91st Academy Awards

The real biggest disappointment was First Reformed, probably the best film of 2018, losing Best Original Screenplay to goddamn Green Book.

Another great movie that didn’t get nominated.

I was wondering which one I was forgetting.

So Donald Trump called Spike Lee's Oscar speech "a racist hit." Just as a reminder, this was Spike Lee's speech:

Oh yeah, it's amazing because by saying that the speech (which only said "vote, and be on the right side of history") was a hit is implicitly saying "I rely on voter suppression and will be on the wrong side of history."

It's a masterwork of projection.

So will Spike Lee run for president in 2020?

Jackson for VP. Jackson for VP.

Was it a hit speech ?

Yes.

Was it racist ?

No.

Did the target deserve it?

The target derserves to be fired into the sun.

Green Book won out of freaking nowhere, but at the same time, this doesn't surprise me.

…As we were discussing Best Animated Films in the ITSV thread, I wonder if there should be a "non-English animated feature" category, like there is for live action films… The paradox of the Oscars is that they are considered the most prestigious film award in the world, yet they almost exclusively reward English language films. So the question is: should non-English films run alongside English ones with no chance of winning − since the Academy is American − or run in a consolation prize category like like BFLF? (Roma was nominated in both, strangely enough, but that obviously won't happen every year.)

As things are now, it's nigh impossible for any non-American animation film to stand a chance, unless your name is Miyazaki.

Edited by Lyendith on Feb 25th 2019 at 6:18:01 PM

In regards to the "playing a gay man" comment, why do people forget that Freddie Mercury was bisexual?

It's more important that non-English films in general, live-action and animation, get distribution and exposure and exhibition than for them to win awards that people ignore as in the case of the Best Live-Action Short or Best Documentary Short.

Best Foreign Film as a rule doesn't give exposure. And in general if you look at that category, historically it's more often than not, been Best European movies since South American, African, Asian films don't win that much or often. There are exceptions, Roma being one.

And in defense of the Oscars, even serious film festivals and others don't take animation seriously. Like the Cannes Film Festival has never given major awards to animated features. And internationally the Palme d'Or is more prestigious than Best Foreign Film oscar. I mean the Academy at least gives awards to animated shorts and features. Nothing like that is done in major European film festivals.

So this is one place where the problem is bigger than the Academy and a place where the AMPAS have maybe done more than their fair share and you need to ask other people to chip in.

It is indeed sad that the Cannes festival doesn't consider animation more. The Annecy (animation) festival is quite fair to foreign productions, but nobody cares about the Annecy festival.

Edited by gropcbf on Feb 25th 2019 at 7:33:47 PM

I ordered the Film Shorts program on PPV yesterday night and they had neither Bao nor Late Afternoon. Pissed me off.

I wills aid because freedy look more intersting in man than woman,he divorce of one, since to have numerous male lovers and have a heath relationship with a men, is easy to see as gay or a homo romantic bisexual.

And I saw rhapsody and.....yeah the editing is bad, the movie seen less focus in life of freddy and more of a "freddy mercury best moments", the kind of things you would see in youtube, the begining is very ergogous in how pay this: first mercury moving longage, then him writing songs, then him being told by is father and BAM, one years later, I was "wait what?", in fact it took me half of the movie to see the band as family.

Also it seen quite explotative since it focus more on freedy being extravagant and flamboyant than anything else, me and my girlfriend talk about it, in how ecentric artist get a kind of fetishic focus on it, the movie is very blatant in it and the moment it stop focusing in it is for drama.

The comments at Cracked of all places had an excellent point that the film only got off the ground because of the participation of the bandmates and as such apparently whitewashed their behavior so it came accross as just Freddy being hedonistic while they were essentially tut-tutting off in the corner.

Well, if anything, at least BR might lead to a renewed interest in Queen's music and maybe some more (accurate) biopics of musicians/groups (I'm hoping that the Guns N Roses biopic gets out of development hell).

Edited by J79 on Feb 25th 2019 at 12:41:44 PM

I never got the impression that there isn't an interest in Queen's music, but then, that's the European perspective. I mean, Tanzhommage an Queen is one of my favourite ballet. It is amazing!!!!

To get an idea what I am talking about...it's naturally better if you see it life and not snippets of a bootleg recording….

Edited by Swanpride on Feb 25th 2019 at 12:54:14 PM

Yeah, the movie didn't advertise Queen's music. Queen's music advertised the movie.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 25th 2019 at 4:05:43 AM

Making a Biopic about real figures, especially musicians is hard, because they are tied to IP, and you want to get people to buy their music and not do something that might diminish that. In the case of Bohemian Rhapsody, they were interested in Freddie Mercury more than the band, but they didn't know how to tell that movie without the music by the band, and the band wanted the movie to be about them too. Which is a mess.

Martin Scorsese at different times wanted to make movies about Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. It fell apart because he wanted to go Warts and All and show people as Gray but the rightsholders wanted a conventional formula (in which case, why would you go to the guy who did Raging Bull which absolutely refused to whitewash Jake Lamotta). He cited Dean Martin, a project he wanted to do with Tom Hanks where the producers told him to make Jerry Lewis look like the bad guy, and Scorsese being real-life friends with Lewis refused. He said that it was like "making a movie about the Beatles and taking sides between Paul and John".

FWIW, I thought Rami Mallek as Freddie Mercury was excellent. The movie itself was average and considering the director got fired and so on, it holds up well. I liked Rami Mallek's acceptance speech only it kind of brought out the problems of casting a hetero actor in a gay role (or a bisexual with preference for men, to those who want to be technical). In the movie his chemistry with Lucy Boynton's character was better than with any of his male friends. And the two actors had a Romance on the Set, and Mallek and Boynton were all kissy at the oscars. Which is sweet but not exactly good optics when you play a gay icon. At least Tom Hanks did it classy when he credited his gay teacher when he won an oscar for Philadelphia, and that was Hanks, America's Dad.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Feb 25th 2019 at 1:10:51 AM

Eloquently put!!!

Edited by Swanpride on Feb 25th 2019 at 1:08:17 AM

Say what you will about the movie, I'm indifferent, but Malek nailed that part.

Yeah, from my point of view, Queen never became irrelevant (which is more than can be said for most other music artists).

Hell, many of their songs entered Memetic Mutation years before the film even entered production.

Agreed. I don't think it deserved all its wins, but it did deserve that one. Especially since I wasn't nearly as enamored of Viggo's performance in Green Book as everyone else seems to be.

Danke.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 25th 2019 at 4:10:59 AM

Funny thing, this remind something that happen when suicide squad trailer show with bohemian rhapsody, everyone was hyped as hell and for a while it throw away doubts about movies quality one article point out that maybe people just go over excited by the song because...well is a very catchy song.

I feel the movie is that way, it dosent help it does really just goes for all the hits of queen, the credit song was one I didnt know and I would love to heard before.

Also, while we're shitting on the movie, I think it just plain made a huge misstep in not mentioning Flash Gordon. Not only are those songs fucking great, it's just a missed opportunity to A: have some slightly less "all the hits" scenes and B: Poke some fun at that wonderful movie.