2019 Acadamy Awards

[LarBrd33]

I saw all the Oscar nominated films. My opinion if anyone cares…

I think you could make the case that 4 or 5 of them didn’t deserve to even be nominated.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" - Arguably the worst movie ever nominated. 49/100 on metacritic. Generic music biopic, but I wouldn’t even say it’s a top 15 movie in that genre. Rami Malek did a solid job lip-syncing. Super weird it’s nominated.

"BlacKkKlansman" - I liked it overall, but a lot of the things being hailed as features felt like bugs to me. Really bizarre editing choices resulted in what I felt were pacing issues. Tonally, it was all over the place. Went from being comedy, to serious, to preachy, to a made up slapstick ending that kind of undermined the serious points of the true story. If Spike Lee wins awards, it’s probably to credit him for better movies he’s made throughout his career.

"Green Book" - Saw it last night and enjoyed it, but it’s paint-by-numbers Oscar bait. Quality choice to watch on an airplane. Similar to above, if this wins any awards I’ll assume it’s to credit director Peter Farrelly for his storied career of better films - classics like Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin.

"Black Panther" - It’s a top-tier Marvel film and I'm a fan. One of the most intriguing superhero villains. Deserves credit for production/costume design. Very likable, but 88 out of 100 on metacritic was a bit extreme and it’s odd to see it nominated for best picture.

"Vice" - This one is pretty polarizing. Critics had this as the second lowest rated movie (67/100), but I understand why some would have it as the top film of the year. I really dig the style Adam McKay brought to this (similar to “Big Short”) so I was more slanted towards the positive side and could see Bale winning best actor.

"Roma" - This one is being hailed as a masterpiece. The highest rated film by critics (96/100). I got mad at myself for struggling to get into it and I partially blame the fact it wasn’t released in theaters where I could allow myself to be immersed instead of Netflix where I too often felt a desire to reach for my phone. I love the director, but I also think I didn’t love this movie for the same reasons I didn’t love “Dunkirk”. In both movies, story and character are less important than the masterful cinematography and sound design creating a sweeping immersion which can be described as “virtual reality without the headset”. I expect it to win.

"A Star is Born" - I was impressed with Bradley Cooper’s directing. It had a couple of the most memorable scenes of the year. I could see either of the leads winning best actor/actress. I felt that an adherence to the tradition of the story (the 4th version dating back to the 1937 original) held it back a little. The home stretch just feels a little ridiculous despite Cooper making some clever choices to modernize the familiar beats.

"The Favourite" - Critics adored it (90/100) for good reason. Exceptionally well done. Gorgeous cinematography. Brilliant performances. It’s a tough hang, though. It’s hilarious, but also really dark and at times pretty uncomfortable to watch. It’s outstanding, but not necessarily likable. I expect Roma to win, but if I had to choose, I’d probably give the award to this one.

… There were some movies that didn’t get nominated that I thought deserved more credit and arguably belonged on the list:

"Sorry to Bother You" (80/100 metacritic): One of the most creative and unique films I’ve ever seen. It’s a little insane, but I dug it and would have nominated it over several of the above movies.

"Eighth Grade" (90/100 metacritic): I loved this one so much I watched it twice. My second favorite film of the year. I’m really surprised it didn’t get nominated for anything. Maybe Bo Burnham didn’t campaign hard enough? The movie had such a clear voice. The pool party scene might be my favorite of the entire year. Maybe I just strongly relate to being an anxious 13 year old girl?

"Shoplifters" (93/100 on metacritic): I just saw this one a couple days ago and loved it. It would be my choice over “Roma” for best foreign language film.

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" (87/100 on metacritic): Legit my favorite movie of the year. I’ll just cut and paste what I saw a critic write, because it's spot-on: “This movie is what would happen if you took all the action and complex plots from the live-action Marvel movies, added the heart, humor and relatability of a Pixar film, with all of the dialogue by the staff writers of Atlanta.” Add to that, stylistically it’s a groundbreaking animated film that belongs on the list of the best all-time. The Oscars don’t matter, but I’ll genuinely be angry if this doesn’t win for Best Animated Film.

[Chief]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

[fairweatherfan]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

[Chief]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

[Roy H.]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

It was, and for the time, it was pretty cutting edge, along with being entertaining and heart felt.

I don't see that choice as a failure of the Academy.  It was a good movie in a field of other good (possibly slightly better) movies.

But, there have been some poor movies that won.  The English Patient, for starters.  It was a down year for Oscar-worthy movies, but that film was downright boring, and yet won nine awards, including Best Picture. 

[Big333223]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

It was, and for the time, it was pretty cutting edge, along with being entertaining and heart felt.

I don't see that choice as a failure of the Academy.  It was a good movie in a field of other good (possibly slightly better) movies.

But, there have been some poor movies that won.  The English Patient, for starters.  It was a down year for Oscar-worthy movies, but that film was downright boring, and yet won nine awards, including Best Picture.

Yeah, I'm a Forrest Gump defender too. Pulp Fiction might be the better movie but Gump is good enough that it's not a mistake the way that, like, Shakespeare In Love beating Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line was an obvious failure.

Green Book winning feels like an obvious failure. Setting aside the controversies and politics that surrounded it, it just wasn't that good of a movie. It was competently made and has one very good performance in it and otherwise... there's nothing there. It has nothing to say at all. There's nothing particularly inventive in the filmmaking. The script is, as LarBrd said, paint-by-numbers. It's a B-.It's ok to like it but to think it was the best movie that came out this year and pretend to know anything about movies... I don't get it.

I did terribly with my predictions (although I was really glad to be wrong and see Olivia Coleman win) but I think the Academy did worse than I did.

[footey]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

It was, and for the time, it was pretty cutting edge, along with being entertaining and heart felt.

I don't see that choice as a failure of the Academy.  It was a good movie in a field of other good (possibly slightly better) movies.

But, there have been some poor movies that won.  The English Patient, for starters.  It was a down year for Oscar-worthy movies, but that film was downright boring, and yet won nine awards, including Best Picture.

Forrest Gump was cutting edge? No it wasn't. It was quite formulaic, and benefited from a cliche driven soundtrack.

[PhoSita]

Crash comes to mind.

[Big333223]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

It was, and for the time, it was pretty cutting edge, along with being entertaining and heart felt.

I don't see that choice as a failure of the Academy.  It was a good movie in a field of other good (possibly slightly better) movies.

But, there have been some poor movies that won.  The English Patient, for starters.  It was a down year for Oscar-worthy movies, but that film was downright boring, and yet won nine awards, including Best Picture.

Forrest Gump was cutting edge? No it wasn't. It was quite formulaic, and benefited from a cliche driven soundtrack.

He was probably talking about the movie's technical aspects. Digitally amputating Gary Sinese's legs was cutting edge at the time.

[footey]

Oscars made me laugh. Having to listen to everyone's political opinion is bad enough (not why we watch) but now we have to endure head scratching winners too.

Now? A quarter-century ago Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Plenty of earlier examples too.

Although Shawshank and Pulp Fiction have held up better over time, I thought Forrest Gump was the favorite going in.

It was, and for the time, it was pretty cutting edge, along with being entertaining and heart felt.

I don't see that choice as a failure of the Academy.  It was a good movie in a field of other good (possibly slightly better) movies.

But, there have been some poor movies that won.  The English Patient, for starters.  It was a down year for Oscar-worthy movies, but that film was downright boring, and yet won nine awards, including Best Picture.

Forrest Gump was cutting edge? No it wasn't. It was quite formulaic, and benefited from a cliche driven soundtrack.

He was probably talking about the movie's technical aspects. Digitally amputating Gary Sinese's legs was cutting edge at the time.

That's true, but should not have catapulted it to Best Picture from my perspective.  It was wildly popular, but the AA are pretty good not to factor that in too much.

[Big333223]

Making some sense out of Greenbook's win, this New York Times piece about how 20 Oscar voters chose to evaluate the nominees now feels important: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/movies/best-picture-oscars-voters.html

On Green Book:

One voter, a studio executive in his 50s, admitted that his support for “Green Book” was rooted in rage. He said he was tired of being told what movies to like and not like. (Much of the public debate about “Green Book” has turned on its handling of racial issues, which some see as woefully retrograde and borderline bigoted.)

It’s been hard for me to imagine a person who really knows and cares about movies, thinking Green Book was actually the best movie made this year. Well, this suggests that there is a contingent of angry, defensive voters who don’t want to be told how to feel and voted for this mediocre Oscar bait out of spite.

On Roma:

Do we vote for “Roma” because we think it’s the best? Or do we withhold our support — regardless of the film’s artistic merit — because we see Netflix as a threat to moviegoing? Although the company pushed “Roma” into about 250 independent theaters in the United States, on par with many foreign-language releases, the streaming giant mostly bypasses cinemas. There are voters in both camps. A couple of those in the anti-Netflix group told me that they would vote for Cuarón for best director as a way to assuage their guilt.

Cuarón was personally nominated for 4 Oscars last night and won 3 of them, losing only Best Picture. This supports the idea that they withheld voting for a superior movie because they hate/fear Netflix.

This is all subjective, I know. But there are also truths that can’t be ignored. The Godfather is a better movie than Dumb and Dumber. Even if you derive more pure joy from watching Dumb and Dumber, craftsmanship exists. These opinions, while not unimpeachable, can be evaluated with an attempt toward being objective. For me, Roma is, objectively, a better movie than Green Book. Roma wasn’t my favorite movie I saw this year but it was a better made movie in nearly every respect (I preferred The Favourite, but there were 5 or 6 movies I would’ve been fine with winning best picture, not all were even nominated).

As for the controversies, here's excerpt from a piece from Shadow And Act about how irresponsible the filmmakers behind Green Book were while making the film:

…journalists, the screenwriters, the director, the producers, the distributor, the marketing department, and the stars of the film all rested comfortably on the word of the blatantly racist and self-described “bullEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. artist” Tony Vallelonga to tell this story about a Black man in the ‘60s.

Why?

When asked by Shadow And Act via email if he would provide evidence that Dr. Shirley and Tony Vallelonga were close friends as he claims, Nick Vallelonga did not respond.

When asked via email if knowing his father was a racist ever made him question his father’s characterizations of Dr. Shirley, a Black man, Nick Vallelonga did not respond.

When asked via email why he did not involve Dr. Shirley’s family in the creation of the Dr. Shirley character for this film, Nick Vallelonga did not respond.

When asked via email for supporting evidence that Dr. Shirley actually gave him permission to make this movie, Nick Vallelonga did not respond.

https://shadowandact.com/the-real-donald-shirley-green-book-hollywood-swallowed-whole

[CptZoogs]

To me, the Academy Awards are like someone took ESPN Power Rankings and elevated them to an absurd status level.  The nominations and awards are heavily influenced by subjective taste, temporal whimsy, and industry politics.  Sometimes the academy's choices align with mine and many times they don't.  I am not even sure why people in the industry get so worked up about them because they are not always the best predictor or mechanism for future success.  Time will tell which of these films, either recognized or overlooked, prove to have a lasting imprint on cinema.

[fairweatherfan]

Crash comes to mind.

I like to pretend that was just the Cronenburg movie.


Forrest Gump was always shmaltzy, feel-good Oscar bait. Hanks and Wright gave strong performances, the digital editing was really well-done (don't forget inserting Hanks into historical footage), but the overall culture war theme coupled with refusing to challenge the audience in any way managed to be both bland and noxious. The cinematic equivalent of watching conservative Boomers patting themselves on the back for 2 hours - at least that's the G-rated version of the analogy.

[nickagneta]

I stated it after the nominations came out that Rami Malek was such an easy prediction to not only get nominated but win. The Academy just love well done biopic performances.

[CptZoogs]

I stated it after the nominations came out that Rami Malek was such an easy prediction to not only get nominated but win. The Academy just love well done biopic performances.

Has anyone else besides me completely soured on biopics as a genre?  I just have no taste for them anymore, no matter who the subject is.  The few exceptions are pictures that focus more on specific events rather than the person's entire life.