Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
Here is a new project.I am going to embark on. I am going to reflect on various Oscar categories that I complete, regardless of the year. Let me study up […]
Here is a new project.I am going to embark on. I am going to reflect on various Oscar categories that I complete, regardless of the year. Let me study up a bit more of the movies that were nominated come respective Academy Awards and hopefully get me to remember more of the ancillary cast members
I love a movie that uses visual effects not as a crutch, but as an enhancer. It is like a steroid for the movie. That is what I feel All Quiet On The Western Front did. Also, these YouTube shorts that show how they enhanced the terror of the movie only illustrates the visionary abilities of directors and cinematographers to plan out all of these shots.
There are four people who were nominated for on behalf of All Quiet On The Western Front: Frank Petzold. Viktor Muller, Markus Frank, and Kamil Jaffar. It is the first Oscar nominee for all of these men.
James Cameron literally waited nearly a decade for the technology to catch up to the artistic vision that he had. Cameron literally created new tech, and nearly the entire movie is made up of blue people in a made up world. Avatar: The Way Of Water was reportedly pushed back six times in order for this all to come together, but the quartet of Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett made all of that time worth it.
Joe Letteri is a FIVE time Oscar award winner. This is his first win since Avatar (2009), and prior to that he had won in 2006 for King Kong (2005), Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003). The same year he was part of the Return Of The King sweep he was also part of a Technical Achievement Award. Letteri has been nominated 11 times for Academy Awards. The man knows his way around the visual arts.
Richard Banehmam is a two-time Oscar nominee and a two-time Oscar winner. He is on the same staff as Letteri with the Avatar movies. Eric Saindon is a newcomer to Letteri’s team having joined on with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). Saindon was also on The Desolation Of Smaug (2013) before winning here with The Way Of Water. Daniel Barrett is new to the Avatar and Letteri crew, but he still has a very proud past. Barrett was a part of the newest Planet Of The Apes trilogy, all of which garnered Academy Award nominations. He finally got the win with The Way Of Water.
Thank god The Batman (2022) got some love at The Oscars! I personally would have been heartbroken if it didn;t at least get recognized for something. I would have preferred a nomination in the Original Score category, but beggars can’t be choosers in this environment.
For what I remember of The Batman, the ending had the most special effects worn into it. Madison Square Garden doesn’t just lend out its arena to shoot massive comic book movies in, so they have to create that whole arena from scratch.
This project came down to Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands, and Dominic Tuohy. (Maybe we can get Langlands and Tuohy photos on IMDB?)
Dan Lemmon is actually a name I have heard of before in the visual effects world! Props to me for knowing someone’s name. Lemmon has won one Oscar in his career for The Jungle Book in 2016. Additionally, he has been nominated four times for The Batman, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2001), Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014) and War Of The Planet Of The Apes (2017). The Apes trilogy is getting a lot of love for the from all the nominees.
Russell Earl has been nominated for six Academy Awards. His first was Transformers (2007), following two years later with Star Trek. He hit the Marvel train beginning in 2014 with Captain America: The Winter Solder, followed by Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Ehhhh, are we sure this one deserved to be nominated. I will be honest, I think the efforts in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever were inconsistent. The flooding of Wakanda was a stunning moment and looked very good (I know, really heavy analysis), but the grand finale is more of a mess of CGI rope swings and violence than I would have liked. It perpetuates the rough final act problem that Marvel movies have had.
The four man crew that was nominated for the the movie is a crew of almost winners. A crew of a lot nomination-getters but none have reached the pinnacle.
Daniel Sudick has been nominated 13 times! He even got nominated twice in one year.
Of his 13 nominations, 10 of them come for Marvel properties. Marvel has been nominated 13 times. The only Marvel movies that got nominated that Daniel Sudick was not involved with are Guardians Of The Galaxy (2015), Doctor Strange (2017) and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2022).
The other three men nominated alongside Sudick for Wakanda Forever are R. Christopher White, Craig Hammack and Geoggrey Baumann. It is Baumann’s first Academy Award nomination, it is Hammack’s second, following up on Deepwater Horizon in 2016. Mr. R. Christopher White now has three Oscar nominations with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011).
I will be honest, Top Gun: Maverick (2022) being nominated here is a conundrum for me. All the talk on this movie was about the practical effects. About how everyone flew and and about the craziness of that Tom Cruise and everyone put themselves through. I almost wanted to believe that there would be no special effects what so ever.
I want to thank The Hollywood Reporter for illuminating this. The VFX team explained that all the flying was real, and it was only augmented by visual effects…and nearly 2,400 shots in the movie have these enhancement moments. There are moments making the movie where the actors couldn’t be flying, so the tunnel affect in the cockpit had to be made in post. Then there is the enhanced sky backgrounds, the rockets, the explosions and whatever else needed to be added it.
Top Gun: Maverick follows the same kind of trajectory of All Quiet On The Western Front; it enhanced the fantastic realism the movie was already made with.
Of the four men nominated on behalf of Top Gun: Maverick (2003), only Scott R. Fisher had been nominated before. He had won for two Christopher Nolan projects; Interstellar (2014) and Tenet (2020). Bryan Litson, Seth Hill, Ryan Tudhope all earned their first Oscar nomination.
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“The Expendables will square up against: an arms dealer who commands the might of a massive private army.” Director: Scott WaughWriters: Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, Max Adams, Dave Callaham, Spenser CohenStaring: Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jae, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone, Caroline WildeRelease…
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Just a heads up to anyone reading this, there’s going to be less words in this fantasy baseball recap because I’m doing it speech to text and trying to get Google to understand professional baseball players names without me having to go in and retype them all in is going to be a big pain…
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