The Movie Thread Returns

[algroth]

 

 

Shape of Water is fantastic and I was surprised it got nominated, it's too good to be recognized by the academy.

And this is another comment I don't get in today's context. Back in the 90s or early 00s? Sure, the Oscars used to nominate some very dodgy stuff back then. But the films being nominated through the past five years have in their great majority been legitimate film of the year contenders, and are truly at their best since the 70s. This whole "Oscars suck" mentality feels weirdly out of sync with the latest years.

I don't think the Oscars suck, it's just that Shape of Water has fanteesee stuff. Outside if Lord of the Rings, well... pretty much never stood a chance traditionally.

 

Edit: Oops, the message sent without any body. Anyhow, I assumed you meant "fantastic" as in "great" and not as in "fantasy" right there, sorry for the confusion. In which case it's true... But yeah, I was venting/ranting for a pet peeve I have about a common internet opinion. Sorry.

Edited February 2, 2018 by algroth

[injurai]

The Oscar's are certainly far and above other award shows for what it's worth. The Grammy's for example are a complete sham.

[Bartimaeus]

 

 

I wonder if what you see as 'americanized' is the result of the movie being an adaption of a UK children's novel?

 

I haven't seen Howl yet, but expect it to feel different being an adaption from an English language story.

 

I didn't know that about it - that might be it. The dialogue pacing feels very different from the other Ghibli movies I've seen (which I actually kind of like), but on the other hand, it feels like some connecting scenes were missing, leading to characters acting a little...odd at times. Furthermore, the final quarter of the movie was pretty Disney-esque, which I was actually surprised (and a little disappointed) by, as none of the other Ghibli movies I've seen had been. Great first half, but not quite as great second half, I guess.

 

Yeah, that's quite a good way to sum it up for me. It's probably one of my least-favourite Miyazaki films, which is really not saying much since it still is very enjoyable and featuring a number of moments of sheer excellence, not to mention being as creative and visually striking as ever. i can't say I noticed much with regards to the dialogue pace but it's been years since I've seen it myself, and neither did I really feel the ending was too 'Disney', rather that, as you say, the thin connective tissue towards the end made it a feel a bit more jumbled and uneven. So which ones have you seen so far, Bart?

 

 

Everything just falls neatly and perfectly into place and resolves in a completely ideal manner at the end, even though I wasn't totally sure how we even got to that point. It just didn't feel...earned, I guess, which made it a little dissatisfying. I've seen Nausicaa, Laputa, Only Yesterday, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Right now, I think I'd rank them 1. Howl, 2. Nausicaa, 3. Kiki's, 4. Only Yesterday, 5. Laputa. I've mentioned seeing all of them in this thread so far besides Laputa (which was...in terms of pure enjoyment, maybe was higher than Only Yesterday, but it was much less interesting, which gets it ranked a little lower).

[injurai]

I finally saw Laputa for the first time sometime last year. I did quite enjoy it. I found it to be curiously minimal however, and the world at large seemed far more simple and naive than other Miyazaki films. It's almost ideal, as if it was formulated to be an adventure distilled to its purest form. Without too many internal conflictions and ambiguities over the untimely hero's role. I also sort of felt like I was viewing a dream while watching it.

[LadyCrimson]

I haven't seen Get Out yet, but I feel the need to address the assumptions that the film's only nominated as a token entry in the Oscars, which I feel is simply false and a rather preposterous claim even. The film has repeatedly over the last few months been lauded as one of the greatest films of the year, so much so that it is currently the most awarded film of the year above the likes of every other nominee and former BP hopeful, according to RT's awards leaderboard. It's not just a random nom, it's one of the leading contenders and has been for months, and according to most I've spoken to rightly so as well. To leave it out would have been as preposterous as failing to award any of the other big players in the running this year, the likes of Lady Bird, Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, if not even more so.

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else.

 

I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective.

It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years.

[Bartimaeus]

I finally saw Laputa for the first time sometime last year. I did quite enjoy it. I found it to be curiously minimal however, and the world at large seemed far more simple and naive than other Miyazaki films. It's almost ideal, as if it was formulated to be an adventure distilled to its purest form. Without too many internal conflictions and ambiguities over the untimely hero's role. I also sort of felt like I was viewing a dream while watching it.

 

It's probably because I'm watching them all within such a short amount of time (the first I saw was Nausicaa about two weeks ago?) that I had a little more muted reaction towards Laputa. It was fun and pleasant and there wasn't really anything particularly bad about it, but I didn't feel it was all too special, either.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[algroth]

 

I haven't seen Get Out yet, but I feel the need to address the assumptions that the film's only nominated as a token entry in the Oscars, which I feel is simply false and a rather preposterous claim even. The film has repeatedly over the last few months been lauded as one of the greatest films of the year, so much so that it is currently the most awarded film of the year above the likes of every other nominee and former BP hopeful, according to RT's awards leaderboard. It's not just a random nom, it's one of the leading contenders and has been for months, and according to most I've spoken to rightly so as well. To leave it out would have been as preposterous as failing to award any of the other big players in the running this year, the likes of Lady Bird, Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, if not even more so.

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else.

 

I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective.

It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years.

 

 

I do know how the Oscar noms work and come about, and that's the thing: they might arguably respond to politics but they respond far more often to *momentum*, and Get Out has had it for months. And whilst, yes, art is indeed subjective and one is free to think whatever they want about Get Out or any other film, but assuming that a film's nomination is purely political, or that people have rated it as one of the best of the year for purely political reasons, takes a step beyond positing one's opinion on a film and into discrediting others' through speculating on their motives for their assessment. In the same coin I could accuse you and TN of questioning the legitimacy of Get Out's nomination due to being racist and thus assuming that a black filmmaker's nomination is inherently less legitimate than that one a white one's (which, mind, I don't, but it follows the same line of thought). It's the act of speculating on the others' opinions for rating a film so highly to be political which is wrong, not a disagreement about whether it's as good as others say it is or not.

[Blarghagh]

To see academy politics, just look at Leo winning for The Revenant when he's really winning for his whole body of work because he was terribly overacting and constantly, annoyingly mugging for the camera in that film. They wanted to finally give him something, didn't seem to matter they were giving it for a Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons style performance.

 

Don't get me wrong, Leo deserved accolades he never got for a lot of roles. That just wasn't one of them.

[algroth]

To see academy politics, just look at Leo winning for The Revenant when he's really winning for his whole body of work because he was terribly overacting and constantly, annoyingly mugging for the camera in that film. They wanted to finally give him something, didn't seem to matter they were giving it for a Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons style performance.

 

Don't get me wrong, Leo deserved accolades he never got for a lot of roles. That just wasn't one of them.

 

I thought he was very good in that film and I say that as someone who often doesn't like him (overacting is the name of the game with him), but I also think this ignores that the rest of the lead actor nominees weren't really that good. There just wasn't anyone to really claim it from him.

Edited February 2, 2018 by algroth

[Blarghagh]

 

 

I haven't seen Get Out yet, but I feel the need to address the assumptions that the film's only nominated as a token entry in the Oscars, which I feel is simply false and a rather preposterous claim even. The film has repeatedly over the last few months been lauded as one of the greatest films of the year, so much so that it is currently the most awarded film of the year above the likes of every other nominee and former BP hopeful, according to RT's awards leaderboard. It's not just a random nom, it's one of the leading contenders and has been for months, and according to most I've spoken to rightly so as well. To leave it out would have been as preposterous as failing to award any of the other big players in the running this year, the likes of Lady Bird, Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, if not even more so.

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else.

 

I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective.

It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years.

 

I do know how the Oscar noms work and come about, and that's the thing: they might arguably respond to politics but they respond far more often to *momentum*, and Get Out has had it for months. And whilst, yes, art is indeed subjective and one is free to think whatever they want about Get Out or any other film, but assuming that a film's nomination is purely political, or that people have rated it as one of the best of the year for purely political reasons, takes a step beyond positing one's opinion on a film and into discrediting others' through speculating on their motives for their assessment. In the same coin I could accuse you and TN of questioning the legitimacy of Get Out's nomination due to being racist and thus assuming that a black filmmaker's nomination is inherently less legitimate than that one a white one's (which, mind, I don't, but it follows the same line of thought). It's the act of speculating on the others' opinions for rating a film so highly to be political which is wrong, not a disagreement about whether it's as good as others say it is or not.

 

That's not by the same coin at all. You don't even know what currency we're using. You're defending a film you haven't even seen, calling criticism of it false, preposterous and racist? That seems incredibly rude and pretentious to me.

 

Get Out is okay. I enjoyed it. I didn't hate it at all, I was entertained all way through. It was, as far as horror movies go, definitly in the top 20 this year. A definite step below other heavy horror hitters like It Comes At Night, Gerald's Game, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Stephen King's It but way above Annabelle Creation, Alien: Covenant and Life.

 

Why am I ranking it this way? To give you a better idea of the caliber of the film you're defending. I'm not arguing against the legitimacy of a black director. I love Jordan Peele. But the film he made is not oscar level. Not even CLOSE. It was never intended to be - it's essentially a Stepford Wives remake with feminism replaced with white privelege. It's competently directed (though nothing special), it's got some clever dialogue and funny cinematography and set design. I enjoyed it. The lead actress is good, everyone else is competent. It's not, however the kind of film that gets nominated for an Oscar. It's 'fine' at best. If you'd have SEEN it, you would know this and wouldn't be calling people preposterous racists for it. There is a gap in quality so obvious that it INVITES the questioning of motives.

 

The fact this got nominated for an Oscar while clearly being a just 'okay' film at best is the thing that makes black directors look inherently worse here, I'm just pointing it out. This makes last year's fantastic Moonlight, for example, look bad - this movie has no clear reason to be nominated based on quality and the only other plausible motive looking in is politics. Based in this nomination, it becomes incredibly easy to look back and go 'oh, it must have been the same for that film too'.

 

This would have been fine if the Academy had a history of nominating clever, decent horror films. But Scream never got nominated. Cabin in the Woods never got nominated. The only thing that sets this movie apart from those is race. Its nomination by itself makes the Academy look racist, out if touch, desperately trying to stave off the race controversy from a few years ago because nobody campaigned for a Moonlight or Boys N The Hood this year. This film wasn't nominated because it was good, it was nominated because it's black. Again, I liked this movie. But it's not Selma, or Precious. It's not 12 Years a Slave. It's not Fruitvale Station or even Creed which both should have been nominated but weren't. No, this is Scream with some clever jokes about privelege.

 

Lets talk about films of the same caliber this year. Stephen King's IT, while also being just fine, was a better film than this. Why did Andres Muschietti get passed over and Jordan Peele get nominated? Well, only thing I can see from the outside is... Latinos aren't as important to the Academy as African-Americans. Seriously, how am I the racist for pointing out the plain as day participation trophy style tokenism on display here? The Academy is acting like the villain of the very movie we're discussing and I'M the bad guy?

 

Seriously, watch it instead if being rude. You'll see. There simply is no way to view this nomination as anything other than the Academy going "I can't be racist, one of my best friends is black!".

Edited February 2, 2018 by TrueNeutral
Spelling, typing on my phone is annoying

[the_dog_days]

 

You know, I liked Get Out but as a decent run-of-the-mill horror film. It was good at what it did, but it didn't do anything new or interesting. So why the oscar noms? That smells political to me.

It's a send-a-message nod. I think its odds of actually winning Best Picture are almost zero.

I also liked Get Out, it was rather amusing and more intelligent than most films of its genre, but getting an Oscar nom. or calling it one of the years Top 10 best or whatever is over-rating it way too much. 

 

 

I know nothing about Get Out but horror, as a genre, is about as intelligent as shonen anime.

[Blarghagh]

I think that's why she had to point that out.

[the_dog_days]

I know. I just needed to say it out loud. It can be cleansing to get these things out in the open. :D

[Blarghagh]

The Oscar's are certainly far and above other award shows for what it's worth. The Grammy's for example are a complete sham.

 

I missed this comment, but QFT. Even the people who get them don't think they mean anything!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U16Q77Va4sc

[kellyon]

Don’t Breathe (2016)
I think an excellent and (as far as I can tell) original, horror / thriller. Certainly a nail biter! Would definitely recommend this as something different. The less you know about it the better. I knew the premise and thought it would be much better if I knew nothing about it. Not sure how rewatchable it would be though.

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, Fede Alvarez is a horror director worth keeping an eye on despite his hum-drum Evil Dead remake. Don't Breathe had me on the edge of my seat.

 

It also ruined turkey basters for me forever...

[algroth]

 

 

 

I haven't seen Get Out yet, but I feel the need to address the assumptions that the film's only nominated as a token entry in the Oscars, which I feel is simply false and a rather preposterous claim even. The film has repeatedly over the last few months been lauded as one of the greatest films of the year, so much so that it is currently the most awarded film of the year above the likes of every other nominee and former BP hopeful, according to RT's awards leaderboard. It's not just a random nom, it's one of the leading contenders and has been for months, and according to most I've spoken to rightly so as well. To leave it out would have been as preposterous as failing to award any of the other big players in the running this year, the likes of Lady Bird, Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, if not even more so.

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else.

 

I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective.

It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years.

 

I do know how the Oscar noms work and come about, and that's the thing: they might arguably respond to politics but they respond far more often to *momentum*, and Get Out has had it for months. And whilst, yes, art is indeed subjective and one is free to think whatever they want about Get Out or any other film, but assuming that a film's nomination is purely political, or that people have rated it as one of the best of the year for purely political reasons, takes a step beyond positing one's opinion on a film and into discrediting others' through speculating on their motives for their assessment. In the same coin I could accuse you and TN of questioning the legitimacy of Get Out's nomination due to being racist and thus assuming that a black filmmaker's nomination is inherently less legitimate than that one a white one's (which, mind, I don't, but it follows the same line of thought). It's the act of speculating on the others' opinions for rating a film so highly to be political which is wrong, not a disagreement about whether it's as good as others say it is or not.

 

That's not by the same coin at all. You don't even know what currency we're using. You're defending a film you haven't even seen, calling criticism of it false, preposterous and racist? That seems incredibly rude and pretentious to me.

 

Get Out is okay. I enjoyed it. I didn't hate it at all, I was entertained all way through. It was, as far as horror movies go, definitly in the top 20 this year. A definite step below other heavy horror hitters like It Comes At Night, Gerald's Game, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Stephen King's It but way above Annabelle Creation, Alien: Covenant and Life.

 

Why am I ranking it this way? To give you a better idea of the caliber of the film you're defending. I'm not arguing against the legitimacy of a black director. I love Jordan Peele. But the film he made is not oscar level. Not even CLOSE. It was never intended to be - it's essentially a Stepford Wives remake with feminism replaced with white privelege. It's competently directed (though nothing special), it's got some clever dialogue and funny cinematography and set design. I enjoyed it. The lead actress is good, everyone else is competent. It's not, however the kind of film that gets nominated for an Oscar. It's 'fine' at best. If you'd have SEEN it, you would know this and wouldn't be calling people preposterous racists for it. There is a gap in quality so obvious that it INVITES the questioning of motives.

 

The fact this got nominated for an Oscar while clearly being a just 'okay' film at best is the thing that makes black directors look inherently worse here, I'm just pointing it out. This makes last year's fantastic Moonlight, for example, look bad - this movie has no clear reason to be nominated based on quality and the only other plausible motive looking in is politics. Based in this nomination, it becomes incredibly easy to look back and go 'oh, it must have been the same for that film too'.

 

This would have been fine if the Academy had a history of nominating clever, decent horror films. But Scream never got nominated. Cabin in the Woods never got nominated. The only thing that sets this movie apart from those is race. Its nomination by itself makes the Academy look racist, out if touch, desperately trying to stave off the race controversy from a few years ago because nobody campaigned for a Moonlight or Boys N The Hood this year. This film wasn't nominated because it was good, it was nominated because it's black. Again, I liked this movie. But it's not Selma, or Precious. It's not 12 Years a Slave. It's not Fruitvale Station or even Creed which both should have been nominated but weren't. No, this is Scream with some clever jokes about privelege.

 

Lets talk about films of the same caliber this year. Stephen King's IT, while also being just fine, was a better film than this. Why did Andres Muschietti get passed over and Jordan Peele get nominated? Well, only thing I can see from the outside is... Latinos aren't as important to the Academy as African-Americans. Seriously, how am I the racist for pointing out the plain as day participation trophy style tokenism on display here? The Academy is acting like the villain of the very movie we're discussing and I'M the bad guy?

 

Seriously, watch it instead if being rude. You'll see. There simply is no way to view this nomination as anything other than the Academy going "I can't be racist, one of my best friends is black!".

 

 

A couple of things I should clarify here: firstly, I didn't accuse you or LadyCrimson of racism, though bringing up that matter opened up a whole can of worms that I shouldn't have touched, so I apologize for bringing it up and if you felt I was calling you racist; however I do think the same train of logic that would lead to such a far-fetched conclusion is the same you guys are following when you essentially go "I don't think this film is that good, therefore these guys who do must have a political reason for thinking so". Which brings me to the other point that is that I'm not criticising your opinion of the film at all, but rather the assumption you're making of others who have seen it and loved it. I don't need to have seen the film to call out that attitude which I do think is wrong. There is a chance that I might agree with you when I get around to watching the film, with regards to how I find the film itself; but that won't make me consider its nomination is somehow illegitimate and based only on some political reason, and the opinions of those that did love it somehow less 'honest' or more biased than the one I hold.

 

And I'll also add that even if it does turn out to be a solid genre film, that still gives it a better standing over many other films that have even won Best Picture in the past years which were absolute ****e (e.g Crash, A Beautiful Mind, Shakespeare in Love). I'll also add that the AMPAS have been showing a tendency to recognizing solid genre films in the past couple of years, as they have with the likes of Gravity, The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road as some examples of Best Picture nominees that come to mind. I probably feel similar to how you do of Get Out of The Martian.

Edited February 2, 2018 by algroth

[algroth]

 

 

You know, I liked Get Out but as a decent run-of-the-mill horror film. It was good at what it did, but it didn't do anything new or interesting. So why the oscar noms? That smells political to me.

It's a send-a-message nod. I think its odds of actually winning Best Picture are almost zero.

I also liked Get Out, it was rather amusing and more intelligent than most films of its genre, but getting an Oscar nom. or calling it one of the years Top 10 best or whatever is over-rating it way too much. 

 

 

I know nothing about Get Out but horror, as a genre, is about as intelligent as shonen anime.

 

 

So you would say the same of Cronenberg's output? Third Part of the Night? The Cremator? Shura? What about the long history of horror in literature, would you claim the same thing as well?

[LadyCrimson]

is that I'm not criticising your opinion of the film at all, but rather the assumption you're making of others who have seen it and loved it. I don't need to have seen the film to call out that attitude which I do think is wrong. There is a chance that I might agree with you when I get around to watching the film, with regards to how I find the film itself; but that won't make me consider its nomination is somehow illegitimate and based only on some political reason, and the opinions of those that did love it somehow less 'honest' or more biased than the one I hold.

Uh, please tell me where, exactly, that I said I think or assume others opinions for liking the film are illegitimate or less honest than mine. That feels like projecting something onto me that I never said. Art opinions (and other things) being so subjective is why I very rarely ever join in debates over whether something is awesome or not awesome, good or bad, because to me it's a waste of time at this point in my life, like arguing what color is best, blue or red. I just give an opinion and wander off again.  But imo, the masses/critics liking a film (or anything else) is one topic, while (perhaps one of) the reasons for choosing to nominate it for an award is another topic - they can be two separate (if interwtined) things and the latter can/could still have political/pandering motivations behind it.

 

*I* may think it's at least partly motivated by in-the-moment/timely "pandering" - even if it's well-intentioned pandering - while others may choose not to and want to see more positive reasons. And that's fine, we don't all have to agree. Many are likely less cynical than I, which is good, because if everyone thought like me, well, that would be pretty dull, living a world of nothing but me's. Whichever one it is, we'll never truly know anyway.

 

As to the being racist analogy/example - not touching that with a 10 foot pole but like TN, I do think that was a very poor argument to use in this case and is not the same "side of the coin" at all.

Edited February 2, 2018 by LadyCrimson

[algroth]

 

is that I'm not criticising your opinion of the film at all, but rather the assumption you're making of others who have seen it and loved it. I don't need to have seen the film to call out that attitude which I do think is wrong. There is a chance that I might agree with you when I get around to watching the film, with regards to how I find the film itself; but that won't make me consider its nomination is somehow illegitimate and based only on some political reason, and the opinions of those that did love it somehow less 'honest' or more biased than the one I hold.

Uh, please tell me where, exactly, that I said I think or assume others opinions for liking the film are illegitimate or less honest than mine. That feels like projecting something onto me that I never said. Art opinions (and other things) being so subjective is why I very rarely ever join in debates over whether something is awesome or not awesome, good or bad, because to me it's a waste of time at this point in my life, like arguing what color is best, blue or red. I just give an opinion and wander off again.  But imo, the masses/critics liking a film (or anything else) is one topic, while (perhaps one of) the reasons for choosing to nominate it for an award is another topic - they can be two separate (if interwtined) things and the latter can/could still have political/pandering motivations behind it.

 

Or maybe it is that the members of the AMPAS and other awards ceremonies liked it enough to vote for it and consider it one of the best films of the year - which corresponds with the critical response of the film at least too. You haven't said others' opinions for liking the film are less legitimate than yours but this whole argument about the 'political' reason of its nomination does suggest this belief, as if it could not be possible that the film was merely liked enough to be a contender, and that there must be an ulterior reason or bias, external to the film's quality or artistic achievements, to why it is being nominated. Were it that Get Out had not been recognized by any other awards ceremonies, by any other critic or industry professional or the likes and suddenly made its way into the Best Picture category, that I think would probably raise more suspicions (Denzel's nomination might be a more arguable case for example); but the fact is that Get Out has been consistently recognized by all these entities as one of the best films of the year since its release - as such I cannot see what's so weird about it that might make you guys question the legitimacy of its nomination.

 

Anyhow, I think we're going in circles at this point so I'm dropping this. If you guys think the motivation to Get Out's nominations is political, well, I still find it a false assumption based on the year's trajectory up to this point, but fair enough.

Edited February 2, 2018 by algroth

[Blarghagh]

That's because you haven't seen it.

[algroth]

That's because you haven't seen it.

 

It won't change the fact that I won't find its nominations to be wrong, same as it hasn't for a film like The Martian.

[Blarghagh]

Okay, that's your opinion and that's fair, but I think that seriously devalues the Oscars. Your approach to it makes the prize absolutely worthless. Devoid of any and all merit whatsoever. If I agreed with you, this conversation would not have happened because I would not have cared. Especially in a day and age where we have Rotten Tomatoes at our fingertips at any time which does a better job at measuring 'trajectory'.

 

The Oscars are supposed to be the higher standard, experts of craft judging their peers. It's not about showing what they like, it's about rewarding true excellence, innovation and craftmanship. I shouldn't have to give a flying **** about it aggregating well from other awards and newspaper critics. They're not simple reviewers, they're film professionals from an organisation dedicated to advancing the art and science of film.

 

There's what I want from the Oscars. Having seen Get Out, which was perfectly 'just fine', then that is seriously just wrong to me even if it isn't to you. I don't want them to award a Michelin Star to a McDonalds because that Big Mac really hit the spot, and if they do I'm surely going to question their reasons instead of going 'well, I guess plenty of other people liked Big Macs before'.

[injurai]

If the Big Mac had really good cinematography, then you might expect it to get nominated for that particular aspect. It should be all about the craft and innovation, of course the tides of politics sway bias from year to year. Overall I do feel it's mostly worthy contenders that get in. Animation is a bit of a questionable category because there just aren't enough animation studios of the same caliber as Pixar. More and more turn up every year, but they tend to only make shorts, and their exposure is highly limited.

 

Honestly exposure is the real great boundary on the Oscar's, and exposure requires massive marketing budgets and established theater contracts. Otherwise it's mostly about the craft. Grammy's are clearly an arm of the machine. In fact I think the medium of music is inherently ill-suited for the same sort of accolade model.

[Blarghagh]

That I get, but if a Big Mac had the best tomato then nominate the tomato, not the Big Mac. This Big Mac was nominated for best wholesome meal among other things. Transformers has been nominated for best effects*, hey that's good. But clearly it shouldn't be nominated for best picture.

 

That's about as far as this analogy will stretch, though.

 

*side note, for the love of god AMPAS please start differentiating between practical effects and digital effects, half the vfx nominees belong more in the animation category nowadays.