Oscars 2020

I know! he's a great one. : )

 

cool!

 

So, I just came back from seeing”Judy.” Wow what a picture. If Renee Zellweger does not win best actress everyone should in the Academy should turn in their membership cards and see them burned. An acting tour de force — she does the physical equivalent of anything De Niro or Bale have ever done with their roles. Honestly I went in unenthusiastically because I generally don’t like Bio pics but this was a tremendously moving film.A great film. In Zellweir’s more-than-Oscar-worthy performance - its an epic performance - she creates a staggering portrait of Judy Garland and one of the most painful portrayal of @ shattered human being ive seen on the screen, this may sound trite, but with “joker“ and “Judy“ I think this year I’ve seen two of the best performances by actors ever on film. With Judy, I was reminded of the experience I had with Oliver stones film “Nixon.” Not being a Republican myself, and perhaps feeling unsympathetic toward the ti5le character, I was completely turned around by the profound weariness of soul Anthony Hopkins projected in “Nixon” A great performance shows you the man and his soul, not his charted words and deed. In Hopkins performance in “Nixon,” I especially as I a reflection of my fathersdeep weariness and suddenly saw a previously maligned figure from an entirely different perspective. - a More sympathetic perspective.And now I would like to publicly apologize to the true legend Judy Garland for anything I thought I’ll of you not knowing the terrible time you were going through in those last five days ...now I understand... via Ms. Zellweiger. I apologize for joining the mob, Like the crew public presented in “duty” who like crowds at Amy Winehouse,s last concerts jeered her. I was guilty of being unsympathetic towards Judy Garland’s last days but depth of pain which Renée Zellweger projects has the power to transcend the film as a biopic and turn it into a legendary actor’s showpiece on the frailty of the human soul, we are all unfortunately ultimately ere to. A breathtaking performance and an utterly wonderful film. One which made me feel a little guilty. RIP Judy And One which made me feel a little guilty. RIP Judy

 

Agree, I'd be happy for 3 Oskars at least

 

I don't think any of your concerns are reason enough not to award her an Oscar, it should be about the performance in the movie itself.
Having said that, I think Zellweger and Ronan were much better in this category. Ronan probably shaded it but won't win as there is more Oscar buzz around Judy.

 

Here’s my winners prediction.

Best director Sam Mendes
Best film 1917
Best male Actor Antonio Bandaras
Best supporting actor Joe Pesci
Best score : 1917
Best screenplay: Quentin Tarantino
Best cinematography : 1917

 

That is an excellent film.. Can we really compare much of today's film to the best of the golden age of film?
I don't think so.

 

This final scene from ' Paths of Glory ' is the icing on this Kubrick cake. Made even better by the soon-to-be Mrs Kubrick.

 

Being selfish is a reason to be divorced twice? Well it may be part of it, but there are probably many other factors that you nor anyone else on the outside has no clue about.

 

...and I share these perspectives. Tricky cinematography that is an end in itself does not a great film make. In the realm of successfully doing an "immersion" thing with a war film, I thought that last year's Dunkirk was vastly superior.

"Mendes and Deakins’s visual achievement here is undeniable. Yet mere minutes into the film, the gimmick begins to chafe. There is no sense of real danger, because the mission has to continue, if only to keep this impressive long shot going. Any time there’s a larger, more cataclysmic set piece, our heroes look like tiny chess pieces on a much bigger board, bystanders who move around exploding mortars and whizzing bullets to produce the most stunning tableaux possible. The simplicity of the mission, necessitated by the visual conceit, is double-edged. All Schofield and Blake have to do is give a warning to British troops and halt their attack before it begins, lest they fall into a German trap. They’re risking their life to stop further progress, and every character they meet comments on the cruel sense of stasis that defines the conflict. The script, by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, keeps hinting at the ultimate futility of the First World War, during which millions of men heaved themselves out of trenches and toward certain death for the sake of a few miles of territory. Though 1917 tries to communicate that nightmarish reality, its long-take trickery ends up feeling similarly pointless." (Atlantic)

"1917 is a war movie that also aspires to be a thriller, done on the run and with a ticking clock. But more than either of those things, it’s a bombastic filmmaking stunt, though I’m sure director Sam Mendes doesn’t want to think about it that way. Mendes, who wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, conceived of the look of the film from the start as a kind of blunt-force approach to immersion that would make the audience travel with these characters every step of the way. The single-take approach was, for him, meant to be a means of conveying immediacy and intimacy. But in practice the showy complexity of the undertaking achieves the opposite effect. 1917 can’t help but pull you away from the intense experiences of its constantly on-the-move characters to demand you pay attention to how difficult it was to achieve what’s onscreen while you watch it — to dwell on the mechanics of all of its more intricate moments. For something that strives to bring century-old hostilities back to vivid life, 1917 feels unduly concerned with boring whoever might be watching by lingering on details. To commit to showing someone’s real-time experiences means, well, committing to their real-time experiences, even when that involves trudging through the mud for a while. But the film arranges ways to fling its characters from set piece to set piece, from a sequence in which a character crosses a downed bridge while being shot at from directions unknown to one in which he tumbles over the edge of a waterfall. Cameos from better-known British and Irish talent serve as chapter markers. The artifice of the aesthetic premise overwhelms any of the film’s other intentions." (Vulture)

"In another movie, such demonstrative self-reflexivity might have been deployed to productive effect; here, it registers as grandstanding. It’s too bad and it’s frustrating, because the two leads make appealing company: The round-faced Chapman brings loose, affable charm to his role, while MacKay, a talented actor who’s all sharp angles, primarily delivers reactive intensity. This lack of nuance can be blamed on Mendes, who throughout seems far more interested in the movie’s machinery than in the human costs of war or the attendant subjects — sacrifice, patriotism and so on — that puff into view like little wisps of engine steam.The absence of history ensures that “1917” remains a palatable war simulation, the kind in which every button on every uniform has been diligently recreated, and no wound, no blown-off limb, is ghastly enough to truly horrify the audience. Here, everything looks authentic but manicured, ordered, sane, sterile. Save for a quick appearance by Andrew Scott, as an officer whose overly bright eyes and jaundiced affect suggest he’s been too long in the trenches, nothing gestures at madness. Worse, the longer this amazing race continues, the more it resembles an obstacle course by way of an Indiana Jones-style adventure, complete with a showstopping plane crash and battlefield sprint." (NY Times)

"It’s easy to imagine a world where it kills at the upcoming Oscars. It hits a lot of the right notes. 1917 is a solemn war movie with popular appeal, the kind of thing that makes award nominations guaranteed. But it’s also hollow, lacking the emotional heart that makes the genre more than empty spectacle. Close cuts are used to foster intimacy, and if a camera never truly gets close to anyone, then we aren’t likely to either. In 1917, the horror and spectacle of war are impressive but never felt. It’s the visual language of video games, but video games pull it off because that distanced voyeurism also comes with something additive: interactivity. Eventually, you will become involved. That is not something a film can offer." (Verge)

"In many ways, though, the most thrilling and haunting details of the production design are actively undermined by the chief technical gimmick of the film: that of being shot to look like one take. There’s a modern misconception that long takes aid the audience’s immersion into a film’s characters, when, in truth, unbroken, intensely planned shots are among the most visibly artificial affectations in all of cinema. Long, intricately moving takes inherently call attention not to anything inside the frame but the frame itself, and it’s why the best of them explicitly foreground their opulence and hyperreality. 1917 is never less immersive than when Roger Deakins’s camera has to execute some dizzying movement, such as transitioning from a tracking motion along the ground to a sudden floating up into the air for a bird’s-eye view of the action, or when staging a sudden, chaotic motion to disguise an edit. Ironically, the film’s clearest dive into the subjective experience of one of its protagonists comes on the one visible cut, when he’s knocked out, sending the image to black as he passes into unconsciousness.
The single-take setup also calls further attention to the tonal clashes that arise whenever 1917 moves away from its engrossingly nightmarish surrealism in order to indulge narrative contrivance. An eerie ground-level view of a dogfight raging in the air, scored to the distant rat-a-tat of machine guns, ends with a plane crashing right by Bake and Schofield, and the moment loses sight of the evocative horror of war’s randomness by making the far-off battle relevant to the protagonists’ journey. Worse still is the detour in the middle of the outstanding sequence in the bombed-out town involving a young Frenchwoman (whose words, in direct violation of the subjective intent of the long takes, is subtitled) who offers a distracting dose of sentimentality in the midst of a holocaust consuming what remains of her hamlet.
1917 is at its best at its most narratively unmoored, highlighting the random and terrifying nature of war in such bits as Schofield strangling a German soldier in silhouette as the enemy’s drunken, oblivious comrade stumbles around in deep background, or in the quick flash of queasy fear that plays across a character’s face when he accidentally plunges a cut hand into the open wound of a rotten corpse. In placing such striking horrors amid long, rambling takes that call attention to the challenge of their choreography, Mendes’s film makes too much sense of a war it only truly honors when embracing the cruelty of its chaos.

 

Yep. I can do anything I want to point out the overrated nature of this picture. How many on this forum compare today's music to The Beatles so gimme a break. Mendes attempts to reach a similar emotional level to Kubrick and even rips off the scene and if you watch the posted video he doesn't even approach it. Why can't I want more from a film? I paid money to see it and now I'm relaying my opinion to others. If Mendes wants to make a great war film, it will be compared to others and judged amongst them.

 

Actually I am rooting for Pitt to win.

I have seen both. "The Irishman" wasn't bad but:

A) "Silence" was way better, sadly underrated and -since we're talking about the Oscars, also better than that crap film that won BP that year.

B) Sorry but the whole "limited" time at the theater was a gimmick to get it nominated. Imho, it's a TV movie. Expensive, but still a TV movie.

"Behind the candelabra" not good for the Oscar, but good for the Emmy Award despite the same CV (produced by a TV channel and with limited theatrical screening) of "The Irishman"? Scorsese, Pesci and Pacino worthy of Oscar nominations and Soderbergh, Damon and Douglas worthy of Emmy nominations? Sorry but there's TV stuff and cinema stuff. Imho.

 

All those years putting it together just for Robert De Niro and Martin Scorcese to make a TV movie, kinda sad.

 

Well all the regular movie studios passed on the Irishman....

 

Yes you have a right to your opinion,and all I did was ask a question, certainly nothing to get upset about.
You can want more from a film but this film's judgement is now against it's fellow nominees, not an outstanding war film made 50 something years ago.

 

Has anyone here seen Pain and Glory?
That's released on Nflix next week, on my list.
What best pic do you personally like the best, and what one do you think is most deserving of the win?

 

I've seen all nine nominees. My ranking:

1. Parasite
2. The Irishman
3. Marriage Story
4. Once upon a Time in Hollywood
5. Little Women
6. 1917
[very wide gap here]
7. Ford v Ferrari
8. Jojo Rabbit
9. Joker

My guesses as to the actual winners in every category are coming later.

 

I liked Pain and Glory, but I also found it far from the director’s best.

My ranking in order of quality...

1917
Parasite (These two are so close, but ties are for the weak...)
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Little Women
The Irishman
Ford v Ferrari

Shalom, y’all!

L. Bangs

 

I started watching “marriage story” last night on Netflix and turned it off after 15 minutes because the directorial style was so unoriginal, caged, and pretentiously trendy annoying. Plastic. I kept waiting for pop up balloons.

 

It's overly long, at times dull,Driver is terrific, Johansson is very good overall.
I have two or three more to see, but so far I only liked The Irishman and that has it's faults .

 

You should have hung in there. They started at the 30 minute mark.
I read a good review of this movie but it wasn't for me.

 

GoldDerby

Here are the "expert" picks. Most categories are locked up, the big battle is for director, editing and due to the preferential voting Best Picture is debatable for Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood.

 

We value your privacy.

“Debatable for Once Upon A Time ..In Hollywood”

What’s the reckoning for 1917?

 

Privacy? I'll post my picks but they'll be similar to the favorites. I just want to see Jojo and Little Women first, the only nominated films I haven't seen yet.

Right now the odds for best picture are with Tarantino, with the experts noting it's his time so it'll be an Oscar for his ouevre not just this film. But because of the preferential ballot where the second and third place votes count a film like Parasite could sneak through. 1917 is in a strong second place. The SAG awards this Sunday could mean something if Parasite wins for best cast.

 

Oh no, not the body of work Oscar
Parasite has foreign film sewed up, but no way for best pic.