What about Amelie?

What about Bob.jk I never saw Amelie I heard it was great though.

1) Audrey Tautou has a face, and judging by later and darker movies, has acting talents too, but in Amélie, it's more that "nice face" than the talent that made the people like her that much, imo,
2) tis a very French movie and as such, has potential to please people just by being French, people that like/appreciate/have a weakness for/etc etc... "French-itude" (aesthetic sensibilty included); take away the French aspect(s) of Amélie, and there's not so much left to call it such a great movie,
3) it's definitely not a bad movie, but when a good, or even quite/very good movie is called by many "movie of the year", chef d'oeuvre, etc... it is for me overrating it... especially if the director already had made deeper movies, maybe less commercial ones, but not less good ones,
4) i can imagine 3634547 arguments against my own points 1, 2 and 3, so, as always in art, there's no rule, just tastes and different sensibilities. Picasso is not objectively a good artist, since there's no such thing as objectivity (and first of all other things, not in art)...

I don't think the question was even directed toward you.

Why Thank you. Ill try better to be perfect next time.

I'd love to see Alexander Payne win for Sideways. That was great!

But he can still answer it if he likes. It is, afterall, a forum.

I would say tht either QT for Kill Bill or Scorsese for the Aviator

The choice for Best Director this year is extremely difficult to predict this time around (Peter Jackson was pretty much a lock after being over looked the last two times he was nominated) and there are several deserving the award to be sure, but I feel the nominations should go to:

Mel Gibson for The Passion of the Christ

Alexander Payne for Sideways

Taylor Hackford for Ray

Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill Vol.2

Michael Gondry for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I'm not saying Eastwood, Scorsese or , say Marc Forster aren't worthy of the award, I just think these are EXCELLENT films made by outstanding directors, each of which really deserves the honor and recognition the award of Best Director bestows. ;)

The DGA Awards were handed out last night, and Clint Eastwood took home the top honor for Million Dollar Baby...which will likely mirror the upcoming Oscar result as well.

http://www.oscarwatch.com/images/dga.jpg

It used to be almost a lock that if you won the DGA the Oscar would be next. But in recent years that hasn't been as true. Two of the past four have been different outcomes: in 2001 Ang Lee got the DGA for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while Soderbergh got the Oscar for Traffic, and in 2003 Rob Marshall won the DGA for Chicago while Polanski won the Oscar for The Pianist.

But before these last four years where it's been a 50/50 proposition, all the winners of the DGA from 2000 to 1990 mirrored the Oscars with the single ecxeption of 1996, when Ron Howard won the DGA for Apollo 13 but Mel Gibson won the Oscar for Braveheart. In the previous decade from 1979 to 1989, the winners of both awards were the same except for 1986, when Spielberg won the DGA for The Color Purple and Sydney Pollack won the Oscar for Out of Africa.


What hardly anybody ever notes is that the Director's Guild of America has snubbed Martin Scorsese even more than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has (six DGA noms vs. five Oscar noms as director). And while the mainstream taste of the larger Oscar voting body is frustrating but almost understandable on some level, that other directors in his own profession have consistently chosen to honor other filmmakers has always struck me as odd. Scorsese has gotten DGA nominations for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and The Aviator with no wins. The losses for Raging Bull and GoodFellas were the same as the Oscars, with Redford and Costner nabbing the top honor instead.


So....yeah. It's still a two-horse race between Eastwood and Scorsese for the Oscar this year, and while there will definitely be some career acheivement sentimental votes cast for Marty I don't think it'll be enough to push him past Clint.

Thanks for posting that Holden. I wasn't aware of it's history at snubbing The Great One. I assume, though, that you are still pleased that Clint walked away with it this year?

Yeah, as I've said in other threads, while I am about as big a Scorsese fan as there is, if I was an Academy member even I wouldn't be voting for Marty this year.

I like The Aviator a lot, it's a damn fine film and a great return to old-style epic Hollywood filmmaking. On the epic side it is miles better than frippin' Gladiator, and on the biopic side miles better than the tedious A Beautiful Mind. Miles.

The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby are MUCH better than the other three Best Picture Oscar nominees, but of the two MDB is easily the better flick. Easily. The quiet power and emotional kick of Baby make it superior to the grandness and slickness of Aviator. Clint will and should win the top two Oscars fairly easily.

As a huge, slobbering fan of Scorsese and film in general I'd much rather have him win for one of his greatest and singular works than for just a darn good one, you know? If that means he never wins an Oscar, then so be it. Sorry, Marty.

I've just found out Marc Foster didn't get nominated for "Best Director", instead Mike Leigh for Vera Drake.

Yeah, as I predicted earlier in this thread.

But the other three nominees were rather meaningless as it was only going to come down to Scorsese and Eastwood anyway. Mike Leigh and Pedro Almodóvar seem to be Academy favorites in recent years, so I wasn't at all surprised to see Mike get the nod. If you've seen Finding Neverland, it's a sweet movie and well made but I can't say I expected Marc to find an Oscar spot. Frankly I was a little shocked to see him get the DGA spot.

Man, I gotta catch up before these movies are out of the theaters. I think next week will consist of a lot of movie hopping. Hey Holden, just curious, the year that Costner won over The Great One...I think it's safe to say that most would agree that The Great One was robbed, and I know you don't care for Dances with Wolves, but do you believe Costner to be a hack? Or just overrated?

I think he's a hack who's Dances with Wolves was vastly overrated. I think as you look at his work since his debut - the uncredited meddling with the mess that is Waterworld, The Postman and Open Range, the guy is no great director. I'd argue he's hardly even a good one. He works with good DPs and has a decent eye for frame composition and such, but other than being good looking his movies are murky narrative crapfest with the maudlin sentimentality so rank it makes me teeth hurt just thinking about it.

But hey...I know people love Dances with Wolves. Clearly it's superior to GoodFellas in every way imaginable. :indifferent: