Eh, it's pretty hard to nominate a movie about a giant ape, at the beginning when it was like 25-1 on RT and it seemed headed for 95%+ it was possible, but by the end there was a fair amount of people against it and against the length. If Jurassic Park couldn't get nominated, KK was pretty fucked from the get go. On the other hand Capote was a historical biopic with the Best Actor winner in tow. Much easier. By the way, I love Capote. At the least it's better than Babel and I'd say The Queen.

I don't have a problem with smaller films taking hold of this year, I think most people would agree that No Country/Blood/Diving Bell/Wild ARE deserving movies. This year had its bigger film pawns set in place with Charlie Wilson's War and American Gangster, they just didn't pan out. Same thing with Dreamgirls last year, it just didn't impress the voters. I'm sure next year Spielberg's Lincoln movie and Nine will be the big 100 mil+ players and things will go back to normal.

I think the subject of the thread got carried away a little. It's not that I have any issue with this year, it's just that it really goes against all conventions and all stable that has been before.

I mean there's a solid chance that out of five SAG Best Ensemble nominees only one will be nominated for Best Picture, two at best. Each year, it is usually 4-5.

And then an Academy-friendly BAFTA nominations leader and Golden Globe noms Best Picture (Drama) winner misses out on almost all the guilds...?


And as for Capote, Shack, The Queen was better And I'd say it's equal with Babel, but Baabel at least was ambitious, so I understand the Academy going for it...

I thought Capote was good, but it left me with a hollow/cold feeling.

I don't have a problem with that. Actually I'm much more comfortable if there's an interesting race rather than have a movie (or a few) that sweep all the guilds and awards just to be left empty handed when the most prestigious awards come for some shitty winner.

And I feel Academy will positively surprise us this year. I just have that feeling.

I agree, Kong should've been nominated for BP.

I actually thought the casting of Black was fantastic. On paper, it was a terrible move, but he really added some much-needed life to the set of mostly uninteresting characters. He also played the greedy moneymaker card well...it fit the character he portrayed throughout the film. I thought his casting was better than, say, Adrien Brody's. And while it would make sense for the Academy to ignore the film because of it, I think that just like they love going with these quirky films lately, they would've liked having a "quirky" actor on board one of their Best Picture nominees. Nah, I think they left out Kong mainly because "Return of the King" had such an insanely strong performance just two years earlier, and they felt like they owed Jackson nothing.

I actually think Kong got a lot more than it deserved. Even I went a bit overboard on it at the time (can't remember what grade I gave it at the time, but today I'd give it a C+/B-). A lot of the critical praise and noms were a result of Jackson's new-found pedigree as a major director. The film itself was overlong, miscast and occasionally downright boring.

100% agreed

As usual, Kong was brought down by Follow-Up Syndrome. I've written much on the subject around here, so I'll leave it at that.

And honestly, I think it just has a lot to do with more the audience and studios. The kind of blockbusters the Academy use to award were original, WOM breakouts - Gladiator, The Sixth Sense, Saving Private Ryan, Titanic...the closest we've come out having a film along these lines have a super-breakout was American Gangster on opening weekend, but that disappointed in its legs. Juno is coming close, but that looks likely to just miss out. Nowadays the way the box office is the only films that can make the Top 10 are the most commercial films and Pixar.

Batman Begins totally deserved to win the Oscar though.

Juo will miss out on the Top 10 obviously (hell, even a $200+ million grossing Ratatouille probably will...so no Pixar in there this year, I suppose), but it is still the kind of a WoM smash hit you are talking about. Even without a BP nom, $130+ million looks fairly assured, with it, nothing stands in its way to $150 million. If nominated, that'd be the biggest BP nominee since ROTK...wow.