Oscars 2019

[grudlian. 4725]

14 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

Then you don't understand why I said it. I said that because it's absolutely something that would be nominated but it gets tossed aside because the superhero aspect makes it "sillier," and I think that's damaging and absolutely incorrect.

Then you don't understand my argument about why it's sillier. It still features two men who have died and come back to life. It stars a man who was cryogenically frozen for 60 years and I think that's inherently silly for a movie set in, functionally, the real world.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Just now, grudlian. said:

Then you don't understand my argument about why it's sillier. It still features two men who have died and come back to life. It stars a man who was cryogenically frozen for 60 years and I think that's inherently silly for a movie set in, functionally, the real world.

I completely understand you're argument. I just think it's dismissive and literally the problem as to why these movies don't get taken seriously lol.

[grudlian. 4725]

28 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

I completely understand you're argument. I just think it's dismissive and literally the problem as to why these movies don't get taken seriously lol.

I don't think it's dismissive. I think movie and the characters are incongruent with each other.

I've pushed for much sillier, crazier movies for best picture. Even something like District 9 which has sentient aliens interacting with humans on earth is far more out there than Winter Soldier and I was glad it got nominated. But I think it set up a stronger, more consistent universe.

But I think we're just going to have to disagree on this.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1. I think Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody (especially) shouldn't be anywhere near Best Picture, but once they got the Golden Globes I knew this was a done deal. Haven't seen Vice yet.

2. I'm happy that Roma is getting a lot of love. First, I think it's great. Second, it's a black-and-white foreign-language film from Netflix. That's a lot to overcome, but it got the most nominations.

3. Minding the Gap getting a nomination is great! I can't explain why the Mr. Rogers doc didn't. (I also agree that RBG is just an okay doc about a great subject.)

4. Ethan Hawke deserved a nomination and had won almost all the critics' prizes going in, so it is weird that he's not in.

5. Black Panther isn't my personal favorite MCU (that's Guardians of the Galaxy), but it's one of the better ones and has a social message to help its campaign (always helps with the Oscars). Ryan Coogler is a legit talent who wasn't recognized for Creed. I'm cool with it being in the mix.

6. It was a GREAT year for movies. The Oscars just didn't get enough nominations for First Reformed or Eighth Grade or If Beale Street Could Talk or most of the more deserving American films this year. So, par for the course there.

[RyanSz 3140]

I wasn't surprised by what was chosen, but that's not saying I think they're the best choices. I was surprised Toni Collette didn't get a nomination and as far as Black Panther goes, I enjoyed it but I don't put it in Best Picture level, especially considering the film that was the impetus for the Oscars moving to the up to ten films for the award, The Dark Knight, was in my mind a more deserving film. I'm glad that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse got nominated, but legitimately forgot that Isle of Dogs came out this year, so with those two and Ralph Breaks the Internet being among the nominated I'm glad to see that animated films that are being inventive with how they're animated are getting much deserved attention. I was surprised that Blindspotting didn't get at least a screenplay nomination as for first time writers, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal did a fantastic job in creating a vibrant and deep story with a very realistic feel. Also, how does Widows not get a cinemetography nomination or Stephen McQueen not nominated for directing?

[grudlian. 4725]

3 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

2. I'm happy that Roma is getting a lot of love. First, I think it's great. Second, it's a black-and-white foreign-language film from Netflix. That's a lot to overcome, but it got the most nominations.

It was a GREAT year for movies. The Oscars just didn't get enough nominations for First Reformed or Eighth Grade or If Beale Street Could Talk or most of the more deserving American films this year. So, par for the course there.

This for sure. I normally don't agree with all the choices the Oscars make for what gets nominated but I normally find almost all the movies good, worthwhile movies. At least for major awards. This year, I'm not sure what they were thinking with several nominations. It's not that we didn't have great movies. It's not that the great movies were indie darlings flying under the radar (though plenty did). Eighth Grade, If Beale Street Could Talk, First Man, etc. were widely talked about. There's no way Oscar voters didn't get the chance to see them.

I wasn't sure how Roma would do since there is the supposed bias against Netflix. But in years past, several Netflix docs have gotten nominations for best documentary. I honestly think Netflix hasn't had a real contender for best picture until this year unless you count Beasts Of No Nation (which I don't). Even though Roma certainly deserves to be up for best picture and best foreign language, I'm kind of bummed it's in both because I just saw Shoplifters and I'm afraid it won't get anything now.

32 minutes ago, RyanSz said:

I wasn't surprised by what was chosen, but that's not saying I think they're the best choices. I was surprised Toni Collette didn't get a nomination and as far as Black Panther goes, I enjoyed it but I don't put it in Best Picture level, especially considering the film that was the impetus for the Oscars moving to the up to ten films for the award, The Dark Knight, was in my mind a more deserving film. I'm glad that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse got nominated, but legitimately forgot that Isle of Dogs came out this year, so with those two and Ralph Breaks the Internet being among the nominated I'm glad to see that animated films that are being inventive with how they're animated are getting much deserved attention. I was surprised that Blindspotting didn't get at least a screenplay nomination as for first time writers, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal did a fantastic job in creating a vibrant and deep story with a very realistic feel. Also, how does Widows not get a cinemetography nomination or Stephen McQueen not nominated for directing?

I'm really hoping Into The Spider-verse wins. Partly because I'm tired of Disney or Pixar basically owning the category. Partly because it's legit great. I'd be totally fine if it had been up for best picture.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

23 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

I'm really hoping Into The Spider-verse wins. Partly because I'm tired of Disney or Pixar basically owning the category. Partly because it's legit great. I'd be totally fine if it had been up for best picture.

I haven't seen all the animated nominees, but I strongly suspect Spider-Verse really is the best movie.

[RyanSz 3140]

48 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

I'm really hoping Into The Spider-verse wins. Partly because I'm tired of Disney or Pixar basically owning the category. Partly because it's legit great. I'd be totally fine if it had been up for best picture.

It's what I'm hoping wins, but I would be fine with Ralph winning because it was leaps and bounds improved over the original in regards to the animation, and wouldn't be surprised if Dogs wins. Yet if Incredibles 2 wins it will be as bad as Jethro Tull beating Metallica for the inaugural Metal Album Grammy.

[Cam Bert 8145]

This is always a weird time of year for me living in Japan because we often don't get a lot of these movies until well after the Oscars. However this year I've seen about half of them and can see most of the others remaining. That said my overall all take on the nominations from what I have seen is.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  I guess this will motivate me to go out and see A Star is Born this weekend and watch Roma on Netflix. 

[tomspanks 9039]

20 hours ago, taylorannephoto said:

BP was definitely in my top 10 of the year but my goodness I had so many completely ignored movies in there as well. I'm mostly angry about the lack of love for Hereditary, and more importantly, Toni Fuckin' Collette.

Paimon has failed you

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

23 hours ago, grudlian. said:

My issue with RBG is that it's fine and that's it. It doesn't offer any analysis or depth I couldn't get from a wikipedia article. It touches on a lot of stuff but doesn't really examine them much. It's just the headlines of her life. It tells you about her struggle to be taken seriously as a lawyer and judge but it's very surface level. It spends 10 minutes of its run time on memes. I think any of these aspects are worthy of examination and could make a full feature.

I have similar issues with Won't You Be My Neighbor in that a lot of it is just clips I had already seen on youtube. But at least it had discussed how Daniel Tiger was Mr. Rogers finding his own voice and how his childhood affected the way he spoke to children and why it was so different from everyone else.

As a female lawyer, RGB really spoke to me and it was special that the movie exists. I will concede that there’s little that I already knew, but I still think it’s really important to bring that to a larger audience who might not know anything aside the memes. Do I think it was Oscar worthy? I dunno. Certainly the nod will get more eyes on it and that’s a good thing.

I share your sentiments on Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Rogers was a really fascinating and complicated guy and I think there was a lot that was just glossed over, like his obsession with the number 143. I didn’t leave the theatre as moved as everyone else. I felt unsatisfied. 

[grudlian. 4725]

3 hours ago, WatchOutForSnakes said:

As a female lawyer, RGB really spoke to me and it was special that the movie exists. I will concede that there’s little that I already knew, but I still think it’s really important to bring that to a larger audience who might not know anything aside the memes. Do I think it was Oscar worthy? I dunno. Certainly the nod will get more eyes on it and that’s a good thing.

I share your sentiments on Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Rogers was a really fascinating and complicated guy and I think there was a lot that was just glossed over, like his obsession with the number 143. I didn’t leave the theatre as moved as everyone else. I felt unsatisfied. 

I absolutely understand this resonating with a female lawyer more than the general populace (not that one needs to be a woman or lawyer for this to affect you). I just really wanted it to dig deeper. I don't even know much about her and felt I knew most everything from the first hour.

I was still a complete mess during Won't You Be My Neighbor? despite my problems with it. But I had cried watching most of the clips in the movie on Youtube years ago. So, I don't think it speaks to the power of the movie but just Mr. Rogers himself. Like you, I stil felt unsatisfied.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

That's actually why I rarely watch any documentary. They're never in depth enough for me, or they're just too slanted, so I sort of don't trust any of them

[taylor anne photo 11311]

28 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

That's actually why I rarely watch any documentary. They're never in depth enough for me, or they're just too slanted, so I sort of don't trust any of them

Every single one has a bias towards it no matter what that's for sure.

That being said the new FYRE doc on Netflix was pretty amazing despite the marketing team that marketed the shit out of the fest being behind it.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

Yea for sure, and I wouldn't expect NO bias, that wouldn't be reasonable.  They just often are SOOO slanted in one direction, or trying to prove something specific, I can't trust a lot of them.  

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

I think one of the problems is with looking at documentaries as "news reporting." They are not. They're just not fictionalized, which sets them apart from the usual narrative films you see; they are, however, assembled footage of real life events intended to point you towards whatever artistic message the filmmakers want to deliver. There should be no expectation of "covering everything" or being "unbiased."

My issue with RBG is that I don't feel like it was all that focused a take on its subject. Won't You Be My Neighbor? definitely was, IMO. Your mileage may vary, of course.

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Yea for sure, and I wouldn't expect NO bias, that wouldn't be reasonable.  They just often are SOOO slanted in one direction, or trying to prove something specific, I can't trust a lot of them.  

Yeah, there was this rush of documentaries in the early 2000s that just grabbed people and people just think that's what documentaries are or should be. It bums me out because great documentaries don't have much bias (or as little as can reasonably expected from people editing down years of footage to a couple hours).

There's a world of difference between what Michael Moore or Dinesh D'Souza does and someone like Erroll Morris or the Maysles. Where would documentaries be if, instead of Enron Smartest Guys In The Room and Fahrenheit 9/11 getting audiences, Capturing The Friedmans or Hoop Dreams did?

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

15 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

There's a world of difference between what Michael Moore or Dinesh D'Souza does and someone like Erroll Morris or the Maysles.

Yea that's true.  There's just become a block in my head that all docs are propaganda - I need to get over that tbh, there's a lot I should be interested in and am curious about. 

[grudlian. 4725]

2 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Yea that's true.  There's just become a block in my head that all docs are propaganda - I need to get over that tbh, there's a lot I should be interested in and am curious about. 

I get it though. It certainly seems like the documentaries pushing an agenda outnumber the good ones by a large amount.

[RyanSz 3140]

7 hours ago, taylorannephoto said:

Every single one has a bias towards it no matter what that's for sure.

That being said the new FYRE doc on Netflix was pretty amazing despite the marketing team that marketed the shit out of the fest being behind it.

Wait so did the group do the Hulu one as well? I ask because they actually interview the shyster behind the festival in that one to get his side of the story cut with what was actually happening.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

9 hours ago, RyanSz said:

Wait so did the group do the Hulu one as well? I ask because they actually interview the shyster behind the festival in that one to get his side of the story cut with what was actually happening.

No, I heard that was the shit's team himself so that's why he got to put his side of it on the Hulu one, but I'm thinking the team at FuckJerry wanted to distance themselves from him as much as possible so they made their version and it's really really damning of him. Although I would say rightfully so. But at the end they literally have the director of that big promotional video that first came out saying, "You wouldn't put the blame of a faulty BMW engine on the guys that made the commercial," so they are really going hard on the "not our fault!" lol.

[theworstbuddhist 572]

The Oscars used to really frustrate me, and they still do, but I don't care as much now I guess. They have their little show where they pretend to be virtuous liberals and then go back to the work of making the next awful live action Disney film or whatever they think is going to sell.

There are different branches of the academy for different types of film, and one that has been problematic for literally as long as I can remember paying attention to it - something like 30 years, thanks to watching Siskel and Ebert complain about it - is the Documentary branch. I remember S&E like clockwork complaining about omissions from that category. So I guess that's still happening.

The only awards I truly cared about this year were for animation. I contend that not only is Into the Spider-Verse the best animated film of 2018, it's the best film of 2018 period, and possibly of this century so far. It is certainly up there. So needless to say, I was glad it won its category. It would have been kind of insane if it didn't, but sometimes that's how the Oscars roll, so I'm glad I didn't have to kick the TV in.

I was even happier that a young Asian-Canadian woman won the Oscar for her short animated film Bao.

I kind of enjoyed the "hostless" broadcast. Can Bradley Cooper go back to being a clean-cut douche instead of mid-career Kevin Costner? FFS.