Green Book
2018 The Shape of Water
2017 Moonlight
2016 Spotlight
2015 Birdman Yes
2014 12 years a slave
2013 Argo Yes
2012 The Artist
2011 The King's Speech
2010 The Hurt Locker Yes
2009 Slumdog Millionaire Yes
2008 No Country for Old Men Yes
2007 The Departed
2006 Crash
2005 Million Dollar Baby
2004 Return of the King Yes
2003 Chicago
2002 A Beautiful Mind
2001 Gladiator Yes
2000 American Beauty Yes
1999 Shakespeare In Love Yes
1998 Titanic Yes
1997 The English Patient Yes
1996 Braveheart Yes
1995 Forrest Gump Yes
1994 Shindler's List Yes
1993 Unforgiven Yes
1992 The Silence of the Lambs Yes
1991 Dances with Wolves Yes
1990 Driving Miss Daisy Yes
1989 Rain man Yes
1988 The Last Emporer Yes


Seems like I was really on the ball until age 26 or so, then just stopped going to as many movies? I mean, I have not only not SEEN some of the more recent, I haven't even heard of some of them.

It would be interesting to look at how many of the "also rans" I saw each year. Movies that were nominated but didn't win.

[Ionathus]

There's also the "Oscar bait" effect going on I think, where movies that want to win awards cater really hard to hitting a specific vibe which is usually depressing, high-concept, and overwrought. Maybe somebody can track the progression of that stereotype better, but just looking at your list, those early ones have a lot more blockbusters with broader appeal than the later ones. Braveheart, Gladiator, Titanic, Chicago...I think about those and compare them to something like Crash, which is maybe the most blatant Oscar-chaser I've ever seen. Loads of slow-synth speeches about the fragility of human connection, but light on relatability or entertainment value. Being a Best Picture winner stopped being synonymous with being "a good movie that everyone enjoyed" for awhile there and turned into its own art-nouveau kind of thing.

I've seen at least one article about how that might be going away, given that Everything, Everywhere, All At Once was about the furthest possible thing from quintessential "Oscar bait" - it was loud, goofy, action-packed, unapologetically sci-fi, and so incredibly earnest.

[Vinyadan]

Seems like I was really on the ball until age 26 or so, then just stopped going to as many movies? I mean, I have not only not SEEN some of the more recent, I haven't even heard of some of them.

I think you should watch 12 Years A Slave. It's an amazing movie with great acting and everything else (except spaceships; I'm serious though, it's incredibly good).

Also, substitute the King's Speech with this (https://youtu.be/qL27r3fUSzY).

The Departed is also very good.

Of the ones you have seen, the one I didn't find that good was Argo. It was just too fake. The final scene, with the raging bad guys on a tiny jeep, chasing a 747 as it blasts off on the runway instead of phoning the control tower to halt departure, was the epitome of it.

The Artist was well-packaged, but otherwise nothing special. I think it won because it was about an artist's crisis. If you want to see a better, bigger film handling the same theme among others, you can watch Andrei Rublev.

[Peelee]

Of the ones you have seen, the one I didn't find that good was Argo. It was just too fake. The final scene, with the raging bad guys on a tiny jeep, chasing a 747 as it blasts off on the runway instead of phoning the control tower to halt departure, was the epitome of it.

Having never seen that movie, were they part of airport security personell? Because if not... what's the phone number for the control tower?

[The Glyphstone]

They were, if I remember right.

Argo is a great movie as a thriller. As an accurate recreation of the actual events depicted, it fails about as hard as you'd expect it to. The dramatic last-minute escape from the airport is only one of the artistic licenses taken.

[truemane]

The Artist was well-packaged, but otherwise nothing special. I think it won because it was about an artist's crisis. If you want to see a better, bigger film handling the same theme among others, you can watch Andrei Rublev.
I never stop being amazed by the sheer range of human reaction. After Tree of Life, The Artist was easily my favourite film of 2011. I loved it so much that it made me sad in that I'll never get to see that for the first time ever again sort of way. I must have seen it a half-dozen times with different people and it made me smile for a week each time.

I think it won because it was magical. A stunning technical and artistic achievement. And it was a whimsical, nostalgic evocation of a golden age, which is something Hollywood often likes.

Whereas I found the Departed painfully pedestrian, especially from a virtuoso like like Scorcese. Akin to Mozart doing chopsticks. I thought its success was mostly panic on the part of the Academy to give him an award quick! before he dies and joins Hitchcock and Kubrick on their Wall of Eternal Shame.

Which, as they say, is what makes horse races.

However, opinions aside, Andrei Rublev? Of all things? What a strange place to go from the Artist. I can't imagine a more dissimilar film. Tarkovsky was a lot of things, and his films cover a lot of ground, but 'whimsical, nostalgic evocation of a golden age' they are not.

[Vinyadan]

However, opinions aside, Andrei Rublev? Of all things? What a strange place to go from the Artist. I can't imagine a more dissimilar film. Tarkovsky was a lot of things, and his films cover a lot of ground, but 'whimsical, nostalgic evocation of a golden age' they are not.

That's because I didn't see The Artist like that. Maybe that's why it didn't really give me anything, I didn't really relate to it. But Andrei Rublev does deal with different sorts of crises that an artist has to live with, and the ways he can be destroyed by them, but also how he can come back to life. That, to me, was the story of The Artist, too.

If I had to go for a movie about nostalgia, it wouldn't be... Nostalgia (which I haven't watched), but Cinema Paradiso.


Having never seen that movie, were they part of airport security personell? Because if not... what's the phone number for the control tower?

I don't know if the movie specified it, but I think they were meant to represent Revolutionary Guards, who have people in airports. The funny part is that one of them finally decided to walk to the tower control room, burst into the room, and aim a gun at the guy in there, but I'm not very clear on why. I think it was just a necessary beat in the escape scene, a final moment of bewilderment and the bad guys pulling the lever too late. Rationally, a couple radio calls would have been enough to shut down the airport, but the interception historically never happened, so in the movie the airplane had to depart.

There's a book about an Iranian pilot coming to live in the US, but I can't recall its title. From what I've heard, it must be a good book.

[Trixie_One]

2018 The Shape of Water

That's the only one that really surprised me that you missed at the time from your list. Had a ton of great critical reception and Del Toro's track record was amazing at that point that I was seeing anything he was making.

[Aedilred]

Interesting. I was born in 1974. So looking back at movies I've seen the year they came out I see a decided drop off as I've gotten older.

2023 Everything, Everywhere, All at Once Yes
2022 CODA
2021 Nomadland
2020 Parasite
2019 Green Book
2018 The Shape of Water
2017 Moonlight
2016 Spotlight
2015 Birdman Yes
2014 12 years a slave
2013 Argo Yes
2012 The Artist
2011 The King's Speech
2010 The Hurt Locker Yes
2009 Slumdog Millionaire Yes
2008 No Country for Old Men Yes
2007 The Departed
2006 Crash
2005 Million Dollar Baby
2004 Return of the King Yes
2003 Chicago
2002 A Beautiful Mind
2001 Gladiator Yes
2000 American Beauty Yes
1999 Shakespeare In Love Yes
1998 Titanic Yes
1997 The English Patient Yes
1996 Braveheart Yes
1995 Forrest Gump Yes
1994 Shindler's List Yes
1993 Unforgiven Yes
1992 The Silence of the Lambs Yes
1991 Dances with Wolves Yes
1990 Driving Miss Daisy Yes
1989 Rain man Yes
1988 The Last Emporer Yes


Seems like I was really on the ball until age 26 or so, then just stopped going to as many movies? I mean, I have not only not SEEN some of the more recent, I haven't even heard of some of them.

It would be interesting to look at how many of the "also rans" I saw each year. Movies that were nominated but didn't win.

Something I find interesting looking at that list is that the idea that popular blockbuster films don't win Oscars looks like a relatively recent phenomenon. Of course, there were a lot of "arty" winners previously, but they're interspersed with popular hits and even movies like American Beauty and Shakespeare in Love are somehat lighter and more accessible than the general tone of what we've come to recognise as the Oscars' "type" movie. If I had to pin a date on it I'd say it began with Million Dollar Baby. But then maybe this was a blip in itself, from c.1995-2004. The pattern from 1980-94 looks more "arty" again.