... and you can too:
Did any of you watch that? I'm sure you can easily find the list of nominees somewhere. Feel free to comment about the specifics and try to resist simply saying you don't care about Oscars or you don't like Hollywood generally. I know!
I'll just say:
1. I've only seen 2 of the movies under discussion — "The Isle of Dogs" (nominated for best animated movie) and "RBG" (nominated for best documentary and for some song that I don't remember). The only one I saw in the theater was "RBG," and that's also the only one I saw in its entirety. I'm still only 2/3 of the way through "The Isle of Dogs" on Amazon Prime, and weeks have past since I paused it and realized I didn't much care exactly how the dogs completed their mission, and now I forget what the mission was. Anyway — dogs on an island in Japan, having a hard time but being feisty, as visualized by the ever-quirky Wes Anderson.
2. Viggo Mortenson got a best actor nomination! I think that was unexpected. I'll have to look up who was "snubbed" to give him recognition. I haven't seen his movie "Green Book," and I doubt I'll go to the movie theater to see it when I'm just a few weeks from getting cataract surgery and am no good at seeing anything right now, but I just happen to love Viggo Mortenson because I loved him in "Captain Fantastic." I'm better with TV — and frankly, better with things I've already seen before (or with new episodes of the old TV series "Friends" because it's easy to recognize the 6 recurring characters and to get the hang of what they're up to) — so maybe I'll just watch "Captain Fantastic" again.
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Divest Hollywood.
Have you seen "Eastern Promises?" Harrowing but quite an incredible film and performance by Viggo
It will be an interesting acceptance speech if one of the dogs wins Best Actor, but it'll take a well-trained bitch to win Best Actress in a Leading Role.
I haven't seen or ordered any of them. Apparently nothing in my demographic's tastes.
Roma is a beautiful slow moving film that gives a fine grained look at México City in 1971.
Roma was gorgeous, yes.
Did 'Birdbox' make it? That's 2 hours I'll never get back, Just the kind of dreck the academy loves.
( some say the unseen monster is social media. It fits!)
My daughter insisted we watch "Isle of Dogs" and I liked it in spite of the quirkiness. It is very Japanese and fits more for "Foreign Film" as the cultural implications are not very accessible. We saw "Green Book"--the first new movie I have seen in a theatre in years. While it pays homage to PC culture, in the end it is a road movie and generally entertaining while allowing its content to speak for the times. I haven't found any trailers for any other movies that I found interesting enough to go see.
Did you like RBG, Ann? Is it worthwhile on the merits or is it just another leftist hagiography? I've been tempted to watch it, because despite my disagreements with many of her opinions, she does have an interesting story. But if it's just hours of nauseous RGB adoration, I think I'll pass.
The residents of Hollywood are people who I simply don't care about. Sorry.
The Favourite is our favourite.
Except for the dancing. I can't get over the dancing part.
I actually watched Roma.
What a laughably terrible movie. It was a sort of parody of 60s auteur gloom, a la Bergman.
The plot was the standard slurry of Marxist cliches to be expected in that type of 60s "film," too.
I thought having that big banner in the middle of what was being discussed was poor design -- although it makes it easier to find what you want to see in the YouTube video as you scroll forward, it crowded out all the nominees.
Has there been a puff of white smoke to indicate that they have a Host yet?
So Roma isn't about gypsies or Italians capitals?
@Althouse, I just went through cataract surgery. First eye took unusually long to heal; my doctor had to prescribe a stronger steroid to help it along. I am happy to be able to drive without glasses, and much appreciate the clarity, but unhappy to need reading glasses. Try this experiment between surgeries. Look at something with the repaired eye closed and then again with that eye open and the other eye closed. In my case I found the colors brighter and white paper backgrounds to be whiter. Using just the unrepaired eye it was as though I was looking through a greyish-amber filter.
Good luck on your surgery. If you need to take a few days off blogging, we will be patient (or I will be, anyway).
The Academy Awards presentation started life as a black-tie dinner party that interested no one outside the Hollywood enclave of moguls, studio creeps, and that most disposable class of humans after Catholic school boys, actors. Nobody else knew or cared who got a statuette for what accomplishment or blowjob. Things began to seriously change when actors started acting badly in the late 1960s. Normal people began to pay attention when the prospect of the Oscars ceremony might somehow coincide with their favorite bad boy, Richard Burton, or favorite bitch, Liz Taylor. The trend reached its nadir when Burton's bad boy understudy Marlon Bando sent a fake Indian in his place to sanctimoniously snub the Awards committee because Italian-Americans had stolen the limelight as well as a chunk of Manhattan from other Americans. Or something.
George C. Scott famously refused the Oscar for Patton, which got the chattering classes chattering about Nixon (??). Scott was only being true to his principles, however. He also refused a Best Actor in a Supporting Role figurine in 1962. He did not refuse an award for Patton granted by the New York Film Critics Association because he valued it as worthy to possess, as opposed to that gilded lump of compressed excrement the nature of which he understood better than did the chattering classes.
The worse part of The Fucking Oscars™ are the acceptance speeches given by people who would have difficulty holding up their end of a conversation with a tree stump without cue cards and a dialog coach gesticulating just out of frame.
I think Carmen Electra was terribly overlooked by the Academy for her work in Scary Movie 4, so I am boycotting.
Weinsten-Streep-Hillarywoodland do not get my money.
I watched Hunger Games on an airplane. I thought it was odd that the bad guys looked just like the people who show up for the Oscar Party every year. How did this slip past the editors.
Teh bad guys are the freaky good looking people who preach and preen and make all the money while the deplorables refuse to vote HIllary.
ST you might want to read Alma Guillermoporieto's review in the NYR as she considers it a story about the twisting nature of love and adds many social details: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/02/07/alfonso-cuaron-roma-twisting-nature-love/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Xinjiang%20Roma%20Paris&utm_content=NYR%20Xinjiang%20Roma%20Paris+CID_9f7831cbd83cb966b47cc6dd74dfe1ad&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=The%20Twisting%20Nature%20of%20Love
"Have you seen "Eastern Promises?" Harrowing but quite an incredible film and performance by Viggo"
I was going to put that on my Amazon Prime "watchlist" but then I read:
"Viggo Mortensen and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts star in this explosive film from the director of A History of Violence. Rolling Stone calls it "a mesmerizing power-punch of a thriller!""
I hated — ha-a-a-a-ated — "A History of Violence."
Also I don't want to be power-punched by a thriller.
Why are people so interested in "thrillers"? I don't get that at all. I don't want to feel bad. Is it that life isn't dangerous and unpredictable enough to satisfy the human brain that evolved in rougher times?
Ann. You continually reinforce your shallowness.
I still find it hard to fathom that with a Supreme Court justice on the court who was born a poor black child, has an extremely compelling life story, was falsely smeared in an attempt to keep a Black man off the court and overcame all that to serve as a stalwart defender of individual rights, Hollywood chooses poorly again! Another liberal Jew (i.e. just like most of Hollywood) from New York with little on her resume other than being the lawyer for an abortion mill is elevated to stardom long after she is sentient enough or can stay awake long enough to appreciate it. The Borg love their own.
I used to love love love the Oscars and I find myself shocked at how disinterested I've become.
Rolling Stone calls it "a mesmerizing power-punch of a thriller!"
I may be wrong but Rolling Stone has always impressed me as a rag for and by people who actually enjoy chemically-induced artificial pleasure. Mesmerizing power-punch seems like the sort of near-random concatenation which requires either a history of drug use or a lot of captive monkeys chained to typewriters to produce.
I do want to see "the Favorite." I also want to see, "They Shall Never Grow Old" but the release is so limited I haven't been able to. Just saw "The Death of Stalin." I don't know how to describe it, but if you're into satire and black comedy, you would probably enjoy it.
Death of Stalin was great. Remember kiddies, socialism has never been tried!
I don't want to feel bad.
His Antigone being rejected by the ladies of the Athenian Arts Council, Sophocles wanders the southbound road out of the city in the general direction of Sparta where he has been told men who don't feel too bad about feeling bad hold sway.
You pretty much drive me nuts now, so I’m not here as often, but I’m happy you’re getting cataract surgery. I though your writing about withdrawing visually from the world was striking. I hope your surgery is life changing, in its way.
"Did you like RBG, Ann? Is it worthwhile on the merits or is it just another leftist hagiography? I've been tempted to watch it, because despite my disagreements with many of her opinions, she does have an interesting story. But if it's just hours of nauseous RGB adoration, I think I'll pass."
I love documentaries. It's my favorite category of film. Some of my favorites are: "Crumb," "Grey Gardens," and "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control."
"RBG" is not even trying to be a work of art like those films. It's more like something that could be a creditable TV show on a good subject, with a mundane edit of a jumble of material — some of it telling the life story with shots of photographs and some of it about the present-day phenomenon of making a hero out of RBG (such as by calling her "The Notorious RBG"). It's okay for what it's trying to be, which isn't ambitious artistically.
If the legal stuff about equal rights cases is new to you, it will be more interesting than it was to me. What I thought was the best part was the amazingly close and supportive relationship RBG had from an early age with the man she married and spent most of her life with. On the subject of achievement, the message I heard was that you'll have a much better change of reaching your highest potential if you have a great life partner. It's an incredibly inspiring message about the value of a rock-solid marriage.
a much better chance...
The sillier and more superficial the profession, the greater the proliferation of awards and prizes.
I saw a trailer for the new "Lego Movie" the other day, and there was a shout-out to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in it. I don't know if it's a one-shot bit, or if she's a significant character in the film, but it kind of put me off. She's not a universally-loved person, and filmmakers shouldn't presume she is.
I long for the day when the Oscars no longer appear on Final Jeopardy.
But by then, 21st century pop culture will have taken over most of the categories so they can get positive scores.
You completely flipped my wife’s and my opinion of Captain Fantastic. Went from a movie we really disliked to one we think is really excellent. We agree with you on the ending. We do not celebrate Noam Cbomsky’s birthday, however.
Would you be able to put together a short list of your favorite movies? Or some of your favorite actors?
I saw nearly all the movies on the Visual Effects list. The only movie I saw on The Best Picture list was Black Panther. It was pretty good, but the only thing that differentiated it from other Marvel movies was that it featured a black superhero. I wonder if guys who create special effects and CGI are involved in any Hollywood scandals. They might be the only uncorrupted people in Hollywood. They probably don't get to have sex with starlets and can thus concentrate on their work. Visual effects is something that Hollywood is good at.......I can watch Roma on Netflix. I feel a moral obligation to do so, but I keep putting it off. Maybe next Sunday.
I thought Green Book was very good. So of course it's now "controversial," because it was written and directed by white guys.
The fact that one of the writers is the son of the guy played by Viggo apparently doesn't suffice. Apparently he was supposed to use Ta-Nehisi Coates as his beard.
"A Quiet Place" was also very good. So was "Maudie."
I saw nearly all the movies on the Visual Effects list.
Possibly the saddest sentence I ever read here.
Captain Fantastic is very funny if you watch it ironically. It sort of bothered me how good looking all of the cast was, well, all of the liberals, and they had the one kid who was kind of conservative, and he was, well he looked like any kid you might see waiting for a school bus or something, the only not super good looking person in the movie, except for the bit players they mocked, of course.
But this kind of stuff is designed to bypass your critical thinking and go right for your feelz. You identify with the super attractive people and distance yourself from the less attractive. But pointing this out just makes you the turd in the punchbowl.
Viggo was very good in Green Door, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Also liked the Favourite.
Had cataract surgery a couple years ago. Makes a big difference and had no problems, except keeping track of all the eye drops had to take before and esp after.
The next step is hearing aids (just got mine).
Then replacement joints. :-)
My first reaction is, wow, they’re really pushing Vice.
Eastern Promises isn’t really a thriller. But it is violent. Very good movie.
Oscars? What's that? Haven't watched or worried about it for at least 40 years. OTOH my wife and daughters are interested. I simply go in another room and read a book.
Viggo is great in anything. History of Violence and Eastern Promises in particular.
The people who do the special effects are the most imaginative people in Hollywood. They create and destroy new worlds. Some of these worlds are breathtaking in their beauty......In the Middle Ages, people used to go to Cathedrals to be awed. The Cathedrals were the biggest building they had ever seen, and they had never before seen such light as poured through the stained glass windows. The Cathedral itself was a greater religious experience than the Mass or the sermon. You have to go to Marvel movies, the way a medieval peasant went to the Catthedral. Ignore the dialogue and character development in the way that the peasants ignored the Latin chanting and intonations. Just be wowed by the new world you're in.
How many people are going to think "black panther" is about the 60's radical black group?
Isle of dogs looks interesting. RBG doesn't. Just another Leftwing documentary telling us what a hero a left-wing person is.
Has Ginsberg ever done anything on the SCOTUS? My impression is she just votes with the liberal bloc 99% of the time and issues standard left-wing opinions that could be written by 100 Liberal law professors.
"Just be wowed by the new world you're in."
Yeah, some people just like pictures and sound. Character and story doesn't matter. Ever watch "Death in Venice" or "Days of Heaven"?
Another great Virgo Mortensen movie: 28 Days
Random thoughts: The wow special effects of sci-fi movies are ephemeral. Next year they will be topped. Still, in their moment, they're quite something. The sci-fi movies with actual intelligent dialogue and/or mythic significance stand the best chance of enduring......The gilt frames surrounding the paintings of some Dutch masters cost more than the painting itself in that era. Aesthetic judgments are an extension of the era in which you live. Given the fact that we live in a fairly stupid era and that, speaking for myself, I'm pretty stupid about aesthetics, any critical opinion I advance about current movies are probably wrong.
I just don't care anymore.
“RBG” puts the “hag” in “hagiography."
I finally saw "Mary Poppins Returns" last night. IMHO that was the best picture of 2018. Perfectly cast and delivered totally without irony or post-modern "nudge-nudge-innit-silly" hints. I wouldn't have thought that could be done in 2018, and I certainly had tears in my eyes several times.
“RBG” is gunning for the Olympia Dukakis Oscar, the one the Democrats give to workmanlike performances if they think that giving the Oscar will advance their causes. The Dukakis Oscar of course came when her brother was running for President as, of course, a Democrat.
I liked Moonstruck, but I think that that Oscar is what burned the Oscar as a serious award for me.
There's a piece in today's Telegraph which asks whether it's possible to stay awake all the way through Roma. The Telly's critic says not.
The two best and most interesting films I saw in 2018, by far, were both documentaries. “Free Solo” got a nomination in that category and should have got one for Cinematography too. Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old” missed a deadline but ought to be on the list next year.
Movies were the last media where fictional entertainment still had a hold on me, and even that is now slipping away. I never read many short stories or literary magazines. I never see opera or any kind of dance. I haven’t regularly watched a fictional TV series since “Magnum PI”, and the two or three hours of television I now watch each week is exclusively sports and news. I haven’t read a fictional novel, or indeed almost any book but history, science, and biography for a decade now. I don’t know whether this is a natural consequence of aging, or a manifestation of my own peculiar left-brain dominance and right-brain atrophy.
Finding the list of Oscar nominations was NOT easy. The first several links pulled up were for predictions about who would be nominated or generic lists of categories without any information. This is a search term that web sites use to try to game the search engines and, at least when I searched, they were very successful in doing so.
In any case, the only movie I saw of this entire group was Solo: A Star Wars Story which would never have gotten a whiff of an Oscar if not for the special effects. Though I will say that I enjoyed it and it was certainly better than The Last Jedi and the large majority of the Star Wars prequels. I suppose there was supposed to be a Social Justice undercurrent to the story, but that part was so poorly executed that it disappeared in the more interesting bits.
I also saw They Shall Not Grow Old which is fantastic and should get a nod for next year.
On the plus side there are some movies on the list that I would actually want to see eventually, Black Panther being perhaps the most notable.
I didn't think Olympia D was Mike D's sibling. I thought they were distant cousins.
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