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Annara Snow

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  1. Now about the ceremony: Overall it was mediocre, with a very unfunny host who made the same lazy annoying jokes we've heard all season (Killers is long, Poor Things has sex scenes...). The only time he made me laugh was when he made a reference to the La La Land/Moonlight fiasco. Kimmel's lamest moment was when he started reading a negative review of his performance and I wondered for a moment if he can be self deprecating and self aware, but no, turns out it was Donald Trump in his Instagram post, saying Kimmel was a terrible host (you know that The Onion headline, "Heartbreaking: The worst person you know just made a great point") I'm only half joking when I say it feels like Kimmel and Trump made a deal to try to make themselves look cool in front if their target audience -how could Kimmel make himself look better in front of the Hollywood crowd but by higjlghting that Trump doesn't like him? While Trump gets to prove to his stans that he is oh so "anti establishment". Win-win! There were, however, a few notable moments in the ceremony. The rare genuinely funny and charming moments included the funny bits by some of the presenters - the one about Jeff Goldblum and Spielberg (especially with Spielberg participating in the bit) and the De Vito/Schwarzenegger Batman joke with Keaton contributing with his Batman glare, plus John Cena's moment. Pacino ended up being unintentionally funny - which I didn't mind. We all knew Oppenheimer would win, why pretend there was suspense? And there were some important speeches, but they were rare. I liked what Cord Jefferson said, after winning for American Fiction, about investing in more small movies rather than blockbusters. But the entire ceremony was held in the shadow of the fact everyone knew Israel was about to attack Rafah that night, further killing and victimising Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Some of the celebrities wore Artists for Ceasefire pins and little Palestinian flags. But in terms of what was heard that night on stage, you wouldn't know anything was happening. The lowest point was when Sean Lennon and the rest of the crew that won for their animated short called War is Over, but only talked about wars being bad in general, without saying anything about any current wars, anything actually brave or important. The ongoing wars were only mentioned in two speeches. The director of 20 Days in Mariupol, of course, ve a speech about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to a big applause. But that was expected and also, that's not the war that's controversial in Hollywood or US in general. Jonathan Glazer's speech, however, turned out to be the most important moment in the ceremony, and this is even more obvious now. He got a strong applause and cheers from a part of the audience, silence from others and no boos, which suggests many in Hollywood feel the same but everyone knows how brave it is ri speak up and mention Gaza at all or condemn Israel in any way And that's clear now, after Variety: Hollywood Reporter etc. have been competing to find as many Hollywood people (90% of which I've either never heard of or are very irrelevant) who would condemning Glazer. Absolutely insane that a Jewish man who made a Holocaust film about how bad it is when we dehumanise people and pretend genocide isn't happening, is getting attacked as "anrisemitic" for saying that it's bad when we, in the present, dehumanised people and pretend genocide is not happening. And for a very balanced speech thar mentioned the Israeli victims of the Hamas attack on 7 Ocrober in the same brearh as the Palestinian victims of Israel' atrack in Gaza. That did not help, because apparently no one is allowed to acknowledge that killing Palestinian civiloans is wrong, or that Israeli occupation of Palestine is what has led to all of that. Lots of people thought or pretended to like The Zone of Interest but didn't understand it or recognise themselves in the Hoss family
  2. Since I'm posting here, I'll give my views on the films and the ceremony, especially now I've watched all of the films nominated for Best Picture: My ranking of nominees: 1) Past Lives / Poor Things - my favourites of the past year. Both masterpieces but completely different, so it's hard to compare them. 3) Anatomy of a Fall / The Zone of Interest 5) The Holdovers - again hard to compare, ranking a bit lower just because it's less original and innovative than those above 6) Oppenheimer/ Killers of the Flower Moon - great epic films. Best of the year? Maybe not, still excellent and never bored me in spite of the length. 8) American Fiction - smart, witty movie with great commentary on current cultural issues 9) Maestro / Barbie - the only weaker films here. Both are more interesting than you would expect in style and content, but not exactly solid. Maestro may be more Cooper dealing with certain themes and issues (his own, as some are suggesting.) through Berenstain than a good biopic of Bernstein. Barbie is lots of fun and technically brilliant but incredibly thematically incoherent. Overall, Oppenheimer is a fine movie and not undeservimg but I'm mostly happy for the long overdue Oscars for Nolan. Can we count this as best Picture and Director Oscars for Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception and Dunkirk too? One thing that is funny though is how Maestro was derided as "Oscar bait" but Oppenheimer was not (the quality of both movies aside). Emma Stone's performance was one of those incredible performances that definitely should win so I'm very glad she did. Poor Things at least got a few well deserved Oscars if it could not win the Best Picture one. I really like Lily Gladstone and hope she gets many more great roles and wins for something else. The only performanc I haven't seen is Benning in Nyad. Happy for Murphy winning, though Giamatti would have been great too. Cooper was not gonna win and the controversy didn't help, but he was also really good and also had deserved to win before- and Twitter making him the "villain of the award season" just because people think he really wants to win an Oscar (guess what? They all do) was ridiculous. I haven't seen Rustin so I can't comment except that Colman Domingo is a brilliant actor in general, who shined in crappy shows like Fear of the Walking Dead and Euphoria and almost made them watchable. I also really like Jeffrey Wright, but his role in American Fiction was not as outstanding for a nomination over Di Caprio (who should have been nominated for Killers, on the strength of performance alone, but didn't campaign) and Koji Yakusho (I'm not a big fan of Perfect Days, but his performance is great and the movie hangs on it). I still haven't seen All of Us Strangers and May December so I can't comment on actors from those films being snubbed as many have said, in particular Charles Melton for May December. I do think Dominic Sessa (Holdovers) and Milo Machado Graner (the kid from Anatomy of a Fall) deserved nominations for supporting actor- over Brown and, while Gosling was the best performer in Barbie, the incredibly annoying reaction of Barbie fans to the nominations make me wish no one was nominated for Barbie. I guess that would make both Barbie fans and the rest of is happy. Of the nominees, I don't think RDJ was that outstanding to dominate the season. I prefer De Niro and especially Ruffalo. And if RDJ was overdue, so is Ruffalo. (But I bet Hollywood would not like the speech he would give!) I have only seen 3 of the supporting female performances and Randolph is definitely the best of them. Ferrera shouldn't have even been nominated for Barbie. I'm glad Zone won Best sound - absolutely deserved - in addition to Best International Feature (though Io capitano is a fantastic movie I recommend - and a more traditional great viewing experience than Zone). Anatomy of a Fall and American Fiction were good Screenplay winners (and I'm additionally happy because the writer of American Fiction gave the second best abs most important accepting speech of the night, after Jonathan Glazer). Oppenheimer of course fully deserved Best editing. But I wish Score or maybe Cinematography had gone to Killers. It didn't deserve to go home completely empty handed. Of the two Barbie songs, while I'm Just Ken was more fun and more important for the movie, What Was I Made For? is the one I prefer as a song in general. But a song that should have been nominated and wasn't and that had both is Can't Catch Me Now by Olivia Rodrigo - both a great song and perfect commentary on the characters themes of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, buy I guess Academy won't touch anything The Hunger Games. (This may also be the time to mention that Tom Blyth gave one of the best leading performances of the year) I have seen two nominees in the Best Documentary category: 20 Days in Mariupol is a solid documentary / historical evidence and it's about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The latter is why everyone knew it would definitely win. However, Four Daughters is a far superior film. It's not just a great documentary, it's a great film in general- as exciting, suspenseful and emotional as a great live action drama. Its format is innovative and original, it's an intimate look at a family while also commenting on current issues no less important than the Russia-Ukraine war. But I would never expect the Academy to give the Oscar to a movie by and about Muslim Arab women over the Ukrainian film.
  3. I'm sorry but "regular looking people"? You can make that case about Robert Carlyle and certainly Ewan Bremner, but Jonny Lee Miller and Kevin McKidd were definitely pretty boy and muscled up pretty boy at the time, and when had Ewan McGregor nor been a hearthtob? I would in fact sat he was much much so than Leto back in the day. Just look at his subsequent Hollywood career and the roles he played abd overall popularity vs Leto (also, while Leto had been n a few big movies, he was not a lead in any of them. In terms of fame, yeah, none of them were household names but St least McGregor and Carlyle were rising stars in the UK, having had breakout roles in Boyle's debut Shallow Grave and a very memorable instalment of the popular TV crime drama Cracker, respectively (coincidentally, both alongside Christopher Eccleston). Trainspotting was the breakout on the Hollywood/ global level. Calling Requiem a more "Hollywood" film is just weird - if anything it's far less fun and it's not trying to be enjoyable to the average viewer, and I'm pretty sure it was nowhere as popular. The physical attractiveness angle is an odd one to use when, as I pointed out, it doesn't even work. It feels like you're saying it because of the common view that UK productions tend to feature more "regular looking actors", which is true in general, but doesn't apply to every single case. It makes me think of how Jack Davenport tried to argue that he and the rest of the Coupling cast were not as good looking as the Friends cast, or when someone tried to argue the US/Canadian remake of Being Human made it more Hollywood by having a more attractive cast, in spite of the fact that the UK original starred a major hunk like Aiden Turner, and gorgeous Lenore Critchlow.
  4. I've seen three of these films - amd Monster was my favorite of them, I'm glad it got Best Director. Not the biggest fan of Perfect Days, but that central performance was incredible. Evil Does Not Exist, however, was such a weird movie, and maybe I need to watch it again to figure out what it was trying to do, but that ending just left Mr confused, and not in a good way. I'm hoping Godzilla: Minus One finally gets a release here.
  5. It's absolutely criminal that he was snubbed for this by all sorts of awards. The miniseries too.
  6. I haven't seen everything yet, will try in the next few days (still to see The Holdovers, Maestro and American Fiction, plus May/December, The Color Purple, and unfortunately it looks like there's no possibility to see The Boy and the Heron unless it is released in cinemas here), but my biggest differences are: Four Daughters for Best Documentary Feature; Mark Ruffalo for Supporting Actor; Past Lives or Poor Things for Best Picture (but I'm also OK with Oppenheimer winning)... not sure about the score.
  7. The White Lotus winning best music supervision over Yellowjackets is just as insane and undeserved as when it won best score Emmy over Succession.
  8. Is this a prediction solely based on what you think WILL win, or what you think should win? ,
  9. I'm saying that the awards at the biggest film destivala are pretty damn important in the world of film by itself, and not just by whether or not they mean something for the Oscars. Oscars are not the be all and end all of all film awards, especially since they usually ignore most of the world cinema. And I'm not seeing any other thread here about film awards.
  10. I mean, Cannes, Berlinale and Venice Film Festivals are pretty big in the world of cinema. A bit more important than the Turkish TV scene, I'd say.
  11. Berlinale winners: https://www.berlinale.de/en/festival/awards-and-juries/international-jury.html
  12. No, I mean they didn't use to have awards for TV shows until a few years ago, did they? Blue Jasmine was a movie.
  13. I forgot they had TV awards now (since the last few years?)Well, Well, the fact they didn't even nominate Jeremy Strong for his final season for the one major award he did not win for Succession, showed they didn't care much about 'last chances'. Sarah Snook and Matthew McFadyen were great and Kieran Culkin showed he could do great dramatic work in the final season in addition to his usual thing and the show would never work without Brian Cox's presence, but when people talk about and make the 'greatest TV performances' lists, it's Jeemy Strong as Kendall Roy they single out, throughout all 4 seasons, and with good reason (and ot's not just because he is, after all, the main character).
  14. We know they don't all watch it. And it's certainly not primarily about "personal tastes" and who people like, because how would that explain the same people sweeping the season most of the tone? The voters are not all the same for all those different awards, are they? I'm pretty sure it's mostly about campaigning and whose campaign turns out to be the most successful one.
  15. Boy, would I love if Oscars were actually given to actors for their best performances, and not 1) 'because they are overdue, oops we never awarded them before and now they're kind of at a certain age with an x number of nominations... let's give them for this OK performance in this mediocre movie" or 2) not give them because "well, do they need another one at such a young age? We gave them already for this OK perfomance in a mediocre movie, so maybe we shouldn't give them for this incredible performance in this amazing movie, which would otherwise be the clear winner".
  16. Probably should have been less of a surprise when you take into accoutn the fact that none of the Succession cast have ever won an individual SAG award, though the ernsemble has now won twice in a row. Amen! I'm starting to think that, instead of the idea to introduce an additional Drama-Comedy category to leave the Comedy category for real comedies, they should instead have categories split by whether episodes are 30 minutes or an hour long, since 90% of the former shows are always lumped in the Comedy category to increase their chances, even when they're definitely not a comedy. Even if there was a Dramedy category, I bet most of the nominees would still be hour-long shows that are combinations of satifical/dark comedy and drama. (And The Bear is not even a dramedy, it's just drama IMO)
  17. Not surprised at all by Pedro Pascal winning Best Drama Actor, since SAG members clearly did not watch the final season of Succession, as evidenced by their bizarre nominations (the only reasonable explanation for nominating Cox over Strong for season 4 is that they just decided 'let's vote for Succession actors' because of the campaign it and went alphabetically).
  18. I watched Four Daughters at FEST tonight, and it's incredible and should win the Oscar, too (but probably won't).
  19. I thought about this, bur Georgia Pritchett, who co-wrote one of the nominated Succession episodes, is British. Then again, the other writer of that episode, Will Arbery is American. So I guess ir is enough for one of the writers to be from the US / presumably member of the Guild? That would sure explain why two of the weakest Succession episodes of season 4 are nominated over thr strongest episodes, which Jesse Armstrong is solely credited for.
  20. Finally, the composers know what the best TV score was.
  21. What's "TV and new media motion pictures"? Those episodic nominations for Succession are really weird. I mean, every episode of Succession is wonderfully written, but Kill List and Living+ are not among the best episodes of season 4. I'd expect to see Church and State or America Decides or Connor's Wedding there (I'd understand the finale missing out just because the episode deviates from the original script quite a bit) - unless they have some sort of moratorium on nominating Jesse Armstrong or something.
  22. So nothing for Anatomy of a Fall? Was it not eligible or what? The weird thing about the screenplay for Killers of the Flower Moon (and possibly why it missed the screenplay Oscar nomination?) is that the rumor is that it was completely rehauled by Paul Thomas Anderson, who is not credited.
  23. @Mladen The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest and The Boy and the Heron are all going to have their Serbian premieres at Fest 2024 (The Holdovers is opening it). Just as I assumed, Anatomy being on streaming services is not an impediment to it being shown at Fest or in cinemas.
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