March 15, 2026
Are you watching the Oscars?
I'm not. I really couldn't care less. I haven't gone out to see a movie once this past year, and I don't think I've watched a single new movie on TV, even though we pay for multiple streaming services. What's the Best Picture nominee with Leonardo DiCaprio — something like "One Battle After Another" — that been on Netflix — or is it HBO — for months, and I've never even clicked the button to start it?I did watch Ben Shapiro run through all the Best Picture nominees, and he didn't like any of them and made me feel that I'd like them even less than he did:I watched a movie from 1928 the other day — "The Circus." And I've been watching the 2006 movie "Marie Antoinette":It takes me several sessions to make it through a movie, even when I like the movie. I prefer to linger, not to rush headlong toward the end. The end is a distraction. It's wasting the movie to try to reach it. Presumably, she dies. I don't want to watch thinking when oh when do we get to see the guillotine? Maybe that doesn't even happen in the movie. Maybe they end with her suspended in midair, like "Thelma and Louise" or "The Wrestler."
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69 comments:
"It takes me several sessions to make it through a movie, even when I like the movie. I prefer to linger, not to rush headlong toward the end."
When I watch a movie, I am constantly rewinding a few seconds back to catch what was said, understand the context, see what's going on in the background, etc., before moving on. Makes it impossible to watch a movie with my wife.
If the Iranians bombed the Academy Awards, their popularity in America would increase.
A plethora of the Propagation of mediocrity.
I can't get YouTube tv to split the screen with Baseball.
USA vs The Dominican Republic.
Trump is not going to like this. The Dominicans are leading 1-0.
The Dominicans are a very imposing powerful team.
It seems that everyone in the business end of movies is now a nepobaby. I would guess it’s hard to have a costume period sex piece like Marie A. today. With HDTV you can’t just smear Vaseline on the Lens anymore.
"Hamnet" was a surprise. It wasn't the dour, vindictive feminist tract I'd thought it would be. It did deal with male-female conflict, not in its modern form but it its ur-alt form: not women wanting to enter the "man's world," but a wife and mother wishing that her man spent more time in the world of home and family. It also wasn't afraid to provoke real emotion, unlike most movies now.
"Blue Moon" ought to win some Tonys, too. I say "Tonys" because it seemed more like a play than a film. It kept relatively close to the classical unities of time and place and didn't make use of all that film could do. The intimacy and immediacy of the stage would have more of an effect on the spectator: in the immediate physical presence of Ethan Hawke, you wouldn't have to keep trying to decide if you liked or hated him.
"Sinners" should win for production design. They did an excellent job of recreating 1920s Mississippi. Pity they didn't do more with it.
I think the duchess was miscast based on foremans novel
Knightley was not that dynsmic hayley atwell was
To me getting an Oscar is the same as getting a Nobel Peace Prize, like getting the award for being the worlds tallest midget.
Gwyneth had the naked-y dress is all I saw. I watched F1 but that’s about it for the movies I think…
Its more like getting a pet rock
One battle after another is an overly long, far-left, live action cartoon. Bugonia is well-acted but suffers from being 3 person gab-fest. I didn't see the rest, since they seem like variations on other movies I've seen a million times.
Its easy to sneer at todays Oscar nominees and imagine the "Good ol' Days" - but those supposedly "Great by-gone times" included turkeys like "Ship of fools" "Judgement at Nuremberg" "Driving Miss Daisy" "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "the greatest show on earth".
And Hollywood has always been political, that's how "gentlemens agreement" and "Mrs. Miniver" won best picture.
Hello Dolly was nominated for 7 oscars including best picture. The Oscars have always sucked.
Jose Ferrer won best actor. Nough said.
I thought you would like nuremberg specially max schells part
I sped through Shapiro’s run down just to find out what was under consideration for best picture. Like Althouse, I could watch several of these with services I’m already paying for, but still not interested. We did see F1 in theaters, and it was fine as a summer popcorn flick, but it isn’t a best picture movie.
We did watch Warfare last week, and I think it would be worthy of best picture nomination, except being a depiction of an actual historical event, it doesn’t check the DEI boxes. It isn’t for everybody, but it tells a riveting and dramatic story. It starts slow, because it did in reality and ends abruptly because it did in reality. It leaves you to make your own moral judgements.
Prof: "I prefer to linger, not to rush headlong toward the end. "
Yeah, Meade! How many times does she have to say that!? CC, JSM
Written by someone who had lived through the mud the blood of ramadi
Critical Drinker on One Battle After Another: "Mediocre".
He didn't hate it.
Well, Ann. You know that my “Frankenstein, Part II” is better than all of this year’s nominees.
Last time I watched the Oscars also happens to be the last time I set foot in a movie theater - 1998.
Ciso: "Knightley was not that dynsmic hayley atwell was"
Yeah, putting a stick figure as your star and the most voluptuous woman in the British film industry as a supporting role is a bad decision. CC, JSM
My favorite part was the special guest star concentration camp appearances by Judy garland and Monty Clift. That and Burt Lancaster - who put the sour in sauerkraut. The lack of any Soviet juges and prosecutors added to the fun. Those commies were real kill-joys. The Stalin Follies of 1938 bombed at box office.
If the Iranians bombed the Academy Awards, their popularity in America would increase.
Why would they attack their allies?
One battle after another was pretty solid. Choosing fatherhood over ideology was a good theme. Don’t see how that’s left wing. The left wing character abandoned her child and ratted on her friends.
What were they thinking
People have claimed ONe battle after another is "ironic" others say its a "satire". Its neither. Its just so bad its fan boys have to come up with clever reasons why its not awful.
Laz: ""Blue Moon" ought to win some Tonys, too. I say "Tonys" because it seemed more like a play than a film."
True, in that it's a small-cast, bottle film. But you wouldn't be able to sustain the illusion of 5'10" Ethan Hawke as 5'0" Lorenz Hart in a theater. It is a great work, though. Made in Ireland! CC, JSM
Lem: "Trump is not going to like this. The Dominicans are leading 1-0."
He's a New Yorker. He loves Dominicans. CC, JSM
As for the circus, Chaplin is hit or miss with me. Love "City Lights" and "Limelight". Like some of his short films. Parts of 'Modern Times" and "Great Dictactor" are funny. But overall I perfer Keaton and harold Lloyd.
And God, Chaplin could be such a pretentious wanker - cf: Mr. Verdoux and A King in New York. Or that boring speech at the end of the "great dictator".
Sean penn is a stick figurs even as a villain he is meh
I do love Sinners. Even as just a musicological piece, it's great. Plus the concept of vampirism as bridging the race divide in the Jim Crow South. And the bit of WWI veteran PTSD. As Stefon would say, it's got everything. CC, JSM
Yes blue moon should have gotten better
Sean Penn was too old for the role. Josh Brolin probably would have been too old as well but would have been much better.
Watching Hamnet as a parent, you don't see polish. It's been a long time since we felt that level of emotion in a cinema. A cynical film critic may sneer at the construction and artifice, but I was in a room of people sobbing at a story that they felt part of. That is something magical that only the great films can achieve.
Cake by the Ocean, you are a simpleton.
Yeah, there's nothing "leftwing" about having heroes who are leftwing revolutionaires who blow up things and "Free" illegal aliens while shouting "Free borders, free bodies, free choices, and free from f***ing fear!".
Or showing people trying to enforce the laws as a bunch of materialistic fascists and racists. And the villians.
Why, that's just common sense. LOL
People have praised Frankenstein but I don't like horror films. F1 is probably a good race car movie but I've seen grand prix.
The Revolutionary & Military Douchebag mirroring each other was interesting. Was like the LA Riots. Criminals & Corrupt Cops going at it.
Sean penn is one reason people might think its a comedy or satire. But i can assure you the comedy is unintentional.
I'm pretty sure I have never watched the Oscars.
Nope, I'm watching the World Baseball Classic Semifinal game between the U.S.A. and the Dominican Republic. Superstar lineups on both sides, but the U.S.A. is ahead 2-1 in the fourth inning.
I am 55. Believe I have not watched since the early to mid 80s.
Lazarus - I saw Shakespeare in Love many years ago and thought it was fantastic. Debating about watching Hamnet. Although I found SIL fantastic it was a long time ago and it could possibly be bad.
RE Sinners I found it adequate. Not very good but adequate. I liked the Jamie Foxx vampire movie better but again found it adequate. It's not a great movie but I didn't regret watching it.
My biggest question was - the vampires were the bad guys. But after it's all over ... I mean you get to be powerful and live forever. you just can't go in the sun. I think everyone except Michael Jordan and his girlfriend got a bad deal. I think I'd really like to be a vampire. Why didn't they all volunteer?
Again - you are immortal and powerful and can fly and stuff. Sounds pretty awesome. Imagine being a surgeon or a performer or a banker or ... anything. You get to be the best at what you do, you're rich, strong, never age, never wear out ... TBH I would think maybe about paying someone to get that deal.
Not sure why the vampires were portrayed as the bad guys.
F1 was super fun. If you're looking for a good fun exciting way to spend an hour and a half, that's it. It's Top Gun with a car.
narciso said...
I thought you would like nuremberg specially max schells part
3/15/26, 7:52 PM
Touche!!!
Also Driving Miss Daisy was great.
I also saw warfare. I liked it but it was too tense for me. I made it through ten minutes of the hurt locker, was too stressed out, and watched something different.
Did someone mention baseball and the Dominican Republic?
Slapass! (Key and Peele)
I wanted to like Blue Moon. Ethan Hawke is great to watch. It was just so depressing but so was the man's life. And to know in advance how desperately he wants her but he's really not on her radar whatsoever. It is like the doobie brothers what a fool believes. Too sad for me. I made it 2/3 of the way through and stopped.
No. Too many of the people involved are not good people.
Yes, I turn to Ben "Groucho" Shapiro to let me know what I should think about popular culture. Bugonia was the best movie I saw this year because the vaguely right-wing incel conspiracy crackpots were 100% right.
Sorry if I ruined that for you but it's been out since October.
My movie just won six awards at Idyllwild last week, including one of the Best In Show awards.
A stunning woman -- Althouse-aged, wonderfully dressed -- came up to me after the main screening and said they don't make movies like that anymore, and that there were moments from it that she will forever remember.
In heart, I won what I need to win.
I am Laslo.
I'm 73 and I've never been able to remember which awards (Oscar, Emmy, Academy Awards, I can't even remember the others) go with which genre of entertainment (theater, film, music, TV show, what else is there?). I do know that the correlation between Nobel Prizes in Literature and literary excellence is pretty much random: plenty of great writers have not won it, but winning it is not evidence of bad quality, since some excellent writers have won. It is, to repeat, pretty much random. So why should anyone care about prizes? Judge for yourselves, you lazy slugs!
Who?
The fact that Laslo Spatula and Dave Begley have not won Oscars is a cosmic injustice.
“In 1933 Father Sydol left the dust bowl in Kansas for the clean air of Monolith, Washington. In 1934 he performed his first exorcism. Now in 1959, the youth he saved from demons in 1934 is a troubled grown man, and the townspeople eye him with fear and suspicion.”
Laslo’s movie!
Kinda funny that "One Battle After Another," Ben Shapiro's choice for worst (0 out 5 stars) was the winner of so many major oscars. Seemingly, only woke is rewarded.
Train Dreams and Marty Supreme are both fantastic.
Hamnet is a tearjerker. But it's an extremely well written, produced, directed, and acted tearjerker. I could be persuaded to watch it again.
Even as Hollywood's economy collapses, it still refuses to understand or play to half the country. The Israelis and Ukranians were savagely attacked and are fighting back and they have relatives and supporters in this country; Jews are being demeaned daily in this country by Muslims and their acolytes and there's fight on against antisemitism; American men are carrying out brilliant daring ops against the regimes behind the forever wars; women are trying to define a human feminism. Hollywood, meanwhile, is making ugly-in-the-heart pictures about vampires, Frankenstein, leftys as they see themselves (as they ignore all of the above situations), and aliens. Oh well.
Pretentious Pretending Poofters Perennial Push for Pats on the PooPoo.
I started One Battle and Frankenstein, but lost interest. The characters were unlikable and, at times, odious. Maybe I'll go back to finish Frankenstein. It's interesting to look at.......I saw Anora. That won best picture last year, and Mikey Madison won best actress. It's definitely worth seeing., especially the last five seconds It's not a surprise ending, but once you see it, everything in the movie makes sense........I wonder if movies are a dying or, at least, dwindling art form. I don't think young people talk about them in an excited way, and it's been quite a while since any movie became a phenomenon. There have been some successful movies, but they didn't linger and inhabit public consciousness.
I guess the message went down from on high that "One Battle After Another" was an epic big picture and deserving of the big prize, and nobody had the guts or the imagination to go against that, but how they figured Sean Penn deserved another Oscar is a mystery.
U.S.A. is ahead 2-1 in the fourth inning.
Apparently the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth as well.
Wife and I caught the USA vs Brazil game at Daikin Park a little over a week ago. It was a great event with people rooting for all sides, but still loving the USA. It was one ball game after another.
I loved Blue Moon when I saw it at a film festival. Linklater is always an interesting filmmaker, and Hawke is excellent in it. Reminds me a bit of Olivier's The Entertainer. Someone who can't change, won't change.
Marty Supreme is on my list. I know not to expect the character to be likable.
Watched baseball
“ Iman said...
A plethora of the Propagation of mediocrity.”
Modern movies aspire to be mediocre.
Even my wife and two daughters--faithful watches of the Oscars for years, couldn't be bothered to watch this year--actually that's been a trend on their part for the last few years. And last night there was a heck of a good baseball game on the tube--featuring people with real physical ability at the height of their game.
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