...can blow me. (Sorry, I really wanted that as my thread title, but wanted to keep it work appropriate.)
This is mainly in response to a movie I just watched that truly went outside the box to show how great the genre can be...Iron Man. I just witnessed perfect casting, excellent script writing, comic book faithfulness and stellar execution, all in a movie based off a comic of all things.
It's been a long while that I felt an actor played a role so well as to greatly enhance it's source material and had me unable to picture a single individual on this Earth as a replacement. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was just wow. A perfect casting choice with the likes I haven't seen since Jamie Foxx donned Ray Charles' trademark sunglasses almost four years ago. Not to mention a truly human villian brought forth by Jeff Bridges, and a better than normal Gwyneth Paltrow and I'm absolutely speechless that this is of the same genre of movies created simply for merchandising tie-ins.
The script was brilliantly written, and was as faithful to comic fans as could be humanly possible. The effects were killer, and fortunately didn't cloud the entire movie like certain recent Peter Jackson and George Lucas feature films have. It was cheesy in all the right ways, funny at all the right times, and absolutely astounding the entire length of the film.
Now for why the Oscars can perform the good deed to me. This movie will be lucky if it garners a technical award, let alone a writing, acting, directing or picture award. In fact I can guarantee that five low budget Oscar-baiting dramas will be recognized for their "excellence" while the Iron Mans, Bourne Ultimatums, 40 Year Old Virgins, and anything else that doesn't conform to drawn out monologues and small performance peaks to piece a sample video for Academy Award viewing will be thrown a small bone if they're thrown anything but to the curb.
Downey gave a real performance in Iron Man, and good sense is telling me he'll never make it to Oscar night, the same way Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat, Steve Carell for the 40 Year Old Virgin and Vince Vaughn for Wedding Crashers never did and never will.
Take 2003, which had two great comedic roles up for Best Actor, Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean and Bill Murray for Lost in Translation. Now who wins the Oscar? Sean Penn, for a role nobody gave a crap about in the first place. But it was dramatic, and that's all that matters in the long run. In fact no one has won a Best Actor Oscar for a comedic role since 1997 and before that it was 1964.
I'm just a bit tired of the slighting Academy voters give to any movie not within their rigid guidelines of excellence. Even when they review these comedies better than the dramas, it's still the dramas that get the votes come year's end.
Anybody want to vent about the Academy and all the well deserved awards Iron Man and other worthy films will not be getting?
Oh, by the way, see Iron Man. It's pretty darn good if I didn't make that clear beforehand. Rant over.
Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.
