Don't know if I'd call it Oscar bait, but it was certainly desperate in trying to appear profound and meaningful. It's up there with Sucker Punch, where the director is seriously punching above their weight. That dramatic bathroom dance scene was bordering on parody.Adam Jensen said:
Last night, I watched Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and posted thoughts on it today in the ?Last Movie You Watched? thread. Do me a favor and read my post and tell me what I missed; I thought this film was awful. It had all the makings of and potential for a great film, but it failed across the board in my humble opinion, and while I couldn?t care less about Oscars, I?m am absolutely astounded it?s been nominated for as many as it has been. Best Actor/Supporting Actor, fine; DiCaprio and Pitt did a great job, but what they were asked to do and the context in which they were asked to do it was a bland, boring mess. Best Picture?? Get the hell out of here?PsychedelicDiamond said:
Imagine not focusing on the race and just seeing good movies getting awards cause they're just good movies and nothing more.McElroy said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
This really is just an American qualm, but then the ceremony is also American, meant to reward American movies (foreign category nods aside). I'm pretty sure nobody else around the globe cares about the racial bouquet of the nominees.Dreiko said:
Yeah but you have easily enough dual citizens or foreign national residents in America that you could theoretically apply to them the same consideration you'd give other groups. There's definitely more of em than there are trans people for one.Johnny Novgorod said:
They should just expand the number of nominees from 5 to 10. I'm pretty sure the "best movie" category used to be limited to 5 movies in the past.Johnny Novgorod said:
The political fucking about is the most entertaining part of the Oscars. Of almost any award show when you think about it.Dreiko said:
The answer is racism. You see, the movies must have diverse casts and production teams so when the diverse audience watches them they feel they are included.Johnny Novgorod said:
Exactly. The more you shake up those old sponges the better. The louder the groaning of the media the better. Controversy for the win.Wintermute said:
The Academy Awards is the ceremony where the US film industry celebrates itself so it's good for it's own image if it actually promotes the work of minority actors. (As for the demographics, the US is about 75% white, so your chances of picking ten white Americans at random from the whole population are 0.75?⁰, which is about 5.6%, so a highly unlikely but not negligibly unlikely outcome)Johnny Novgorod said:
Banderas is from Andalusia so he doesn't really count as a Latino.
An argument you could probably silence in about three seconds by pointing to both 1917 and Ford vs. Ferrari. I mean, I get that there are things in life that blow chunks and I don't mind a movie being made about it, even a bad one. But having the fucking Joker as your mouthpiece of societal ills just seems....self-defeating.Silentpony said:
Joker is the type of movie that appeals to the lowest common denominator. It's for uneducated masses who can't tell the difference between a true work of art and a pretentious mess that's trying to imitate the original work that inspired it. It's why I'm glad that Joker exists. You get to see all who all of those people are.Gordon_4 said:
Things like Joker are liked for nominations because the Oscars are really about Hollywood slapping it's own back (that's why most of the rest of the world's film output is generally shunted into the "Best Foreign Picture" category). As Hollywood business is basically about blockbusters but lots of Academy members feel a little bit awkward that modern blockbusters are usually as dumb as a box of rocks, when one turns up that they feel isn't they'll throw it a lot of attention.Silentpony said:
It was a very compelling and, for Tarantino, unusually sentimental portrayal of Hollywoods Golden Age. If you go into it expecting much of a plot you won't get anything out of it but as a series of at best loosely connected episodes about a small handful of characters living and working in that environment it's very enjoyable. And I guess there is a lot of subtext and commentary about that specific era in there. About the American film industry, its evolution and public perception.Xprimentyl said:
I can't say it felt like anything other than watching Tarantino at the playground. Like, was there any point to Sharon Tate in the movie, other than 'That's Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate'? She has no connection to DiCaprio's or Pitt's character, and spends the entire movie just kinda faffing about. People who know about Sharon Tate will have the proper reaction to the ending regardless, and people who don't know won't realize what the ending is supposed to express anyway.PsychedelicDiamond said:
Never underestimate people's ability to not know stuff, including Tate's famous demise: she'll be in in some part to make sure people know who she is. But it's more than that: she's included to give us some empathy with her to add emotional heft to her onrushing fate; her lightness and joy to represent the happy face of the era (in contrast, perhaps, to the grim psychos of the Manson clan) or maybe DiCaprio's fading star.Casual Shinji said:
Maybe. I think it was quite an achievement. Not knowing the movie ending, I got to the final reel thinking "Surely even Tarantino can't show us this" with a huge sense of foreboding... and then he blows it out of the water with cartoonish elan. It's... I don't know it's brilliant and in ways it's jarring, but it's just so striking and memorable.
One might say that about a lot of Tarantino movies, or parts of Tarantino movies. I might wonder if it's to miss the point, perhaps - they're a lot about characters and characters interacting rather than plot happening.
