I saw MI:IV in theatres yesterday and I absolutely loved it. There were like 6 action set pieces that would be the best set pieces in lesser movies.

I've seen Ghost Protocol in 3 different formats: traditional 15/70mm IMAX (best experience), digital IMAX (comparable to 70mm, minor differences) and digital on a "standard" movie screen. Option 3 paled in comparison to the others, I wonder if the "meh" crowd saw GP in either IMAX format? =O

ghost protocol was too long for its own good but had some nice parts

CroShow - did you enjoy watching MI:GP? Difficult to parse based on your posts ITT.

Try watching more movies then

SPOILERS BELOW

Side note - I watched it on a dvd screener and, whether it was bc it was on a blu-ray player or just a really nice flat panel TV, it had the soap opera effect, which is just so weird to watch and probably wrecked any chance of me liking it bc it just looked so weird. Kind of hilarious though to see Clooney running around in a Hawaiin shirt in what looks like a daytime television show.

Not sure if you missed this post, but yes I loved GP, my #5 movie of 2011

I though it was the weakest of the franchise so far. It did have some good sequences, but it was just way over the top with ridiculousness. I mean, I know that's kind of the point with those movies, but this one was too much. It lacked the grittiness of 1 and 3 and while 2 was definitely over the top, Woo bought it back with his distinctive directorial style. I mean that train car was just LOL. And some of the dialogue was cringe inducing.

Payne goes downhill with each movie in terms of me personally liking it, just about. Election is by far his best nothing else is in the same conversation. I can't entirely remember Citizen Ruth but I think second best. Sideways was pretty solid. Not a fan of Schmidt. Descendents meh.

Descendents did feel like TV. That's not a compliment.

Ruth and Election are both amazing. I liked Sideways. Agree on Schmidt and Descendents.

Thank you for articulating for me why I did not enjoy Descendants! That's exactly right, imo.

I did not miss that post.

Shailene Woodley did make me feel like a perv until I checked her age after the movie. She was electric.

Below is my list of who I'm rooting for this year.

And here is who I think will win.

I really missed out on watching any good movies this year indie and mainstream included due to all the time I spent playing live poker. This should be a good place to start.

I think I'm gonna skip this years show. No real interest in it, no real stand out movies for me, although I am sure I'll see some of these in the next few months.

I think more than a few of those TVs allow you to turn that "effect" off, which I recommend. I liken the look you are likely talking about to the old videotape episodes of The Twilight Zone, in comparison to The Twilight Zone traditional film episodes. Those TVs completely destroy the "magic" of making movies, or at least that setting does.

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Cro, if The Artist wins for Director (which I would love), I think it would be one of the biggest coups in Hollywood history. I typically can't stand watching awards shows, but I was so pleased with The Artist that all of its nominations give me a chance to root for something. I'm rooting for it in Cinematography and Editing, and anything else would be icing on the cake. I personally would be surprised if it picked up more than 5, and am not sure it will pick up more than 2.

Some people will probably disagree with me, but there have been periods when the viewership has gone way down for The Oscars, because films were winning and being nominated (or high grossing films that didn't really deserve nominations) that hardly anyone had seen. Because of that type of effect (I'll call it the Shakespeare in Love effect, since things appeared to change directly after the year that won), since that time, I have basically always said that no film that grosses less than $75 million at the domestic box office will typically be allowed to win, and from 2000-2005, except in one case, at least 3 films nominated per year grossed at least that. Inflation adjusted, that number would probably be closer to $100 million today. As you'll see from my research, below, 2006-2009 was a disaster, and led to the re-structuring of the Best Picture category. Crash, No Country For Old Men (close), and The Hurt Locker are the only pictures to win, since 1995, that have grossed less than $75 million.

I think it's unfair to judge The Artist (Miramax Oscar pandering ftw) vs. that standard, because it seems like it has always been in extremely limited release, the highest being 662 theaters beginning this week. It absolutely does not have mass appeal, so it will never hit that $75 million threshold in the U.S.

The only titles that fit my "bill" are The Help and Moneyball (War Horse is about to cross $75 million in the next week). More fit the bill when you're talking worldwide. Because the bar is so low for the movies that hit that threshold, it's quite possible the winner will not be one of those two. You'll get to find out how the Academy really feels about Scorsese, after this year.

I also think that with the expansion of the category, they might be willing to let a lesser grossing title win, such as in the case of The Hurt Locker. As long as there are some titles that people saw in the category, it won't hurt viewership of the show (this is a bad year for "seen" movies).

Examples:

Post expanded category

2012-??? **2 of 10 have crossed $75 million, and War Horse will soon cross it* I'd be surprised if this year's Oscar telecast gets much more than 32 million TV Viewers
2011-The King's Speech ($138 million) **7 of 10 crossed $75 million** 37.63 million TV Viewers
2010-The Hurt Locker ($17 million) **5 of 10 pictures crossed $75 million** 41.62 million TV Viewers

Pre expanded category, 2006-2009, a bad era for The Oscars

2009-Slumdog Millionaire ($141 million) **Only Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button crossed $75 million** 36.94 million TV Viewers
2008-No Country For Old Men ($74 million) **Again, only Juno crossed $75 million** 31.76 million TV Viewers
2007-The Departed ($132 million) **Proving they learned their lesson from 2006, only The Departed crossed $75 million** 39.92 million TV Viewers
2006-Crash ($54 million, this movie is a lightning rod in regards to BP) **Brokeback Mountain barely hit the threshold of $75 million, with a gross of $83 million, and was the only one that got close** 38.64 million TV Viewers

The post Shakespeare in Love years 2000-2005

2005-Million Dollar Baby ($100 million) **Finding Neverland and Sideways did not cross $75 million but Sideways was close at $71 million** 42.16 million TV Viewers
2004-Lord of the Rings, Return of the King ($377 million) **Only Lost in Translation didn't cross $75 million** 43.56 million TV Viewers
2003-Chicago ($170 million) **The Hours and The Pianist did not cross $75 million** 33.04 million TV Viewers
2002-A Beautiful Mind ($170 million) **Only A Beautiful Mind and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring crossed $75 million** 40.54 million TV Viewers
2001-Gladiator ($187 million) **The lowest grossing movie was Chocolat at $71 million** 42.93 million TV Viewers
2000-American Beauty ($130 million) **American Beauty, The Green Mile, and The Sixth Sense all crossed $75 million** 46.53 million TV Viewers

The Shakespeare in Love effect

1999-Shakespeare in Love ($100 million*) *This movie had not made much money at all at the time time of the announcement, and didn't pass $75 million until after it had won. I largely consider this to be the turning point of The Oscars, toward what you see from 2000 to 2005. Other than Saving Private Ryan, not many people had seen any of the BP nominations that year, and I seem to remember the ratings suffering terribly.

By the time The Oscars had happened, only Saving Private Ryan had crossed $75 million. 45.63 million TV Viewers (I expected this number to be lower, and the rest to be higher than they were from 2000-2005)

A few more winners

1998-Titanic ($600 million) **Titanic, As Good As It Gets, and Good Will Hunting crossed $75 million** 57.25 million TV Viewers
1997-The English Patient ($78 million) **Only Jerry Maguire and The English patient crossed $75 million** 40.83 million TV Viewers
1996-Braveheart ($75 million) **Only Braveheart and Apollo 13 hit $75 million** 44.81 million TV Viewers
1995-Forrest Gump ($329 million) **Only Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction crossed $75 million** 48.87 million TV Viewers

When the grosses are completely clear cut, I think it's pretty easy to pick who will win. I don't see any universe where The Help will win, and I find it hard to believe Moneyball will win. So, it's quite possible they'll give Scorsese a nod, or even potentially one of the other low grossing pictures. It will be interesting to see how many people watch The Oscars this year.

great read dude, I haven't considered the box office recognition and the politics that must go behind that. Martha Marcy May Marlene pulled in a whopping $2.9m domestic. I'm guessing around 100% of all casual movie goers would be all WTF IS THAT? Same with Take Shelter, etc.

The Academy loves Oscar bait, that's why I believe Hooper/The King's Speech won last year. The King's Speech was a really good movie, but ultimately a made for cable film.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Artist (Ranked it #9 on my top 10 of 2011 list), but I do not believe it's the Best Picture. I only chose Hazanavicius as Best Director in "who will win" because the Best Picture and Best Director go hand in hand on most (all?) occassions.

I'm interested in seeing how your thoughts on Box Office #s will translate to this year's awards.

nunn - interesting post. You're probably on to something! But I think what might be a more reliable metric is the years that there were *huge* blockbusters. Could just be a single one.

2010 - there was a very large ratings jump from the prior year (and went down the following year): Avatar

1998 - highest rated Academy Awards by a large margin and it's not close: Titanic

nunnehi, no one else around here probably cares, but who do you like for the two sound awards?

Are you looking at pre oscar or total domestic box office? Lots of films get big bumps once they get nominations or wins.

It's a combination of information. In a lot of the cases, like Shakespeare in Love, I remember them having a significant boost from winning The Oscar, and that it had a pretty low gross before it. There's always a bit of a bump for a nomination, but in most cases, it's not as significant as actually winning (The King's Speech greatly benefited from winning). Any ones that I thought benefited highly from The Oscar bump, I tried to note. It's kind of hard to distill information about over 100 movies (I did try to note any that I thought were well below the $75 million barrier before The Oscars), though, because just writing that post took a lot longer than I thought it would.

interesting article . that tries to put a number on the "oscar bump"

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.co...he-oscar-bump/

I've only seen one of the movies that's up for those awards, but I can make educated guesses, based on what I "basically" know about the movies nominated. For the Sound Editing category, they generally like to give it to blowing stuff up, or excitement. So, I'm going to pick Drive.

For Sound Mixing, again, I haven't seen most of them (saw Hugo today), and I think that Hugo has a very good shot at winning. My only real issue with Hugo was that the music felt very right heavy to me (could just be theater I was in) in a bunch of cues. That's the kind of mixing that I like, though. It was, overall, a very smooth mix, with a lot of emotion and nuances. The easy pick is War Horse, but those guys get nominated all the time, and The Oscars don't like to pick the same winners over and over, which is why you should probably stay away from picks like Streep and Clooney winning again. I've seen a lot of marketing materials for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and I don't think it sounds that great, so, unless there are major changes to the theater, it probably won't win. Transformers probably won't win, though I'm sure it was a great mix (it's supposed to be a great mix, with likely an enormous sound editing and mixing budget, so, big deal). The most intriguing nomination is Moneyball. Can anyone who's seen it comment on what was great about the sound?

Because I consider myself a dialog specialist, I always watch movies for that first. If it grabs me at the dialog, it's generally an awards contender. The Potter movies lost a lot of sound awards recognition (great sound design and mixing in a lot of those movies) because of the sh**** dialog sound. I think The Oscars also try to have about one dialog driven mix nominated per year, as well (I haven't done research on this to verify).

+1 wtf

That is interesting, because I would think the opposite is the case, based on the small amount of research I did earlier today. I'd like to know what the numbers are for that going back about 12 years. The Hurt Locker had almost no bump from its win, unless it made like $2 million before it won. I hadn't even heard of that movie, by the time The Oscars rolled around...lol.

The other flaw with their metric is that a lot of these movies are released around Christmas, and they are only in limited release for a long time (as opposed to a 4 to 6 week 3000 theater release). The Artist, at 662 theaters, is hugely limited, and it probably won't ever get more theaters than that. It had been running in no more than 16 (if I'm not mistaken) for a long time, as well. So, unless every showing gets sold out, for the lower budget nominees, causing them to need to increase the showings and theaters, I find it hard to believe. I might do some research on that, for the ones that had huge grosses AFTER nomination/win.