Joe, Katey and I are back, talking about Hollywood's High Holy Night. As per usual I'm having lots of bandwidth financial drama so I've had to bare-bones the original site (only this year's awardage and Oscars being available) but you can download the podcast from MediaFire or nab it from Rapid Share (Even iTunes seems to be charging me money... which I don't recall happening before. Woe to the technologically stoopid ...i.e. me!)This podcast is brought to you completely unedited in a wild attempt to exorcise my control freak demons.
Discussed James Cameron, 3D as the future of cinema (and the past of cinema), The Last Station, Avatar, the box office of the Best Pictures then and now, RomCom Queens and Oscar, Adam Shankman and Oscars 'as you've never seen them', Dave Karger's doubts about The Hurt Locker, Sandra Bullock 'learning her place', the Precious resurgence, self-fulfilling prediction prophesies and "Oscar Stories", Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeremy Renner.
Questions:
Questions: - "The real nominees"... are they the ones everyone assumes they were? Nathaniel's not so sure.
- What on earth will it take for Meryl Streep to win a 3rd?
- What will the future hold for Carey Mulligan and Gabby Sidibe?
Join the conversation in the comments.
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31 comments:
I'll have to listen to this after I eat. I just REALLY hope you're drunk like last time.
The site isn't working for me! :( :( :(
A new podcast just made my day!!! Yay! I love these, they're always so funny and insightful. And it obviously is the best news I've heard in awhile in regards to the Academy Awards.
And only bad thing about friends w/o Cablevision- in high school it's difficult to find a friend whose house you can stay at until 12 on a Sunday when you have school/parents have work the next day. I think my Aunt with Verizon Fios will have to DVR it and I'll watch next weekend.. sigh.. (btw what did party in the system mean?)
If Gabby doesn't pull a big upset, the 00s will be the first decade since the 40s in which no movie won both best actress and best supporting actress.
I don't know if you have heard but one of The Hurt Locker's producers has been banned from the Oscar telecast because he broke the rules...
He send an e-mail to friends and acquaintances bashing Avatar and asking people to vote for his film.
Isn't nothing sacred anymore?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/season/2010/02/with-one-week-to-go-are-oscar-campaigns-staying-on-message-by-pete-hammond.html
No offense, but that's sort of old news now, Jorge. And to be honest, it's not that big of a deal. First time producer commits a faux pas and has had to apologize. End of story.
Nat, it's weird that you say that you want something crazy, i.e. two performances on the level of Mo'Nique competing, because to me, Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn had two legendary performances competing last year. Which one should have won is a debate that continues to this day.
I wasn't talking about the news because I know it's old but I was talking about the possible backlash (since we're talking Oscars here) it can bring to the film...
Is The Hurt Locker position unsafe again or are we all positive it'll win come Sunday?
Right now I'm thinking about someone from Precious making an upset... That Editing nom (the overall number of noms) is strange...
Could it be, Precious winning Best Picture? Or Sidibe Best Actress?
Damn, twenty-seven minutes in and this is such an interesting discussion.
if Meryl Streep doesn't win this year, i give up!
3 things -
1. The video of Johnny Wier in the sidebar isn't working
2. You could always upload the Podcasts to YouTube for posterity.
3. Why isn't Swanson from Sunset Blvd. among with the other women in the top banner?
I want to listen to the podcast but it'll take 8 hrs to download now!
It was really good. Joe was very funny!
I think Gabby still has a chance.
I am really tired of this whole "let's do everything in 3D" trend. Why did "Tangled" (inspire title by the way zzzz) have to be in 3D?
And about the Oscar record. Hepburn (an excellent actress) didn't exactly thrill the Academy four times. One win (...Dinner) was for sentimental reasons and the one after that (Lion...) was shared with La Barbra (say that without a pause :p). I think Bergman's wins showed more belovedness by the Academy since none of them was for sentimental reasons (I think) and only Gaslight was really liked, whereas all three films for which Nicholson won, were best picture nominees.
I realize no one said anything related to that but anyway :p
wait, moror -- why is it taking 8 hours to download?
And you made a great point about how surprisingly few of the top ten are obvious Oscar-bait. I'd only count Up In the Air, An Education, andPrecious in that category.
What a great pic of Kate and Meryl. At least we can be sure that if Sandra wins, Meryl will be really nice about it; she's definitely not a complainer.
I think it's possible that enough voters become frustrated with the Sandra-Meryl showdown that they vote for Gabby. I mean, why don't the Academy voters ever become pissed off that the front-runners are pre-ordained?
Bryan -- they do. but only if the frontrunners are gay westerns
Isn't that the truth.
This is hard.
From now on I'm James T.
I decided to be one of the 3 billion of people who have a blog.
My native language is Greek but I wanted it to be in English.
If you only like posts as interesting and well-written as Nathaniel's, avoid my blog. I'm not being a Sandra Bullock, I mean it. I don't want comments like "your English suck". I know! I write because I enjoy it. If there is one person who will also enjoy it, it would be worth the revealing.
Confirm.
Nathaniel, I'm sorry for the spam-like nature of my post but I felt I had to introduce (read: warn) people to my blog.
Hmm my podcast repeated the beginning multiple times and ended in the middle of the discussion of the song performances. Was that the real end slash did anyone else have similar problems?
You guys are hilarious. "Oh, Jimmy, you f*cking idiot". Priceless.
Good. I'm not the only one hoping that the stars align just right and Gabby wins Best Actress just for the entertainment factor of her winning. Phenomenal performance from someone who has continually proven she is a genuine and wonderful person.
I loved the brief diversion into the weirder nominations in smaller categories. You better believe if a song I wrote had Oscar buzz I would be beating feet on the campaign trail. I'd be kissing babies and showing up to every industry event with a sandwich board advertising my song. I'd spend every last cent I had to buy ads in major papers/magazines and set up a killer website with recordings of the song and multiple commentaries on the song-writing process. I'd solicit endorsements and appear on any talk show that would have me. It's the Oscars, people. Don't let "oh, that's a lovely little waltz" or "I love Randy Newman" beat you out of a nomination.
I am home with a fever so listening to this has saved me from going bonkers.
A very entertaining and funny podcast.
But I have to say, I wouldn't be upset if any of the frontrunners for the acting categories lost, even Mo'Nique. Jeff Bridges is not going to lose, but if Colin Firth won it would great. If anyone in the actress category won besides Bullock, it would actually be fine. Streep or Mulligan winning would make me happy. The Supporting Actor category is a little trickier. Probably only Woody Harrelson would be acceptable. But I do think it's odd that Waltz has won everything. And if Farmiga or Kenrick won instead of Mo'Nique I wouldn't cry.
Summit knew exactly what they were doing by not releasing The Hurt Locker last year. They would have lost to Slumdog. What they couldn't have known was their competition would be so weak this year.
I am not in love with The Hurt Locker. So again, if it doesn't win Best Picture I won't be sad.
Someone above said that An Education was Oscar-bait. Except perhaps for Carey's performance -- and that is debatable because she was close to unknown before the film -- there is very little Oscar baity about the film, which is why it is remarkable it made the top 10.
People keep saying if voters don't vote for Sandra or Meryl they'll vote for Gaby who has proved so charming on talk shows. But you forget that probably every Brit in the Academy is voting for Carey.
As for Gaby not being nominated again, I can see her getting a supporting nod for some comedy in the future, maybe even for a Woody Allen picture, LOL.
How long did this chat last? Mine stopped at around the half-hour mark, and I could tell there was more to it than that.
If they get sick of the whole Meryl-Sandra thing, they'll vote for Carey, not Gabby. If Gabby has a good career, they'll mark her (along with all the other first-time nominees except the ones who are probably getting Oscars) under "give them an Oscar a little later in their careers." Except maybe Plummer, Kendrick, and Maggie.
Plummer is going to not get an Oscar anytime soon since it took him a very long time to get ONE nomination, Kendrick is in Twilight (quit already!), and Maggie just isn't Oscar's type.
rosengje, dell, caroline -- i added a link to rapidshare. maybe that will work better? the podcast is 50 minutes long.
@Bryan: I think the reason people don't do anything about the pre-ordained thing is the same reason Nader never gets any votes, including mine, even though many of us agree with him. People see the contest as being effectively between two main competitors, and they want a voice in choosing between the "real" candidates, those with a perceived chance at winning. Of course, it's all self-fulfilling, since these "real" competitors were chosen by the media and commentators and earlier awards and not by the actual expressed preferences of the voters. So I think those jumping off the Carey and Gabby ships to partake in the real contest far outweigh any jumping aboard those ships out of resentment that their votes are taken for granted.
Of course, it's just the frickin Oscars, not the leader of the free world for the next four years, so I wish people would be a little more honest. But the upside may well be that those leaving Carey and Gabby are more likely to vote Meryl.
The Hurt Locker/Brokeback Mountain connection is baffling to me. BM made 80 million and THL only 15 million. THL is one of the best reviewed movies of all time; BM had great reviews, but for instance, is still 10 percentage points below THL on Rotten Tomatoes.
Most importantly, Brokeback lost because Roger Ebert was campaigning hard against it. THL has had some gaffes in the past week, but nobody has been campaigning against it to the extent that Ebert (and even Oprah) were campaigning for Crash.
Unless there's a Weinstein miracle, The Hurt Locker will win. Sorry, Avatar.
As someone who knows a few Oscar voters let me say this, they don't pick the best but their favorites (shocking, I know). One of the ladies I worked with voted for Streep even though she thought Gabby had the better performance.
Why? Because she loves Streep and thinks that she's overdue. She also believes that Gabby shouldn't win this early in her career.
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