Yikes, La La Land opened here in NZ on Boxing day, so I saw it at an evening session on its second day of release (with
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Psycho
swanstep — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 04:09 AM)
Yikes, La La Land opened here in NZ on Boxing day, so I saw it at an evening session on its second day of release (with Tuesday being cheapie day here), yet the smallish auditorium was only about 10% full, i.e., about 20 people. I had the sense that there were only musical buffs and drama kids in attendance. In other words, Gosling and Stone (let alone director Chazelle after Whiplash) do not appear to be pulling in a general, hit-making, young-ish crowd.
As for the film itself. I liked it - it's the sort of thing I'm very much primed to like - but I wasn't really swept away by it. It has only one memorable melody in my view, the 'City of Stars' number sung by Gosling in one of the trailers. Gosling isn't much of a singer, and while that doesn't matter too much in context where the off-handness of the song and melody plays well, it does mean that the only thing you can really remember isn't any great singing.
The best piece of music, however, the film's only chance for a new standard is Emma Stone's big 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)' number. It wowed me, but I can't for the life of me recall its melody now. So that highlight has problems too I think.
[Update: There's a podcast with the composers about 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)' on the iTunes store that's pretty great. Search for the podcast Song Exploder, and it's the Dec 21, 2016 ep. with Justin Hurwitz. I think I've got the melody properly stored in memory now. Maybe it is going to be a new standard after all!]
The choreography is a complete waste of space. I don't know what Chazelle was thinking with that. He hired Mandy Moore who's principally known for designing dances for the TV reality show So You Think You Can Dance. Jesus, when you think of the brilliant modern dance choreographers out there he could have hired.
Another area of even more technicality that I had a problem with is the focus-pulling. The camera's very mobile throughout (something I'm generally in favor of), but important objects of our attention were constantly not quite in focus or slipping in and out of focus (and not in any artful way believe me). It looked like the focus puller was always late and then overshooting and having to pull back (the other possibility: they did all the moving camera stuff with an auto-focus setting, like shooting with an iPhone, and so did without a focus-puller. That's unforgivable on a big Hollywood production if so.) That's bad and it's going to cost LLL at awards time; old Hollywood hands will not vote for something with this level of technical flaw.
Setting aside the tunes, the dancing, and the focus, however, La La Land was pretty good. Strong on story (arguably lifted from Umbrellas of Cherbourg but I'm OK with that) and structure, and Gosling and Stone are charming, have chemistry, etc..
So, I'm torn over this film. I like it because it's the sort of thing I like that's pretty rare these days, but it's not an especially good example of the sort of thing I like. I hate to say it but things like Enchanted and Frozen, maybe even Moulin Rouge and Chicago (all of which have many problems) are better than La La Land at least on first viewing. -
swanstep — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 08:21 PM)
A great if slightly hyperbolic New York magazine article on Children of Men (2006):
http://tinyurl.com/johlt2n
It was such a huge film for me at the time I didn't realize that it actually lost tons of money! ($70 million world wide gross on $70 million production budget = ~70 million loss for the studio.) -
swanstep — 9 years ago(December 30, 2016 10:38 PM)
Why is this in the Psycho section? Just wondering. Seems like the La La Land section would be the logical place for a La La Land review.
I did post a version of the note on The La La Land-board.
I posted it here too because it's quite traditional on this board both to have OT (Off Topic) threads generally and especially to have an OT thread this time each year about the main Oscar contenders and the Awards Season generally. (I've changed the heading of this thread to make its meaning clearer.)
Note that one of the many things that is fascinating about Psycho is that although it's one of the few genuinely revolutionary films to become a massive popular hit, it did not receive much Oscar love (a few noms, no wins; no Best Picture nom., no actor nom. for Perkins, no editing nom. for Tomasini, no writing nom. for Stefano, no score nom. for Herrmann). Hence there is always a semi-connection between Psycho and the Oscars each year. Psycho gives you all of us here an angle on both the artsy side of film and the commercial side of film and also on the 'How Hollywood likes to Think of Itself' side of film that the Oscars represents. -
ecarle — 9 years ago(December 31, 2016 08:46 AM)
I did post a version of the note on The La La Land-board.
I posted it here too because it's quite traditional on this board both to have OT (Off Topic) threads generally
Yes.
One comment I would like to make about the "Psycho" board OT threads on movies is that if we take up current films, I think we are a bit "hidden" over here away from their main boards and the hundreds of posts often quite angry and combative that are the true heart of internet discourse.
We can slip in a few remarks in a different context over here. And many of us here are older than the usually imdb message commenters.
and especially to have an OT thread this time each year about the main Oscar contenders and the Awards Season generally. (I've changed the heading of this thread to make its meaning clearer.)
I noticed that you did that, swanstep, and I think its great to have this thread for another year.
That said, though I will read every post with great interest, I'm not sure I'll be able to personally join in too much. I'm not terribly into what seems to be out there for Oscar bait this year. Perhaps once a full list of nominees is announced and I have the "menu before me," I'll get in to it more. But not now.
I recall a few years ago working pretty hard to catch 'em Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Argo but honestly, this year's crop seems pretty esoteric. I just don't think I can get myself out to see much of this stuff. La La Land maybe it doesn't sound like a REAL musical. I mean, if Ryan Gosling can't really sing
I have some interest in seeing "Fences" and I'm intrigued to see Denzel as an Oscar frontrunner again. This because Denzel has certainly been willing to shall we say "sell himself out" as an aging action hero - in movies like "Two Guns," "The Equalizer" and "The Magnificent Seven." Good entertainments, all buthe was devaluing his Oscar brand(two so far he's won.)
Note that one of the many things that is fascinating about Psycho is that although it's one of the few genuinely revolutionary films to become a massive popular hit, it did not receive much Oscar love (a few noms, no wins; no Best Picture nom., no actor nom. for Perkins, no editing nom. for Tomasini, no writing nom. for Stefano, no score nom. for Herrmann).
Let's linger on the "badness" of three in particular: no nomination for Perkins iconic charaacter in movie history; no nomination for Herrmann's revolutionary makes-the-movie score, no nomination for editing in the movie with the damn shower scene!
Oh, and no nomination for Balsam as Best Supporting Actor.
Hence there is always a semi-connection between Psycho and the Oscars each year. Psycho gives you all of us here an angle on both the artsy side of film and the commercial side of film and also on the 'How Hollywood likes to Think of Itself' side of film that the Oscars represents
Yes, I've seen a few documentaries on Oscar where Psycho is held up as THE key movie that was snubbed overall in place of movies which even back in 1960 were "good for you" (Inherit the Wind, The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers, The Alamo) that haven't lasted nearly as well (Well, Inherit the Wind will always be a classic drama, I guess. But nobody went to see it at the movies in '60.)
The poignant Oscar tragedy(well, maybe that's too strong a word) for Psycho is that, had it come out 13 years later or more, it would have gotten more respect at least with nominations and probably wins. The Exorcist and Jaws got big nominations(Best Picture), the Jaws score won(for the reasons the Psycho score should have won.) And eventually movies like "Misery" and the Jackpot Thriller of "Silence of the Lambs" started WINNING Oscars.
Psycho just came out when there were too many "old fogie" voters.
I was looking to put this somewhere, and I guess I'll put it here:
David Thomson has a new book out called "Television." I want to give it its own post, and he talks about Psycho in it(even as the book is about television; Psycho and The Godfather are the two movies Thomson can NEVER stop talking about, even as he doesn't like the second half of Psycho.)
Anyway, Thomson reaches awards shows and uses as his centerpiece Ricky Gervais' devastating takedown remarks at the Golden Globes as a host. Thomson moves to his topics:
"For what (Gervais) had done in a matter of moments was to say that all awards shows were a sham and a shambles, dead meat waiting for vulturesin truth, the community that once bound together the Oscars and the people is forever shattered and beyond repairThe Academy Awards show is suffering a long , slow death. All Gervais had said was 'Look, heres a knife . Do it, put yourself out of our misery."
Thomson goes on: "Today, the well being of the Academy's money-raising night on television is threatened by the fact that seldom the winners are pictures enough people have seen."
Thomson is here coming to a place we've been before on this particular thread in previous years. I think we've found the rebuttals to that argume -
swanstep — 9 years ago(January 08, 2017 08:09 PM)
Hell or High Water continues the great tradition of the South-Western (Charley Varrick, Blood Simple, No Country) and is as comfortable and rewatchable as anything else in 2016 that's for sure. I'd certainly give HoHW a (losing) Best Picture nom and maybe a supporting nom for one of the four main actors who are all excellent. Bridges probably doesn't need another nod, so I'd probably vote for Chris Pine who's an unrecognizable revelation as the brains of the bank-robber team that drives HoHW's story.
HoHW is a will/must-see for anyone on Psycho's board I'd say. A simple story well-told with good characters and dialogue and all the resonances in place that you get from working mindfully in the Southwest. I imagine that in years to come HoHW's going to play very well on cable. -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 05, 2017 10:51 AM)
Hell or High Water continues the great tradition of the South-Western (Charley Varrick, Blood Simple, No Country) and is as comfortable and rewatchable as anything else in 2016 that's for sure.
OK. I finally saw me a 2016 Oscar movie! Watched in on pay per view.
Liked it a lot. It's clearly "my type of movie" (crime action "with character") and the Charley Varrick/No Country/Blood Simple vibe is strong.
Funny: Charley Varrick was largely set in New Mexico, but filmed in Nevada(making it easy to budget and film when the story moves to Reno.) Hell or High Water is set in Texasbut was filmed in New Mexico.
I'd certainly give HoHW a (losing) Best Picture nom and maybe a supporting nom for one of the four main actors who are all excellent. Bridges probably doesn't need another nod, so I'd probably vote for Chris Pine who's an unrecognizable revelation as the brains of the bank-robber team that drives HoHW's story.
It has ended up with four noms:
Picture
Original Screenplay
Editing
Bridges (Supporting).
Since I think the screenplay is great as screenplays should be (great dialogue, great characterization, great structure, surprises along the way) that's the film's best shot for a win. And there is always less competition in the Original Screenplay category because most films are written from other sources(novels, plays, short stories.)
Jeff Bridges has a 2009 Best Actor Oscar win(for playing a country singer from Texas, I believe) and a the-next-year 2010 nomination for HIS take on John Wayne's Oscar-winning Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Bridges is great in "High Water" but I fear his work is a bit too much like those two above. Still, were Jeff to add a Best Supporting Actor win to his Best Actor winit would put him in Jack Nicholson/Jack Lemmon range"one of the greats." But I expect one of the other Best Supporting nominees "does something more."
Best Picture? I doubt it. Best Film editing? Maybe. This movie MOVES. And it has some great camera work alongside the characters cars as they drive.
HoHW is a will/must-see for anyone on Psycho's board I'd say.
YesI suppose we can add Psycho itself kinda/sorta to the Charley Varrick/No Country for Old Men template. Psycho begins strongly in the Southwest (Phoenix, Arizona) and sports characters in Cassidy and California Charlie who would easily fit in Hell or High Water. Marion's embezzlement is a "stolen cash MacGuffin" that repeats in Varrick and No Country, and Arbogast and Sheriff Chambers rather repeat, too. (In No CountryArbogast is Woody Harrelson's ill-fated private eye and Tommy Lee Jones is John McIntire"kinda/sorta.") Though Psycho ends up in dusty backwater Northern California, it DOES have a Southwestern vibe and a robbery crime/cops undertow.
A simple story well-told with good characters and dialogue and all the resonances in place that you get from working mindfully in the Southwest.
As I say, I think the strongest chance for a win here is Best Original Screenplay. There is less competition in that category and this IS a good screenplay that gives its actors great roles to play and great lines to say. I can't remember most of the lines now, but I will(repeated viewings.)
And there's a bit in the middle of the film where an old, ornery waitress pretty much orders Texas Ranger Bridges and his Native American/Mexican American partner to order ONLY the steak on the menu, ONLY medium-rare. ("Everybody else does except one time we had a New Yorker in 1987 who tried to order TROUT. This isn't a trout kind of place!") A funny scene it does little or nothing to advance the story, its just there, and great. (And when the old broad snapped on the idea of "trout" I flashed back to Eve Kendall ordering trout on the train in NXNW: "A little trouty, but good.") And to Michael Moore wearing one of his ubiquitous caps in "Roger and Me." The cap said "I'm out for trout."
And so concludes my trout digression. I guess I find trout an interesting movie additive.
Its funny. One keeps waiting for Tommy Lee Jones to show up in High Water. And then one realizes: no, he's Jeff Bridges in this one.
Jeff Bridges was 61 when he made True Grit for 2010 release. So I figure he's 67 or 68 now. Bridges was an affable young man with an Adonis physique in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot(1974) and Cutter and Bone(1981)but he's aged over the years, and in High Water I was sad to see that he's aged beyond his True Grit grizzliness. He's still in good shape, but he's playing an old man in "High Water" and the performance takes that in as "a new twist to the old Jeff Bridges."
Two examples: though Bridges argues and racially insults his Texas Ranger partner amiably throughout the film(and vice versa), there comes a scene where Bridges is trying to explain his thoughts to his partner about where some bank robbers will strike next(using a map), and the partner keeps interrupting and Bridges surprisingly FOR Jeff Bridges gets "old man mad" (Grandpa style): "Will you shut up an -
swanstep — 9 years ago(January 09, 2017 03:30 PM)
I wasn't going to include
Elle
in this thread, but since it just won two Golden Globes (Best Actress in a Drama for Huppert; Best Foreign Film) I should say something after all.
Elle
is twisty and twisted, a purposefully outrageous psychological study of a very sick woman whose whole life is shaped by violence and whose sexuality is enfused with rape fantasy and reality.
Elle
is impressively committed to its own shockingness - this is Verhoeven we're talking about after all and his lead is the fearless Isabelle Huppert who's the master of this kind of role - but I ultimately found it rather pointless (or maybe I'm just too square for this sort of film?). We can't really embrace Huppert's completely mad character (and those who are effectively revealed as her accomplices) as any sort of valuable alternative lifestyle and the movie's own fast-exit from that implausibly radical thesis near the end (which I won't spoil) to me kind showed the game was up and that Verhoeven didn't know what he was doing beyond being a pure shock/perversity-merchant
Elle
isn't a million miles removed from Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2001) also with Huppert or from Almodovar when he's at his most outrageous, e.g., Talk To Her (2003), both of which I loved. But, I dunno, maybe they're all the smae thing at bottom and it's just that Haneke's austere precision and Almodovar's playfulness and sensualness are just more to my taste than (at least this instance of) Verhoeven's sick jokiness. At any rate, I imagine that other people's mileage will vary on these films!
One big line from
Elle
has stuck with me though. Near the end of the film Huppert hears a confession from a friend (who somewhat implausibly has no idea of the depths of Huppert's character's depravity) who's snooped on her husband and is ashamed of what she's done. Huppert replies very generally (but we the audience know it most definitely applies to her much more clearly than to her friend), 'Shame isn't a strong enough emotion to stop us from doing anything at all.' This line has resonated with me I think because of the current political situation a lot of anti-Trump activity has been shame-based. In effect people tried to shame others out of voting for Trump by pointing to his various disgusting views and attitudes and inviting them to be ashamed of him and of themselves to the extent that they either share those views and attitudes or are prepared to overlook them. But 'Shame isn't a strong enough emotion to stop us from doing anything at all.' I'm not sure why political disagreement and persuasion has ended up in this impotent key of shame (maybe Trump's vulgarity has triggered this modulation). but
Elle
at least helped me identify the problem! -
swanstep — 9 years ago(January 31, 2017 03:48 AM)
A mostly great-looking, great-sounding, well-acted film that despite being set in (an almost wholly black enclave of) South Florida feels like a foreign film. For one thing the Southern Black patois and slang was frequently impenetrable to me. There's a crucial dialogue when we find out what a main character has been doing something bad with his life but I really wasn't sure what that was: is he a drug-dealer? a sex-worker? There was in fact a later piece of dislogue that seemed to rule out sex-worker but really you know that something's become an obstacle when major plot points are having to be guessed at 10 minutes later. I could have used subtitles. For another thing the basic approach to visual and sonic story-telling is one that we're much more used to seeing from film-makers such as Lynne Ramsay (What Need To talk About Kevin, Morvern Callar, Ratcatcher), Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, Red Road), and there's some outright quoting from Wong Kar-Wai near the end. Character's drift in and out in ways that purposefully offend Hollywood story-telling conventions well two cheers at least for those conventions. I was irritated by the fact we never encounter the two best characters from the first half of the movie, played by Janelle Monae and (Oscar Nom'd and SAG supporting actor-winning) Mahershala Ali, are never heard of again. This felt like pure Euro-drift-affectation to me since it's almost inconceivable that the very lonely main character would have completely lost touch with these two supportive figures.
I suspect that the experience of being immersed in a what feels almost like foreign country inside the US is what some Americans in particular are finding affecting about Moonlight, but I'm not especially impressed. I've been a big fan of recent what we might call 'enclaves within the US' films from Beasts of the Southern Wild to Winter's Bone to (iPhone-shot) Tangerine, and Moonlight is the least interesting and affecting to me of these films (albeit it's possibly the best-looking and -sounding - it's amazing how great that technical side can be on a small budget these days). I wouldn't give Moonlight a Best Picture nod over much more satisfying things like Love and Friendship and Julieta (not first-rate Almodovar but as with Hitchcock, second-rate Almodovar is still better than most other peoples' A-games) or even Zootopia or The Nice Guys.
And there's no way that Moonlight is a threat to La La Land's front-runner status. The late charge of Hidden Figures (which I haven't seen yet) into the Awards frame now makes sense to me: people who want to stop La La Land need a film to coalesce around and something more polished and generally satisfying story-wise than Moonlight is definitely needed if that's to happen. HF is evidently it!
One flaw for me with Moonlight's mostly amazing score-work and sound-design is that at a crucial juncture it reuses the central musical cue from Almodovars's masterpiece Talk to Her (2003). As with The Artist re-using cues from Vertigo, this score-snatching is a disaster - The Artist wasn't nearly as good as Vertigo and Moonlight isn't nearly as good as Talk to Her. Don't remind us! And the emotions of the original are actually completely inappropriate to the new contexts so gears grind and you're instantly out of the movie. Bad mistake. -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 02, 2017 09:42 PM)
It is educational and giving me pleasure to read these posts, swanstep.
I'm also distraught to say..I have not seen any of these movies.
Some of it has been schedule; the rest of it finding people to see them with. I may catch a few on my own.
Is it looking like La-La-Land as the BP winner to you?
I will try to see at least one of these and say SOMETHING here. I figure "Hell or High Water" is the natch given "my type of movie." And my love of Jeff Bridges, the Biggest Movie Star Who Was Never a Big Movie Star. I loved his Oscar speech(for a movie nobody saw): "They may have to knock off with all this underrated talk."
PS. To give just one indication of my slowness on catching up with Oscar bait, I only JUST THE OTHER NIGHT watched "Dallas Buyers Club" on cable. Its the 2013 film that won Oscars for McConaghey and Leto. Impressive in some ways, distressing in othersthe "affliction" Oscar syndrome strikes again. And weight loss as ticket to Oscar gold. But a good movie, certainly.
I liked the part where an AIDS-stricken (and hetero) MM learns that a sole AIDS-stricken woman has come into his clinic filled with AIDS-stricken men. MM and the woman a total stranger both end up within moments having sex in the bathroom: two people who have had to swear off sex, hungrily getting it from their "infected twins." -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 09, 2017 04:38 AM)
MBTS is a stately, mournful picture that for me is too simple and never really takes off. It doesn't help that the big mid-picture reveal of 'the secret' behind all the mournfulness (which the film has rather contrivedly hidden from us up till that point) is (a) filmed with no visual verve whatsoever, and (b) is soundtracked by the too on-the-nose Albinoni Adagio that's such an overused signifier of grief at this point that it's now a complete joke fit only to be been used in Larry David/Louis CK-style lampoons of seriousness.
All the acting's great but the actors are not given a single line of memorable dialogue to work with. Put that weakness together with 'not containing a single memorable image or strong visual idea' and I think it's fair to say that MBTS is at best only a very partial success. For me, it's indubitable that MBTS is Lonergan's weakest film, and that it's probably only about 50% as valuable as You Can Count On Me (2000) in particular.
Part of the problem is that there are regularly spectacular films in world cinema about family disasters of one sort or another, but that means we know very well what a great lugubrious film looks and feels like: like most Bergman movies or Room or A Separation or Once Upon A Time In Anatolia or The War Zone or Force Majeure or Amour or Red Road or Son of Saul or certain seasons of Mad Men, not like MBTS (unless for some reason I'm just not getting it).
I thought Moonlight had its problems, but I still prefer it to MBTS. There's not a chance in hell that Manchester By The Sea stops La La Land picking up Best Picture or probably any of the other awards it's due to win. For me the clear order of the big three Oscar contenders is LLL > M > MBTS. Non-contenders like Hell or High Water, The Handmaiden, Elle, Sing Street, The Witch, Zootopia are also way ahead of MBTS in my view.
I still haven't seen The Lobster or The Wailing or Toni Erdmann or American Honey or 20C Women, but I'd be amazed if a bunch of those don't slot in well above MBTS too. In the final analysis, MBTS probably won't make my top-20 films of 2016. Someone (the NY film critics circle?) loved MBTS. What were they thinking? -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 09, 2017 06:21 AM)
There's not a chance in hell that Manchester By The Sea stops La La Land picking up Best Picture or probably any of the other awards it's due to win. For me the clear order of the big three Oscar contenders is LLL > M > MBTS. Non-contenders like Hell or High Water, The Handmaiden, Elle, Sing Street, The Witch, Zootopia are also way ahead of MBTS in my view
Man, I've only seen one of those Hell or High Water, which, were it to win(hah), would be like Charley Varrick winning. Sort of. Idea being: a well-written, tight little Southwest thriller with something to think about but nobody's idea of what a "Best Picture" should be. The SOMEWHAT similar Southwest thriller, "No Country for Old Men," on the other hand, had the power of the source novel and the profundity of many scenes and dialogue stretches like the villain chatting up the store clerk about his life depending on the flip of a coin. Plus, "No Country" played like an art film, with climaxes not happening and everything up in the air at the end.
This seems to be shaping up to be a weird Oscar season. We've seen this before, but the gap between these movies and what even PART of the general public knows or sees, is wide.
"Moonlight" is there to negate last year's "Oscar so white" issue(along with Fences), and we can figure the anti-Trump, pro-immigration spirit will be strong. This looks to be an Oscar show more about our American times than about American movies.
The other weird thing: with all its nominations, "La La Land" looks to win big almost by default nothing else there. But I notice that SNL has gone on the offensive kinda/sorta AGAINST La La Land. A couple of weeks ago they did a sketch where cops heavy-footed some poor soul in the interrogation room for NOT liking La La Land. This week's joke on the Update segment was that" only white people" like La La Land whichis kind of sad. Where things are today. -
movieghoul — 9 years ago(February 09, 2017 01:23 PM)
The minority boost doesn't stop with Moonlight and Fences, there's also Hidden Figures, which is actually neck and neck with La La Land at the BO, and Lion.
Of these four, I've only seen Lion which was pretty good but I would have liked more if it wasn't a Weinstein production, because that reminded me that I was watching the same film as their 2013 Oscar bait Philomena. -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 09, 2017 09:52 PM)
The minority boost doesn't stop with Moonlight and Fences, there's also Hidden Figures, which is actually neck and neck with La La Land at the BO, and Lion.
Of these four, I've only seen Lion which was pretty good but I would have liked more if it wasn't a Weinstein production, because that reminded me that I was watching the same film as their 2013 Oscar bait Philomena.
Good to realize that the minority boost is extensive. I suppose that makes a statement either about the "oddity" of last year's all white nominees, or perhaps some studios worked extra hard to greenlight more "minority films."
Well, I've READ about all of these, but I'm feeling a certain embarrassment not to be able to really discuss them.
Its as if I'm having a discussion about "the Oscar movies" with an understanding that they really aren't FOR me any morelike certain art in certain galleries.
I mean, hey , how about the five Best Picture nominees of 1967:
Bonnie and Clyde
Doctor Doolittle
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
In the Heat of the Night
The Graduate
I saw ALL of those, and pretty much within months of release, tops.
But who knows, maybe today I wouldn't. John Wick, instead. Hah. -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 09, 2017 02:11 PM)
The other weird thing: with all its nominations, "La La Land" looks to win big almost by default nothing else there. But I notice that SNL has gone on the offensive kinda/sorta AGAINST La La Land. A couple of weeks ago they did a sketch where cops heavy-footed some poor soul in the interrogation room for NOT liking La La Land. This week's joke on the Update segment was that" only white people" like La La Land whichis kind of sad. Where things are today.
I know what SNL is getting at: It probably is social suicide to not like LLL if you're in certain sorts of crowds (I remember feeling that pressure when I lived in Seattle around 2000 about, of all things, Sofia Coppola's debut The Virgin Suicides: every gal I was trying to date loved it and it was ruining my social life hence I nicknamed it 'The Virgin Social Suicides') and LLL does feel like a paradigmatic entry on a 'Stuff white people like' list from about a decade ago. But these jokes are old and reductive and a bit depressing.
And yes the 'nothing else there' phenomenon is real I'm afraid - Moonlight and Manchester were picked out early as the only serious contenders (i.e., with LLL as the default) and they're just not good enough. I really understand now why there's clearly been some sort of push to find something else, e.g., 'Hidden Figures' but it sounds like that's just an OK-ish 'true story' picture. (but that was enough for Argo to sneak up on the outside and win a few years back!).
This seems to be shaping up to be a weird Oscar season. We've seen this before, but the gap between these movies and what even PART of the general public knows or sees, is wide.
I think it's just one of those years where most of the the real contenders weren't really ready for their close-up. Two years ago Birdman had to win Best Picture because Boyhood/Imitation Game/Theory Of Everything/Selma simply weren't good enough, vigorously written or directed enough to win the biggest awards, so Birdman more or less won by default. This pattern certainly makes for sulky Oscars! The tone is 'Everyone feels free to snark because everyone's pretty sure that no one really deserves it.' -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 06:45 PM)
Seinfeld had a couple of great episodes on the theme of having to like prestige Oscar winners (even if you really think they suck). Schindler's List and The English Patient.
I recall Elaine screaming with boredom through The English Patient whichyou may recallbeat out the cult favorite(and much more entertaining) "Fargo" in 1996.
I don't recall the Schindler's List references.
Ironically enough, I saw both of those pictures. I saw a lot more movies like that back then, mainly because of a relationship. I thought List was great(with emotion in the Spielberg tradition) and I was fine with The English Patient.
But I much preferred Fargo MY favorite movie of 1996.
The die is cast on Oscar. "It is what it is."
To me, the bigger issue is the Oscar telecast. People still tune in by the multi-millions. It as if the event and the draw of viewers not wanting to MISS the event has become much bigger that the movies it salutes. Also, I have read the Oscar Ceremony described, TV-audience-wise as "the gay SuperBowl."
And, there are movie stars there.
Including, one year, Will Smith, who introduced the Best Special Effects Oscar by saying "I'm here to introduce the nominees for Best Special Effectswhich is an award given to movies that PEOPLE ACTUALLY GO TO SEE." Smith said that with disgust and it felt like real disgust to me. Maybe he asked for that category to make that statement. -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 11:13 PM)
Including, one year, Will Smith, who introduced the Best Special Effects Oscar by saying "I'm here to introduce the nominees for Best Special Effectswhich is an award given to movies that PEOPLE ACTUALLY GO TO SEE." Smith said that with disgust and it felt like real disgust to me. Maybe he asked for that category to make that statement.
This reminded me of a point I heard urged on a podcast a while back: if we think of 'movies that PEOPLE ACTUALLY GO TO SEE' as equivalent to 'sfx-driven far-fetched spectacle and fantasy' then ultra-glamorous movie stars are not only surplus to requirements, they're actual liabilities. That is, since the high-concept content of these films is very far-fetched and way out it's better for the actors to be relatively normal looking to sell these crazy worlds to us to, to be Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider and Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher and Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn and Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray and Veronica Cartwright and Harry Dean Stanton and Michael J. Fox and Shia LeBoeuff and Mark Wahlberg and Melissa McCarthy. The converse case is the film that's set in essentially the real world where movie-star glamor is useful to heighten and make interesting something that everyone does (fall in love, lose love, fall ill, get old, have issues with ones family, have life/work balance problems, and so on).
Of course there are plenty of movie-star-laden vehicles that lots of people go to see and there are also plenty of sfx-driven fantasies that have glamorous movie-stars in key roles (including some with Will Smitf in them), but Will Smith was putting his finger on something real: that sfx extravaganzas are in tension with movie-stars and the glamor they represent. -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 11, 2017 05:51 AM)
This reminded me of a point I heard urged on a podcast a while back: if we think of 'movies that PEOPLE ACTUALLY GO TO SEE' as equivalent to 'sfx-driven far-fetched spectacle and fantasy'
Which though you are about to make a different point is sort of the problem with where we are now.
If movies that PEOPLE ACTUALLY GO TO SEE are mega-effects comic epics with no real differentiation among themour movie business is indeed a shadow of its 20th Century, vibrant, story-driven self. We know that people went to see mindlessly, all over the world(and, snorted one critic, the "mouth breathers" of the world), bad movies like Batman vs Superman last year. (Suicide Squad with Will Smith! I give a bit more of a pass; it was pretty good for the first two acts and then fell apart.)
then ultra-glamorous movie stars are not only surplus to requirements, they're actual liabilities.
I was quizzical for a moment,.
That is, since the high-concept content of these films is very far-fetched and way out it's better for the actors to be relatively normal looking to sell these crazy worlds to us to, to be Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider and Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher and Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn and Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray and Veronica Cartwright and Harry Dean Stanton and Michael J. Fox and Shia LeBoeuff and Mark Wahlberg and Melissa McCarthy.
And then I got itgood point. I expect so often here, the producers knew so much of their budget was necessary for effects, and/or to serve a "story bigger than any star"(Jaws)that hiring a top marquee name was unnecessary.
That said, I always found it funny that "Jaws" novel writer Peter Benchley said the movie should star "Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and Robert Redford." Too much star power, too expensive, too fantastic of a hope to land all three(two of them could be gotten, maybe, but not three)and then I saw it: Paul Newman as the steady but anxiety-ridden Chief Brody, Steve McQueen as the rugged Quint, Robert Redford(perhaps with eyeglasses) as the brainy Hooper. I'll bet that Benchley knew the star casting would work for the characterseven as it would be impossible to pull off in "real Hollywood life."
The converse case is the film that's set in essentially the real world where movie-star glamor is useful to heighten and make interesting something that everyone does (fall in love, lose love, fall ill, get old, have issues with ones family, have life/work balance problems, and so on).
True, but I expect the problem here is that stars are so expensive, its hard to get them cast into these stories. Indie film ALSO uses "lesser stars."
THAT said, what stars often do nowadays is "set up shop" in a blockbuster franchise(Depp in Pirates)and do smaller pictures on the side("The Rum Diaries.")
But this brings up one of my other points: the role of the star is simply different now. Folks used to go see a Bogart picture to see BOGART. Hopefully in a good drama or crime picture, but driven not by action or effects, but by the star AS a star.
That happens a bit now, but not a lot.
Of course there are plenty of movie-star-laden vehicles that lots of people go to see and there are also plenty of sfx-driven fantasies that have glamorous movie-stars in key roles (including some with Will Smitf in them), but Will Smith was putting his finger on something real: that sfx extravaganzas are in tension with movie-stars and the glamor they represent.
Yes, but he was also pointing out I guess even back when he appeared that too often the Oscar movies are NOT seen by many people. The films that won Marcia Gay Harden, Julianne Moore, and Forrest Whitaker their Oscars (to name but a few)nobody saw.
And Hollywood has rather trapped itself into this situation. Its hard to make major budget, major star Oscar bait.
Though it happens. Denzel in Fences this year, for instance (even as he made the Mag 7 to have a popular hit on his resume the same year.) -
movieghoul — 9 years ago(February 13, 2017 09:48 AM)
As I recall, the premise of the SL episode of Seinfeld was that Jerry is goaded by his parents into seeing it, but has difficulty discussing it with them later, understandably since he spent the whole film making out with his girlfriend.
Yes, there are movie stars at the Oscars, but unlike the good old days, there a re movie stars EVERYWHERE so it's no longer the treat it was. Remember when millions tuned in to What's My Line? every Sunday wondering if they would have a rare chance to see one of their favorite stars?