Tuesday 16 August 2011

Motion Capture and The Oscars

So today I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to bitch abotu a film I actually loved. Ok well not really bitch about the film, but what is going to happen now because of this film. Yes I am of course talking about Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the first film I have seen this year that I honestly think, in a world of ten nominations, has a shot at being nominated for The Academy Award for Best Picture (The Tree of Life you can go to hell). Now while I do have some personal problems with the film (seriously I'm still not over that ending scene, god it pissed me off), I did completely love the film and as I said in my review, it was all because of the performance by Andy Serkis.

For those of you who do not know Andy Serkis played Ceaser, the genius ape who begins the revolution against humanity and is the cause of the entire film. When the film was said to be in production, everyone I'm pretty sure believed it to be a bad idea. When the first trailer came out and it showed all the signs of being a cliched disaster movie, my expections were dropped further. Then of course I see the film and I'll be the first to admit the cliches are present, but you know what as an audience member you don't care. Also the idea of making apes you know actual apes and not human in make up like every other Planet of the Apes film was a great idea and is the only reason this film works. The foundation of the film is Andy Serkis performance, it's the best performance I've seen all year and if there is a better one then I'm excited because this one is some tough stuff to beat, but with that comes the question of how much is Andy Serkis and how much is CG.

The role of Ceaser was created using the same techology used for Gollum and King Kong (both played by Serkis, the motion capture king), but that shows that it's a computer based performance. Now don't take me into thinking that I'm against Andy Serkis, I believe that it was 100% him all along and he deserves full credit for the role, but I don't vote on the Academy Awards and therefore will not be able to nominate him for the Oscar which he completely deserves. Yes I'm already, in August of 2011, five months before the nominations come out, talking about Andy Serkis being snubbed for Best Actor at next years Oscars. This is one of the greatest performances I have ever seen, I'll say it's better than Gollum (there I said it, happy?), it could even rival Colin Firth's performance last year from The Kings Speech, and I am not the only one who agrees on this. So why won't the Academy regonise it next year and give him the Golden Statue? Because it was a computer based performance and the Academy are elder snobs who don't like new techology. That's why The Social Network lost to The King's Speech last year, because The Social Network promoted an interest website, something the Academy is too old to use.

So why am I writing this? Well mostly because I couldn't think of anything else to write and I am already two days behind (sorry guys but don't worry I have a massive article about the films that inspired and changed me coming soon) but also because I believe that The Academy should start to regonise these types of performances. Serkis should have been nominated years ago for Gollum but for him to not be regonised this year for Ceaser would be a travisty, even if it is an honorary Oscar. He deserves it. I'm the Mad Movie Man and I'll see you at the cinema.

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