8 minutes ago, DaytimeFan said:

I think what kills me is the Academy Awards used to be about movie stars. It was a glamorous night where regular people could watch their favourite performers in competitive races. There were only a handful of stars in that audience.

Now it's a bunch of nameless actors in movies nobody has seen winning awards and going on to work in projects for one of a million streaming platforms that a continually splintered audience never sees.

I agree. If not the Emilia Perez controversies I'm not even sure anyone would have talked about the Oscars this year. So different from when I was growing up. I wonder if they will be around in a decade.

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

And this is shameful. Olivia Hussey was in a film that introduced many to Shakespeare and was shown in schools for decades:

https://deadline.com/2025/03/oscars-in-memoriam-snubs-michelle-trachtenberg-jim-abrahams-alain-delon-1236307934/

I was in high school studying Shakespeare in the early 1970s.  Our school arranged a special screening at the local theatre and we had a "field trip" on the bus to go to the theatre  to see Romeo and Juliet.

I feel bad for Zoe Saldana, who'll get yet more Internet hate over this silly win (and from Ariana Grande stans). I choose to take it as a win for her excellent work in Avatar: The Way of Water.

Demi should've taken it, but I liked Anora a lot and Mikey Madison was wonderful so I'm not too fussed about her win. I wasn't surprised it swept - it's funny, sad, closer to Academy-typical style (almost a Bogdanovich-style screwball farce) without being as old-fashioned as Conclave, and it's nowhere near as long as The Brutalist, which I thought deserved considerably more awards and was equally remarkable. So Anora, while good, was kind of the safe Hollywood choice. I would've rather Brutalist taken a couple of Anora's awards (at least Best Director), and I would've rather Best Actor gone to Fiennes, who was excellent in Conclave.

The Substance is a funny and very well-made but very unsubtle gore-soaked horror satire (and a bit of a riff on silent film - there's very little dialogue for most of the first hour) which it's insane they nominated at all. If not for Demi and the impeccable direction by Fargeat it would've been an underseen and underrated streaming-only release on Shudder last summer. There's nothing wrong with any of that though - Rosemary's Baby got essentially the same makeover. I'm just glad Demi was recognized as much as she has been this season.

I still need to see I'm Still Here and Nickel Boys this week. I will say The Seed of the Sacred Fig is very good and everyone should see it.

5 hours ago, Bright Eyes said:

They absolutely need to get rid of the cringey nominee praising from the presenters. It's always so eye-rolling and suffocating to watch. When they got to the showing clips for the lead categories, it was such a relief. 

Also, and this is a pet peeve of mine, nominees shouldn't be presenters.

That stuff always is so weird. I don't like them directly talking to the nominees, lol. This isn't The Real World.

6 hours ago, DRW50 said:

And this is shameful. Olivia Hussey was in a film that introduced many to Shakespeare and was shown in schools for decades:

https://deadline.com/2025/03/oscars-in-memoriam-snubs-michelle-trachtenberg-jim-abrahams-alain-delon-1236307934/

That's awful. Olivia Hussey has indeed been a school staple for generations.

Edited March 3Mar 3 by Vee

I don't agree with many of the choices... but... Okay.  And... I  watched pretty much all of the nominated movies these past few weeks. Demi deserved the Best Actress one. In my opinion. I liked Anora A LOT... but Demi's performance was legendary and created a pop-culture moment. It was also... just... in my opinion - stronger, even though it's hard to compare. It just left an off feeling hearing that she didn't win and I'm seeing this all over social media. But hey... congrats to Mikey Madison - only 25 years old and already has an Oscar! 

Best Film in my opinion should have gone to Emilia Perez, if you judge it only as a film and don't take in account the controversies surrounding it. I don't really care for the right-wing people that have been spewing their hate for the movie non-stop. I started watching, expecting to hate it... since I despise musicals... I really do... but not only did I love it... it has become my favorite movie and nothing can change that for me. It made me feel things that no other movie has ever made me feel and I cried for hours. Watched it twice in the same day. Once alone, once with my husband who also loved it. My father, on the contrary - told me this is the worst movie he's even seen in his life. 

Of course, it's destined to be controversial and not liked by everyone... and I do NOT condone what the lead actress wrote years ago in her twitter. But she really also did amazing job in the movie. I completely understand why the movie got 13 Oscar nominations. I am not shocked at that fact AT ALL.

Zoe Saldana is a happy moment for me, because she was really spectacular in Emilia Perez and I started crying in one of her scenes - in the cab. 

Wicked... I'm not surprised how it did. Overrated. 

42 minutes ago, Vee said:

That's awful. Olivia Hussey has indeed been a school staple for generations.

They also shunned Tony Todd and barely mentioned David Lynch. That and Demi losing for the horror movie tells you the contempt they still have for the genre.

2 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

They also shunned Tony Todd and barely mentioned David Lynch. That and Demi losing for the horror movie tells you the contempt they still have for the genre.

That's just a disgrace. Absolute disgrace!

3 hours ago, DRW50 said:

They also shunned Tony Todd

I never saw Tony Todd in any of his films.  But loved him as Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek.  That voice!

Demi losing for The Substance proved the film's point entirely.

Anora isn’t a bad film, and I’m not going begrudge an independent film that was made on a shoestring budget without major studio backing (initially at least) winning and shedding a light onto relatively unknown creatives and actors. 

 

cross-posting with politics thread.

https://bsky.app/profile/apnews.com/post/3ll5j7sqwvm2u
 

Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land” in the occupied West Bank on Monday, and he was then detained by the Israeli military, activists on the scene said.

[image or embed]

— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) March 24, 2025 at 12:41 PM

https://apnews.com/article/no-other-land-oscar-israel-palestinians-084c63f33e748a3279646759e9b705c2

Edited March 25Mar 25 by janea4old