Up until Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger hadn't done anything worth bragging about. Give an actor the right role, and they can deliver.

Dillon was great in Crash. Have you seen it or are you basing the laughing on his previous films?

Matt Dillion was great in "Crash." I am so happy he got nominated.

The biggest snub to me seems to be "Walk the Line" for Best Picture. I am not amused. I can't imagine it is a great day at Ralph Fiennes' house either, but I wouldn't personally have nominated him. "Sin City" deserved some love, but I didn't really think it was going to get any so I am not shocked or anything.

No Star Wars for visual effects??!! How the hell did Narnia beat it?!?!

King Kong should have been nominated for best score.

Jarhead and The Constant Gardener should have been nominated for cinematography.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory should have been nominated for art direction.

Hmm, yeah, skipping this crapfest this year...

No best actor nod for 50 Cent for Get Rich or Die Tryin'???? What kind of world do I live in!!! -wink-

On a more seriouse not, does anybody know whay Grizzly Man was not even on the ballots for nominations this year? That was by far the best doc this year. I also agree with The Constant Gardner being snubbed for cinematography.

Another vote for no Star Wars for Visual Effects. I guess it doesn't help that Lucas has taken shots and prided himself for being out of Hollywood.

Visual Effects in Episode III were utter crap. No wonder they weren't nominated. Now why Sin City wasn't nominated is beyond me...

Grizzly Man did not make the cut of docs on the nomation ballot.

-rolleyes- That's a complete load crap.

Right, I know that. I was asking if anyone knew why it didn't make the nomination ballot cut.

I don't think it deserves a nomination. The visuals were not impressive to me.

The effects in Episode III weren't really special effects, same argument I had with Episode II. The movie is like a giant CG animation with humans thrown in from time to time. Plus there really wasn't a whole lot of Human/CG interaction that I recall.

If you like this sort of stuff, check out John Knoll's Creating the Worlds of Star Wars book, and you'll find out just how inaccurate your statement is.

To each his own. I don't know how you can think the visuals are unimpressive. I find that statement astounding. But opinions vary. However, ILM's work in the film was exceptional. That's not even debateable as far as I'm concerned. But opinions vary. But it did deserve a nom over Narnia. Hell, Potter and Charlie were more deserving than Narnia.

I agree. They Aren't "Special." All I saw was a busy canvas of Video game type effects. I couldnt believe that the ships looked like plastic where as the effects from 30 years ago with the original trilogy looked much better in my opinion.
More isn't always better and they jammed the screen with so much going on I got a headache.

I actually agree that Phoenix and Witherspoon should have gotten actor/actress nods and that Walk the Line should not have been nominated. I thought the two of them (particularly Witherspoon) gave outstanding performances in a rather mediocre movie.

-rolleyes- Honestly riley. That's a bit much. You judge the work based on what's there. The videogame comments could just as easily apply to Kong and it's fake looking jungle and dinosuare stampede. Though these "videogame" comments are ridiculous. As for the ships, they weren't made out of plastic. They didn't look at all like plastic. But since we aren't going to agree, I'll leave it there.

Oh I'm well aware of the the sets, designs, and props but for the most part, and still consider them the art design.

I guess I could just be bitter that I was so incredibly bored by the prequel series, but something still sticks out as unimpressively artifical in the visuals of the series. Jaded videogamer I suppose.

Oh well! I thought the same of Kong. Completely unconvincing jungle environments, godawful dino stampede, and bad compositing throughout the film. Yes, CG Kong and perhaps old New York were impressive, but the rest was subpar.

Arguing about VFX is like arguing about who your favorite football team is.

Yes... yes it is.

Kong did have some terrible CG in spots, but was impressed enough with Kong and NYC to overlook some other tidbits. Same issue was present in Jackson's other CG-heavy flicks.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the CG in Narnia either, though they did a good job of animating Aslan's speaking parts.

War of the Worlds had pretty decent CG (obvious on the train), it was less ambitious and used it to compliment the movie rather than take the role of a character. The chapel destruction comes to mind.

The people who make movies liked Kong more than they did Star Wars. Nothing more can be said.

Crash for best picture? Gimee a break.......

other than that the nominations were pretty good, I loved that Howard is nominated for best actor for H&F, I can't wait to hear "It's hard out here for a pimp" performed live at the oscars!

Well, that is purely subjective. Either way, you judge the quality of the work that is there. You don't render a judgement in this category by throwing out the quality of work, and basing a decision on which film you like more. The category is "Best Visual Effects", not best or favorite film. Besides, the argument isn't really about Kong. We all thought Kong would get one based on the CG Kong alone. A lot of us are saying ROTS deserved a nom instead of Narnia. I think it was purely a snub. I can't say I'm surprised.

Of course it's all subjective, even for the professionals. Though sometimes it's hard to see why some choices were made. Believe it or not I'm more saddened that Trisha Biggar's excellent work went completely unnoticed. Regardless of opinions on the prequels, her work was exemplary.

By the way, the VFX Branch picked the nominees, not the Academy. The VFX branch consists of professionals in the VFX industry.

YES! Artificial!

:lol: Okay! Whatever you say!

Terrell, you seem to be illogically enamoured by Star Wars visual effects, when it's obvious most people see them for what they are - videogame graphics. In fact, I have videogames that look better and more realistic than ROTS. And the original trilogy of Star Wars had visual effects that still to this day look much better than that of the prequel trilogy. As far as this years effects, were I to choose the nominees, I'd select: King Kong, Sin City, and War of the Worlds. But teh category has to be expanded to five nominees.