Oscars 2024: The Zone of BARBENHEIMER (LIVE)

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

23 minutes ago, DMC said:

Agreed, I always thought it was a pill addiction.  Downers, not uppers, but who the fuck knows?

Amphetamines. She was trying to lose weight so she could fit in her dress for that game show that she hallucinated she got invited to. She ends up suffering from acute amphetamine psychosis.

But, because the films heroes all descend into their own personal hells, which are utterly dehumanizing and fucking merciless, and because the symptoms for amphetamine psychosis resemble schizophrenia; Ah, fuck it. Warm up the electroshock machine and let her ride the lightning.  

No. I don't want to watch them being mean to Ellen Burstyn again. I'll watch her in Interstellar where she's happy and surrounded by her family at the space hospital and gets visited by her younger dad. 

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

she could fit in her dress for that game show

Yeah, that makes sense.  I dunno, we'll see..

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Speaking of Oscars, I posted this on page one of the Oppenheimer thread an eternity ago. Like, before there was even a teaser trailer.

Quote

I'm too lazy to look for it right now but I remember reading something about the (reported) deal with Universal. It involves a guaranteed exclusive theatrical run, no Universal tentpole film releases for a period before and after the premiere, and a substantial percentage of the first dollar gross. If I didn't know better I'd say the suits at Universal were more concerned about prestige at awards season than money in the bank. My boy Chris is getting paid, son!

I'd say that worked out well. 

[DMC]

K yeah so it's everything..

 

[Spockydog]

On 3/12/2024 at 7:39 AM, 3CityApache said:

First two albums of Coldplay were very good actually. That's the later albums that didn't do them any favours.

And all the prancing about the stage like a proper ponce. 

I saw them when they were touring Parachutes. Upper gallery at the Kentish Town Forum. One of the best gigs I've ever seen. 

[Maithanet]

On 3/14/2024 at 2:09 AM, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Speaking of Oscars, I posted this on page one of the Oppenheimer thread an eternity ago. Like, before there was even a teaser trailer.

I'd say that worked out well. 

Worked out well except for the part about Universal not making a ton of money on Oppenheimer.  It grossed nearly a billion dollars, which is a pretty astonishing feat given the subject matter, and I'm not at all sure any other director could have pulled it off. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

Worked out well except for the part about Universal not making a ton of money on Oppenheimer.  It grossed nearly a billion dollars, which is a pretty astonishing feat given the subject matter, and I'm not at all sure any other director could have pulled it off. 

The exhibitors keep roughly 50% of the gate. If what I read was true about Nolan's first dollar gross percentage, he effectively got the other 50%. That's a bit of an exaggeration but not by much.

The deal George Lucas made with Alan Ladd Jr. and 20th Century Fox for SW:ESB would have actually yielded zero profit for the studio. "You guys made all the money on the last one; I want the money from this one.", and, "We'll do a side deal for distribution".

Then Irvin Kershner went over schedule and over budget and Lucas had go back to Ladd for more money. 

[Annara Snow]

On 3/13/2024 at 11:19 AM, Heartofice said:

Not absurd at all! Think you are taking this a little too personally mate.

Anyway, just look at the cast, Trainspotting had a bunch of unknowns, regular looking people, speaking in a language that is barely intelligible to anyone outside of Scotland. Requiem had a cast made up of major Hollywood stars, Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly being some of the most beautiful people around, Burstyn and Wayans also incredibly recognisable. I know Requiem is a dark and grim, but it also is clearly a Hollywood movie.

I also highly doubt Aronofsky had never seen Trainspotting by the time he'd made Requiem. 

 

On 3/13/2024 at 11:42 AM, DMC said:

Ewan McGregor wasn't much of an unknown at that point.  Indeed, he's quite comparable to Leto at the same point.  Johnny Lee Miller?  Fairly comparable to Marlon Wayans.  Even the budgets were rather comparable.  1.5 million pounds to $4.5 million -- and Trainspotting was shittons more successful!  This idea that Trainspotting was somehow much less "Hollywood" ignores the fact Requiem wasn't Hollywood -- it was filmed almost entirely on Coney Island. 

Sorry if I got a bit hostile, but this is my point here -- there's not much distinction.

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.

 

Edited March 21 by Annara Snow

[Annara Snow]

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.

 

Edited March 21 by Annara Snow

[Annara Snow]

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

Edited March 21 by Annara Snow