91st Academy Awards

Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and The Wolf of Wall Street didn't portay its true history with any whitewashing. And the Academy didn't give awards to either of them.

Not to mention the fact that real life isn't a story. It doesn't exist to be dramatically convenient or emotionally satisfying like all good stories are, it simply is what it is.

So often in order to have a narrative that works, these types of movies have to stretch, exaggerate, or just flat out misrepresent the truth, and it ends up contributing to a false impression of how those people or events were actually like.

This applies to most "real story" films but especially biopics, which is why I'm not fond of them as a concept. Pretty much every single one I can think of has had problems like that in some way or another.

Just make an original story.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 26th 2019 at 12:24:38 PM

It's kind of weird that Green Book won for Original Screenplay when you consider that argument. I mean it's based on a true story and event, uses actual people's names and isn't fictionalized or anything, and yet because it didn't adapt a pre-existing source or book, being directly adapted by the son of the guy Mortensen plays, it's an "original screenplay". Of course other nominations include Adam Mckay with Vice, and The Favorite, both also based on real people. I kind of think the spirit of the award is being violated there.

Some people hoped that First Reformed would get that. For one thing it's an actual legit original screenplay, with fictional characters created directly for the screen. It's written by Paul Schrader, the guy who wrote Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and who wasn't nominated until that film. The movie is pretty good but it didn't get consideration at all.

Still think it's weird that Moonlight was considered an adaption considering the play it was based on was never published.

The play Casablanca was adapted from wasn't published either at the time, and the film's writers, the Epstein brothers, won for Best Adapted Screenplay. So in that respect, it was consistent and fair, and in line with precedent.

Never said it was inconsistent, just weird.

The WGA is a very political group by writers and they largely set the rules for credit and have a big say in designing the Screenplay Awards. So I guess crediting unpublished stuff is a way of ensuring adaptations don't pass credit just because something didn't hit publications. As it is, movie deals and options these days often get picked up for books before publication and so on. Especially "based on true story". Reading Copies or Galleys are often sent out to prospective groups by agents of writers who get in touch with the agents of producers and so on, and that means that before a book is published, you have a movie deal. For instance, Scorsese learned of and became interested in Goodfellas before that book was published having read Pileggi's Wiseguys in its galleys and ARC.

So a lot of movies and other stuff, first drafts and so on are adapted or in screenplay gestating form before publication. To take an example from TV, Game of Thrones in its final season will adapt elements from Martin's unpublished material from upcoming books. In a sense, you can say the later seasons are original material because it wasn't published. But that would still amount to a form of plagiarism if not credited properly.

Wait, Aaron Sorkin wrote The Social Network? That explains why it's so godawful.

Re: I generally do think Zodiac is better, and Fincher himself considers it his best, so that's fair.

Zodiac itself is somewhat dated, as in the years since, Arthur Leigh Allen's status as the top suspect has dwindled considerably (although there are still people who believe he was the Zodiac Killer).

The film also fudged a few facts wrong, due to using Robert Greysmith as a creative consultant.

The movie itself never definitely says outright it was Arthur Leigh, and the film's final title card says it's still a cold case. The final scene where the guy identifies the photos, shows him hesitating, noting that a second suspect also has a round face and so on. So it's very uncertain. It's about Graysmith believing it was Arthur Leigh but there's no reason to believe he's any closer to the truth than anyone else. That's the beauty of the movie. It's the defining example of a murder mystery that remains unsolved at the end. And at one point, the movie plays with the idea that a random movie projectionist might be the killer. This isn't Oliver Stone's JFK movie which fakes and alters stuff and allows no room for nuance and ambiguity about separating his opinions from the facts. Zodiac is a movie that is a based on true story that's surprisingly accurate in what it shows. It follows Graysmith and shows his conclusions but it never says outright that stuff is right or that he had it confirmed and so on.

Spotlight is another good example of a based on true story that didn't fake stuff as much as others. It's a terrific movie that holds up pretty well. And it's one of the more worthy Best Picture winners (and an unexpected victory since it wasn't nominated for many awards).

Wow, maybe I should finally get to watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:11:52 AM

Yes, yes you should.

According to Box Office Mojo, Green Book is adding over 1,000 theaters this week, making it the largest post-ceremony expansion of any Best Picture nominee ever.

I think I just felt the exact emotional version of a cat hissing and doing that thing where it puffs up its fur.

Doesn't mean that those theatres will be full….

Steven Spielberg will propose a rule that Netflix films not be eligible for Academy Awards.

I remember reading a Newsweek interview years ago where Spielberg said his biggest fear was someone making an entire movie on their computer without any studio. It was framed as “how sad, they wouldn’t interact with anybody”, but the accessibility to indie filmmakers was never addressed. This is a similar issue.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Mar 1st 2019 at 11:54:47 AM

Fuck him. He sounds like those old reactionaries who believed television would do away with movie theaters.

The fact of the matter is that streaming isn't television. A film that is original to streaming wouldn't be considered a "made for TV" movie because it isn't made for TV. Hell, it wasn't even made for Netflix — these are movies that the filmmakers and studios have made that they are now trying to get distributed and Netflix is a distributor. A lot of these films are indie films that were shown during film festivals.

Roma was filmed in 2016 and Netflix only bought the distribution rights in April of 2018. So calling it a "made for TV movie" is silly.

Hey, why not try calling The Other Side of the Wind a "made for TV movie," right? Because that's also on Netflix.

Edited by alliterator on Mar 2nd 2019 at 12:14:21 PM

Yeah he can miss me with that shit. Beasts of No Nation is better than many films I've seen in theaters.

There's lots of short films that only play in a sparse amount of theaters, yet still are allowed to get nominated. I don't hear him complaining about that.

And it’s especially gross of Spielberg given how Netflix has been supporting projects by people of color and whites women. Y’know, people traditional Hollywood has been crappy to.

What was it Shia LaBeouf said about him? Oh right:

Edited by TheAirman on Mar 2nd 2019 at 2:38:37 PM

If only it was just Spielberg… There was the same shit with the Cannes Festival…

And at Cannes the issue is "settled": Netflix films are now banned.

Well that sucks... oddly enough, this isn’t the first time people have been stuck up about awards at the Oscars, as the Academy disqualified Tron for Visual Effects nominations on account of it using computers.