Eastwood's reputation as a film director is baffling to me. He just films the script. No nuance. No contradictions. No mystery. It's all so clear, so forthright, the emotions so telegraphed.

Changeling was by far the worst of his recent output but still an enjoyable movie, doesn't hold a candle to stuff like Iwo Jima and Mystic River though.
I think most of the criticism of Invictus comes from people wanting a Nelson Mandela biopic and getting a fairly by the numbers sports movie instead. Damon did a good job with a role that didn't have a lot of meat on it. He should have been nominated for The Informant instead, that one might just be my favorite role of his career.

ten picture nominees is just ridiculous. Especially when there's a lot of suck in there (District 9, Up in the Air, Precious, The Blind Side, Avatar).

ten picture nominees is just ridiculous. Especially when there's a lot of suck in there (District 9, Up in the Air, Precious, The Blind Side, Avatar).

yeah, avatar might just be the worst motion picture ever.

I agree in theory, but I have a feeling Avatar, The Blind Side, and Up In The Air had a good chance at making the cut when there were only 5 nominations.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a split between best director/picture this year. Avatar for picture Bigelow for director.

I think it's fairly safe to assume that the five that would have made the cut were the five that also got best director nods.

Avatar's gonna win. James Cameron's deal with the devil is complete.

In theory now a movie only needs 11% of the vote to win best picture.

I think you've got it backwards.

Bigelow is pretty much a lock for the win in my eyes. Cameron has his Oscar, she'd be the first woman to win, and people LOVE her movie.

If there's a split I think it'll go Bigelow/avatar

Interesting, I had really thought of that consequence of changing it to ten films.

yes it is possible for a film with 11% of the first place votes to win, however that film would need an additional amount of support from voters placing that film in second, third, ... or ninth place.

see here for the voting process http://thewrap.com/ind-column/academy-make...ure-voting_5700

Also.



greater than



????

Sure, Academy. Sure.

I haven't seen the Blind Side but the weird thing is it's not just the Academy that thinks this...bullock has been cleaning up at the Awards shows.

I'm baffled. Just finished Erin Brockovich and there's absolutely nothing in her performance that even warrants a positive mention in a film review, let alone a nomination, let alone an award. The film is trash. Absolute trash. Everyone on this board should see the film just so they know how far the Academy has fallen by nominating it for Best Picture.

Contemptible people often mean well. I thought this while watching The Blind Side—not just about the film's characters, but about both the filmmakers and the film's target audience. The movie tells the true story of Michael "Big Mike" Oher (Quinton Aron), an overweight black teen plucked from the Mississippi projects into a Catholic prep school to become a football star. An early scene of the coach watching Oher on a basketball court, mouth agog, is followed by the coach telling the school's admissions board that it's their duty to give downtrodden kids like Oher a chance (otherwise, he says, they might as well take the word "Christian" right out of the school's name). Yet the youth eventually excels as a left tackle, and at film's end he's going on to star at Ole Miss; indeed, a major reason for the movie's existence is that Oher now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. For all the huff and guff about escaping the projects and getting his grades up, the movie's most invested in the kid when he literally kicks ass.

Blind Side presents Michael as a sad-eyed suckling dove off the field, and for the first hour or so he barely speaks at all. The movie isn't even his story, really, but rather that of his wealthy eventual adopted mother's, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). Her decision to take him home kicks the plot into motion; her choices to buy him clothes and a bed fuel the first act; her teaching him how to play football creates the second act; and first her legally adopting him, then her convincing him to attend her alma mater, propel the third. "Is this some sort of white guilt thing?" one of Leigh Anne's lunch friends asks, the woman's vapidity emphasized with an $18 salad. Leigh Anne flatly says no. "Honey, you're changing that boy's life," another friend tells her. "No," Leigh Anne responds, "He's changing mine."

Even more amazing than the fact that we never see Michael talk to any schoolmates besides the Tuohy children is his seemingly total lack of agency. There's no scene of him choosing to go to the prep school, nor to play football. White adults continually choose for him, he smiling happily, and the film celebrates each step forward with the languid strings and one-note-at-a-time piano progression of one of Carter Burwell's most insipid scores. In the last half-hour, characters start realizing they never asked Michael what he wanted, but the movie's also been blind to it; and when they finally do ask him what he wants, he says that he wants what his new family wants for him.

The movie's manipulation is loathsome, but the whole thing is so skillful—the schematic structure, its calculatedly competent performances and appealing visuals, the commitment to overcoming adversity—that you may just weep. Then again, as a privileged (guilty) white person, the movie speaks directly to me. Blind Side contrasts the snowflake suburbanites pushing Michael to succeed with the black drug addicts and gun-toters trying to derail him; one could say that this is a class divide rather than a race divide, until the black NCAA witch rides in toward the end. Like Precious, a film in which the nicer black characters have lighter skin tones, Blind Side argues that black people have to rise above their skin color to succeed. By focusing on ignorant, obese, near-mutes, both movies also suggest that good black people are helpless, and need the white world to speak for them. The ultimate NFL destination renders the whole thing benevolently sadistic: A white community first removes Michael from other black people, then trains him to beat them up on the field. The mostly white crowd with which I saw Blind Side, though, applauded this result. The movie's title refers to the area of a football field that the left tackle protects, but it could easily refer to an audience unaware of its prejudices.

God I hate Sandra Bullock. She's such a terrible actress.

there are two things i don't tolerate:

1. racism

2. people who hate Sandra Bullock


i wish you all the pain in the world.

I'm baffled. Just finished The Blind Side and there's absolutely nothing in her performance that even warrants a positive mention in a film review, let alone a nomination, let alone an award. The film is trash. Absolute trash. Everyone on this board should see the film just so they know how far the Academy has fallen by nominating it for Best Picture.

And, I'm so glad to see others here that haven't fallen for District 9. I thought it was all pretty much shit from start to finish. I would have followed the aliens' story throughout, but the humans were all trash and the film's lead was a gross creature before he became a gross creature. I would have preferred to see Spike Jonze play the role, actually. The guy looked like him, imo.

Hmm. Haven't seen "Hurt Locker." Am rooting for Tarantino.

I did see "District 9" the other night. Ultimately a b or b-minus picture. Entertaining, but as noted elsewhere it sort of ultimately strayed too far from the social and political commentary it was (in retrospect, superficially) pointing at and toward the action clamor it thought it's audience wanted. Its makers were probably correct there; film might not have been the box office success it was had it continued its earlier philosophical tone...

That said, was surpised to it amongst the nominees, but not as much as I would've been had it been one of five instead of ten. Finally, my point: ten nominees give it a much more blase sort of feel, the Awards generally. Less of a prestige and thus less of an "honor." It's like you can't feel very passionate about what's been included because, hey, there's ten!

Good review of The Blind Side at Slant Magazine.



http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-blind-side/4574

I thought D9 lived up to the innovative tag for about half, but really the last half was a cliche action movie. A visceral, engaging action movie, but totally by-numbers story-wise.

Really? How many movies have you seen about alien(the outer space kind, of course) refugee camps being exploited for weapons the antagonists can't figure out how to use?

Ogawa- what did you think of Julia overall?

I hate these type of bullshit reviews.

basterds has an outside shot, as do mulligan and clooney. i didn't see what was so great about clooney's performance though

Damn good film. Endlessly surprising, great performances. The resolution came a little too quick, but that's my only real qualm with it.

You should check out The Blind Side. It's pretty racist.