Jake Gittes

You lock too much and too early. There's no guarantee MU will be a great movie (neither was Brave, I know, but still), and it looks more different from its predecessor than TS3 looked in comparison to the first two. Also, Monsters Inc was not from before the award, it was actually nominated and lost to Shrek. It'd be pretty strange if the (most likely) inferior sequel did end up winning, although not impossible. Personally I think if Frozen is on the quality level of Disney's recent output, esp. Tangled and WIR, it's got a great chance. Disney had 4 nominees and no wins in the past 5 years, and this might be the perfect time to reward them, especially considering Pixar is going to release three original films in a row following MU.

That old argument again. The hell is not mature about Reservoir Dogs, KB2 and Basterds, at least? Just because the characters do and/or say immature things from time to time (something that wasn't totally absent from Jackie Brown, either) doesn't mean the writing is immature as well. Take the whole opening scene of Inglourious or Bill's introduction in KB2 and tell me that's not some great, intelligent writing right there. I also gotta say I probably like Magnolia the least of PTA's films. Felt less like a smooth, organic film/script and more like something PTA just needed to get off his chest as quickly as possible. There are some great individual bits there, no doubt, but it never really came together for me (just like The Master, which at least doesn't run for 3 hours and mostly focuses on just 2 characters). I remember how I watched PDL and TWBB right after Magnolia and was amazed how naturally and easily they flowed in comparison.

PTA should've won screenplay (as well as director) for TWBB hands down.

ZDT is still my favorite movie of last year, but like with THL, there's not much of a script there to consider it anything remarkable. The dialogue is good but nothing that special, it's the acting that makes the characters work and the direction that makes the story work. Boal owes a lot of his newfound success and reputation to Bigelow - her directorial ability elevated both of his scripts like no one else's probably would, IMO. Re: Tarantino, there's no question to me that he's the best writer to come along in the past two decades, perhaps the best since Woody. And while not the best writer ever, he's certainly one of the all-time greats in my eyes. Deserved both of his writing Oscars, should have won another one for Basterds and also nominated for Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill 2.

ROTK extended (251 min) is surprisingly the only film I've seen so far that's over 4 hours. Then there's Once Upon a Time in America, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur, GWTW, Godfather II which are all over 200 minutes. Four of the six movies named, though, are some of my all-time favorites, and I'm not generally apprehensive about length. I'm definitely anticipating the day I get to watch War and Peace, Das Boot, Novecento, Carlos and particularly Satantango (me being a huge fan of Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse). Then there's BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ which is over 15 hours long, but from what I recall it's one of the more notorious cases of "is it a film or a TV series?", so I don't know how fair it is to include it.

If this flick's gonna be playing near you, see it. You won't regret it - it's not a perfect film, but very intense throughout and Friedkin creates incredible atmosphere with the way he shoots the jungle and utilizes its sounds and the sounds of old rusty heavy trucks going through it. The bridge crossing scene is one of the all-time greatest, and then you've got an excellent score and an ending that would only come from '70s Hollywood. I'd pay a good amount of money to catch a good print of this in a theater.

Chill out, dude. Lol. I didn't mean "formidable" as "better", more as "having more momentum/buzz/acclaim".

Well, I said as much. If the Joplin biopic is on the Ray/Walk the Line level, not much more will be needed.

Well, based on Enchanted and The Muppets she could lead a Disney family film any time she wants to, and if Man of Steel is successful I imagine she'll be back in the sequel(s). While I agree that she's too big for indies now, I think she's built a good enough reputation for successful auteur filmmakers like DOR or PTA to come knocking on her door any time they have a part suitable for her. At some point, there should be a part that'll do the Oscar trick. Hell, if that Janis Joplin biopic she's signed up (rumored?) for gets going soon and ends up a good enough movie it would seem like a no-brainer to award her for it.

And when will that be, when she's 70 and has a dozen nominations and no wins? I'm more inclined to put her in one camp with the likes of Kate Winslet and Shirley McLaine in a sense that one day they will just have no choice but to give it to her. She only has two nominations to go until she matches Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter and Glenn Close as the actress with most nominations without wins. In all likelihood, she'll receive those nominations before she's 45. Then she's got another 20+ potentially strong years ahead of her. I think Adams getting up on that stage is nothing but a matter of time.

Adams isn't even 40 yet. To me it's ridiculous to think she won't win one day. It's not like she was ever the frontrunner who lost in a surprising upset - all 4 times she was good enough for a nomination but unfortunately had to deal with a more formidable contender(s). That can't go on forever, especially if she's not gonna slow down in the coming years in terms of giving quality performances.

I don't think there would be many directors capable to fill the Ramsay-shaped hole, if any at all under the circumstances. They could have done a lot worse than O'Connor.

Well, Ramsay does have talent in spades. We Need to Talk About Kevin blows most films released in the past few years out of the water.

Jude Law's great. He rocked it in Anna Karenina and Side Effects.

It's easy for it to be crowded when we haven't seen almost any contenders yet. Adams' performance could end up being as much of a powerhouse as anyone else's, it could be received noticeably worse or noticeably better. We simply have no idea, and much stranger things have happened.

Yup. Apparently since she just so happens to be a film lover with billions of dollars at her disposal, she shouldn't use them to fund films because she's the only one and it would be unfair to those who aren't as rich. Give me a fucking break. Would it sit better with you if she knew she had a chance to help out great filmmakers the way she's doing but instead decided to blow her fortune on booze, drugs, dresses, jewelry, cars, horses etc.? Instead, she invests in intelligent, interesting, ambitious filmmaking, making cinephiles all around the world happy. But no, let's complain because we can't get over the fact she's daddy's rich girl.

Are we absolutely sure Amy Adams is supporting in Abscam? From the plot synopsis it sounds like she might be the second main character after Bale, or at least the third after Bale and Cooper. And we know for sure Lawrence is supporting, which means if they both deliver and Adams has enough screentime Sony might push her in lead.

I just woke up to this news and have no idea what to make of it. Ramsay is an effing brilliant filmmaker and I've never heard anything about her being hard to work with - I'm sure something out of the ordinary must have happened in order for her to do something like this, otherwise what the hell? And when I read that she "dropped out", does that mean she actually contacted them afterwards to say "F you, I'm out" and it wasn't just a case of some extreme personal emergency? Is her directing the film entirely out of the question now? Did she contact the producer or anyone at all to offer any sort of private explanation and/or apology? The mind lingers.

Which means her biggest competition is herself.

I'd like Naomi Watts to win it this year. They've owed her an Oscar since Mulholland Dr. anyway.

Hands down, the best comedy of the past few years. Armando Iannucci and his team are geniuses. One thing I particularly appreciate is how it actually raises above pure ruthless satire by portraying Simon Foster as a guy you actually feel sorry for at the end. Yes, he deserves being a subject of ridicule on more than a few occasions, but at the same time has a certain naiveté and sweetness to him which makes him a full-fledged human being - something I'd be hesitant to say about almost all the other characters, as great as they are. I credit both the writers and Tom Hollander for that, because they could have easily stayed within the confines of an angry satire in which everything is exaggerated, but they actually went slightly beyond that. One of the reasons the movie has such a rewatchability value. Well, beyond having brilliant, intelligent, razor-sharp jokes machine-gunned at you for 90 minutes straight.

Don't get sarcastic with me, son. We invaded your tight-arse country in 1939 and I'm all for doing it again, starting with you, you frat fuck. You get sarcastic with me again and I will stuff so much cotton wool down your fucking throat it'll come out your arse like the tail on a Playboy bunny. I was led to believe I was posting in a serious thread.

I'd like to sue Hollywood for portraying Russia as permanently frozen and populated by dumb alcoholics, tattooed criminals and bears. What's the phone number?

It's been dead since day one. Its corpse was just rotting a little slower this weekend.

"David of Russell"