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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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? -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 11, 2017 05:51 AM)
TE isn't nom'd for Best Picture but is close to a sure thing for Best Foreign Language Film, is one of the year's best films, and is destined for a (probably Oscar-laden) Hollywood remake that brings Jack Nicholson out of retirement.so let's talk about it here!
TE is a 2 hour 40 min worldwide comedy hit from Germany - a rare beast! The story of a retired father trying to (re)connect with his business executive daughter who's consulting in Romania mostly TE feels somewhat specific and gritty and real (it's mostly (totally?) shot hand-held and with very loose, catch-as-catch-can framing) but the story is also pretty universal. It could be remade very successfully I think. TE's tone is not a million miles removed from that of Alexander Payne's films, esp. About Schmidt and Sideways and Nebraska. There's also a bit of James L. Brooks in there somewhere albeit filtered through the more verite stylings and with a bit of the cringe factor comedy that one associates mostly things like Louis CK and The Office on TV. TE has two great roles - the father and the daughter and both will be automatic Oscars noms and probably wins if the remake turns out well. There are 3 or 4 instant classic scenes and some good monologues here - meaty stuff. And there are at least a couple of scenes that, while very good, don't quite fulfil their potential in my view - I can just see a Payne or PTA or David O. Russell rubbing their hands at the thought of having a crack at this material.
TE doesn't strike me as a perfect film by any means - other takes on this underlying strong material could improve it possibly making both funnier and more poignant. And I'm bemused by Sight and Sound choosing it as the best film of 2016 (one suspects that if essentially the same film had come out of Hollywood then it would have been condescended to by that publication as very middle brow, white people's problems).
But TE is a classic script/scenario and good fun and poignant throughout with two peach roles for an older man and a middle-aged woman. People are going to crawl over broken glass to get these roles in the US remake. It sounds as though Jack Nicholson is going to come out of retirement to play the father, and it appears that he'd be perfect for that role. The same reports suggested Kristen Wiig had been offered the daughter-role. She could work but the German actress playing the daughter is exactly half-way between Cate Blanchett and Jessica Chastain. Both will undoubtedly be pressing their cases and sending 'Please explain' notes to the relevant studios if they aren't closely considered. But every other actress of note with a line in uptight and skinny is also going to compete like crazy for this role - all your Watts's, Paltrows, Therons, etc are going to demand a shot. We know Jack likes JLaw - that might make the difference (although she's a little young as she often is!). All power to Wiig if she can hold off all of the competition that's coming. -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 12, 2017 12:28 AM)
Ha, Passengers is not a contender at all but I just got around to seeing it and there's something interesting I believe to say about its reception, so here goes
I read four or 5 tepid reviews and antagonistic semi-think-pieces about Passengers on its release and they were enough to convince me to wait to watch it at home. The striking thing now I've seen the film is that while the reviews and think-pieces were right that Passengers is a dud, the reasons that I recall being offered for that judgement are way off the mark.
The big complaint I remember people having, especially in the think-pieces, was that they thought the film didn't grapple sufficiently with the ghastliness of Chris Pratt's character, Jim's decision to wake up JLaw's character Aurora (ha! sleeping beauty, screenwriter Spaihts just can't stop himself can he? - more on him later) from hibernation (and then not 'fess up that that's what he did), the stalkerishness of how Jim selects Aurora to be woken, and so on. The ending of the film (in which
Aurora has the chance to go back to sleep but decides instead to stick it out with Jim
)in particular was singled out for being an instance of 'Stockholm Syndrome' disgustingly posing as a happy ending.
Having seen the film, I think that none of this basic feministy, 'right on' criticism has any merit whatsoever. Indeed that people so reflexively advanced a kind of snarky supposedly pro-woman agenda at the expense not even trying to understand the film they were watching is almost enough to have me think things like 'Hey, maybe those Trump-voters have a point about "political correctness gone mad"? (Ditto for when I recently heard a young woman on a podcast talking about The Terminator (1984) and suggesting that Kyle Reese was such a jerk for 'mansplaining' to Sarah Connor about robots, etc.)
The film dwells at length on the unique terribleness and understandableness of Jim's decision to wake up Aurora. She literally almost kills him when she finds out what he did, and does not even begin to reconcile with him until they have to work together to save the whole ship from destruction.
Without going into spoilerish detail the movie does offer redemption to Jim both in our eyes and in Aurora's because it turns out that the collisions that led to Jim waking up did also cause slowly spreading damage to the rest of the ship. Without him and also Aurora awake to do something about that the ship's destroyed. It just does change the moral calculus if it turns out that Jim's waking of Aurora allowed them to save their own lives and those of 5000 others. The film is perhaps guilty of not hitting this basic point hard enough, but you have to be a bit thick or politically blinded to not get it.
Why according to me is Passengers a dud if the principal criticisms of the film are so weak? The big problem is Spaihts's script at the nuts and bolts level. Two thing that judging now from his scripts for Prometheus and Passengers that Spaihts just can't do:- Write causal dialogue that feels alive. Some people from Shakespeare to Mamet and QT have this talent and some do not. Spaihts does not - he needs to bring in a dialogue specialist to fix his damn scripts on this front. (Truly this script is a reminder that QT could have made a very good living even if he's never made anything after Reservoir Dogs just doing dialogue polishes on other people's scripts. Pratt and Jlaw both when they're chipper and when they're stressed out and screaming come across as flat and finally unbelievable. Their dialogue is so bland in fact that we don't like either of them and have no interest in their relationship. Both their voices, and especially Lawrence's end up very exposed and grate on us (this film is a disaster for JLaw - cut-price J-Law in Mag 7 is much better, has much better dialogue to work with).
- Write good philosophical exposition. Good films and especially good sci-fi often has a few big ideas floating around and there's an art to writing them up in expository dialogue or VO so that they capture our imaginations and don't sound trivial. Spaihts on the evidence of these two films doesn't know how to do this.
I think the basic story outline/treatment-level for Passengers is actually quite good - this film could have been a minor classic if someone else, Duncan Jones say, had written the actual script from the treatment.
There's a lot more that one could say about this film but it's not clear that it's worth it.* Passengers is sort of fascinating: it's an unjustly lambasted but nonetheless deserved big flop that really needn't have been.
- The Physics seemed a little undeveloped. The seemed to be uncertain about how they were generating gravity (it's supposed to be through spinning, which is the sort of thing that can't be turned on and off instantaenously - it'll alsways take enormous amounts of energy to stop or start spinning in a relatively gravoty-free vacuum - but at some points a 'gravity drive' that can be turne