As a case in point, the last 10 minutes of Lincoln were literally unnecessary to the film and detracted from it overall; that's a simple editing issue. Literally everyone that I have talked to, whether they liked the movie or not, expressed their disliking of the ending.
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Oscars/Golden Globes thread
- Thread starter Pernicious
- Start date
As a case in point, the last 10 minutes of Lincoln were literally unnecessary to the film and detracted from it overall; that's a simple editing issue. Literally everyone that I have talked to, whether they liked the movie or not, expressed their disliking of the ending.
Now you've literally talked to one less person who thinks that way. I wish more movies could let you down gently at the end, like in books, tv, or games. Instead of just straight to credits. Tis a hazard of the format, but it worked here.
Close Encounters
Indiana Jones
ET
Empire of the Sun
Jurassic Park
Hook
Schindler's Motherfucking List
I didn't even know he made Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal.
You like none of these movies?
Close Encounters
Indiana Jones
ET
Empire of the Sun
Jurassic Park
Hook
Schindler's Motherfucking List
I didn't even know he made Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal.
You like none of these movies?
The last ten minutes weren't unnecessary, just handled excessively poorly. From the audience bursting into arm flailing panic on queue to the ear piercing screech of the child actor the film couldn't have spent more than ten minutes with, everything about the theater scene feels impersonal and wacky. We then confirm Lincoln is in fact dead and get to watch him perform a speech so the audience won't accidentally forget the theme of the movie before it ends. This isn't only jarring because we've suddenly decided to introduce flashbacks in the last ten minutes of the film, but this is where it becomes glaringly obvious Tony Kushner is a hack and should never be allowed to write a screenplay again.
I give Lincoln a 2/10 for the trailer.
I really hope (in vain) that Hugh Jackman gets the Oscar. He showed how he can deattach himself from his typical not-oscar-worthwide (because the academy sucks and even if a movie does what it intends to do it will only award dramas and such), he was easily amongst the best acting on the movie (honestly, Anne Hathawayis always doing the same face though I support her, it was not that a strong presence) and surprised me with his singing. He does movies that entertain, he just showed what he can achieve as an actor, please reward that, even though I think it will happen exactly like Leo and Depp, never awarded for the reason I stated above: academy sucks.
This guy knows what he's talkin' about. Bradley Cooper is a nerd and couldn't carry a film if he tried. Daniel Day-Lewis is normally a boss, but managed to channel the goddamn Sahara Desert this time around because his acting in Lincoln was dry as fuck. Flight sucked, fuck you Mr. Washington. I would actually be okay with Joaquin winning best actor because they'd probably fuck up the pronunciation when they award him.
Joe-ack-uin.
I feel like I need to remind everyone that sometimes you just like movies because you like them, not because of some inherently definable quality that everyone else must be a fucking idiot not to recognize. We have our pasts, our memories, our sensibilities...someone who likes Lincoln might just have a different temperament or grown up in a different background than someone who prefers SLP, regardless of equalizing education or internet savvy. The Academy, while fucktarded at times, is made of people. :/ That's not to say that we can't have discussion and I'm condoning "well i dont care if it has problems b/c i like it and its my opinion..." people should try to challenge their own opinions...but in the end, I think "Fuck you Flight, fuck you denzel" etc is too far. Maybe not. Whatever. You feel me.
Uh, I don't like Spielberg either, though, just to insert my opinion. I feel like he tries to hard to make movies on a grand emotional scale and I dislike being told how to feel (I'd rather be tricked into it much more subtly!) Everything Spielberg does feels , to me, like he wants a standing ovation for American Cinematic Excellence and I'm just fed up with the grandstanding and mediocrity of it all, in my opinion.
Uh, I don't like Spielberg either, though, just to insert my opinion. I feel like he tries to hard to make movies on a grand emotional scale and I dislike being told how to feel (I'd rather be tricked into it much more subtly!) Everything Spielberg does feels , to me, like he wants a standing ovation for American Cinematic Excellence and I'm just fed up with the grandstanding and mediocrity of it all, in my opinion.
I never bought into this nonsense about how "we are told what to feel" through musical themes or cinematography, and frankly it is that same bullshit that accounts for much of the mediocrity that the academy embraces. I'm heavily to devoted to Wagner's principles, which Spielberg seems to hold himself to more often than not.
The rules are really the same whether you want a movie that is really good on all levels or a movie that sacrifices a lot to appease minimalists; a director is always telling you what to feel, it is only a matter of whether they can succeed or not. Spielberg is a rare director who can bridge the gap between the summer blockbusters (which, he is often credited with inventing) and the Oscar season. I won't say that everything he does is great, or even good, but if you can say you like nothing he has made then I guess we clearly do have very different ideas about the existence of taste and quality in the art world.
The rules are really the same whether you want a movie that is really good on all levels or a movie that sacrifices a lot to appease minimalists; a director is always telling you what to feel, it is only a matter of whether they can succeed or not. Spielberg is a rare director who can bridge the gap between the summer blockbusters (which, he is often credited with inventing) and the Oscar season. I won't say that everything he does is great, or even good, but if you can say you like nothing he has made then I guess we clearly do have very different ideas about the existence of taste and quality in the art world.
Another movie that has too many hate is The Hobbit. I understand the concern (and hatin') on making three parts on a short book, but I guess the script was too long for just two parts.
The movie is what one would want for one based on a book, it follows the book and changes are done to make the story more epic, which The Hobbit needed. Tolkien himself commented he was sorry he didn't write it in a more adult manner and in my opinion Jackson made a good movie. Martin Freeman's actuation was excellent and deserved a nomination, the man's great.
The movie is what one would want for one based on a book, it follows the book and changes are done to make the story more epic, which The Hobbit needed. Tolkien himself commented he was sorry he didn't write it in a more adult manner and in my opinion Jackson made a good movie. Martin Freeman's actuation was excellent and deserved a nomination, the man's great.
Best Picture - SLP: I haven't seen argo or beasts of the southern wild or ZDT, and even though I personally like Life of Pi and Django more , Django has no chance of winning and Life of Pi is not a better movie, just my personal taste. The acting in SLP is just on another level than anything I've seen this year. I know people with clinical delusions like the characters in this movie and the manipulation and dialogue is just so iconoclastic.
Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis, there isn't anyone else to give this award to, even though Bradley Cooper may deserve it equally.
Actress - Jennifer Lawrence, because I havent seen Zero Dark Thirty yet, basically Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lawrence should win one of these acting awards. Sadly neither of them will.
Supporting Actor - Christolph Waltz- Because otherwise it would be too obvious that the academy hates tarantino...
Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway, thus beginning the academy's new policy that, like the best director category, one does not in fact need to actually appear in a film to be nominated for the best supporting actress award as long as one provided intense advertising and 'moral' support, and was a good sport about being passed over in past years. This also explains why the academy dislikes tarantino, no cameos bitch.
Animation - Brave, especially if ZDT doesn't win anything.
Cinematography - Life of Pi is the only realistic choice
Directing - Ang Lee, someone mentioned something about someone being due for something.
Foreign - idk haven't seen them
Adapted Screenplay - idk how this category works but Life of Pi
Original Screenplay - Moonrise Kingdom, the real best picture of the year. the fact that this wasn't even nominated is hard evidence that the academy has lost it when combined with the fact that slum dog millionaire won best picture that one time.
Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis, there isn't anyone else to give this award to, even though Bradley Cooper may deserve it equally.
Actress - Jennifer Lawrence, because I havent seen Zero Dark Thirty yet, basically Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lawrence should win one of these acting awards. Sadly neither of them will.
Supporting Actor - Christolph Waltz- Because otherwise it would be too obvious that the academy hates tarantino...
Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway, thus beginning the academy's new policy that, like the best director category, one does not in fact need to actually appear in a film to be nominated for the best supporting actress award as long as one provided intense advertising and 'moral' support, and was a good sport about being passed over in past years. This also explains why the academy dislikes tarantino, no cameos bitch.
Animation - Brave, especially if ZDT doesn't win anything.
Cinematography - Life of Pi is the only realistic choice
Directing - Ang Lee, someone mentioned something about someone being due for something.
Foreign - idk haven't seen them
Adapted Screenplay - idk how this category works but Life of Pi
Original Screenplay - Moonrise Kingdom, the real best picture of the year. the fact that this wasn't even nominated is hard evidence that the academy has lost it when combined with the fact that slum dog millionaire won best picture that one time.
Well, there are such things as writing, acting, directing, editing, special effects, etc., all of which can be judged and defined. To say otherwise is ludicrous. I mean, I agree with you to an extent that sometimes people just like things regardless of these flaws, but the fact is that these things can be argued and they can actually change minds about cinematic quality. Plus, if people unapologetically like things that are bad, it's usually the case that they acknowledge its flaws but like it anyway, as opposed to not seeing the flaws at all. Case in point, loads of people like The Dark Knight Rises (including me, though my opinion of it has diminished considerably since I saw it), and that's perfectly fine, but at the same time you'd have to be fucking dumb to try and deny that it had issues with its script/storyline. And yes, I'll admit that sometimes there are movies which I enjoy/dislike even while not being able to put into words why I had that reaction, but this doesn't mean that I think there are certain qualities to it which can't be judged at all. In fact, seeing other people bash movies for their flaws allows you to gauge your own reaction and to better work out exactly why you enjoyed/disliked them in the first place.
I don't want to get into a massive debate about Spielberg, but essentially I agree with vonFiedler that pretty much every film is designed to have an emotional reaction on its viewers, so blasting Spielberg for being one of the few filmmakers to embrace emotional honesty fullheartedly in his films seems weirdly vindictive and selective imo. People tend to be incredibly selective with this criticism anyway; I've never heard anyone criticise, say, Grave of the Fireflies, or Tokyo Story, for actively trying to make you sad, but when Spielberg does it suddenly people hate having their emotions pushed on. Also, to say that Spielberg hasn't made a great film since Jaws (his most overrated film imo, but that's neither here nor there) is a massive generalisation whichever way you cut it, seeing as how he's made literally 25 films since then. Are you telling me you've actually seen and disliked all of them? How anyone could dislike E.T. or Raiders is beyond me, even if I will concede that some of my personal favourites of his (Empire of the Sun, A.I.) are somewhat divisive.
EDIT: just to add something on topic, I think this is the most interesting Oscars race in a while, since it's the first time since 2007 and the No Country for Old Men/There Will Be Blood contest where the best picture winner hasn't been fairly obvious weeks beforehand (I'll grant that Hurt Locker wasn't entirely obvious either, but it wasn't exactly surprising). Lincoln may be the favourite but it's by no means a lock; Argo winning the GG has also thrown a spanner in the works somewhat.
this is incredibly limitary and naive
directors, like all artists, are purveyors of information and emotion; what the audience does with those stimuli is up to them. art is always polysemous, and to reduce the role of director to a success/failure binary on something to markedly subjective really cheapens the medium. i'm surprised to see it coming from someone like you, seeing how passionate you are about film.
Of those, the only one I can really tolerate is Last Crusade, and I actually did enjoy War of the Worlds. I think Spielberg should stick to horror more often.
I'll second the thought that this is an interesting year; although my prediction is Argo, honestly I have no idea. It's just a shame Moonrise wasn't nominated...
BTW everyone rooting for anyone other than DDL for Best Actor just needs to stop now. I'm not saying that he was the clear cut winner (I thought Denzel's performance rivaled his), but the fact is he's going to win.
I'm more passionate about art and especially narrative, and in that sense I agree that art is somewhat of a dialogue between artist and viewer and that it is up to the viewer to interpret art. However it is definitely up to the artist to be able to make an impact, to make that viewer want to continue that dialogue long after they have stopped watching the movie. This is only my counter-criticisms towards opponents of Wagnerian emotional depth.
In regards to why I don't like Spielberg's unique brand of making-you-feel-sad as opposed to Tokyo Story/Seneschal's post (forgive me on the semantics here) is because it feels 1. overly contrived and 2. because it pretends to be based on codified historical honesty (that itself has nothing to do with life)
Also, you're of course right vonFielder in that it's ridiculous to be such a generalist. I don't hate every piece of his oeuvre with every fibre of my being. I generally don't like his affect; that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy isolated moments here and there.
Also, you're of course right vonFielder in that it's ridiculous to be such a generalist. I don't hate every piece of his oeuvre with every fibre of my being. I generally don't like his affect; that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy isolated moments here and there.
Considering that most of his movies are not sad and/or not pretending to be based on real life at all (Jaws, Indiana Jones, ET???) I can only imagine your are talking about Schindler's List and Lincoln (or maybe War Horse which I didn't see and I am not interested in), which are not just two very different movies (I saw Lincoln thinking it would be like Schindler's List but I was very wrong) but they are also not very Spielbergy movies in the sense that we have talking about. Not very musical and only a few notable set pieces.
I am well aware of the few people back when it came out who thought that any movie about the holocaust was inevitably too kitsch or that we shouldn't even be talking about the holocaust anymore etc etc. Not from a movie standpoint, but even from a historical standpoint the nicest thing I can say about such sentiments are "fuck off". Of course we need to have a good idea of what the holocaust was and why we need to not let ourselves get wrapped up in shit like that. Schindler's List may or may not be the perfect representation of what every holocaust victim went through, but the key point is not dumbed down; that it was fucking awful. Schindler's List is pretty much how my generation has grown up to think about the holocaust, and while I myself only saw the movie last year I was taught about the holocaust by a holocaust survivor and I thought it matched what I had been told pretty well.
In the same vein (and more on topic), would this be a bad time to mention that Django Unchained had the more realistic portrayal of slavery when compared to Lincoln?
i agree with you, i just took pains with your black and white 'it is only a matter of whether they can succeed or not' comment
