Would love to know who boo'd her, morons.

facepalm, i said sound of music for some dumb reason and now I can't edit. oh well.

Really? Of the nominees this is the only film that I have had no desire whatsoever to see. And I can see it taking home tons of awards for that very reason.

Some are predicting The Artist will win, that'll be horse**** IMO. The Tree of Life or War Horse deserve that award

based on my opinion and you forgot to mention that he won la palme d'or. Do you consider it a small award too?

Theme, sure, but I actually hate movies that have a clear underlying message. A good movie should be complex enough that there isn't one obvious message. This is why The Help is so terrible.

Stan Brackhage would disagree with you. But I get that you are talking about mainstream, commercial film. Tree of Life is tough because he's trying to straddle mainstream film and art film. I'm not saying he was successful at it, but just because a film lacks a coherent message or story is not a reason to hate it imo.

edit: fwiw, Gravity's Rainbow is one of my favorite books and is considered by many to be one of the greatest books of the 20th century and it certainly has neither a clear message nor a clear narrative.

I actually didn't have much desire to see it myself when I heard first heard it was a silent movie about silent movies. Then I had a screener for it and we popped it in one night and I had completely forgotten the premise and as soon as it started I was like "Oh no this is that silent movie, uuuggghhhh." But it totally sucked me in within the first ten minutes or so and soon after I was completely into it.

We do agree on this. Drive was by far my favorite movie of the year.

palme d'or is not predictive at ALL for best picture. It's an art-house award, basically. It hasn't matched the best picture in like 20 years. Last year "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" won the Palme d'Or. Which, of course, swept to Oscar wins.

It's just stupid to mention. The Artist won my teddy bear's cutest animal of the year award, and I'd bet my teddy bear outperforms Le Palme in oscar predictions.

in fact, as far as I can tell the Palme d'Or in its current form has NEVER matched the Best Picture winner.

This is going to be the most boring Oscars in recent memory, which is pretty ridiculous given how awful it is every single year. The movies not only suck, but are boring and have been seen by nobody.

Tree of life does IMO. I bet on it, so it damn well better!

After I watched it I couldn't help thinking how amazing it looked, and how that cancelled out most of the negative feelings I had towards the storytelling.

still might make a small hedge on hugo....

This is the last time I'm going to say this. The Oscars is a TELECAST, and it is driven to a great extent by ratings. Hollywood is patting themselves on the back, and wants as many people as possible to watch the telecast. Does anyone really think the audience seeing The Artist winning 10 Oscars will make people run out and see that movie? Should it? Yes. Will it? No, absolutely not. That is not a mainstream movie, by any stretch of the imagination, and is an extremely tough sell, as even the writer, fsoyars, pointed out. Getting people in the seats for that movie is the problem, getting them to stay there once they're in there is not. The Artist was literally one of the best movie watching experiences I have had in years (don't see a lot of movies in the theater), and that's despite the fact that the film kept falling off the projector, and I was in a converted mono theater.

Approximately 1.3-1.5 million people saw The Tree of Life in the U.S. while it was in theaters. They will not give the Oscar to a movie that made $13 million at the box office (even though it did better overseas). I'm pretty sure The Hurt Locker is the lowest grossing movie to win BP. Do you think they want to repeat that? I doubt it. If they're going for a low grossing picture, it will be The Artist, and I don't think they will do that (though I do believe it is much more possible in the 9-10 nominee era, as was proven by The Hurt Locker). I think Midnight in Paris (have not seen) and Hugo are the obvious choices outside of The Artist.

You should make a hedge on anything, because you lit your money on fire.

i think he bet on ToL to win cinematography

i think he knows that. Suppose he doesn't think it's popular enough to win i guess? What do you think?

I think the more technical oscars aren't as big of a marketing 'tool' as the Big 4 categories. Cinematographer's names do not sell movies.

Well Tree of Life clearly deserves this according to me. The artist is a lock but putting Tree of Life so low in the odds is a travesty.

You judge the odds by the other awards. I judge with what ive seen.
You are probably right and it makes me sad... I dont know why i care about the oscar every year. Slumdog Millionnaire winning in 2009 is the biggest proof of this show being a joke.

No, I thought you meant BP. The Tree of Life would certainly be the favorite for Cinematography. You could hedge it with The Artist (the craftsmanship behind making that movie look so much like movies of that era was stunning AND it was shot in color!, which is why I want it to win, even if it wasn't that difficult to re-create) second and Hugo third. Sorry for the confusion.

Phew! I thought I'd made a horrible mistake

I agree that the Artist looked great, but I attribute a lot of that to production design rather than cinematography.

Ryan Seacrest, on the red carpet, after a shot of Miss Piggy and Kermit

actual laughter was produced.

They're certainly a combo, and I think it will win for Production Design. The two categories I really want to see it win are Cinematography (probably won't win) and Editing (might win). I would also love for it to win for Original Screenplay, as it was an extreme challenge to tell that story to a modern audience, yet it completely grips the audience, once it gets them. When I saw it, I didn't think it had any chance to win Directing (though I thought it was amazingly directed), but once it won the DGA, that makes it academic that it will win for it.

Have you seen many late 20s to early 30s movies? My only "gripes" with the movie were the makeup (it was not accurate to the era, and it was not nominated obviously), and that I felt it was shot too "tall", if that makes any sense. One of the hallmarks of that era was that it made really small people look huge on screen (think Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney). I think that was more of a product of most Directors or Cinematographers being pretty short in that era. Some of the greatest film directors have been pretty short, which I think helps give that larger than life quality to their movies, as their world perspective is different than that of an average to tall person. However, just as a reflection of accuracy to the era, I would really love The Artist to win for Cinematography, as I think it was truly outstanding what they did. Probably my favorite shot in the movie was the giant staircase shot. My second favorite was the Uggie running shots that were like a John Ford western, at least to me.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...in-awards.html

lol wahlberg

well, marky mark mostly predicted boring favorites for all the actors and BP from his 'inside source'.

He did predict Transformers to win in an upset for Best Sound Editing, so maybe that will tell us if he's full of **** or for real. He also said Hugo sweeps costume, production and cinematography, which would be an upset.

LOL, he better hope he's b.s.'ing (hope he's wrong in other words), or he will face some serious backlash, and Price Waterhouse will lose that contract...lol. I didn't see Transformers, but I don't think any movie should win for sound editing when they do what is expected of it (probably the largest sound budget of any movie in the category).

Lol, Wahlberg just made this a whole lot more interesting.

Also, what the hell, have I only just learnt that Clooney is dating Stacey Kiebler? Lucky git.

Anyone know if this will be streaming anywhere? I saw links for red carpet streaming, but nothing specifically for the main event.