The 89th Academy Awards (2017) Movie • Page 8

On the subject of critics, I follow What the Flick on YouTube pretty closely for reviews, and glance at Rotten Tomatoes for the aggregate score to get an idea of how films are being received. That's pretty much the only thing I go to on a week-by-week basis anymore since Roger Ebert died.

 

ive been clamoring for a 'critic match' app for a while. I insert my review on 100 movies and it links to me the critic that most closely represents my opinions (you can also limit it by genre as well).

 

No one does this though, obviously. If anything, La La Land would fall under the umbrella of the type of film you are trying to describe.

Why would someone pretend to like or dislike a movie based on what someone else thinks? That is deranged behavior.

 

Maybe it's jut because we already value Shannon enough, but I though Aaron Taylor-Johnson stole the show.

 

Adams, Gyllenhaal, ATJ, and Shannon were all good and varied in Nocturnal Animals. I think Shannon's was still my favorite performance, though.

 

There are plenty of films that the arthouse crowd advocated for that received little or no recognition. Certain Women, Toni Erdmann, Paterson, Cameraperson, Silence, Cemetery of Splendour, Right Now Wrong Then, and several others are up there.

People keep talking about diversity, but every movie nominated for Best Picture is in English. It is American hegemony at a very high level.

 

The Best Foreign Film category really reinforces the precedent for having only English-language films in the Best Picture category. Amour is the last one I can remember that got a Best Picture nom, I think.

 

It was so bizarre when people made that argument about how hard it supposedly was to get made. A mid-level budget movie starring two popular actors, directed by a guy who just became popular with his last film, and about a subject destined to get a bunch of awards is probably the easiest movie to get made outside of a sequel to a blockbuster.

 

Agreed on your overall point, but Lion is largely in Bengali and Hindi. Just making note of it.

 

The Best Foreign Language Film is even stranger than the other categories. Most of the movies are complete mysteries, and this is due to the weird decision to have countries submit movies as their official selection. It seems like a subtle admission that Academy voters do not watch movies outside of the English language.

 

I was wrong on that one, then. I saw the names Nicole Kidman and others and assumed the movie was at least mostly in English.

 

To be fair, I read that he wrote the script in 2010 and failed to get the movie financed for years. After Whiplash, I assume it was an easier sell to studios.

I'm not sure they even watch all the English-language nominees, so I wouldn't be surprised. I consider myself open to foreign cinema but still watch very little in proportion to English-language films.

 

Hundreds of potential filmmakers have that story, though. Completely unknown directors are not given thirty million dollars to make a movie, regardless of the subject.

Kenneth Lonergan had to wait years to make another film after Margaret was taken away from him and edited without him, and Barry Jenkins' last movie came out in 2008. Both of their films have a much smaller budget than La La Land. It is ultimately meaningless how easy or had a movie is to get made in relation to quality, but La La Land does not lead in that category of artistic struggle.

 

The "It was hard to make this movie" narrative is largely marketing for awards. Attaching a narrative to a movie wins over audiences and voters. It happened with Leo DiCaprio. He won his first Oscar at 41. Ennio Morricone won his first Oscar the same year at 87, but the "Leo's due!" narrative meant something to people. Same with Scorsese winning for the Departed, he'd gone so long without an Academy Award that the narrative became "he deserves one". The Revenant utilized a similar "it was hard" narrative, talking about how physically harsh it was to make the movie, how they were stranded in blizzards, how DiCaprio ate raw bison liver even though he's a vegan, etc. etc. None of that actually matters, none of it speaks to the quality of a film, only the final product on screen does that. But during awards season, this is largely pageantry and advertising.

This isn't to say Damien Chazelle and the cast and crew aren't legitimately excited and happy that a movie he wanted to make for awhile did well and is winning awards. But there's a context to how the film is talked about in that way.

 

The Revenant has little worth remembering except for the very brief period of time where The Drudge Report spread the story that the bear raped DiCaprio in the movie and people freaked out.

 

I know his movies tend to love themselves too much, but I enjoyed The Revenant.

 

Jared Leto gained 60 pounds for a movie that made less than $200,000 and has a 19% on RT

 

50 Cent starved himself almost to death for a movie that no one saw. They think that copying DeNiro will give them his talent.

 

Could the guy that hates the Oscars post less in the Oscars thread so I don't have to ban him from another website I run because I can't stand the posts? Cause that's where this ends. Good god this shit is exhausting and obnoxious.

 

Yep, no one wanted to touch even the cheap version. It wasn't until Whiplash he could get it done.

 

okay lets do this. what should i see first? Manchester, Moonlight, or Fences?

I'm not too into Lion. Hidden Figures looks enjoyable but probably pretty formulaic. hacksaw ridge, i'm probably not giving enough credit cause i wrote it off as a war movie, and same goes hell high water (western).

but yeah Manchest, moonlight, fences are the three that have my eye. Which do you all reccomend?

 

Moonlight Moonlight Moonlight

Manchester is also very good.

Fences comes from brilliant source material and is an adequate adaptation.

x2

 

Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight are the obvious ones. If you are broadening yourself to films that got any nominations, Silence is one to definitely see. Very long and very introspective, but if you stick with it you will not regret it. Toni Erdmann is great, Elle is very good but abrasive, Loving and O.J.: Made in America are worth it as well.

 

I saw this a few weeks ago and I can appreciate the bait & switch. First half is preachy Christian (since they were so oppressed in the 1940s). I know it's based on a real person, but the tone was so "God's Not Dead"/"Heaven is for Real". Cut to Okinawa and it's a fuckin' bloodbath... using the upper half of a disembodied service member as a shield while his guts were dangling underneath was honestly badass. I can only imagine church groups going to see this in droves and appalled by the violence.

Of those three, I've only seen MBTS... very depressing so prepare yourself if you see it. And I went in aware of the allegations against Casey so I'm still unable to fully support his acclaim. But I think I'll check out Hidden Figures myself. My parents loved it.

 

The first third of Lion is fantastic. It's a shame the rest of the film isn't as good.