comment #1

Gabriel says ...

As with the Mary Kay Letourneau post earlier - the sentiments expressed here have absolute currents of truth and blunt honesty to them that I completely see.

That said - this is a classic talkback waiting to happen.

comment #2

Dixon Steele says ...

I really enjoyed LMS, but there is NO WAY it wins Best Picture. That's just delusional...it'll be Departed, The Queen or Dreamgirls before LMS.

comment #3

JD says ...

Us being who? If average Joes were voting for Oscars, Sasha Stone might be right, but I don't think Academy voters are necessarily living similar lives to the characters in Little Miss Sunshine. Many (most?) Academy voters are wealthy, famous, and thoroughly un-ordinary. Their "us" is different from our "us" and our "them" is different from their "them." If Stone's argument had any credibility (it doesn't and it reeks of space-filling think-piece), I would pick The Departed or The Queen. The Departed -- which is far more rich with meaning and universal than people seem willing to admit -- deals with outcasts leading surface lives under fear of having their true selves exposed, which many people in Hollywood can identify with. The Queen is about a famous person struggling to keep her private life private and being ridiculed in the press. Again, doesn't this sound closer to Hollywood's "us" than a movie about a struggling, working class family driving to a beauty pageant?

comment #4

Mike Schaefer says ...

Well said, JD.

To which I'd add, re: Dreamgirls... Does the Academy want to be perceived as viewing black people as "them"?

comment #5

The Movie Man says ...

I finally caught up with LMS last night. I thought it was a pretty good cover of the familiar, quikry family learns meaning of togetherness, a tune that usually irks me. Personally, the only nomination I would even consider is Alan Arkin's scene stealing, but after all the back and forth on the hype and backlash, its nice to see that LMS is a very likeable, decent, well made little movie.

comment #6

Argen says ...

Not to mention the fact that the "us" in LMS is not really "us". When did those characters become working class? I've heard this pop up so much that it makes me wonder. I think people in general have gotten so out of touch that they actually think that's working class and not, clearly, middle class. I think a clear-eyed view of the actual working class would make Hollywood's eyes bleed (not they'd watch it).

comment #7

JD says ...

Argen, the point is that there's been an erosion of the middle class and, increasingly, middle class and working class are synonymous. No, Kinnear's not working in a coal mine, but he's certainly struggling to get by.

comment #8

Craig Kennedy says ...

It's a rare thing for a comedy to win an Oscar, no?

comment #9

bipedalist says ...

JD writes: "If Stone's argument had any credibility (it doesn't and it reeks of space-filling think-piece), I would pick The Departed or The Queen."

Uh, for the record, buddy, this idea came out of a phone conversation between Wells and I. It wasn't a think piece, space-filling or otherwise. Since it's Christmas I'm going to try to be nice. He was saying that best pic is down to The Queen or LMS. I was saying, no way The Queen because it's about "them." Wells did the rest all on his own. I agreed that LMS was more "us" but said nothing about Dreamgirls or Departed or whatever. So go, you know, jump in a lake would you?

Best Pic winners are almost always "us." Not us, what we face in the mirror every day but the American experience wherever it comes from. Return of the King is the only film I can think of in recent history that breaks that mold. The Queen, as good as it is, is their story. There is a vague sense that it is ours in that we worshipped Diana and contributed to her death; we hated the Queen for hating Diana, etc. But other than that, foreign politics, foreign idea.

LMS works as a film about our collective experience because, big picture time people, it's about failure, rejection, heartbreak, identity. There is a lot going on, too much for my taste but hey, it's the kind of movie the Academy might just go for. Last year taught us, never say never.

I do think think Dreamgirls, Iwo Jima and Departed are OUR stories.

So don't put words in my mouth. Please. It makes me angry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

comment #10

bipedalist says ...

Sorry, that should be, I think, "Wells and me." not "Wells and I."

comment #11

Argen says ...

I understand the distinction, JD. My point being that even though they are scraping by, they are scraping by on the high side of middle class. Only to make the point that actual working class lifestyles are avoided in popular films. The working class families I know dream of having two vehicles and a house where pretty much everybody gets their own room, not to mention enough gas to get out of the state, much less all the way to California. My argument with this is similar to my argument with the film being called "indie". Yes, we have all decided to accept the fact that people struggle in the middle class and that independent films can cost millions and be funded by the majors and feature big stars. But it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people (especially those in power) have no concept of what the lower rungs live by. Working class is about economic level more so than actual work done. It's not the fact that Kinnear isn't a miner that doesn't make him working class. It's that he enjoys a fairly elevated lifestyle, as paltry as it may be in comparrison. But in a country where men in power have said that a middle class family makes $100K a year or so, it's not surprising that we have massively screwed up visions of what that looks like. The truth is worse than we like to believe.

Now, once we move past that we can debate how Jeff likes to paint himself as an average man of the people ("guys like me") when most guys don't live their lives going from screening to screening to party to transcontinental flight and whose main source of income is a self-aggrandizing bitchfest.

comment #12

Argen says ...

So, bipedalist, things have changed since the 80s when movies like OUT OF AFRICA and THE LAST EMPEROR won the big prize despite being clearly "them" stories?

comment #13

bipedalist says ...

I said recent history - Last Emperor is a good example of one year it didn't work... Nothing is ever 100% absolute. Out of Africa, more our story -- Pollock, Redford, Streep - come on.

comment #14

bipedalist says ...

Sorry, Pollack

comment #15

Argen says ...

I understand. Not arguing, just asking. But I would argue that OUT OF AFRICA is somehow our story. Wealthy Danish lady flying around with well-off American-though-not-supposed-to-be hunter in a foreign land. The only thing it really has in common with "us" is a basic misunderstanding of Africa and a demonstrable lack of desire to change that.

comment #16

Craig Kennedy says ...

One thing the films that go against Bipedalist's theory about Oscar liking "Us" films is that they're mainly epics...something Oscar has a long history of embracing regardless of subject matter. The Queen is no epic.

Going back to Jeff's original post, I'd like to hear him explain/defend his assertion that The Lives of Others is not too German because I thought it was...too East German to be specific. I liked the hell out of it, but I felt like I could only feel it up to a point because I can't pretend to understand what it's like to live in a police state. I can intellectualize it, but not feel it in my gut. The movie would've been more powerful to me if I could.

comment #17

bipedalist says ...

I think you could debate the fine points of this argument and you'd probably have a good case that not all of the best picture winners are "our story." Although I do think when you're talking whitey in Africa stories they are about us more than anything else but especially when they are beloved American directors like Pollack. But the bottom line is this year. I was referring, with Wells, more about this year than anything - I hadn't crafted a "think piece" or whatever - I was talking off the top of my head. The Queen, as good as it is, is very British. Good British, great movie (either my number 2 or 3 of the year, btw) but it isn't a story about our experience so much as LMS, Dreamgirls, Departed, Iwo Jima, etc. are. I could be wrong - but my overall point was that he was crazy to think best pic was down to The Queen vs. LMS. That's it. End of story.

I agree with you about Lives of Others, though I do think it's a universal story about censorship and trust and all of that.

comment #18

Joshua Mooney says ...

"Us" vs. "Them"? Gee, that's kinda, I dunno, reductive, maybe? Previous Academy voting notwithstanding (You make a valid point, Argen, re: "Out of Africa" and "Last Emperor"-- I'd only throw "Cuckoo's Nest" and about a million fucking other films into that pot), what does "us vs. them" even MEAN when it comes to Academy voting?

The film I felt most connected to this year, emotionally and spiritually, was "Volver." Yet I'm white, straight, male, over-educated, American middle-class, etc.

"Sunshine" was mildly enjoyable for what it was (over-praised, and not nearly as clever, funny or subtle as it kept obtusively declaiming itself to be), but it didn't reflect any American reality, or even "real-ness," I've ever experienced. Sheer artifice: writely, priviliged-class, self-conscious fiction. Hell, it made "Sideways" look like "Harlan County, USA."

As to what, ultimately, the Academy Voters decide to do about all this: Who cares? What the fuck do the top "Oscars" mean anyway, outside of millions more dollars for those who don't need them, and the first line in somebody's obituary? To paraphrase Woody Allen by way of Max Von Sydow: "If I ever saw the full list of who actually votes for Best Picture Oscars, I'd never stop throwing up."

comment #19

royfromage says ...

No movie that apes a key plot point from "National Lampoon's Vacation" will ever win Best Picture. It can't possibly.

comment #20

Craig Kennedy says ...

I'm with you 100% on Volver, Joshua. Its detractors complain that it's Pedro Light and that Lives of Others is the more serious, important film but if movies as slight as Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen and Dreamgirls can be considered, why not Volver? I'm not dismissing Sunshine or Queen, I enjoyed both of them but they didn't change my life or anything.

As for Oscar, well you can bitch about it all you want but as long as you read Hollywood Elsewhere, you're going to have to put up with it. Faced with the prospect of drinking the Oscar Kool Aid or going somewhere else, I chose the Kool Aid. It was grape flavored and my lips are purple now.

comment #21

701 says ...

Josh,

Could you define the word "obtusively" for the rest of us?

If not, perhaps you're not really as "over-educated" as you keep obtusively claiming yourself to be.

comment #22

JD says ...

My apologies, bipedalist/Sasha Stone. I thought Jeff was quoting from an article you wrote (he said it was "lifted from Oscarwatch's Sasha Stone" and I didn't realize he was referring to only one point/a phone conversation). No need to get angry, though, even if you had written a space-filling think-piece (we've all done it). I just meant that this theory -- whoever came up with it -- was flawed and not the new gospel of fake Oscar wisdom. Still, I think's it's a little strange that anyone would reduce movies to "our story" vs. "their story" terms. Journalists really love their binaries, don't they.

comment #23

corey3rd says ...

Little Miss Sunshine is as much of a comedy as American Beauty.

comment #24

Josh Massey says ...

"It's a rare thing for a comedy to win an Oscar, no?"

Not really - a comedy won Best Picture last year.

comment #25

Mark G. says ...

All those arguments about who will win what are somewhat fruitless as long as every category has five nominees.
A winner does not need the majority, it just needs the most votes. In theory (and who knows how many times that happened) 21 % of the votes is enough to win...
More important than a discussion about us vs. them is the fact that the biggest branch of the 6.000 members strong academy are actors. That's why actor-turned-directors usually win and that's probably why CRASH won last year (ensemble piece with lots of work for actors PLUS a DVD sent to all SAG members)...
It's much easier to get those minimum 21 % if the actors are on your side...
Since LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is an ensemble piece too, the chances aren't that bad...

comment #26

Craig Kennedy says ...

I thought American Beauty was funny Corey3rd, so what are you saying exactly?

comment #27

facls says ...

That's an interesting point, LMS winning. There's lots of love for it and no major points against it. It's very funny and very human. Even though Scorsese is (almost) a lock to win for Director, I can't see The Departed winning, as much as I like it. Babel and The Queen seem more respected than loved. A Letters from Iwo Jima win would be a good way of awarding Eastwood without shafting Scorsese again, but are they ready to award a movie in Japanese, even if it's an American production? And two years after Million Dollar Baby? As for Dreamgirls... I dunno, I get the feeling that that Chicago win in '02 was a thing of the moment, that whole "musicals are back" thing that started with Moulin Rouge, not a sign musicals are back and beloved. I think a LMS Globe win for Musical or Comedy and/or a SAG Ensemble award, which would show strong support from the actor's branch, could show that LMS has momentum.

comment #28

facls says ...

BTW, I haven't seen The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers and Dreamgirls, since they have not been shown here in Brazil yet. I respect Babel far more than love it (Amores Perros is still the best Inarritu film). From what I've seen so far, my top 5 would be The Departed, United 93, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men and Little Miss Sunshine, though not in that order.

comment #29

Joshua Mooney says ...

Josh,

Could you define the word "obtusively" for the rest of us?

If not, perhaps you're not really as "over-educated" as you keep obtusively claiming yourself to be.

Posted by: 701 at December 22, 2006 12:10 PM

"Define" it? Could I? Well, no, darling. No. Don't ever ask me to DEFINE anything here. Jeff's site is not gonna be bogged-down in that shite, as far as I'm concerned.

Make no mistake, though: I WAS over-educated, and here you see the fucking fruits of it, innit? Dig, I'm so top of the King's English that it often feels, I dunno, entirely RIGHT to make up my own words. Deep down, I assume they will, in the fullness of time, become Standard English.

That's where I'm coming from.

Here's the truth: I tend, too often, perhaps, to type tympanically to the heavy-metal foot-pedal of John Henry Bonham, so spellingature sometimes goes by the wayside when it conflicts, yeah? That was strict 4/4 time, at the time I wrote that (i.e. not "Black Dog"), hence the syllabalicture. Right now, I am listening to Rick Wakeman. Bud-a-rump-ump-up-iddily-iddily-sca-pooopta-tiddly-fa-fa-fa-whan-whan-whan...

Can you dig it? Let's meet for a drink. Let's discuss the English. Language. Seriously. NYC. Any colour you like it. I'm off all next week, and for the rest of the decade.

(And here is a man who would not admit that he made a mistake. Either the drugs wouldn't allow him to admit it, or his fragile ego wouldn't, or else he was making a stand on behalf of the very same average "us" American citizens who populated "Little Miss Sunshine," which is destined to win Best Oscar Ever.

They parcell me a lot of poison, 701, and I just pound 'em down. Like the lamb I am. But they tell me not to take the Xanax and Klonopin 'till "cocktail hour." Which is five p.m., where I come from. But today I'm gonna--Nope! I already did.

HappyChristmas, and let me know about that drink. You're a chick, right?

comment #30

Kristopher Tapley says ...

Sasha, you've been saying for a long time "no way" to a LMS nod. Now it wins? What?

comment #31

bipedalist says ...

Kris, I never said it would win - Jeff said he was thinking best pic was down to LMS vs. The Queen. My Queen argument above led me to, "okay, I can see LMS winning if a b c and d occured." No way could I see The Queen winning. I still think LMS is fighting for the wild card slot. But I do think it has gotten stronger since I previously thought it. You know how I feel about the movie - that it craps out in the last act. Where it should become stronger it becomes weaker because of the unbelievable way it ends. To me, that was my take. On the other hand, I cried harder and longer at the first two thirds than any other film this year.

comment #32

MattyC says ...

"You're a chick, right?"

Fucking classic, man.

Genius post.

comment #33

Ian Sinclair says ...

It would be nice, though, wouldn't it, if the picture that was the best-reviewed picture of the year won the Oscar? This year that would be THE QUEEN. And it does happen. RETURN OF THE KING was the best reviewed picture of 2003.

comment #34

bipedalist says ...

Return of the King was a lot more than the "best reviewed film of the year." Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, American Splendor, etc. American Beauty was probably the best reviewed film of that year.

Btw, with all of this talk about how the Acad. only likes movies that aren't dark, what about the best films to ever win the Best Pic Oscar, Godfather I and II? You don't get any bleaker or darker. Especially Godfather II. Man, the way THAT movie ends? He kills Fredo! "It's the way pop wanted it." "It's not the way *I* wanted it!"

Now it's all about the emotion and pat endings.

comment #35

Thrudvangar says ...

"...my top 5 would be The Departed, United 93, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men and Little Miss Sunshine, though not in that order."
Substitute Little Chil'ren for that Movie of the Week plane crash film and I'd agree with you. I for one love the narrator. I forgot about Apocalypto though.

comment #36

Craig Kennedy says ...

A lot has changed since Godfather II, bipedalist. Remember when the highest grossing movie of the year didn't have to suck balls?

comment #37

Craig Kennedy says ...

Ok, there are a number of highest grossers I've liked and that last statement is a major over generalization, but if you can't get away with hyperbole and knee jerk over generalization on the internet, well then it wouldn't be the internet.

comment #38

donnyboy says ...

ALL THIS HORSESHIT

ALL THE TIME

BERNARD ROSE

IVANS XTC

STOP WITH THE BULLSHIT MORONS

comment #39

jeffmcm says ...

World Trade Center was the movie-of-the-week that came out this year, not U93.

Little Miss Sunshine is more of a comedy than American Beauty; one ends on a laugh, the other ends on a Serious Voiceover Speech from a dead guy.

comment #40

bipedalist says ...

Well you're right, Cj. I guess we can blame the target demo for the blockbusters. But the Academy ought to know better. Or you know, looking back, maybe they haven't really changed that much: really good movies mixed with really bad ones:

Crash
Million Dollar Baby
Return of the King
Chicago
A Beautiful Mind
Gladiator
American Beauty
Shakespeare in Love
Titanic
The English Patient
Braveheart
Forrest Gump
Schindler's List
Unforgiven
The Silence Of the Lambs
Dances With Wolves
Driving Miss Daisy
Rain Man
Last Emperor
Platoon
Out of Africa
Amadeus
Terms of Endearment
Gandhi
Chariots of Fire
Ordinary People
Kramer Vs. Kramer
Deer Hunter
Annie Hall
Rocky
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Godfather II
The Sting
Cabaret
The French Connection
Patton
Midnight Cowboy
Oliver
In Heat of the Night
A Man for all Seasons
the Sound of Music
My Fair Lady
Tom Jones
Lawrence of Arabia
The Apartment
Ben Hur
Gigi
Bridge on the River Kwai
Around/World in 80 Days
Marty
On the Waterfront
From here to Eternity
Greatest Show on Earth
An American in Paris
All About Eve
All the King's Men
Hamlet
Gentlemen's Agreement
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Lost Weekend
Going My Way
Casablanca
Mrs. Miniver
How Green was my Valley
Rebecca
Gone with the Wind
You Can't Take it With You
The Live of Emile Zola
The Great Ziegfield
Mutiny on the Bounty
It Happened One Night
Cavalcade
Grand Hotel
Cimarron
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Broadway Melody
Wings & Sunrise

comment #41

CambridgeCat says ...

Wow, until seeing this list I didn't realize it's been thirteen years since a great movie won Best Picture. The Oscars suck. Who even cares?

comment #42

Ian Sinclair says ...

Return of the King is a great movie, if by great movie you define that term, as most sensible people would, as a picture that was both colossally popular with the public and also receieved universal critical acclaim.

comment #43

bipedalist says ...

Actually, change that Cabaret to Godfather. How lame of me to make that mistake after what I just wrote. :-(

comment #44

Ian Sinclair says ...

Well, if you're a bipedalist backpedalling must come easy.

comment #45

corey3rd says ...

I think there's enough raw emotion in LMS to make it more than just a chucklefest. it is a story of dreams self-destructing. but it's been marketed like it was 40 Year Old Virgin Part 2 which will probably work against it with the elderly Academy members.

I think the film is pretty damn Australian in it's attitude. It has more in common with Muriel's Wedding and HighTide.

comment #46

The Winchester says ...

I haven't trusted the Academy Awards since they gave Best Picture to Rain Man over Die Hard back in '89. Totally biased.

comment #47

EDouglas says ...

This is a really funny thread, but based on the last few years's winners....

"Crash
Million Dollar Baby
Return of the King
Chicago
A Beautiful Mind
Gladiator"

Academy voters think of themselves as singing and dancing racist boxers/gladiators/hobbits with imaginary friends. Yup, that theory makes sense.

comment #48

bipedalist says ...

Ed, do you go out of your way to be irritating? :-) Looking at anything that literally limits your ability to see the big picture. US vs. them means -- a film like The Queen is specifically about the British experience. It stars a famous dame, is directed by a famous brit and revolves around the most famous moment in recent British history, many of the questions about Blair are brought up and hinted at in the film. It is absolutely about British politics and their love for the People's Princess. Films that win the Oscar aren't films that are specifically another country's story. They are more universal. They can be watched anywhere and have elements that apply to everyone. Anyone in any country is going to appreciate Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Lord of the Rings. Even Crash, which everyone said was about LA, IS about LA but it can also be applied to any city where there are distinct cultural clashes. I think people can appreciate The Queen as a nearly flawless film. But I don't think it tells a universal story. It tells a very country-specific story.

Make sense?

comment #49

Ian Sinclair says ...

Not really, Bipedalist, as your logic is flawed. Beats there a heart in the USA who has never heard of the Queen, Tony Blair, Prince Charles or Princess Diana? Certainly not an American who has ever waited in line at a supermarket. Leaving aside that fact, there are universal themes in THE QUEEN: death; loss; dignity; conflict; humor; respect; family. There are more universal themes in the QUEEN by far than there are in, say, THE DEPARTED, whose themes are almost entirely nihilistic and vicarious: corruption, betrayal, cruelty, savagery and thoroughgoing evil.