Chris Rock's opening monologue
The clips for the technical awards that focused on each technical thing - the sound ones in particular were great
Smoothly changing the background during some of the awards to highlight the subject - like Best Costume
"F*ckn Mad Maxers! Let's hear it! Yeah!" Followed by being way too excited to get off the stage.
I was very cynical about the thank you ticker tape, but it kinda worked. That's something they should hang on to.
Fury Road won every single award it deserved to... Though I probably would have given it best effects over Ex Machina just for how much they did practically. Ex Machina was amazing, Fury Road was mind boggling.
Like said above, there were acting issues that keep Fury Road from grabbing any of the big 4, and that's fine. It was still a great movie and it took home more Oscar gold than anyone else.
I dunno, I'd say George Miller deserved Best Director the most out of that crop. His shoot was longer, more at the mercy of the elements, involved more moving parts and he took all of it and put an entire genre on notice at the age of 70.
On a different note, Roger Deakins got fucking robbed.
Not only was Miller's task super hard, but it wasn't an option to do it any other way. He filmed in the desert because he had to. He had ridiculously complicated effects work because it was the only way to get those shots.
He wasn't making arbitrary decisions to only use natural lighting, or starving himself to death and eating buffalo parts so he could be Super Method. Miller's difficulties weren't self imposed, so I respect those more. It's like a person juggling chainsaws while blindfolded versus a person juggling chainsaws who is actually blind.
I don't understand this perspective. I haven't seen the Revenant yet and don't know too much about the behind the scenes of it, but I am someone who loves naturalistic lighting and is very intrigued by the decision to shoot the whole movie with natural light. That doesn't sound like an 'arbitrary' decision to me - that sounds like an artistic decision because they wanted the movie to look a certain way. They didn't have to film it that way, but Miller also didn't have to go film in the desert or lean heavily on practical effects - he could've shot the whole thing on green screen like Sin City or Speed Racer, but he didn't because that wouldn't have looked as good.
Spotlight would have made a much better documentary, because that would have excused the fact that it's not really a story.
Honestly Spotlight fails on every major Oscar front but the issues one. It doesn't advance the art of cinema; it's not exceptional entertainment; it's not a towering example of any one kind of cinematic technique (other than, the Oscars might argue, screenwriting), and it's not super relevant to our world today.
I mean, I'm glad The Revenant didn't win. But I don't think Spotlight deserved to be Best Picture.
That said, this was otherwise a pretty good slate.
I don't think Spotlight needs to excuse the fact that it's not really a story. If what it depicts would be interesting as a documentary film, then why can't it be interesting as a non-documentary film? I think the medium of film can encompass a very broad range of things and I don't need all my movies to have character arcs or feel like something out of a Robert McKee story seminar. Two of my favorite movies are United 93 and All the President's Men - two other fly-on-the-wall documentary-esque movies that eschew traditional Hollywood formula.
Spotlight would not have made a more effective documentary, because the key narrative point* will not come off in a documentary style i don't think.
*
The movie is setting you up thinking that there was some direct malfeasance at the Paper when the stuff got sent the first time, then drops on you that it was actually sent to the main character and not the one we thought was hiding stuff. I am not sure how you can hammer in that narrative "twist" (for lack of a better word) in a documentary.
The story really isn't about the Catholic Church. That is just what they're investigating. The story is about how investigations start and happen and how it effects the people involved in the investigation. Less obvious its the difference between common knowledge and things everyone knows. [That is, basically everyone knows about the abuse, but no one knows that everyone knows about the abuse]
TRUCK EXPLODES
CAR DRIVES REALLY FAST
CAR CRASHES INTO OTHER CAR
CARS EXPLODE
FURIOSA LOOKS FUCKING AWESOME
WAR BOY EXPLODES
It was a great film, but the screenplay wasn't Oscar caliber.
I'll just have to disagree, because this was a film where every word meant something, every word had an impact. Between all the car chases and explosions they somehow managed to build a world and established a fantastic cast of characters. Mad Max was a masterpiece of screenwriting.
Bliss 101 on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Spotlight would have made a much better documentary, because that would have excused the fact that it's not really a story.
Honestly Spotlight fails on every major Oscar front but the issues one. It doesn't advance the art of cinema; it's not exceptional entertainment; it's not a towering example of any one kind of cinematic technique (other than, the Oscars might argue, screenwriting), and it's not super relevant to our world today.
I mean, I'm glad The Revenant didn't win. But I don't think Spotlight deserved to be Best Picture.
That said, this was otherwise a pretty good slate.
I don't think Spotlight needs to excuse the fact that it's not really a story. If what it depicts would be interesting as a documentary film, then why can't it be interesting as a non-documentary film?
When a film isn't interesting, I say, "Y'all should have written that better."
When a documentary isn't interesting, I say, "Well, it's not like you can just make stuff up."
Spotlight does lots of things that a documentary can better get away with because docs have inherent limitations that movies don't share. Docs can have people straight up tell you what they think of what's going on; when movie characters do that it can get strident or overly didactic. Docs can get away with having only a few shots that are thematically expressive, or resorting to things like staging a conversation about church molestations in front of a church that's next to a playground, whereas movies have the ability (and hence the mandate) to be both more subtle and more often expressive. Etc.
I think the medium of film can encompass a very broad range of things and I don't need all my movies to have character arcs or feel like something out of a Robert McKee story seminar. Two of my favorite movies are United 93 and All the President's Men - two other fly-on-the-wall documentary-esque movies that eschew traditional Hollywood formula.
All the President's Men is significantly better than Spotlight, because AtPM is cinematic (especially in terms of atmosphere) and because it pays off its dramatic tensions.
Perhaps more importantly, AtPM succeeds as a procedural where Spotlight does not because AtPM is about a series of investigatory challenges resolved in interesting or clever ways. Spotlight has a couple of these, but most of the challenges are hinted at but never arise (like pressure from the Church), or are solved by just continuing to move forward and listen to people.
I respect a lot of what Spotlight is doing and I think it has interesting things to say. But as a story, as cinema, it's severely lacking, and as a non-documentary film that's ultimately how we should judge it.
I think the best part of Spotlight isn't the investigation per se.
The Catholic Church is the big bad guy, deservedly so. But the real great part of the movie is how it fleshes out Boston, and more specifically how large numbers of what you would otherwise call good people managed to look just a bit the wrong way. Just a subtle turning of the head over just one isolated incident.
Maybe its because I was raised Catholic, and my moms family was even more Catholic(all girls catholic school), but it captured a reality that doesn't really translate to film well. That subtle web of social pressure and deferment to authority that is just the weave of Catholic life. I mean I was raised in only the echo of 1970s Catholic Church culture and the movie resonated.
Also the
"I'd always thought I'd come back to it[the church]" bit by Ruffalo. The number of people I know who are lapsed Catholics who still kind of hold that weird sort of hope that they will become re-believers again.
IDK, maybe its just specific to growing up Catholic in a heavily Catholic area.
Also I really appreciated the fact that they didn't feel the need to load it down with bullshit 'tension raising' moments. No brick through the window, car squealing off around the corner shots(unlike Bridge of Spies), or threatening phone calls, or people following them who maybe aren't actually even following them, or the cliched break in to destroy all their work except for the secret copy someone saved, etc.
By eschewing all those cheap cliche ratchet points, it makes the movie feel like a documentary. Which just sort of lets the horror of it all into that 'this is real' part of the brain rather than the 'this is a movie' part.
Docs can get away with having only a few shots that are thematically expressive, or resorting to things like staging a conversation about church molestations in front of a church that's next to a playground, whereas movies have the ability (and hence the mandate) to be both more subtle and more often expressive. Etc.
While i disagree with the choice to mention it. The movie does things here that a documentary cannot. Because a documentary cannot go to all the locations and say "oh and look down the street at this school", "and down here at this church". The ending shot of that scene where its mentioned is probably the third or fourth ending scene like that in the movie at that point, and they keep going.
Near every scene ending transition had two locations in frame. 1) The location of an abuser/collaborator 2) The location of abuse/potential abuse
Granted this is super easy to do because in cities its actually really really hard to get away from these types of locations. (The old anecdote about a single bridge in Miami where sex offenders can legally live because everywhere else is within 1,000 feet of a school, church, or community center?) but its clearly intentional and clearly not something that works in a documentary.
In a documentary you're just like "damn why are these assholes interviewing people next to churches".
Plus, again, you cannot tell the investigation story as a documentary. Spotlight is not about the child abuse except in a tertiary way. Its about the reasons for communal blindness.
Maybe its because I was raised Catholic, and my moms family was even more Catholic(all girls catholic school), but it captured a reality that doesn't really translate to film well. That subtle web of social pressure and deferment to authority that is just the weave of Catholic life. I mean I was raised in only the echo of 1970s Catholic Church culture and the movie resonated.
This is not unique to Catholicism. Its the norm of basically any established community. Its just seems larger in highly catholic areas because the church itself has a more present overarching structure. In protestant churches its confined to each individual church, more or less.
TRUCK EXPLODES
CAR DRIVES REALLY FAST
CAR CRASHES INTO OTHER CAR
CARS EXPLODE
FURIOSA LOOKS FUCKING AWESOME
WAR BOY EXPLODES
It was a great film, but the screenplay wasn't Oscar caliber.
I'll just have to disagree, because this was a film where every word meant something, every word had an impact. Between all the car chases and explosions they somehow managed to build a world and established a fantastic cast of characters. Mad Max was a masterpiece of screenwriting.
On the other hand, I think most of what made the film great were bits that couldn't realistically be captured in a script. The detail of the world, the costumes, the set design, the cinematography, the way it was cut together, the singular vision required to see this in your head and then assemble it.
There's also the part where Fury Road didn't actually have a normal script, anyway. Miller developed the film as extensive storyboards, them went back well after filming had started and made a sort of script out of those.
But that highlights the extent to which the film relied on the kind of visual narration that you can't really capture with the written word. Well, not with less than a thousand of them, at any rate.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
TRUCK EXPLODES
CAR DRIVES REALLY FAST
CAR CRASHES INTO OTHER CAR
CARS EXPLODE
FURIOSA LOOKS FUCKING AWESOME
WAR BOY EXPLODES
It was a great film, but the screenplay wasn't Oscar caliber.
I'll just have to disagree, because this was a film where every word meant something, every word had an impact. Between all the car chases and explosions they somehow managed to build a world and established a fantastic cast of characters. Mad Max was a masterpiece of screenwriting.
On the other hand, I think most of what made the film great were bits that couldn't realistically be captured in a script. The detail of the world, the costumes, the set design, the cinematography, the way it was cut together, the singular vision required to see this in your head and then assemble it.
There's also the part where Fury Road didn't actually have a normal script, anyway. Miller developed the film as extensive storyboards, them went back well after filming had started and made a sort of script out of those.
But that highlights the extent to which the film relied on the kind of visual narration that you can't really capture with the written word. Well, not with less than a thousand of them, at any rate.
What I'd like is a museum exhibition of the Fury Road storyboards. Get a space like the Guggenheim, where you have a huge length of continuous(ish) wall as you go up the spiral and put as many of the storyboards up in chronological order. Then setup monitors showing the section of the movie covered in the previous section of storyboard, and other monitors showing 'making of' clips for the same.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The Academy has missed the opportunity to properly recognize acting talent repeatedly, and for some in this video that chance is rapidly dwindling and for many the window has closed for good. How the hell does Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman go their entire lives with not a single nomination?
As much as I have liked Jim Carrey in hotel majestic, Truman show, and sunshine/spotless mind, those rolls could only be considered for a nod.
Sunshine/Spotless should have been a win for sure.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
As much as we might like it if every great actor got an Oscar at some point or another, that's not how it works. You have to give the best performance in a particular year, and sometimes people are just unlucky and always go up against somebody who happens to be better that time.
(Of course, there are also biases in the system in terms of narrative, campaigns, etc. But even somehow removing those wouldn't make the awards a perfect representation of acting talent.)
People like Rickman and Lee are who honorary Oscars were designed for.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
That top 10 list was about nominations, not wins. It is kinda bizarre that Carrey hasn't been nominated for any of his non-comic films. He's a very good actor when he tries to be.
That top 10 list was about nominations, not wins. It is kinda bizarre that Carrey hasn't been nominated for any of his non-comic films. He's a very good actor when he tries to be.
Too bad he's also a horrible goose who has supported the antivaxxer movement.
That top 10 list was about nominations, not wins. It is kinda bizarre that Carrey hasn't been nominated for any of his non-comic films. He's a very good actor when he tries to be.
Too bad he's also a horrible goose who has supported the antivaxxer movement.
I don't see how that's relevant. It's an acting award not a congeniality pageant.
So, unlike their compatriots in the movie business, the Television Academy has realized that the times are a-changing:
The Television Academy has made some small changes that could mean big things for online video content creators. The organization announced that it has expanded the criteria to be considered for an Emmy, making it easier for Internet-exclusive shows to win awards.
Content that will fall under the new "short-form" award categories are defined as "series with a minimum of six episodes running an average of 15 minutes or less per episode, exhibited over-the-air and/or via cable, satellite or Internet." Specifically, the three award categories are Outstanding Short Form Series—Comedy or Drama, which replaces the Short Format Live Entertainment category; the new Outstanding Short Form Series—Variety category; and the Outstanding Short Form Series—Reality/Nonfiction, which replaces the Short Format Nonfiction category.
Posts
Chris Rock's opening monologue
The clips for the technical awards that focused on each technical thing - the sound ones in particular were great
Smoothly changing the background during some of the awards to highlight the subject - like Best Costume
"F*ckn Mad Maxers! Let's hear it! Yeah!" Followed by being way too excited to get off the stage.
I was very cynical about the thank you ticker tape, but it kinda worked. That's something they should hang on to.
*
The story really isn't about the Catholic Church. That is just what they're investigating. The story is about how investigations start and happen and how it effects the people involved in the investigation. Less obvious its the difference between common knowledge and things everyone knows. [That is, basically everyone knows about the abuse, but no one knows that everyone knows about the abuse]
I'll just have to disagree, because this was a film where every word meant something, every word had an impact. Between all the car chases and explosions they somehow managed to build a world and established a fantastic cast of characters. Mad Max was a masterpiece of screenwriting.
When a film isn't interesting, I say, "Y'all should have written that better."
When a documentary isn't interesting, I say, "Well, it's not like you can just make stuff up."
Spotlight does lots of things that a documentary can better get away with because docs have inherent limitations that movies don't share. Docs can have people straight up tell you what they think of what's going on; when movie characters do that it can get strident or overly didactic. Docs can get away with having only a few shots that are thematically expressive, or resorting to things like staging a conversation about church molestations in front of a church that's next to a playground, whereas movies have the ability (and hence the mandate) to be both more subtle and more often expressive. Etc.
All the President's Men is significantly better than Spotlight, because AtPM is cinematic (especially in terms of atmosphere) and because it pays off its dramatic tensions.
Perhaps more importantly, AtPM succeeds as a procedural where Spotlight does not because AtPM is about a series of investigatory challenges resolved in interesting or clever ways. Spotlight has a couple of these, but most of the challenges are hinted at but never arise (like pressure from the Church), or are solved by just continuing to move forward and listen to people.
I respect a lot of what Spotlight is doing and I think it has interesting things to say. But as a story, as cinema, it's severely lacking, and as a non-documentary film that's ultimately how we should judge it.
The Catholic Church is the big bad guy, deservedly so. But the real great part of the movie is how it fleshes out Boston, and more specifically how large numbers of what you would otherwise call good people managed to look just a bit the wrong way. Just a subtle turning of the head over just one isolated incident.
Maybe its because I was raised Catholic, and my moms family was even more Catholic(all girls catholic school), but it captured a reality that doesn't really translate to film well. That subtle web of social pressure and deferment to authority that is just the weave of Catholic life. I mean I was raised in only the echo of 1970s Catholic Church culture and the movie resonated.
Also the
IDK, maybe its just specific to growing up Catholic in a heavily Catholic area.
Also I really appreciated the fact that they didn't feel the need to load it down with bullshit 'tension raising' moments. No brick through the window, car squealing off around the corner shots(unlike Bridge of Spies), or threatening phone calls, or people following them who maybe aren't actually even following them, or the cliched break in to destroy all their work except for the secret copy someone saved, etc.
By eschewing all those cheap cliche ratchet points, it makes the movie feel like a documentary. Which just sort of lets the horror of it all into that 'this is real' part of the brain rather than the 'this is a movie' part.
While i disagree with the choice to mention it. The movie does things here that a documentary cannot. Because a documentary cannot go to all the locations and say "oh and look down the street at this school", "and down here at this church". The ending shot of that scene where its mentioned is probably the third or fourth ending scene like that in the movie at that point, and they keep going.
Near every scene ending transition had two locations in frame. 1) The location of an abuser/collaborator 2) The location of abuse/potential abuse
Granted this is super easy to do because in cities its actually really really hard to get away from these types of locations. (The old anecdote about a single bridge in Miami where sex offenders can legally live because everywhere else is within 1,000 feet of a school, church, or community center?) but its clearly intentional and clearly not something that works in a documentary.
In a documentary you're just like "damn why are these assholes interviewing people next to churches".
Plus, again, you cannot tell the investigation story as a documentary. Spotlight is not about the child abuse except in a tertiary way. Its about the reasons for communal blindness.
This is not unique to Catholicism. Its the norm of basically any established community. Its just seems larger in highly catholic areas because the church itself has a more present overarching structure. In protestant churches its confined to each individual church, more or less.
On the other hand, I think most of what made the film great were bits that couldn't realistically be captured in a script. The detail of the world, the costumes, the set design, the cinematography, the way it was cut together, the singular vision required to see this in your head and then assemble it.
There's also the part where Fury Road didn't actually have a normal script, anyway. Miller developed the film as extensive storyboards, them went back well after filming had started and made a sort of script out of those.
But that highlights the extent to which the film relied on the kind of visual narration that you can't really capture with the written word. Well, not with less than a thousand of them, at any rate.
What I'd like is a museum exhibition of the Fury Road storyboards. Get a space like the Guggenheim, where you have a huge length of continuous(ish) wall as you go up the spiral and put as many of the storyboards up in chronological order. Then setup monitors showing the section of the movie covered in the previous section of storyboard, and other monitors showing 'making of' clips for the same.
The Academy has missed the opportunity to properly recognize acting talent repeatedly, and for some in this video that chance is rapidly dwindling and for many the window has closed for good. How the hell does Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman go their entire lives with not a single nomination?
And people wonder why media is dying.
Sunshine/Spotless should have been a win for sure.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
(Of course, there are also biases in the system in terms of narrative, campaigns, etc. But even somehow removing those wouldn't make the awards a perfect representation of acting talent.)
Besides for Rickman his chance to win an oscar was Marston in Quigley Down Under, sadly we had that aussie ban back then so his chance was squandered.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Too bad he's also a horrible goose who has supported the antivaxxer movement.
I don't see how that's relevant. It's an acting award not a congeniality pageant.
Ever heard the phrase "A movie is only as good as its villain"?
Rickman and Lee may have been horror and action movie bad guys, but they where the best bad guys and their movies where great as a result.
The fact that neither did what was considered the typical Oscar bait roles is a strike on the Oscars.
Enough with the period drama roles and biopics hogging the main acting categories I say.
I agree, but as long as "My life as a fart sniffer" wins, guys like Lee and Rickman will never have a chance.
pleasepaypreacher.net