sycasey 2.0

Definitely the best speech of the night. I also liked Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga's performance. Some people found it weird and uncomfortable, but that is also why I liked it.

I was impressed that despite there not being a big real-life age difference between the actors, the difference between the on-screen characters seemed totally believable to me. Usually that doesn't work.

I mean . . . maybe the uncertainty is what it's about?

The parents have probably imposed upon her their own values that the only way for a woman to proceed after college was to get married. Sometimes you need some guy to crash your wedding and cause a big disruption to get shaken out of that mindset.

The other thing I'll say in favor of this film (Paul notes it too) is that the visual presentation and use of music has its fingerprints all over every coming-of-age movie in the decades since. It feels like John Hughes and Wes Anderson took notes while watching this. It's just so undeniably influential. I don't think I'd watched the whole thing in widescreen before. I originally saw it pan-and-scanned on VHS. Getting to see the whole shot composition makes a pretty big difference.

And I think it's very specifically about the generation gap between the Greatest Generation of WW2 and the Baby Boomers. The former had imposed a society of values and conformity, and the latter was rebelling against it for individual freedom. People like Nichols and Hoffman were kind of in between these generations, and the movie reflects that: it understands the desire for rebellion but also cautions against rebellion for rebellion's sake.

The Simpsons parody of this scene is pretty spot-on as to its actual message.

I think the movie is aware of that, though. Given that it's the 60's, they probably wouldn't have described it as "sexual predator," but I think the filmmakers do see that the characters are using one another, that none of it is a real two-sided romance. The final shot signifies that, but so do a lot of other visual cues: Benjamin being on the treadmill at the beginning, the way the "party" for Ben's graduation is just people passing him along with no real interest in him, the scuba scene where you can see people's mouths moving but not hear what they say, etc. The whole thing is people talking past each other and not connecting. The musical cues too! "Hello darkness, my old friend." "The sound of silence." Not an accident that this is the opening and closing tune.

Another thing I would add in here is that I think Paul is right in saying the movie is a comedy. Not a super-uproarious farce like Airplane! or something, but it is consistently a dryly humorous satire of the social mores of its time and the generation gap in particular. To ask for a "believable" romance with an attractive leading man in this context is kind of missing the point, IMO. Of course Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson are bad for each other and of course it doesn't make sense! The filmmakers know it too. They might not have had the same language about sexual predators that we do now, but I think they definitely see how these characters use sex and romance with other people as a salve for their own wounded egos. That's how the whole plot unravels: Mrs. Robinson uses Benjamin for her own purposes, then after Ben gets sick of it, he turns around and uses Elaine for his, and then when Elaine gets tired of being used for marriage, she runs back into Ben's arms even though she barely knows him. The final shot on the bus demonstrates how all of these people are just moving through their lives, uncertain about what they do or what's to come. Just having rebelled from the older people's ways doesn't mean you actually have a plan.

I mean, maybe he was! My personal example is that when I first saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I found the characters way over the top and ridiculous. Whose family acts like this? No one! Then a few years later I met the woman who would become my wife, who comes from a Greek family, and now I know . . . it's not that ridiculous. It's exaggerated for comic effect, for sure, but there is definitely a realistic basis for those characters. I just hadn't experienced it. Similarly, I think there are plenty of real Italian guys who act like that. Personally, Viggo did pull me in to liking his character, despite the iffy writing. It's not one of my top 5 male performances or anything, but I thought he was good. (Also, yes, he should have won for Eastern Promises.)

The records differ on this. Vallelonga (and presumably his father) claim that Shirley was against making a movie while he was alive, but gave his blessing for one to be made after his death. I have no idea what's true. On the complaints about loud Italian stereotypes, well . . . the movie is written by Tony Lip's own son. He might not know that much about Don Shirley, but he probably does know what his own father was like. Maybe he really did talk like that. I probably wouldn't accuse Scorsese of stereotyping if he puts "loud Italians" in his own movies. Presumably he's drawing from experience there.

I don't know, I think when people criticize Mortensen they are really criticizing the character as written more than the actor's performance. Personally, I think he did a great job playing a character who is written as a loud Italian thug; I don't think I've ever seen him play a character like that before. That doesn't mean I like that his character is given so much of the movie's focus, but that's a different question.

That still seems like a bizarre mass hypnotism to me. It opened to middling reviews and had a major controversy because of the director, which normally means you don't get anywhere close to Best Picture. Sure, it made a lot of money, but so do Transformers movies. With Green Book I at least understand that it's a type of movie the Academy has historically favored.

Some of what I've read recently (and this is anecdotal Twitter speculation, so take it with a grain of salt) is that there were basically two camps in the Oscar voting: the older voters who preferred Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody, and the younger voters who favored Roma and Black Panther. This kind of voting split has existed since the Academy membership was expanded, but this year there wasn't anything that both groups could kind of get behind, like The Shape of Water or Moonlight/La La Land. A Star Is Born might have actually managed it, but they botched their campaign and didn't start trying until it was too late. So you saw the weird bifurcated awards, given about equally to both groups of movies. So yeah, national politics is reflected in the Oscars as well, in a slightly different form.

As usual, big companies are way behind the times on new technology and social movements like this. I suspect they are now scrambling to start doing this kind of thing.

Hah, and then the way that subplot just goes nowhere, like his sexuality had vanished after that one encounter. Yeeesh.

Generally agree, though again in fairness this old Tweet didn't resurface until after the movie had already been made, so the people who financed and promoted it had already done so, possibly unaware of the man's history. If we're talking about not giving him Oscars, then yes, completely agree. I'd never have voted for this movie.

Of course everyone is free to have their own opinions about people. My argument is that it's also good to verify if your opinions are based on things that are actually true. And yes, that's right, Gunn also got in trouble for old pedophilia/rape jokes. I stand by my larger point, though: it's good to examine if this kind of behavior continued to the present day or if the person ever had a change of heart*, why this issue might be surfacing now and to what ends, etc. It might cause you to modify your opinion. *I think Gunn referenced his blog post about the homophobic jokes because it was also a broader repudiation of the kind of hurtful "edgy" humor he used to do, and he's saying these other jokes came from the same place. That's just my interpretation, of course, but I don't think it's unreasonable.

In all my Google searching, I can only find articles referencing the one bad Villalonga tweet about Muslims on 9/11. And yes, that is bad. But given that he's apologized for it and I can't find any other incidents, I can't really be sure he's a "terrible person." Again, much of his behavior indicates to me that he's a not-very-smart guy who doesn't really do his homework, but I'm not sure there's great evidence of maliciousness. James Gunn got fired for resurfaced homophobic jokes he made years ago (a kind of humor he acknowledges having once trafficked in and since repudiated), and when that happened the argument in most left-leaning circles was that he deserved to be given the chance to demonstrate his growth and change over who he used to be, instead of just being fired for old tweets. I agreed with that . . . but if I'm going to extend him that courtesy then I must extend the same to Nick Vallelonga. That doesn't mean I think he or the movie should be rewarded with Oscars (I don't), but sometimes the original Twitter reactions have people going off half-cocked and you need to step back and verify some things. The criticism that the filmmakers just went ahead with telling the white man's story and didn't even try to consult the black man's family (or try to find out if he had any) is completely valid. That doesn't mean the film or the filmmakers are virulently racist, but that is indeed white privilege for you.

Is there something more than the one bad 9/11 Tweet that he's since apologized for? I'm no big fan of the guy, but I've also become a bit wary of judging a person's entire character based on a few bad actions from the past. If it's a pattern of behavior continuing to the present, that's something else.

I'm not sure I know enough about him to say he's categorically a "terrible person." He definitely seems like an incurious doof.

I seriously thought that was going to be a comedian doing a bit, but no . . . it's real.

And honestly, the last few years had kind of set me up to think that this was a new Academy ready to make more adventurous selections: The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Spotlight, and Birdman. Regardless of what you think of those individual movies, they're not exactly "typical Academy fare." Spotlight probably comes closest, but even that is a quiet journalistic procedural movie that's kind of a downer. Usually the kind of movie that gets nominated but does not win. But this year? With some actual interesting, adventurous stuff among the Best Picture nominees? Oh boy, they reached way back for some old-school Oscar nonsense.

Anyway, the Unspooled Facebook group also voted on their own winners. Much better! https://www.facebook.com/notes/unspooled-podcast-group/2018-spoolie-results/649397308851801/